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The Master Of Mrs. Chilvers
The Master of Mrs. Chilvers is a novel written by Jerome K. Jerome, the famous English author. The book tells the story of a young man named Dick Selwyn who falls in love with a beautiful woman named Mrs. Chilvers. Mrs. Chilvers is a wealthy widow who lives in a large country house with her two children and a group of servants.As Dick spends time with Mrs. Chilvers, he realizes that there is something strange going on in the house. He discovers that Mrs. Chilvers is being controlled by a mysterious man known only as ""the master."" The master is a sinister figure who seems to have a hold over Mrs. Chilvers and is using her for his own purposes.As Dick investigates further, he discovers that the master is actually a con artist who is trying to swindle Mrs. Chilvers out of her fortune. With the help of a group of friends, Dick sets out to expose the master and save Mrs. Chilvers from his clutches.The Master of Mrs. Chilvers is a thrilling and suspenseful novel that explores themes of love, betrayal, and deception. It is a classic work of English literature that is sure to captivate readers with its intriguing plot and memorable characters.JANET [She comes forward. She holds forth her hands with a half- appealing, half-commanding gesture. She almost seems inspired.] Would it not be so much better if, in this first political contest between man and woman, the opponents were two people honouring one another, loving one another? Would it not show to all the world that man and woman may meet--contend in public life without anger, without scorn?This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1911
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About the author
Jerome K. Jerome
861 books1,357 followersJerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat; and several other novels. Jerome was born in Walsall, England, and, although he was able to attend grammar school, his family suffered from poverty at times, as did he as a young man trying to earn a living in various occupations. In his twenties, he was able to publish some work, and success followed. He married in 1888, and the honeymoon was spent on a boat on the River Thames; he published Three Men in a Boat soon afterwards. He continued to write fiction, non-fiction and plays over the next few decades, though never with the same level of success.
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September 20, 2020
Amazing, especially for its times.
Introduction to the play, a description of characters, is quite illuminating, about not only the general idea of the play but also the author and his times.
GEOFFREY CHILVERS, M.P. [President Men’s League for the Extension of the Franchise to Women] A loving husband, and (would-be) affectionate father. Like many other good men, he is in sympathy with the Woman’s Movement: “not thinking it is coming in his time.”
ANNYS CHILVERS [nee Mogton, Hon. Sec. Women’s Parliamentary Franchise League] A loving wife, and (would-be) affection mother. Many thousands of years have gone to her making. A generation ago, she would have been the ideal woman: the ideal helpmeet. But new ideas are stirring in her blood, a new ideal of womanhood is forcing itself upon her.
LADY MOGTON [President W.P.F.L.] She knows she would be of more use in Parliament than many of the men who are there; is naturally annoyed at the Law’s stupidity in keeping her out.
PHOEBE MOGTON [Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] The new girl, thinking more of politics than of boys. But that will probably pass.
JANET BLAKE [Jt. Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] She dreams of a new heaven and a new earth when woman has the vote.
MRS. MOUNTCALM VILLIERS [Vice-President W.P.F.L.] She was getting tired of flirting. The Woman’s Movement has arrived just at the right moment.
ELIZABETH SPENDER [Hons. Treas. W.P.F.L.] She sees woman everywhere the slave of man: now pampered, now beaten, but ever the slave. She can see no hope of freedom but through warfare.
MRS. CHINN A mother. JAWBONES A bill-poster. Movements that do not fit in with the essentials of life on thirty shillings a week have no message so far as Jawbones is concerned.
GINGER Whose proper name is Rose Merton, and who has to reconcile herself to the fact that so far as her class is concerned the primaeval laws still run.
DORIAN ST. HERBERT [Hon. Sec. M.L.E.F.W.] He is interested in all things, the Woman’s Movement included.
BEN LAMB, M.P. As a student of woman, he admits to being in the infants’ class. SIGSBY An Election Agent. He thinks the modern woman suffers from over-indulgence. He would recommend to her the teachings of St. Paul.
HAKE A butler. He does not see how to avoid his wife being practically a domestic servant without wages.
A DEPUTATION It consists of two men and three women. Superior people would call them Cranks. But Cranks have been of some service to the world, and the use of superior people is still to be discovered.
.........
"ANNYS [To ELIZABETH.] I so want you to meet Geoffrey. He’ll alter your opinion of men.
"ELIZABETH My opinion of men has been altered once or twice — each time for the worse.
"ANNYS Why do you dislike men?
"ELIZABETH [With a short laugh.] Why does the slave dislike the slave-owner?
"PHOEBE Oh, come off the perch. You spend five thousand a year provided for you by a husband that you only see on Sundays. We’d all be slaves at that price.
"ELIZABETH The chains have always been stretched for the few. My sympathies are with my class.
"ANNYS But men like Geoffrey — men who are devoting their whole time and energy to furthering our cause; what can you have to say against them?
"ELIZABETH Simply that they don’t know what they’re doing. The French Revolution was nursed in the salons of the French nobility. When the true meaning of the woman’s movement is understood we shall have to get on without the male sympathiser."
...........
"ST. HERBERT Deplorable; but of course not your fault. I mention it because of its importance to the present matter. Under Clause A of the Act for the Better Regulation, &c., &c., all persons “mentally deficient” are debarred from becoming members of Parliament. The classification has been held to include idiots, infants, and women."
"ST. HERBERT A leader of the Orange Party was opposed by a Nationalist, and the proceedings promised to be lively. They promised for a while to be still livelier, owing to the nomination at the last moment of the local lunatic.
"PHOEBE [To ANNYS.] This is where we come in.
"ST. HERBERT There is always a local lunatic, who, if harmless, is generally a popular character. James Washington McCaw appears to have been a particularly cheerful specimen. One of his eccentricities was to always have a skipping-rope in his pocket; wherever the traffic allowed it, he would go through the streets skipping. He said it kept him warm. Another of his tricks was to let off fireworks from the roof of his house whenever he heard of the death of anybody of importance. The Returning Officer refused his nomination — which, so far as his nominators were concerned, was intended only as a joke — on the grounds of his being by common report a person of unsound mind. And there, so far as South-west Belfast was concerned, the matter ended.
"PHOEBE Pity.
"ST. HERBERT But not so far as the Returning Officer was concerned. McCaw appears to have been a lunatic possessed of means, imbued with all an Irishman’s love of litigation. He at once brought an action against the Returning Officer, his contention being that his mental state was a private matter, of which the Returning Officer was not the person to judge.
"PHOEBE He wasn’t a lunatic all over.
"ST. HERBERT We none of us are. The case went from court to court. In every instance the decision was in favour of the Returning Officer. Until it reached the House of Lords. The decision was given yesterday afternoon — in favour of the man McCaw.
"ELIZABETH Then lunatics, at all events, are not debarred from going to the poll."
...........
"PHOEBE It’s awfully rough on you, Geoffrey. I can see it from your point of view. But one can’t help remembering the things that you yourself have said.
"GEOFFREY I know; I know. I’ve been going up and down the country, excusing even your excesses on the ground that no movement can force its way to the front without treading on innumerable toes. For me, now, to cry halt merely because it happens to be my own toes that are in the way would be — ridiculous — absurd — would be monstrous. [Nobody contradicts him.] You are perfectly justified- -if this case means what you say it does — in putting up a candidate against me for East Poplar. Only, naturally, it cannot be Annys. [He reaches out his hand to where ANNYS stands a little behind him, takes her hand.] Annys and I have fought more than one election. It has been side by side.
