‘“what course of lectures are you attending now, ma’am?” said martin chuzzlewit’s friend, turning again to mrs. jefferson brick.
‘“the philosophy of the soul, on wednesdays,” replied mrs. brick.
‘“and on mondays?”
‘“the philosophy of crime.”
‘“on fridays?”
‘“the philosophy of vegetables.”
‘“you have forgotten thursdays; the philosophy of government, my dear,” observed a third lady.
‘“no,” said mrs. brick, “that’s tuesdays.”
‘“so it is!” cried the lady. “the philosophy of matter on thursdays, of course.”
‘“you see, mr. chuzzlewit, our ladies are fully employed,” observed his friend.’
they were indeed; but for the life of me i cannot understand why, amidst so many philosophies, the philosophy of fancy-work was so cruelly ignored. i should have thought it quite as suitable and profitable a study for mrs. jefferson brick and her 248lady friends as some of the subjects to which they paid their attention.
‘whatever are you making now, dear?’ asked a devoted husband of his spouse the other evening.
‘why, an antimacassar, george, to be sure; can’t you see?’
‘and what on earth is the good of an antimacassar, i should like to know?’
‘stupid man!’
stupid man, indeed! but there it is! and for the crass stupidity of their husbands, mrs. jefferson brick and her philosophical friends have only themselves to blame. if they had included the philosophy of fancy-work in their syllabus of lectures, they might have acquired such a grasp of a great and vital subject that they would have been able to convince their husbands that there is nothing in the house quite so useful as an antimacassar. the pots and the pans, the chairs and the tables, are nowhere in comparison. the antimacassar is the one indispensable article in the establishment. let no man attempt to deride or belittle it.
as it is, however, mrs. jefferson brick and her friends have never really studied the philosophy of fancy-work, and have never therefore been in a position to enlighten the darkened minds of their benighted husbands. as an inevitable consequence, 249those husbands continue to regard the busy needles as an amiable frailty pertaining to the sex of their better halves. in writing thus, i am thinking of the better-tempered husbands. husbands of the other variety regard fancy-work as an unmitigated nuisance. mark rutherford has familiarized us with a husband who so regarded his wife’s delicate traceries and ornamentations. i refer, of course, to catherine furze. we all remember mrs. furze’s parlour at eastthorpe. ‘there was a sofa in the room, but it was horse-hair with high ends both alike, not comfortable, which were covered with curious complications called antimacassars, that slipped off directly they were touched, so that anybody who leaned upon them was engaged continually in warfare with them, picking them up from the floor or spreading them out again. there was also an easy chair, but it was not easy, for it matched the sofa in horse-hair, and was so ingeniously contrived that, directly a person placed himself in it, it gently shot him forwards. furthermore, it had special antimacassars, which were a work of art, and mrs. furze had warned mr. furze off them. “he would ruin them,” she said, “if he put his head upon them.” so a windsor chair with a high back was always carried by mr. furze into the parlour after dinner, together with a common kitchen chair, and on these he took his sunday nap.’ 250the reader is made to feel that, on these interesting occasions, mr. furze wished his wife and her antimacassars at the bottom of the deep blue sea; and one rather admires his self-restraint in not explicitly saying so. mr. furze is the natural representative of all those husbands who see no rhyme or reason in fancy-work. if only mrs. jefferson brick had included that phase of philosophy on her programme, and had passed on the illumination to some member of the sterner sex! but let us indulge in no futile regrets.
that there is a philosophy of fancy-work goes without saying. to begin with, think of the relief to the overstrung nerves and the over-wrought emotions, at the close of a trying day, in being able to sit down in a cosy chair, and, when the eyes are too tired for reading, to finger away at the needles, and get on with the antimacassar. our grandmothers went in for antimacassars instead of neurasthenia. ‘it is astonishing,’ exclaimed the ‘lady of the decoration,’ ‘how much bad temper one can knit into a garment!’ an earlier generation of wonderfully wise women made that discovery, and worked all their discontents, and all their evil tempers, and all their quivering nervousness into antimacassars. on the whole it is cheaper than working them into drugs and doctors’ bills, and 251drugs and doctors’ bills are certainly no more ornamental.
