HYPOCRISY AS A SOCIAL ELEVATOR. 603 



models for imitation. While this is arrant hypocrisy, it is prob- 

 ably wise public policy, and, after all, but justice to those illus- 

 trious men. Their morals were undoubtedly superior to the rule 

 in their day. The good they did lives after them, while the evil 

 is buried with their bones. Much, too, of the evil seemed good to 

 them. As Froude well says, "All history is anachronism, for 

 we constantly see the events of yesterday by the light of to- 

 day." Nothing is to be gained by parading their weaknesses and 

 vices, while much good is accomplished by presenting them as 

 unblemished ideals exemplars for present and future genera- 

 tions. 



It is the same with our national history. Up to that time 

 there was never a more genuinely patriotic struggle in the history 

 of the world than our Revolution. Yet if the movement for in- 

 dependence had been deprived of all the aid given it by sordid 

 greed, selfish ambition, industrious self-seeking, and partisan ran- 

 cor, the patriotic impulse would have been far from strong enough 

 to carry on the contest to final victory. But we wisely enrich 

 human nature by placing to its credit all these baser metals 

 transmuted into the pure gold of unselfish patriotism. 



The elevation of woman to her present position from the 

 degradation into which she had sunk during the long night of the 

 dark ages was a slow and tedious work. Nothing aided in it so much 

 as the arrant hypocrisy which took the form of mediaeval gallantry. 

 It became the fashion to show ostentatious deference to woman, 

 especially if she had birth, youth, and some pretensions to beauty. 

 At first hollow and specious to the last degree thinly varnishing 

 a bestiality so low that it was scarcely above that of a " bull " 

 seal, who takes possession of all the " cows " that he can force 

 into his rocky harem and defend against the lust of rival " bulls " 

 the bombast of idolatrous devotion, the shamming of respectful 

 deference, the make-believe admission of superiority in manners, 

 morals, love, and religion constantly came, by mere force of itera- 

 tion, to approach nearer the reality. Even the coarsest-grained 

 of the gluttonous and swilling boors who formed the body of the 

 "gentle knighthood" became, through the habitual wearing of 

 the mask, more genuinely appreciative of womanhood and more 

 of a gentleman at heart. The women, on the other hand, for the 

 same reason, became more elevated because of the factitious ele- 

 vation assigned them, better informed as to what was due them, 

 and more strenuous in exacting it. 



Sir De Bracy, the "free captain," was quite capable, had he 

 gained the Princess Rowena for his wife, of beating her " with a 

 stick no larger than his thumb," as the old English law permitted, 

 or of subjecting her to other and deeper indignities. But the re- 

 quirement of ostentatious politeness in public would have oper- 