"ELIZABETH The lady a little behind.
"GEOFFREY [He moves away with an expression of deep annoyance.]
"JANET [She comes forward. She holds forth her hands with a half- appealing, half-commanding gesture. She almost seems inspired.] Would it not be so much better if, in this first political contest between man and woman, the opponents were two people honouring one another, loving one another? Would it not show to all the world that man and woman may meet — contend in public life without anger, without scorn? [There is a pause. They stand listening.] I do not know, but it seems to me that if Mr. Chilvers could bring himself to do this it would be such a big thing — perhaps the most chivalrous thing that a man has ever done to help women. If he would put aside, quite voluntarily, all the man’s privilege — just say to the people, “Now choose — one of us two to serve you. We stand before you, equal, my wife and I.” I don’t know how to put it, but I feel that by merely doing that one thing Mr. Chilvers would solve the whole problem. It would prove that good men are ready to give us of their free accord all that we claim. We should gain our rights, not by warfare, but through love and understanding. Wouldn’t that be — so much better? [She looks — her hands still appealing — from one to the other.]"
...........
"ANNYS Do you know how long we have been married? Eight years. And do you know, sir, that all that time we have never had a difference? Don’t you think it will be good for you?
"GEOFFREY Do you know WHY we have never had a difference? Because you have always had your own way.
"ANNYS Oh!
"GEOFFREY You have got so used to it, you don’t notice it.
"ANNYS Then it will be good for me. I must learn to suffer opposition. [She laughs.]
"GEOFFREY You won’t like it.
"ANNYS Do you know, I’m not at all sure that I shan’t. [Unconsciously they let loose of one another.] You see, I shall have the right of hitting back. [Again she laughs.]
"GEOFFREY [Also laughingly.] Is woman going to develop the fighting instinct?
"ANNYS I wonder. [A moment’s silence.]
"GEOFFREY The difficulty in our case is there seems nothing to fight about.
"ANNYS We must think of something. [Laughs.]
"GEOFFREY What line are you going to take — what is your argument: why they should vote for you in preference to me?
"ANNYS Simply that I am a woman.
"GEOFFREY My dear child, that won’t be enough. Why should they vote for you merely because you’re a woman?
"ANNYS [Slightly astonished.] Because — because women are wanted in public life.
"GEOFFREY Who wants them?
"ANNYS [More astonished.] Who? Why — [it doesn’t seem too clear.] Why, all of us — you, yourself!
"GEOFFREY I’m not East Poplar. ANNYS [Is puzzled a moment, then valiantly.] I shall ask them to send me to Parliament to represent the interests of their women — and therefore of themselves — the interests of their children.
"GEOFFREY Children! What do you know about children? [Another silence.]
"ANNYS Personally — no. We have had no children of our own, of course. But [hopefully] it is a woman’s instinct.
"GEOFFREY Oh, Lord! That’s what the lady said who had buried seven.
"ANNYS [Her mouth is growing hard.] Don’t you believe in the right of women to share in the government of the country? GEOFFREY Some women. Yes. I can see some capable -
"ANNYS [Winces.]
"GEOFFREY — elderly, motherly woman who has brought up a dozen children of her own — who knows the world, being of some real use.
"ANNYS If it comes to that, there must be — I don’t say more “capable,” but more experienced, more fatherly men than yourself. [He turns, they look at one another. His tone almost touched contempt — hers was veiled anger.]
"GEOFFREY THAT’S the danger. It may come to a real fight."
...........
"GINGER Was talking to old Dot-and-carry-one the other d’y. You know who I mean — chap with the wooden leg as ‘as ‘is pitch outside the “George.” “Wot do you wimmen want worrying yourselves about things outside the ‘ome?” ‘e says to me. “You’ve got the children,” ‘e says. “Oh,” I says, “and whose fault’s that, I’d like to know? You wait till we’ve got the vote,” I says, “we’ll soon show you—”"
...........
"SIGSBY Look here. What I want to know is this: am I being asked to regard Lady Mogton as my opponent’s election agent, or as my principal’s mother-in-law? That point’s got to be settled. [His vehemence deepens.] Look at all these posters. Not to be used, for fear the other side mayn’t like them. Now Lady Mogton writes me that my candidate’s supporters are not to employ a certain argument she disapproves of: because, if they do, she’ll tell his wife. Is this an election, or is it a family jar?"
...........
"SIGSBY What have you been doing?
"JAWBONES Clinging to a roof for the last three hours.
"SIGSBY Clinging to a roof! What for?
"JAWBONES [He boils over.] Wot for? ‘Cos I didn’t want to fall off! Wot do you think: ‘cos I was fond of it?
"SIGSBY I don’t understand -
"JAWBONES You find yourself ‘alf way up a ladder, posting bills as the other side ‘as took objection to — with a crowd of girls from Pink’s jam factory waiting for you at the bottom with a barrel of treacle, and you WILL understand. Nothing else for me to do, o’ course, but to go up. Then they took the ladder away.
"SIGSBY Where are the bills? JAWBONES Last I see of them was their being put into a ‘earse on its way to Ilford Cemetery.
"SIGSBY This has got to be seen into. This sort of thing can’t be allowed to go on. [He snatches up his hat.]
"JAWBONES There’s another suggestion I’d like to make.
"SIGSBY [Pauses.]
"JAWBONES That is, if this election is going to be fought fairly, that our side should be provided with ‘at-pins."
...........
"GEOFFREY [He leans back in his chair.] Do you remember Tommy the Terrier, as they used to call him in the House — was always preaching Socialism?
"ST. HERBERT Quite the most amusing man I ever met!
"GEOFFREY And not afraid of being honest. Do you remember his answer when somebody asked him what he would do if Socialism, by any chance, really became established in England? He had just married an American heiress. He said he should emigrate. I am still convinced that woman is entitled to equal political rights with man. I didn’t think it was coming in my time. There are points in the problem remaining to be settled before we can arrive at a working solution. This is one of them. [He takes up the letter and reads.] “Are you prepared to have as your representative a person who for six months out of every year may be incapacitated from serving you?” It’s easy enough to say I oughtn’t to allow my supporters to drag in the personal element. I like it even less myself. But what’s the answer?"
"ST. HERBERT The answer, I should say, would be that the majority of women will continue to find something better to do. The women who will throw themselves into politics will be the unattached women, the childless women. [In an instant he sees his mistake, but it is too late.]
"GEOFFREY [He rises, crosses to the desk, throws into a waste- paper-basket a piece of crumpled paper that was in his hand; then turns. The personal note has entered into the discussion.] The women who WANT to be childless — what about them?
"ST. HERBERT [He shrugs his shoulders.] Are there any such?
"GEOFFREY There are women who talk openly of woman’s share in the general scheme being a “burden” on her — an “incubus.”
"ST. HERBERT A handful of cranks. To the normal woman motherhood has always been the one supreme desire.
"GEOFFREY Because children crowned her with honour. The barren woman was despised. All that is changing. This movement is adding impulse to it.
"ST. HERBERT Movements do not alter instincts.