in his essay on tedium, claudius clear deals with that particular form of tedium that arises from leaden hours. and he thinks that in this respect women have an immense advantage over men. men have to wait for things, and they find the experience intolerable. but a woman turns to her fancy-work, and is amused at her husband’s uncontrollable impatience. the antimacassar, he believes, gives just enough occupation to the fingers to make absolute tedium impossible. the war has led to a remarkable revival of knitting and of fancy-work. my present theme was suggested to me on saturday. i took my wife for a little excursion; she took her knitting, and we saw ladies working everywhere. two were busy in the tram; we came upon one sitting in a secluded spot in the bush, her deft needles chasing each other merrily. and on the river steamer eleven ladies out of fifteen had their fancy-work with them. i could not help thinking that, in not a few of these cases, the workers must derive as much comfort from the occupation as the wearers will eventually derive from the garments. many a woman has woven all her worries into her fancy-work, and has felt the greatest relief in consequence. one such worker has borne witness to the consolation afforded her by her needles.
252silent is the house. i sit
in the firelight and knit.
at my ball of soft grey wool
two grey kittens gently pull—
pulling back my thoughts as well,
from that distant, red-rimmed hell,
and hot tears the stitches blur
as i knit a comforter.
‘comforter’ they call it—yes,
such it is for my distress,
for it gives my restless hands
blessed work. god understands
how we women yearn to be
doing something ceaselessly.
anything but just to wait
idly for a clicking gate!
we must, however, be perfectly honest; and to deal honestly with our subject we must not ignore the classical example, even though that example may not prove particularly attractive. the classical example is, of course, madame defarge. madame defarge was the wife of jacques defarge, who kept the famous wine-shop in a tale of two cities. when first we are introduced to the wine-shopkeeper and his wife, three customers are entering the shop. they pull off their hats to madame defarge. ‘she acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop, 253took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it.’ everybody who is familiar with the story knows that here we have the stroke of the artist. madame defarge, be it noted, took up her knitting with apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it. as a matter of fact, madame defarge was absorbed, not in the knitting, but in the conversation; and all that she heard with her ears was knitted into the garment in her hands. the knitting was a tell-tale register.
‘“are you sure,” asked one of the wine-shopkeeper’s accomplices one day, “are you sure that no embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping the register? without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we always be able to decipher it—or, i ought to say, will she?”
‘“man,” returned defarge, drawing himself up, “if madame, my wife, undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of it—not a syllable of it. knitted, in her own stitches, and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. confide in madame defarge. it would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives to erase himself from existence than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of madame defarge.”’
254oh those tell-tale needles! up and down, to and fro, in and out they flashed and darted, madame seeming all the time so preoccupied and inattentive! yet into those innocent stitches there went the guilty secrets; and when the secrets were revealed the lives and deaths of men hung in the balance! here, then, is a philosophy of fancy-work that will carry us a very long way. the stitches are always a matter of life and of death, however innocent or trivial they may seem. whether i do a row of stitches, or drive a row of nails, or write a row of words, i am a little older when i fasten the last stitch, or drive the last nail, or write the last word, than i was when i began. and what does that mean? it means that i have deliberately taken a fragment of my life and have woven it into my work. that is the terrific sanctity of the commonest toil. it is instinct with life. ‘greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend,’ and whenever i drive a nail, or write a syllable, or weave a stitch for another, i have laid down just so much of my life for his sake.
but when we begin to exploit the possibilities of a philosophy of fancy-work, we shall find our feet wandering into some very green pastures and beside some very still waters. fancy-work will lead us to think about friendship, than which few themes are more attractive. for the loveliest idyll of friendship 255is told in the phraseology of fancy-work. ‘and it came to pass that the soul of jonathan was knit to the soul of david.’ knitting, knitting, knitting; up and down, to and fro, in and out, see the needles flash and dart! every moment that i spend with my friend is a weaving of his life into mine, and of my life into his; and pity me, men and angels, if i entangle the strands of my life with a fabric that mars the pattern of my own! and pity me still more if the inferior texture of my life impairs the perfection and beauty of my friend’s! into the sacred domain of our sweetest friendships, therefore, has this unpromising matter of fancy-work conveyed us. but it must take us higher still. for ‘there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother,’ and the web of my life will look strangely incomplete at the last unless the fabric of my soul be found knit and interwoven with the fair and radiant colours of his.
