Chivalry proceeds on the assumption that women not only cannot,but should not,take care of themselves in any active struggle with life;Mr.Browning had no theoretical objection to a woman's taking care of herself.
He saw no reason why,if she was hit,she should not hit back again,or even why,if she hit,she should not receive an answering blow.
He responded swiftly to every feminine appeal to his kindness or his protection,whether arising from physical weakness or any other obvious cause of helplessness or suffering;but the appeal in such cases lay first to his humanity,and only in second order to his consideration of sex.He would have had a man flogged who beat his wife;he would have had one flogged who ill-used a child --or an animal:
he was notedly opposed to any sweeping principle or practice of vivisection.
But he never quite understood that the strongest women are weak,or at all events vulnerable,in the very fact of their sex,through the minor traditions and conventions with which society justly,indeed necessarily,surrounds them.Still less did he understand those real,if impalpable,differences between men and women which correspond to the difference of position.He admitted the broad distinctions which have become proverbial,and are therefore only a rough measure of the truth.
He could say on occasion:'You ought to BE better;you are a woman;I ought to KNOW better;I am a man.'But he had had too large an experience of human nature to attach permanent weight to such generalizations;and they found certainly no expression in his works.
Scarcely an instance of a conventional,or so-called man's woman,occurs in their whole range.Excepting perhaps the speaker in 'A Woman's Last Word','Pompilia'and 'Mildred'are the nearest approach to it;and in both of these we find qualities of imagination or thought which place them outside the conventional type.He instinctively judged women,both morally and intellectually,by the same standards as men;and when confronted by some divergence of thought or feeling,which meant,in the woman's case,neither quality nor defect in any strict sense of the word,but simply a nature trained to different points of view,an element of perplexity entered into his probable opposition.
When the difference presented itself in a neutral aspect,it affected him like the casual peculiarities of a family or a group,or a casual disagreement between things of the same kind.
He would say to a woman friend:'You women are so different from men!'
in the tone in which he might have said,'You Irish,or you Scotch,are so different from Englishmen;'or again,'It is impossible for a man to judge how a woman would act in such or such a case;you are so different;'
the case being sometimes one in which it would be inconceivable to a normal woman,and therefore to the generality of men,that she should act in any but one way.
The vague sense of mystery with which the poet's mind usually invests a being of the opposite sex,had thus often in him its counterpart in a puzzled dramatic curiosity which constituted an equal ground of interest.
This virtual admission of equality between the sexes,combined with his Liberal principles to dispose him favourably towards the movement for Female Emancipation.He approved of everything that had been done for the higher instruction of women,and would,not very long ago,have supported their admission to the Franchise.
But he was so much displeased by the more recent action of some of the lady advocates of Women's Rights,that,during the last year of his life,after various modifications of opinion,he frankly pledged himself to the opposite view.He had even visions of writing a tragedy or drama in support of it.
The plot was roughly sketched,and some dialogue composed,though I believe no trace of this remains.
It is almost implied by all I have said,that he possessed in every mood the charm of perfect simplicity of manner.On this point he resembled his father.His tastes lay also in the direction of great simplicity of life,though circumstances did not allow of his indulging them to the same extent.
It may interest those who never saw him to know that he always dressed as well as the occasion required,and always with great indifference to the subject.In Florence he wore loose clothes which were adapted to the climate;in London his coats were cut by a good tailor in whatever was the prevailing fashion;the change was simply with him an incident of the situation.He had also a look of dainty cleanliness which was heightened by the smooth healthy texture of the skin,and in later life by the silvery whiteness of his hair.
His best photographic likenesses were those taken by Mr.Fradelle in 1881,Mr.Cameron and Mr.William Grove in 1888and 1889.