"GEOFFREY But they do. Ever since man emerged from the jungle he has been shedding his instincts — shaping them to new desires. Where do you find this all-prevailing instinct towards maternity? Among the women of society, who sacrifice it without a moment’s hesitation to their vanity — to their mere pleasures? The middle- class woman — she, too, is demanding “freedom.” Children, servants, the home! — they are too much for her “nerves.” And now there comes this new development, appealing to the intellectual woman. Is there not danger of her preferring political ambition, the excitement of public life, to what has come to be regarded as the “drudgery” of turning four walls into a home, of peopling the silence with the voices of the children? [He crosses to the table- -lays his hand again upon the open letter.]
...........
Introduction to the play, a description of characters, is quite illuminating, about not only the general idea of the play but also the author and his times.
GEOFFREY CHILVERS, M.P. [President Men’s League for the Extension of the Franchise to Women] A loving husband, and (would-be) affectionate father. Like many other good men, he is in sympathy with the Woman’s Movement: “not thinking it is coming in his time.”
ANNYS CHILVERS [nee Mogton, Hon. Sec. Women’s Parliamentary Franchise League] A loving wife, and (would-be) affection mother. Many thousands of years have gone to her making. A generation ago, she would have been the ideal woman: the ideal helpmeet. But new ideas are stirring in her blood, a new ideal of womanhood is forcing itself upon her.
LADY MOGTON [President W.P.F.L.] She knows she would be of more use in Parliament than many of the men who are there; is naturally annoyed at the Law’s stupidity in keeping her out.
PHOEBE MOGTON [Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] The new girl, thinking more of politics than of boys. But that will probably pass.
JANET BLAKE [Jt. Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] She dreams of a new heaven and a new earth when woman has the vote.
MRS. MOUNTCALM VILLIERS [Vice-President W.P.F.L.] She was getting tired of flirting. The Woman’s Movement has arrived just at the right moment.
ELIZABETH SPENDER [Hons. Treas. W.P.F.L.] She sees woman everywhere the slave of man: now pampered, now beaten, but ever the slave. She can see no hope of freedom but through warfare.
MRS. CHINN A mother. JAWBONES A bill-poster. Movements that do not fit in with the essentials of life on thirty shillings a week have no message so far as Jawbones is concerned.
GINGER Whose proper name is Rose Merton, and who has to reconcile herself to the fact that so far as her class is concerned the primaeval laws still run.
DORIAN ST. HERBERT [Hon. Sec. M.L.E.F.W.] He is interested in all things, the Woman’s Movement included.
BEN LAMB, M.P. As a student of woman, he admits to being in the infants’ class. SIGSBY An Election Agent. He thinks the modern woman suffers from over-indulgence. He would recommend to her the teachings of St. Paul.
HAKE A butler. He does not see how to avoid his wife being practically a domestic servant without wages.
A DEPUTATION It consists of two men and three women. Superior people would call them Cranks. But Cranks have been of some service to the world, and the use of superior people is still to be discovered.
.........
"ANNYS [To ELIZABETH.] I so want you to meet Geoffrey. He’ll alter your opinion of men.
"ELIZABETH My opinion of men has been altered once or twice — each time for the worse.
"ANNYS Why do you dislike men?
"ELIZABETH [With a short laugh.] Why does the slave dislike the slave-owner?
"PHOEBE Oh, come off the perch. You spend five thousand a year provided for you by a husband that you only see on Sundays. We’d all be slaves at that price.
"ELIZABETH The chains have always been stretched for the few. My sympathies are with my class.
"ANNYS But men like Geoffrey — men who are devoting their whole time and energy to furthering our cause; what can you have to say against them?
"ELIZABETH Simply that they don’t know what they’re doing. The French Revolution was nursed in the salons of the French nobility. When the true meaning of the woman’s movement is understood we shall have to get on without the male sympathiser."
...........
"ST. HERBERT Deplorable; but of course not your fault. I mention it because of its importance to the present matter. Under Clause A of the Act for the Better Regulation, &c., &c., all persons “mentally deficient” are debarred from becoming members of Parliament. The classification has been held to include idiots, infants, and women."
"ST. HERBERT A leader of the Orange Party was opposed by a Nationalist, and the proceedings promised to be lively. They promised for a while to be still livelier, owing to the nomination at the last moment of the local lunatic.
"PHOEBE [To ANNYS.] This is where we come in.
"ST. HERBERT There is always a local lunatic, who, if harmless, is generally a popular character. James Washington McCaw appears to have been a particularly cheerful specimen. One of his eccentricities was to always have a skipping-rope in his pocket; wherever the traffic allowed it, he would go through the streets skipping. He said it kept him warm. Another of his tricks was to let off fireworks from the roof of his house whenever he heard of the death of anybody of importance. The Returning Officer refused his nomination — which, so far as his nominators were concerned, was intended only as a joke — on the grounds of his being by common report a person of unsound mind. And there, so far as South-west Belfast was concerned, the matter ended.
"PHOEBE Pity.
"ST. HERBERT But not so far as the Returning Officer was concerned. McCaw appears to have been a lunatic possessed of means, imbued with all an Irishman’s love of litigation. He at once brought an action against the Returning Officer, his contention being that his mental state was a private matter, of which the Returning Officer was not the person to judge.
"PHOEBE He wasn’t a lunatic all over.
"ST. HERBERT We none of us are. The case went from court to court. In every instance the decision was in favour of the Returning Officer. Until it reached the House of Lords. The decision was given yesterday afternoon — in favour of the man McCaw.
"ELIZABETH Then lunatics, at all events, are not debarred from going to the poll."
...........
"PHOEBE It’s awfully rough on you, Geoffrey. I can see it from your point of view. But one can’t help remembering the things that you yourself have said.
"GEOFFREY I know; I know. I’ve been going up and down the country, excusing even your excesses on the ground that no movement can force its way to the front without treading on innumerable toes. For me, now, to cry halt merely because it happens to be my own toes that are in the way would be — ridiculous — absurd — would be monstrous. [Nobody contradicts him.] You are perfectly justified- -if this case means what you say it does — in putting up a candidate against me for East Poplar. Only, naturally, it cannot be Annys. [He reaches out his hand to where ANNYS stands a little behind him, takes her hand.] Annys and I have fought more than one election. It has been side by side.
"ELIZABETH The lady a little behind.
"GEOFFREY [He moves away with an expression of deep annoyance.]
"JANET [She comes forward. She holds forth her hands with a half- appealing, half-commanding gesture. She almost seems inspired.] Would it not be so much better if, in this first political contest between man and woman, the opponents were two people honouring one another, loving one another? Would it not show to all the world that man and woman may meet — contend in public life without anger, without scorn? [There is a pause. They stand listening.] I do not know, but it seems to me that if Mr. Chilvers could bring himself to do this it would be such a big thing — perhaps the most chivalrous thing that a man has ever done to help women. If he would put aside, quite voluntarily, all the man’s privilege — just say to the people, “Now choose — one of us two to serve you. We stand before you, equal, my wife and I.” I don’t know how to put it, but I feel that by merely doing that one thing Mr. Chilvers would solve the whole problem. It would prove that good men are ready to give us of their free accord all that we claim. We should gain our rights, not by warfare, but through love and understanding. Wouldn’t that be — so much better? [She looks — her hands still appealing — from one to the other.]"
...........
