Walter Besant - The Changeling

"We will talk presently," said Hilarie, turning to welcome new guests.

Humphrey stepped aside, and looked on while the room filled up. The students, he remarked, who were all dressed in white, with ribbons of their own individual choice, appeared to be a cheerful company of damsels. To be sure, cheerfulness belongs to their time of life, and to the profession of student, about which there should cling a certain lawless joyousness – a buoyancy not found in the domestic circle, a touch of the barrack, something of the camp, because they are recruits in the armies that fight against ignorance and prejudice. These white-robed students were full of cheerfulness, which bubbled over in laughter and happy faces. One is told that in some colleges there are students entirely given over to their studies, who wear dowdy dresses, who push back their hair anyhow behind their spectacles, who present faces of more than possible thoughtfulness. Here there were none such; none were oppressed with study.

Rightly considered, every college for young persons should be interesting. We have forgotten that there used formerly to be colleges for old persons; for priests, as Jesus Commons and the Papey on London Wall; for physicians; for surgeons; for serjeants-at-law; for debtors, as the Fleet; for the decayed, as an almshouse; for criminals, as Newgate; for paupers, as the workhouse. A college for girls is naturally more interesting than one for young men: first, because they are girls; next, because the male college contains so much that is disquieting, – ambition and impatience, with effort; strenuous endeavour to conciliate Fame, a goddess who presents to all comers at first a deaf ear, eyes that see nothing, and a trumpet silently dangling at her wrist; the resolution to compel Fortune, even against her will, to turn round that wheel which is to bear them up aloft. The strength of these ambitions stimulates the air – you may note this effect in any of the courts at Cambridge. One remembers, also, that in most cases Fame, however persistently wooed, continues to dangle the silent trumpet; while Fortune, however passionately invoked, refuses to turn the wheel; and that the resolution and determination of the petitioner go for nothing. One observes, also, that the courts of the colleges are paved with shattered resolutions, which make a much better pavement than the finest granite. One remembers, also, that there are found in the young man's college the Prig and the Smug, the Wallower, the Sloth, the Creeping Thing, and the Contented Creature. But pass across the road to the Woman's College. Heavens! what possibilities are there! What ambitions are hers! For her field is not man's field, though some pretend. Not hers to direct the throbbing engine, and make that thing of steel a thing of intelligence; not hers to command a fleet; not hers to make the laws. She does not construct lighthouses; she does not create new sciences; she does not advance the old; she never invents, nor creates, nor advances; she receives, she adapts, she distributes. How great are her possibilities! Though she neither creates nor invents, she may become a queen of song, a queen of the stage, a great painter, a great novelist, a great poet – great at artistic work of every kind. Or, again, while her brother is slowly and painfully working his way up, so that he will become a Q.C. at forty, a Judge at sixty, the girl steps at once by marriage into a position that dazzles her friends, and becomes a queen of society, a patron of Art, a power in politics. Far be it from me to suppose that the maidens of any college dream of possibilities such as these. Perhaps, however, the possibilities of maidenhood are never quite forgotten. There is another possibility also. Every great man has a mother. Do maidens ever dream of the supreme happiness of having a great man for a son? Which would a woman prefer, the greatest honour and glory and distinction ever won by woman for herself, or to be the mother of a Tennyson, a Gordon, a Huxley?

"Now, my cousin," said Hilarie. "The dinner is served."

So two by two they went into the old hall. It had been decorated since the summer. The lower part was covered with tapestry; the upper part was hung with armour and old weapons. There were also portraits, imaginary and otherwise, of women wise and women famous. Queen Elizabeth was there, Joan of Arc was there, George Sand, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jane Austen, Grace Darling, Rosa Bonheur, and many others. The male observer remarked, with a sense of omission, the absence of those queens of beauty whose lamentable lives make history so profoundly interesting. Where were Rosamond, Agnes Sorel, La Vallière, Nell Gwynne? Alas! they were not admitted.

"The house," said the president, taking her seat, "is much larger than it looks. With the solar and the lady's bower and the tower, we have arranged dormitories for forty and half a dozen sitting-rooms, besides this hall, which is used all day long."

The musicians' gallery had been rebuilt and painted. It contained an organ now and a piano, besides room for an orchestra. Six of the students were sitting there with violins and a harp, ready to discourse soft music during the banquet. There were three tables running down the hall, with the high table, and all were filled with an animated, joyous crowd of guests and residents.

"I want to interest you in my college," Hilarie began, when they were seated.

Humphrey examined the menu. He observed that it was an artistic attempt – an intelligent effort at a harmony. If only the execution should prove equal to the conception!

"At present, of course, we are only beginning. What are you yourself doing, however?"

"I follow – humbly – Art. There is nothing else. I paint, I write verse, I compose."

"Do you exhibit?"

"Exhibit? Court the empty praises or the empty sneers of an ignorant press? Never! I show my pictures to my friends. We confide our work to each other."

Hilarie smiled, and murmured something inaudible.

"And we keep the outer world outside. You, I fear" – he looked down the room – "admit the outer world. You lose a great deal. For instance, if this mob was out of your lovely house, I might bring my friends. It would be an ideal place for our pictures and our music, and for the acting of our plays."

"I fear the mob must remain." Hilarie began to doubt whether her college would appeal, after all, to this young man.

"What we should aim at in life," the artist continued, "is Art without Humanity."

"I should have said that Humanity is the basis of all Art."

Her cousin shook his head. "Not true Art – that is bodiless. I fear you do not yet belong to us."

"No; I belong to these girls, who are anything but bodiless."

"Your college, I take it, has something to do with helping people?"

"Certainly."

"My own view is that you cannot help people. You may give them things, but you only make them want more. People have got to help themselves."

"Did you help yourself?"

"Oh, I am born to what my forefathers acquired. As for these girls, to whom you are giving things, you will only make them discontented."

The president of the college looked round the hall. There were forty white frocks encasing as many girls, students at her college, and as many guests. There was a cheerful ripple of talk; one thought of a dancing sea in the sunlight. There were outbursts of laughter – light, musical; one thought of the white crests of the waves. In the music-gallery the girls played softly and continuously; one thought of the singing of birds in the coppice. The dinner was already half finished. There is a solid simplicity about these guest nights. A short dinner, with jellies, ices, and puddings, most commends itself to the feminine heart.

"Let me tell you my design, at least. I saw that in this revolution of society, going on so rapidly around us, all classes of women are rushing into work."