Woman in My Life

Woman played no part in my life until after marriage. Before that time she would pass me by as the breeze passes, softening a sharpness and easing a severity. But after marriage she filled my life and closed every void in it with the sons she bore, whose upbringing, and the watching over them, became my one absorbing occupation. So I consecrated my whole life to woman and her children, until I scarcely found any pleasure for the soul, or any solace from cares, except in this delightful, never-ending occupation.

Two women have had the greatest influence upon my life — my mother and my wife. The first — God rest her soul — was a model of tenderness, sacrifice, moral contentment, and strength of faith. We grew up in the house on love and respect for her, and she kept her place of love and respect in our hearts until she drew her last breath at the age of ninety-three.

Toward the end of the First World War I came to know the girl who became my life’s companion. And what can I say of one who was able to kindle in my soul a fire of love that, from the day I knew her, has grown and grown, and will remain so to the end of days. I do not deny that before her time I was drawn to others, as is the way in the first flush of youth. Nor do I deny that we now have fair women friends in whose friendship we take pride and in whose nearness we delight. But the woman who has filled my soul — the woman who is the dearest of my friends — the woman without whom I feel the emptiness of my life, and the like of whom I wish my children the happiness of finding — is she of whom, after a trial of twenty-six years, I can say: “A virtuous mother, who can find her?”

I see that I am one of those whom God has spared from answering your question! For such men, upon whom it has been decreed that they should shake out for people, each time, a handful of the musings of their hearts, are the more deserving that, in the matter of woman, people should be content with what they have set down in the love-poetry chapters of their collected verse. There you have all you could wish of talk about woman, made delicate, dripping softness and sweetness. It is, on the whole, the poets’ confiding whisper with their pens, though it never goes beyond the bounds of allusion.

This, in addition to my being one of those who have given God a pledge never to disclose any of their secrets, ever. They depart this world holding fast to what is in their breasts, fearing for that beloved secret lest people should bandy its tale about — and how many a heartache lies in the dust!

Then, Madam, my counsel to you here is this: do not slip your gentle finger into the words of certain men...

I have given my life over to her — (the first sentence Mr. Baz uttered; he then went on with his talk, saying):

My mother has had a strange influence upon me — whether because of my nature, in that I was able to understand her and profit from her, or because of some power in her that worked upon me.

To this day I remain moved by something that often passes through my imagination: when I composed my book “Man Is the Son of Upbringing” I was twenty years old, around the year 1902, and I used to sit at a small table to write. She would sit beside me, her back resting against my table, smiling upon my morning, embroidering, or cutting out and sewing clothes for the naked poor. That companionship with my mother made me understand the tender womanly things that led me to concern myself with woman, on the view that refinement and instruction affect her, and bear fruit at her hand — if she knows and wills — more than they affect man and bear fruit at his hand, given their differing circumstances. And I have seen my hope realized in the cultivated working woman: my wife, who worked for a time in the field of medicine and gave proof of woman’s capacity and competence.

Woman in my life? That is an embarrassing question! Do you not fear you will anger the lady readers of “The Woman’s Voice” with such prying into personal matters?

Woman, in my past life, is memories (sweet and bitter), and pictures, and lessons. In my future life she is a beautiful hope that smiles at me now and again from two bewitching eyes, then vanishes. Do you love secrets? Then I shall confide one to you, begging you to keep it: tomorrow, when that hope smiles at me anew, I shall not let it slip from between my hands, and I shall carry it, God willing, from the world of fancy into the world of reality. So wish me success, Miss; then, should it occur to you to put the same question to me a second time, I would answer you with composure and seriousness, and feel no need to dodge the answer...