"ANNYS Do you know how long we have been married? Eight years. And do you know, sir, that all that time we have never had a difference? Don’t you think it will be good for you?
"GEOFFREY Do you know WHY we have never had a difference? Because you have always had your own way.
"ANNYS Oh!
"GEOFFREY You have got so used to it, you don’t notice it.
"ANNYS Then it will be good for me. I must learn to suffer opposition. [She laughs.]
"GEOFFREY You won’t like it.
"ANNYS Do you know, I’m not at all sure that I shan’t. [Unconsciously they let loose of one another.] You see, I shall have the right of hitting back. [Again she laughs.]
"GEOFFREY [Also laughingly.] Is woman going to develop the fighting instinct?
"ANNYS I wonder. [A moment’s silence.]
"GEOFFREY The difficulty in our case is there seems nothing to fight about.
"ANNYS We must think of something. [Laughs.]
"GEOFFREY What line are you going to take — what is your argument: why they should vote for you in preference to me?
"ANNYS Simply that I am a woman.
"GEOFFREY My dear child, that won’t be enough. Why should they vote for you merely because you’re a woman?
"ANNYS [Slightly astonished.] Because — because women are wanted in public life.
"GEOFFREY Who wants them?
"ANNYS [More astonished.] Who? Why — [it doesn’t seem too clear.] Why, all of us — you, yourself!
"GEOFFREY I’m not East Poplar. ANNYS [Is puzzled a moment, then valiantly.] I shall ask them to send me to Parliament to represent the interests of their women — and therefore of themselves — the interests of their children.
"GEOFFREY Children! What do you know about children? [Another silence.]
"ANNYS Personally — no. We have had no children of our own, of course. But [hopefully] it is a woman’s instinct.
"GEOFFREY Oh, Lord! That’s what the lady said who had buried seven.
"ANNYS [Her mouth is growing hard.] Don’t you believe in the right of women to share in the government of the country? GEOFFREY Some women. Yes. I can see some capable -
"ANNYS [Winces.]
"GEOFFREY — elderly, motherly woman who has brought up a dozen children of her own — who knows the world, being of some real use.
"ANNYS If it comes to that, there must be — I don’t say more “capable,” but more experienced, more fatherly men than yourself. [He turns, they look at one another. His tone almost touched contempt — hers was veiled anger.]
"GEOFFREY THAT’S the danger. It may come to a real fight."
...........
"GINGER Was talking to old Dot-and-carry-one the other d’y. You know who I mean — chap with the wooden leg as ‘as ‘is pitch outside the “George.” “Wot do you wimmen want worrying yourselves about things outside the ‘ome?” ‘e says to me. “You’ve got the children,” ‘e says. “Oh,” I says, “and whose fault’s that, I’d like to know? You wait till we’ve got the vote,” I says, “we’ll soon show you—”"
...........
"SIGSBY Look here. What I want to know is this: am I being asked to regard Lady Mogton as my opponent’s election agent, or as my principal’s mother-in-law? That point’s got to be settled. [His vehemence deepens.] Look at all these posters. Not to be used, for fear the other side mayn’t like them. Now Lady Mogton writes me that my candidate’s supporters are not to employ a certain argument she disapproves of: because, if they do, she’ll tell his wife. Is this an election, or is it a family jar?"
...........
"SIGSBY What have you been doing?
"JAWBONES Clinging to a roof for the last three hours.
"SIGSBY Clinging to a roof! What for?
"JAWBONES [He boils over.] Wot for? ‘Cos I didn’t want to fall off! Wot do you think: ‘cos I was fond of it?
"SIGSBY I don’t understand -
"JAWBONES You find yourself ‘alf way up a ladder, posting bills as the other side ‘as took objection to — with a crowd of girls from Pink’s jam factory waiting for you at the bottom with a barrel of treacle, and you WILL understand. Nothing else for me to do, o’ course, but to go up. Then they took the ladder away.
"SIGSBY Where are the bills? JAWBONES Last I see of them was their being put into a ‘earse on its way to Ilford Cemetery.
"SIGSBY This has got to be seen into. This sort of thing can’t be allowed to go on. [He snatches up his hat.]
"JAWBONES There’s another suggestion I’d like to make.
"SIGSBY [Pauses.]
"JAWBONES That is, if this election is going to be fought fairly, that our side should be provided with ‘at-pins."
...........
"GEOFFREY [He leans back in his chair.] Do you remember Tommy the Terrier, as they used to call him in the House — was always preaching Socialism?
"ST. HERBERT Quite the most amusing man I ever met!
"GEOFFREY And not afraid of being honest. Do you remember his answer when somebody asked him what he would do if Socialism, by any chance, really became established in England? He had just married an American heiress. He said he should emigrate. I am still convinced that woman is entitled to equal political rights with man. I didn’t think it was coming in my time. There are points in the problem remaining to be settled before we can arrive at a working solution. This is one of them. [He takes up the letter and reads.] “Are you prepared to have as your representative a person who for six months out of every year may be incapacitated from serving you?” It’s easy enough to say I oughtn’t to allow my supporters to drag in the personal element. I like it even less myself. But what’s the answer?"
"ST. HERBERT The answer, I should say, would be that the majority of women will continue to find something better to do. The women who will throw themselves into politics will be the unattached women, the childless women. [In an instant he sees his mistake, but it is too late.]
"GEOFFREY [He rises, crosses to the desk, throws into a waste- paper-basket a piece of crumpled paper that was in his hand; then turns. The personal note has entered into the discussion.] The women who WANT to be childless — what about them?
"ST. HERBERT [He shrugs his shoulders.] Are there any such?
"GEOFFREY There are women who talk openly of woman’s share in the general scheme being a “burden” on her — an “incubus.”
"ST. HERBERT A handful of cranks. To the normal woman motherhood has always been the one supreme desire.
"GEOFFREY Because children crowned her with honour. The barren woman was despised. All that is changing. This movement is adding impulse to it.
"ST. HERBERT Movements do not alter instincts.
"GEOFFREY But they do. Ever since man emerged from the jungle he has been shedding his instincts — shaping them to new desires. Where do you find this all-prevailing instinct towards maternity? Among the women of society, who sacrifice it without a moment’s hesitation to their vanity — to their mere pleasures? The middle- class woman — she, too, is demanding “freedom.” Children, servants, the home! — they are too much for her “nerves.” And now there comes this new development, appealing to the intellectual woman. Is there not danger of her preferring political ambition, the excitement of public life, to what has come to be regarded as the “drudgery” of turning four walls into a home, of peopling the silence with the voices of the children? [He crosses to the table- -lays his hand again upon the open letter.]
...........
September 20, 2020
Amazing, especially for its times.
Introduction to the play, a description of characters, is quite illuminating, about not only the general idea of the play but also the author and his times.
GEOFFREY CHILVERS, M.P. [President Men’s League for the Extension of the Franchise to Women] A loving husband, and (would-be) affectionate father. Like many other good men, he is in sympathy with the Woman’s Movement: “not thinking it is coming in his time.”
ANNYS CHILVERS [nee Mogton, Hon. Sec. Women’s Parliamentary Franchise League] A loving wife, and (would-be) affection mother. Many thousands of years have gone to her making. A generation ago, she would have been the ideal woman: the ideal helpmeet. But new ideas are stirring in her blood, a new ideal of womanhood is forcing itself upon her.
