Here are Ladies

Here are Ladies, by James Stephens

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Here are Ladies, by James Stephens This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Here are Ladies
Author: James Stephens
Release Date: December 19, 2006 [EBook #20127]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERE ARE LADIES ***

Produced by Al Haines

HERE ARE LADIES
BY
JAMES STEPHENS
AUTHOR OF 'THE CROCK OF GOLD'

NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1914

COPYRIGHT, 1913
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1913
Reprinted March, 1914.

CONTENTS
WOMEN
THREE HEAVY HUSBANDS
A GLASS OF BEER
ONE AND ONE
THREE WOMEN WHO WEPT
THE TRIANGLE
THE DAISIES
THREE ANGRY PEOPLE
THE THREEPENNY PIECE
BRIGID
THREE YOUNG WIVES
THE HORSES
MISTRESS QUIET EYES
THREE LOVERS WHO LOST
THE BLIND MAN
SWEET-APPLE
THREE HAPPY PLACES
THE MOON THERE IS A TAVERN IN THE TOWN

HERE ARE LADIES
WOMEN
Listen! If but women were Half as kind as they are fair There would be an end to all Miseries that do appal.
Cloud and wind would fly together In a dance of sunny weather, And the happy trees would throw Gifts to travellers below.
Then the lion, meek and mild, With the lamb would, side by side, Couch him friendly, and would be Innocent of enmity.
Then the Frozen Pole would go, Shaking off his fields of snow, To a kinder clime and dance Warmly with the girls of France.
These; if women only were Half as kind as they are fair.

THREE HEAVY HUSBANDS
I
He had a high nose. He looked at one over the collar, so to speak. His regard was very assured, and his speech was that short bundle of monosyllables which the subaltern throws at the orderly. He had never been questioned, and, the precedent being absent, he had never questioned himself. Why should he? We live by question and answer, but we do not know the reply to anything until a puzzled comrade bothers us and initiates that divine curiosity which both humbles and uplifts us.
He wanted all things for himself. What he owned he wished to own completely. He would give anything away with the largest generosity, but he would share with no one--
"Whatever is mine," said he, "must be entirely mine. If it is alive I claim its duty to the last respiration of its breath, and if it is dead I cannot permit a mortgage on it. Have you a claim on anything belonging to me? then you may have it entirely, I must have all of it or none."
He was a stockbroker, and, by the methods peculiar to that mysterious profession, he had captured a sufficiency of money to enable him to regard the future with calmness and his fellow-creatures with condescension--perhaps the happiest state to which a certain humanity can attain.
So far matters were in order. There remained nothing to round his life into the complete, harmonious circle except a wife; but as a stated income has the choice of a large supply, he shortly discovered a lady whose qualifications were such as would ornament any, however exalted, position--She was sound in wind and limb. She spoke grammar with the utmost precision, and she could play the piano with such skill that it was difficult to explain why she played it badly.
This also was satisfactory, and if the world had been made of machinery he would have had the fee-simple of happiness. But to both happiness and misery there follows the inevitable second act, and beyond that, and to infinity, action and interaction, involution and evolution, forging change for ever. Thus he failed to take into consideration that the lady was alive, that she had a head on her shoulders which was native to her body, and that she could not be aggregated as chattel property for any longer period than she agreed to.
After their marriage he discovered that she had dislikes which did not always coincide with his, and appreciations which set his teeth on edge. A wife in the house is a critic on the hearth--this truth was daily and unpleasantly impressed upon him: but, of course, every man knows that every woman is a fool, and a tolerant smile is the only recognition we allow to their whims. God made them as they are--we grin, and bear it.
His wife found that the gospel of her husband was this--Love me to the exclusion of all human creatures. Believe in me even when I am in the wrong. Women should be seen and not heard. When you want excitement make a fuss of your husband.--But while he entirely forgot that his wife had been bought and paid for, she did not forget it: indeed, she could not help remembering it. A wrong had been done her not to be obscured even by economics, the great obscurer. She