The Master

Mi

‘By nature,’ he spoke quickly and emphatically, ‘woman is inferior to man. She is man’s inferior in passion, his inferior in intellect and his inferior in physical strength.’

‘My father has many convictions,’ William said amiably. He smiled at Mi

‘Perhaps it is my very inferiority,’ she said, ‘which causes me to wonder.’

‘Wonder what?’ William asked.

‘Do you really wish to know?’ she asked. She almost laughed.

‘Say it out,’ the father said.

‘Very simply, sir, I wonder if what you are saying is true.’ Suddenly, her tone was direct and clear.

‘Do you mean you don’t agree with it?’ William asked.

‘No, I don’t mean that,’ Mi

‘Of course it’s true.’ The old man’s eyes displayed his anger now. ‘A man is physically stronger than a woman. That much is clear, that much is true, if true is the word you want. And in passion a man is stronger, as I have said. And in intellect. Plato was not a woman, nor Sophocles, nor Shakespeare.’

‘How do we know Shakespeare was not a woman?’ William interjected.

‘Does what I have said satisfy you, Miss Temple?’ the father asked.

Mi

‘It is a woman’s job,’ he went on, ‘to be submissive. To see to her needlework and her cooking and her preparation to become the sleepless guardian of her husband’s children. We judge a woman by her obedience and her attention to duty.’

His voice had become rancorous and he was obviously a

‘Thus spake our father,’ William said.

‘Is that settled then?’ the old man asked Mi

‘Not at all, sir. Nothing is settled.’ She smiled at him. Her expression was almost condescending as she continued. ‘Very simply, I do not know if being physically weaker than man means we understand less, or live less intelligently in the world. You see, I have the evidence close at hand which is my own weak mind, but I do not think it is weaker than anyone else’s.’

‘Women must live in Christian humility,’ Henry senior said.

‘Is that in the Bible, sir, or is it one of the Commandments, or did you learn it at school?’ Mi

By suppertime the news had spread. Mrs James, Aunt Kate and Alice had been alerted to the outrage which had occurred.

‘She will not mind women cooking for her and keeping house for her,’ Henry’s mother said to him as they met in the hallway. ‘She has not been disciplined and she has not been cultivated, and we must pity her because her future will be grim.’

IN THE SUMMER of 1865, the Civil War over and his first two stories published, Henry prepared to spend the month of August with the Temples in New Hampshire. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had refused an invitation to Newport, agreed to go to North Conway, where the Temples were staying, once he discovered that there would be abundant female company. He was to travel with Henry, and John Gray, also fresh from the Civil War, was to follow. Henry wrote to Holmes to tell him that Mi

They would, Henry told him, pull the fellow’s own bed out from under him. In the meantime, Mi

They were to go for supper, as invited, at the house where the Temple girls were being chaperoned by their great-aunt, who looked, in Henry’s opinion, like George Washington. But first, on arrival at North Conway, they set out to find directions to their lodgings, and, after several wrong turns, they discovered a large and surly landlord who managed instantly to express his dislike for people who were not born and bred in North Conway and its immediate surroundings. Neither Holmes’s uniform, which he was wearing, nor his moustache, seemed to impress him. The landlord did not look at Henry. One bed, he said, that’s what he had told the lady, and one bed it was, but the room had a nice clean floor and you could sleep a whole regiment there, he added insolently as he gave them the key.

The room was bare, except for a washstand, a jug and basin, a closet and a small iron-framed bed covered by a strangely beautiful coloured quilt out of keeping with the spartan decor. They left their luggage at the door, as if unsure that they were going to stay.

‘I believe we should call for reinforcements and attack him forthwith,’ Holmes said.

Henry tested the bed, which sagged in the middle.

‘Perhaps it is the sort of room which benefits from its inhabitants remaining outdoors,’ Henry said.

He picked up a small lamp from the floor.

‘I fear,’ he said, ‘that every moth in New Hampshire has visited this shrine. It looks as though it came with the founding fathers.’

‘Is your cousin Mi

‘Yes, she is,’ Henry said.

‘In that case, I am sure she has found us another room.’

Henry went to the small window and looked out. The day was still bright and the smell of pine filled the air.

‘In the meantime,’ he turned to Holmes laughing, ‘I don’t mind if you don’t, as the lady said when the puppy dog licked her face.’

‘It is, I fear, going to be a long month,’ Holmes said.

MINNY AND TWO of her sisters were sitting on chairs on the back lawn when their cousin and his friend arrived. Henry was deeply conscious now of what Mi

As soon as they sat down, Henry noticed that Holmes became a military man, a Civil War veteran who had seen many battles and come close to death. Suddenly, military tactics were no longer a joke. The three Temple girls, whose brother William had been killed in the war, and their great-aunt stared at the soldier sadly and admiringly. Henry watched Mi

After supper the two young men walked back to their room, happy with the news that Mi