LADY MOGTON [President W.P.F.L.] She knows she would be of more use in Parliament than many of the men who are there; is naturally annoyed at the Law’s stupidity in keeping her out.
PHOEBE MOGTON [Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] The new girl, thinking more of politics than of boys. But that will probably pass.
JANET BLAKE [Jt. Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] She dreams of a new heaven and a new earth when woman has the vote.
MRS. MOUNTCALM VILLIERS [Vice-President W.P.F.L.] She was getting tired of flirting. The Woman’s Movement has arrived just at the right moment.
ELIZABETH SPENDER [Hons. Treas. W.P.F.L.] She sees woman everywhere the slave of man: now pampered, now beaten, but ever the slave. She can see no hope of freedom but through warfare.
MRS. CHINN A mother. JAWBONES A bill-poster. Movements that do not fit in with the essentials of life on thirty shillings a week have no message so far as Jawbones is concerned.
GINGER Whose proper name is Rose Merton, and who has to reconcile herself to the fact that so far as her class is concerned the primaeval laws still run.
DORIAN ST. HERBERT [Hon. Sec. M.L.E.F.W.] He is interested in all things, the Woman’s Movement included.
BEN LAMB, M.P. As a student of woman, he admits to being in the infants’ class. SIGSBY An Election Agent. He thinks the modern woman suffers from over-indulgence. He would recommend to her the teachings of St. Paul.
HAKE A butler. He does not see how to avoid his wife being practically a domestic servant without wages.
A DEPUTATION It consists of two men and three women. Superior people would call them Cranks. But Cranks have been of some service to the world, and the use of superior people is still to be discovered.
.........
"ANNYS [To ELIZABETH.] I so want you to meet Geoffrey. He’ll alter your opinion of men.
"ELIZABETH My opinion of men has been altered once or twice — each time for the worse.
"ANNYS Why do you dislike men?
"ELIZABETH [With a short laugh.] Why does the slave dislike the slave-owner?
"PHOEBE Oh, come off the perch. You spend five thousand a year provided for you by a husband that you only see on Sundays. We’d all be slaves at that price.
"ELIZABETH The chains have always been stretched for the few. My sympathies are with my class.
"ANNYS But men like Geoffrey — men who are devoting their whole time and energy to furthering our cause; what can you have to say against them?
"ELIZABETH Simply that they don’t know what they’re doing. The French Revolution was nursed in the salons of the French nobility. When the true meaning of the woman’s movement is understood we shall have to get on without the male sympathiser."
...........
"ST. HERBERT Deplorable; but of course not your fault. I mention it because of its importance to the present matter. Under Clause A of the Act for the Better Regulation, &c., &c., all persons “mentally deficient” are debarred from becoming members of Parliament. The classification has been held to include idiots, infants, and women."
"ST. HERBERT A leader of the Orange Party was opposed by a Nationalist, and the proceedings promised to be lively. They promised for a while to be still livelier, owing to the nomination at the last moment of the local lunatic.
"PHOEBE [To ANNYS.] This is where we come in.
"ST. HERBERT There is always a local lunatic, who, if harmless, is generally a popular character. James Washington McCaw appears to have been a particularly cheerful specimen. One of his eccentricities was to always have a skipping-rope in his pocket; wherever the traffic allowed it, he would go through the streets skipping. He said it kept him warm. Another of his tricks was to let off fireworks from the roof of his house whenever he heard of the death of anybody of importance. The Returning Officer refused his nomination — which, so far as his nominators were concerned, was intended only as a joke — on the grounds of his being by common report a person of unsound mind. And there, so far as South-west Belfast was concerned, the matter ended.
"PHOEBE Pity.
"ST. HERBERT But not so far as the Returning Officer was concerned. McCaw appears to have been a lunatic possessed of means, imbued with all an Irishman’s love of litigation. He at once brought an action against the Returning Officer, his contention being that his mental state was a private matter, of which the Returning Officer was not the person to judge.
"PHOEBE He wasn’t a lunatic all over.
"ST. HERBERT We none of us are. The case went from court to court. In every instance the decision was in favour of the Returning Officer. Until it reached the House of Lords. The decision was given yesterday afternoon — in favour of the man McCaw.
"ELIZABETH Then lunatics, at all events, are not debarred from going to the poll."
...........
"PHOEBE It’s awfully rough on you, Geoffrey. I can see it from your point of view. But one can’t help remembering the things that you yourself have said.
"GEOFFREY I know; I know. I’ve been going up and down the country, excusing even your excesses on the ground that no movement can force its way to the front without treading on innumerable toes. For me, now, to cry halt merely because it happens to be my own toes that are in the way would be — ridiculous — absurd — would be monstrous. [Nobody contradicts him.] You are perfectly justified- -if this case means what you say it does — in putting up a candidate against me for East Poplar. Only, naturally, it cannot be Annys. [He reaches out his hand to where ANNYS stands a little behind him, takes her hand.] Annys and I have fought more than one election. It has been side by side.
"ELIZABETH The lady a little behind.
"GEOFFREY [He moves away with an expression of deep annoyance.]
"JANET [She comes forward. She holds forth her hands with a half- appealing, half-commanding gesture. She almost seems inspired.] Would it not be so much better if, in this first political contest between man and woman, the opponents were two people honouring one another, loving one another? Would it not show to all the world that man and woman may meet — contend in public life without anger, without scorn? [There is a pause. They stand listening.] I do not know, but it seems to me that if Mr. Chilvers could bring himself to do this it would be such a big thing — perhaps the most chivalrous thing that a man has ever done to help women. If he would put aside, quite voluntarily, all the man’s privilege — just say to the people, “Now choose — one of us two to serve you. We stand before you, equal, my wife and I.” I don’t know how to put it, but I feel that by merely doing that one thing Mr. Chilvers would solve the whole problem. It would prove that good men are ready to give us of their free accord all that we claim. We should gain our rights, not by warfare, but through love and understanding. Wouldn’t that be — so much better? [She looks — her hands still appealing — from one to the other.]"
...........
"ANNYS Do you know how long we have been married? Eight years. And do you know, sir, that all that time we have never had a difference? Don’t you think it will be good for you?
"GEOFFREY Do you know WHY we have never had a difference? Because you have always had your own way.
"ANNYS Oh!
"GEOFFREY You have got so used to it, you don’t notice it.
"ANNYS Then it will be good for me. I must learn to suffer opposition. [She laughs.]
"GEOFFREY You won’t like it.
"ANNYS Do you know, I’m not at all sure that I shan’t. [Unconsciously they let loose of one another.] You see, I shall have the right of hitting back. [Again she laughs.]
"GEOFFREY [Also laughingly.] Is woman going to develop the fighting instinct?
"ANNYS I wonder. [A moment’s silence.]
"GEOFFREY The difficulty in our case is there seems nothing to fight about.
"ANNYS We must think of something. [Laughs.]
"GEOFFREY What line are you going to take — what is your argument: why they should vote for you in preference to me?
"ANNYS Simply that I am a woman.
"GEOFFREY My dear child, that won’t be enough. Why should they vote for you merely because you’re a woman?
"ANNYS [Slightly astonished.] Because — because women are wanted in public life.
"GEOFFREY Who wants them?
"ANNYS [More astonished.] Who? Why — [it doesn’t seem too clear.] Why, all of us — you, yourself!
"GEOFFREY I’m not East Poplar. ANNYS [Is puzzled a moment, then valiantly.] I shall ask them to send me to Parliament to represent the interests of their women — and therefore of themselves — the interests of their children.
"GEOFFREY Children! What do you know about children? [Another silence.]
"ANNYS Personally — no. We have had no children of our own, of course. But [hopefully] it is a woman’s instinct.
"GEOFFREY Oh, Lord! That’s what the lady said who had buried seven.
"ANNYS [Her mouth is growing hard.] Don’t you believe in the right of women to share in the government of the country? GEOFFREY Some women. Yes. I can see some capable -
"ANNYS [Winces.]
"GEOFFREY — elderly, motherly woman who has brought up a dozen children of her own — who knows the world, being of some real use.
"ANNYS If it comes to that, there must be — I don’t say more “capable,” but more experienced, more fatherly men than yourself. [He turns, they look at one another. His tone almost touched contempt — hers was veiled anger.]
"GEOFFREY THAT’S the danger. It may come to a real fight."
...........
"GINGER Was talking to old Dot-and-carry-one the other d’y. You know who I mean — chap with the wooden leg as ‘as ‘is pitch outside the “George.” “Wot do you wimmen want worrying yourselves about things outside the ‘ome?” ‘e says to me. “You’ve got the children,” ‘e says. “Oh,” I says, “and whose fault’s that, I’d like to know? You wait till we’ve got the vote,” I says, “we’ll soon show you—”"
...........
"SIGSBY Look here. What I want to know is this: am I being asked to regard Lady Mogton as my opponent’s election agent, or as my principal’s mother-in-law? That point’s got to be settled. [His vehemence deepens.] Look at all these posters. Not to be used, for fear the other side mayn’t like them. Now Lady Mogton writes me that my candidate’s supporters are not to employ a certain argument she disapproves of: because, if they do, she’ll tell his wife. Is this an election, or is it a family jar?"
...........
"SIGSBY What have you been doing?
"JAWBONES Clinging to a roof for the last three hours.
"SIGSBY Clinging to a roof! What for?
"JAWBONES [He boils over.] Wot for? ‘Cos I didn’t want to fall off! Wot do you think: ‘cos I was fond of it?
"SIGSBY I don’t understand -
"JAWBONES You find yourself ‘alf way up a ladder, posting bills as the other side ‘as took objection to — with a crowd of girls from Pink’s jam factory waiting for you at the bottom with a barrel of treacle, and you WILL understand. Nothing else for me to do, o’ course, but to go up. Then they took the ladder away.
"SIGSBY Where are the bills? JAWBONES Last I see of them was their being put into a ‘earse on its way to Ilford Cemetery.
"SIGSBY This has got to be seen into. This sort of thing can’t be allowed to go on. [He snatches up his hat.]
"JAWBONES There’s another suggestion I’d like to make.
"SIGSBY [Pauses.]
"JAWBONES That is, if this election is going to be fought fairly, that our side should be provided with ‘at-pins."
...........
"GEOFFREY [He leans back in his chair.] Do you remember Tommy the Terrier, as they used to call him in the House — was always preaching Socialism?
"ST. HERBERT Quite the most amusing man I ever met!
"GEOFFREY And not afraid of being honest. Do you remember his answer when somebody asked him what he would do if Socialism, by any chance, really became established in England? He had just married an American heiress. He said he should emigrate. I am still convinced that woman is entitled to equal political rights with man. I didn’t think it was coming in my time. There are points in the problem remaining to be settled before we can arrive at a working solution. This is one of them. [He takes up the letter and reads.] “Are you prepared to have as your representative a person who for six months out of every year may be incapacitated from serving you?” It’s easy enough to say I oughtn’t to allow my supporters to drag in the personal element. I like it even less myself. But what’s the answer?"
"ST. HERBERT The answer, I should say, would be that the majority of women will continue to find something better to do. The women who will throw themselves into politics will be the unattached women, the childless women. [In an instant he sees his mistake, but it is too late.]
"GEOFFREY [He rises, crosses to the desk, throws into a waste- paper-basket a piece of crumpled paper that was in his hand; then turns. The personal note has entered into the discussion.] The women who WANT to be childless — what about them?
"ST. HERBERT [He shrugs his shoulders.] Are there any such?
"GEOFFREY There are women who talk openly of woman’s share in the general scheme being a “burden” on her — an “incubus.”
"ST. HERBERT A handful of cranks. To the normal woman motherhood has always been the one supreme desire.
"GEOFFREY Because children crowned her with honour. The barren woman was despised. All that is changing. This movement is adding impulse to it.
"ST. HERBERT Movements do not alter instincts.
"GEOFFREY But they do. Ever since man emerged from the jungle he has been shedding his instincts — shaping them to new desires. Where do you find this all-prevailing instinct towards maternity? Among the women of society, who sacrifice it without a moment’s hesitation to their vanity — to their mere pleasures? The middle- class woman — she, too, is demanding “freedom.” Children, servants, the home! — they are too much for her “nerves.” And now there comes this new development, appealing to the intellectual woman. Is there not danger of her preferring political ambition, the excitement of public life, to what has come to be regarded as the “drudgery” of turning four walls into a home, of peopling the silence with the voices of the children? [He crosses to the table- -lays his hand again upon the open letter.]
...........
Introduction to the play, a description of characters, is quite illuminating, about not only the general idea of the play but also the author and his times.
GEOFFREY CHILVERS, M.P. [President Men’s League for the Extension of the Franchise to Women] A loving husband, and (would-be) affectionate father. Like many other good men, he is in sympathy with the Woman’s Movement: “not thinking it is coming in his time.”
ANNYS CHILVERS [nee Mogton, Hon. Sec. Women’s Parliamentary Franchise League] A loving wife, and (would-be) affection mother. Many thousands of years have gone to her making. A generation ago, she would have been the ideal woman: the ideal helpmeet. But new ideas are stirring in her blood, a new ideal of womanhood is forcing itself upon her.
LADY MOGTON [President W.P.F.L.] She knows she would be of more use in Parliament than many of the men who are there; is naturally annoyed at the Law’s stupidity in keeping her out.
PHOEBE MOGTON [Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] The new girl, thinking more of politics than of boys. But that will probably pass.
JANET BLAKE [Jt. Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] She dreams of a new heaven and a new earth when woman has the vote.
MRS. MOUNTCALM VILLIERS [Vice-President W.P.F.L.] She was getting tired of flirting. The Woman’s Movement has arrived just at the right moment.
ELIZABETH SPENDER [Hons. Treas. W.P.F.L.] She sees woman everywhere the slave of man: now pampered, now beaten, but ever the slave. She can see no hope of freedom but through warfare.
MRS. CHINN A mother. JAWBONES A bill-poster. Movements that do not fit in with the essentials of life on thirty shillings a week have no message so far as Jawbones is concerned.
GINGER Whose proper name is Rose Merton, and who has to reconcile herself to the fact that so far as her class is concerned the primaeval laws still run.
DORIAN ST. HERBERT [Hon. Sec. M.L.E.F.W.] He is interested in all things, the Woman’s Movement included.
BEN LAMB, M.P. As a student of woman, he admits to being in the infants’ class. SIGSBY An Election Agent. He thinks the modern woman suffers from over-indulgence. He would recommend to her the teachings of St. Paul.
HAKE A butler. He does not see how to avoid his wife being practically a domestic servant without wages.
A DEPUTATION It consists of two men and three women. Superior people would call them Cranks. But Cranks have been of some service to the world, and the use of superior people is still to be discovered.
.........
"ANNYS [To ELIZABETH.] I so want you to meet Geoffrey. He’ll alter your opinion of men.
"ELIZABETH My opinion of men has been altered once or twice — each time for the worse.
"ANNYS Why do you dislike men?
"ELIZABETH [With a short laugh.] Why does the slave dislike the slave-owner?
"PHOEBE Oh, come off the perch. You spend five thousand a year provided for you by a husband that you only see on Sundays. We’d all be slaves at that price.
"ELIZABETH The chains have always been stretched for the few. My sympathies are with my class.
"ANNYS But men like Geoffrey — men who are devoting their whole time and energy to furthering our cause; what can you have to say against them?
"ELIZABETH Simply that they don’t know what they’re doing. The French Revolution was nursed in the salons of the French nobility. When the true meaning of the woman’s movement is understood we shall have to get on without the male sympathiser."
...........
"ST. HERBERT Deplorable; but of course not your fault. I mention it because of its importance to the present matter. Under Clause A of the Act for the Better Regulation, &c., &c., all persons “mentally deficient” are debarred from becoming members of Parliament. The classification has been held to include idiots, infants, and women."
"ST. HERBERT A leader of the Orange Party was opposed by a Nationalist, and the proceedings promised to be lively. They promised for a while to be still livelier, owing to the nomination at the last moment of the local lunatic.
"PHOEBE [To ANNYS.] This is where we come in.
"ST. HERBERT There is always a local lunatic, who, if harmless, is generally a popular character. James Washington McCaw appears to have been a particularly cheerful specimen. One of his eccentricities was to always have a skipping-rope in his pocket; wherever the traffic allowed it, he would go through the streets skipping. He said it kept him warm. Another of his tricks was to let off fireworks from the roof of his house whenever he heard of the death of anybody of importance. The Returning Officer refused his nomination — which, so far as his nominators were concerned, was intended only as a joke — on the grounds of his being by common report a person of unsound mind. And there, so far as South-west Belfast was concerned, the matter ended.
"PHOEBE Pity.
"ST. HERBERT But not so far as the Returning Officer was concerned. McCaw appears to have been a lunatic possessed of means, imbued with all an Irishman’s love of litigation. He at once brought an action against the Returning Officer, his contention being that his mental state was a private matter, of which the Returning Officer was not the person to judge.
"PHOEBE He wasn’t a lunatic all over.
"ST. HERBERT We none of us are. The case went from court to court. In every instance the decision was in favour of the Returning Officer. Until it reached the House of Lords. The decision was given yesterday afternoon — in favour of the man McCaw.
"ELIZABETH Then lunatics, at all events, are not debarred from going to the poll."
...........
"PHOEBE It’s awfully rough on you, Geoffrey. I can see it from your point of view. But one can’t help remembering the things that you yourself have said.
"GEOFFREY I know; I know. I’ve been going up and down the country, excusing even your excesses on the ground that no movement can force its way to the front without treading on innumerable toes. For me, now, to cry halt merely because it happens to be my own toes that are in the way would be — ridiculous — absurd — would be monstrous. [Nobody contradicts him.] You are perfectly justified- -if this case means what you say it does — in putting up a candidate against me for East Poplar. Only, naturally, it cannot be Annys. [He reaches out his hand to where ANNYS stands a little behind him, takes her hand.] Annys and I have fought more than one election. It has been side by side.
"ELIZABETH The lady a little behind.
"GEOFFREY [He moves away with an expression of deep annoyance.]
"JANET [She comes forward. She holds forth her hands with a half- appealing, half-commanding gesture. She almost seems inspired.] Would it not be so much better if, in this first political contest between man and woman, the opponents were two people honouring one another, loving one another? Would it not show to all the world that man and woman may meet — contend in public life without anger, without scorn? [There is a pause. They stand listening.] I do not know, but it seems to me that if Mr. Chilvers could bring himself to do this it would be such a big thing — perhaps the most chivalrous thing that a man has ever done to help women. If he would put aside, quite voluntarily, all the man’s privilege — just say to the people, “Now choose — one of us two to serve you. We stand before you, equal, my wife and I.” I don’t know how to put it, but I feel that by merely doing that one thing Mr. Chilvers would solve the whole problem. It would prove that good men are ready to give us of their free accord all that we claim. We should gain our rights, not by warfare, but through love and understanding. Wouldn’t that be — so much better? [She looks — her hands still appealing — from one to the other.]"
...........
"ANNYS Do you know how long we have been married? Eight years. And do you know, sir, that all that time we have never had a difference? Don’t you think it will be good for you?
"GEOFFREY Do you know WHY we have never had a difference? Because you have always had your own way.
"ANNYS Oh!
"GEOFFREY You have got so used to it, you don’t notice it.
"ANNYS Then it will be good for me. I must learn to suffer opposition. [She laughs.]
"GEOFFREY You won’t like it.
"ANNYS Do you know, I’m not at all sure that I shan’t. [Unconsciously they let loose of one another.] You see, I shall have the right of hitting back. [Again she laughs.]
"GEOFFREY [Also laughingly.] Is woman going to develop the fighting instinct?
"ANNYS I wonder. [A moment’s silence.]
"GEOFFREY The difficulty in our case is there seems nothing to fight about.
"ANNYS We must think of something. [Laughs.]
"GEOFFREY What line are you going to take — what is your argument: why they should vote for you in preference to me?
"ANNYS Simply that I am a woman.
"GEOFFREY My dear child, that won’t be enough. Why should they vote for you merely because you’re a woman?
"ANNYS [Slightly astonished.] Because — because women are wanted in public life.
"GEOFFREY Who wants them?
"ANNYS [More astonished.] Who? Why — [it doesn’t seem too clear.] Why, all of us — you, yourself!
"GEOFFREY I’m not East Poplar. ANNYS [Is puzzled a moment, then valiantly.] I shall ask them to send me to Parliament to represent the interests of their women — and therefore of themselves — the interests of their children.
"GEOFFREY Children! What do you know about children? [Another silence.]
"ANNYS Personally — no. We have had no children of our own, of course. But [hopefully] it is a woman’s instinct.
"GEOFFREY Oh, Lord! That’s what the lady said who had buried seven.
"ANNYS [Her mouth is growing hard.] Don’t you believe in the right of women to share in the government of the country? GEOFFREY Some women. Yes. I can see some capable -
"ANNYS [Winces.]
"GEOFFREY — elderly, motherly woman who has brought up a dozen children of her own — who knows the world, being of some real use.
"ANNYS If it comes to that, there must be — I don’t say more “capable,” but more experienced, more fatherly men than yourself. [He turns, they look at one another. His tone almost touched contempt — hers was veiled anger.]
"GEOFFREY THAT’S the danger. It may come to a real fight."
...........
"GINGER Was talking to old Dot-and-carry-one the other d’y. You know who I mean — chap with the wooden leg as ‘as ‘is pitch outside the “George.” “Wot do you wimmen want worrying yourselves about things outside the ‘ome?” ‘e says to me. “You’ve got the children,” ‘e says. “Oh,” I says, “and whose fault’s that, I’d like to know? You wait till we’ve got the vote,” I says, “we’ll soon show you—”"
...........
"SIGSBY Look here. What I want to know is this: am I being asked to regard Lady Mogton as my opponent’s election agent, or as my principal’s mother-in-law? That point’s got to be settled. [His vehemence deepens.] Look at all these posters. Not to be used, for fear the other side mayn’t like them. Now Lady Mogton writes me that my candidate’s supporters are not to employ a certain argument she disapproves of: because, if they do, she’ll tell his wife. Is this an election, or is it a family jar?"
...........
"SIGSBY What have you been doing?
"JAWBONES Clinging to a roof for the last three hours.
"SIGSBY Clinging to a roof! What for?
"JAWBONES [He boils over.] Wot for? ‘Cos I didn’t want to fall off! Wot do you think: ‘cos I was fond of it?
"SIGSBY I don’t understand -
"JAWBONES You find yourself ‘alf way up a ladder, posting bills as the other side ‘as took objection to — with a crowd of girls from Pink’s jam factory waiting for you at the bottom with a barrel of treacle, and you WILL understand. Nothing else for me to do, o’ course, but to go up. Then they took the ladder away.
"SIGSBY Where are the bills? JAWBONES Last I see of them was their being put into a ‘earse on its way to Ilford Cemetery.
"SIGSBY This has got to be seen into. This sort of thing can’t be allowed to go on. [He snatches up his hat.]
"JAWBONES There’s another suggestion I’d like to make.
"SIGSBY [Pauses.]
"JAWBONES That is, if this election is going to be fought fairly, that our side should be provided with ‘at-pins."
...........
"GEOFFREY [He leans back in his chair.] Do you remember Tommy the Terrier, as they used to call him in the House — was always preaching Socialism?
"ST. HERBERT Quite the most amusing man I ever met!
"GEOFFREY And not afraid of being honest. Do you remember his answer when somebody asked him what he would do if Socialism, by any chance, really became established in England? He had just married an American heiress. He said he should emigrate. I am still convinced that woman is entitled to equal political rights with man. I didn’t think it was coming in my time. There are points in the problem remaining to be settled before we can arrive at a working solution. This is one of them. [He takes up the letter and reads.] “Are you prepared to have as your representative a person who for six months out of every year may be incapacitated from serving you?” It’s easy enough to say I oughtn’t to allow my supporters to drag in the personal element. I like it even less myself. But what’s the answer?"
"ST. HERBERT The answer, I should say, would be that the majority of women will continue to find something better to do. The women who will throw themselves into politics will be the unattached women, the childless women. [In an instant he sees his mistake, but it is too late.]
"GEOFFREY [He rises, crosses to the desk, throws into a waste- paper-basket a piece of crumpled paper that was in his hand; then turns. The personal note has entered into the discussion.] The women who WANT to be childless — what about them?
"ST. HERBERT [He shrugs his shoulders.] Are there any such?
"GEOFFREY There are women who talk openly of woman’s share in the general scheme being a “burden” on her — an “incubus.”
"ST. HERBERT A handful of cranks. To the normal woman motherhood has always been the one supreme desire.
"GEOFFREY Because children crowned her with honour. The barren woman was despised. All that is changing. This movement is adding impulse to it.
"ST. HERBERT Movements do not alter instincts.
"GEOFFREY But they do. Ever since man emerged from the jungle he has been shedding his instincts — shaping them to new desires. Where do you find this all-prevailing instinct towards maternity? Among the women of society, who sacrifice it without a moment’s hesitation to their vanity — to their mere pleasures? The middle- class woman — she, too, is demanding “freedom.” Children, servants, the home! — they are too much for her “nerves.” And now there comes this new development, appealing to the intellectual woman. Is there not danger of her preferring political ambition, the excitement of public life, to what has come to be regarded as the “drudgery” of turning four walls into a home, of peopling the silence with the voices of the children? [He crosses to the table- -lays his hand again upon the open letter.]
...........
June 23, 2024
Jerome’s 4-act play, ‘The Master of Mrs Chilvers’ was published in 1911, three years before World War I, at a time when the suffragette movement was at its fiercest. The suffragettes were fighting militantly for the rights of women, not just for the right to vote, but for the right to be treated as capable, thinking adults and not as imbeciles or children. The play is subtitled “An Improbable Drama,” but it is in fact ahead of its times and all too probable, as husband and wife are pitted against each other as candidates in a bye-election. In Jerome's lighter vein, his wife's mother and sister fight a pitched battle against him, tearing down his posters, getting their supporters to harrass his staff and workers in very unsporting ways that the men's training forbid them to retaliate in like manner.
Although Mrs Chilvers herself remains above such undignified demonstrations, she is far more assertive than her husband had ever known her to be before, and stands her ground in the face of all her husband's objections. Indeed, the marriage itself seems to have been breached irreparably as the counting starts, and Mrs Chilvers steadily leads.
It is at this point that Jerome’s courage fails him. Having displayed extreme sensitivity to the cause of women, their disadvantages and handicaps, the injustices that life has dealt them even before they are born, he wakes up to the knowledge that even if Mrs Chilvers wins the election, there is no road forward for her. In an anticlimax, we are informed that Mr Chilvers has gained a slender majority of 14 votes, and that Mrs Chilvers, childless for the last eight years, is in a delicate condition!
Under the humour, or the scenes between the minor characters of the play, Jerome deals with the perplexing questions of his day very seriously indeed. Indeed, in his serious writing, he examines the same issues as Ibsen, George Gissing and Bernard Shaw, and if his name does not rank with theirs, it is perhaps because his comic writing remains unsurpassed in its class, and continues to be read with unalloyed enjoyment today, whereas the others seem to be restricted to classroom reading. In a final observation, how far ahead of his time Jerome was will be understood when it is recalled that the Conservative Government passed the Act giving equal rights of franchise to men and women only in 1928.
Although Mrs Chilvers herself remains above such undignified demonstrations, she is far more assertive than her husband had ever known her to be before, and stands her ground in the face of all her husband's objections. Indeed, the marriage itself seems to have been breached irreparably as the counting starts, and Mrs Chilvers steadily leads.
It is at this point that Jerome’s courage fails him. Having displayed extreme sensitivity to the cause of women, their disadvantages and handicaps, the injustices that life has dealt them even before they are born, he wakes up to the knowledge that even if Mrs Chilvers wins the election, there is no road forward for her. In an anticlimax, we are informed that Mr Chilvers has gained a slender majority of 14 votes, and that Mrs Chilvers, childless for the last eight years, is in a delicate condition!
Under the humour, or the scenes between the minor characters of the play, Jerome deals with the perplexing questions of his day very seriously indeed. Indeed, in his serious writing, he examines the same issues as Ibsen, George Gissing and Bernard Shaw, and if his name does not rank with theirs, it is perhaps because his comic writing remains unsurpassed in its class, and continues to be read with unalloyed enjoyment today, whereas the others seem to be restricted to classroom reading. In a final observation, how far ahead of his time Jerome was will be understood when it is recalled that the Conservative Government passed the Act giving equal rights of franchise to men and women only in 1928.
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