WOMEN ETC. WOMEN ETC. SOME LEAVES FROM AN EDITOR S DIARY BY GEORGE HARVEY NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER cr BROTHERS PUBLISHERS M C M VI I I Copyright, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS. Copyright, 1906, 1907, 1908, by THS NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW PUBLISHING Co. All rights reserved. Published October, 19 CONTENTS PAGE WOMEN WHY CASUISTRY SHOULD BE STUDIED BY WOMEN 3 THE GREED OF WOMEN 7 OF FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN n OF WOMAN S RIGHT TO ENHANCE NATURE S CHARMS 14 ON BEING YOUNGER OR OLDER 17 THE LESSON OF ASPASIA 20 OF THE IGNORANCE OF WOMEN IN THE MANAGE MENT OF MEN 25 OF SECOND WIVES AND HUSBANDS 36 ON THE TAXATION OF SPINSTERS 39 WHY BACHELORS SHOULD NOT BE TAXED . . 44 THE SELECTION OF A HUSBAND 48 THE SAGACIOUS FRIVOLITY OF WIDOWS ... 54 LOVE, FICTION, AND LEARNED LADIES .... 58 JEALOUSY AS A CURABLE DISEASE AND AS AN ADMIRABLE ATTRIBUTE 64 THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OSCULATION . . 69 THE AMERICAN GIRLS AND BOYS 79 OF OBSTINACY IN CONVERSATION 85 A PLEA FOR LOQUACITY 89 THE NECESSITY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE .... 94 THE UNEQUAL CONDITIONS OF MEN AND WOMEN 98 A DECALOGUE FOR WOMEN? . 101 98G148 CONTENTS ETC. THE FOLLY OF WORRY, AND ITS CURE . . . . 115 OF AMERICAN MANNERS 120 OF SLEEPING, DREAMING, AND SNORING . . . 124 DAY DREAMS ARE THE BETTER 128 ON THE PROPER CONDUCT OF FUNERALS . . . 131 A HOLIDAY FOR CAPITAL 139 ONE DISADVANTAGE OF GREAT RICHES . . . 143 As OUR COUSINS BEHOLD Us 146 OF YANKEES AND "YANKEE DOODLE" . . . 150 LONG LIVE ELIJAH POGRAM! 160 FOR A NEW NATIONAL HYMN 164 OF JAPANESE HUMOR 167 ARE WE UNCONSCIOUSLY BECOMING SOCIAL ISTIC? 169 A DRONING YOUNG SOCIALIST 174 THE VALUE OF A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE . . . 177 EXISTENCE IN A GREAT CITY 181 THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR 183 MODERN EDUCATIONAL METHODS 186 THE POWER OF SENTIMENT 189 CONSCIENCE AT THE CUSTOM-HOUSE .... 191 TOUCH NOT, TASTE NOT, HANDLE NOT! . . . 194 OF EDITORS AND THEIR CRITICS 199 OF HONESTY IN ADVERTISING 203 PERMANENCE OF A HELPFUL PASTIME .... 207 THE HELPFULNESS OF FISHING 209 SHOULD WAITERS WEAR BEARDS? 212 THE PASSING OF THE DEACON 214 A CHRISTMAS PLEA FOR VANITY 221 ON BEHALF OF SATAN 224 Is GOD OMNIPOTENT? 230 DEDICATORY NOTE Plato reprehended a lad for playing at some childish game. "Thou reprovest me" said the boy, "for a very little thing." "Custom" Plato replied, "is no little thing." Cicero went a step further when he declared : Consuetudinis magna vis est ; and Pliny capped the climax with the unqualified assertion : Usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister." We may not assent to Montaigne s dictum that "the laws of con science, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom"; we might and probably would, if pressed for exact comparison, question the accuracy of Pliny s superlative ; but that custom is indeed of "great power" and "no little thing" nobody who has eyes to see and ears to hear will venture to deny. Now, anybody can write a book, though not everybody can induce its publication, because of unfortunate variances of opinion between authors and publishers respecting the quality of the prod uct ; but when one happens to be in a position i DEDICATORY NOTE to make a volume, without regard to its merits, a peculiar obligation clearly rests upon one to con form to the dictates of the authority to which we have referred. The respect due to custom, there fore, is responsible for the dedicatory note now about to be written to preface well, what follows. To whom, then, shall these fugitive observations be inscribed ? To be as nearly conventional as the editorial form of expression permits we should print in faultless typography the words, " To our wife." But the truth is that whenever we open a book, especially a first, little shivering book, and behold that familiar inscription, we feel as we feel when we push around the bar of a gate and enter a cemetery. It is inconsiderate to the reader to dedi cate a book in that way, because, if he be truly sen sitive to emotion, he is apt, at the -first glance, to be stung by an instinctive feeling that he ought not to be there by the fireside of those whose acquaint ance he has yet to make. Moreover, in these days of domestic changeability it is hazardous. Who among us really knows who will be his consort when the inevitable second edition leaves the press ? "To our late wife," if she be with the other angels, or, "To our former wife, 1 if she be divorced, would be a graceful and sufficiently explicit testimonial; 4 To our present wife seems unobjectionable if accompanied by the date; "To our future wife" even might be condoned if one were held in hopeful vision ; but clearly " To our wife" is far too gen ii DEDICATORY NOTE eral and inconclusive, besides evidencing question able taste and excessive familiarity. An earnest desire to meet so far as may be the requirements of custom naturally fetches other relatives within the range of consideration. "To our aunt" would imply a kindly thought, but would inevitably be accepted by some as sug gesting that she had no children of her own; "To our uncle" would serve only to evoke derision from unfriendly critics who would profess to detect therein indications of a mercenary or self-seeking spirit. And so throughout the list, even so far as "To our third cousin by our grandfather s second wife," which as an expression all will admit would be cumbersome and unhappy. The fittingness of an inscription must also be regarded. It would be most discourteous, for example, to address a book on "bridge" to a bishop, or on spinsters " to a preacher against race suicide; obviously any faux pas of that nature must be scrupulously avoided. Indeed, as we pursue our quest, difficulties seem to multiply. "To our best friend" has the merit of being enigmatical, but it sounds egoistical and offers an opportunity, unduly tempting, to carpers to insinuate that "To our worst enemy" would be more exact. Moreover, this being a book about "Women, Etc.," and the absurdity of inscribing it to "Etc." or to all women, including widows, being apparent, the field becomes almost hopelessly narrowed and, so far as we can perceive, but one recourse remains. iii DEDICATORY NOTE So, with hearty contempt for the plated bauble known as consistency, we place this small aggrega tion of trifles at the feet of a most excellent comrade who, through no fault of her own, happens to be a wife of ours. WOMEN WOMEN Why Casuistry Should be Studied by TT is a singular fact, affording occasion for, ,in- 1 teresting speculation, that in^the^ektikircli^ nary intellectual development of woman which has taken place in the past century casuis try seems to have been and still to be ignored by tacit assent. We use the term, not in its corrupted or secondary sense as indicating a mere method of sophistical and unduly subtle reason ing, but in its original meaning as signifying the science which guides the human conscience in the performance of its duties. For this task the feminine mind, as generally conceived by the judgment of men, seems to possess peculiar adaptation -a fact clearly recognized by our predecessors, who added "casuistess" to their vocabulary simultaneously with "casuist"; but there is no record of a woman s having justified the theory, even while the science held widest vogue, and the word has now become so nearly 3 WOMEN, ETC. obsolete as to be found in hardly any of our modern dictionaries. The natural deduction would seem to be that some peculiar quality of the feminine mind constitutes a practically insurmountable ob stacle to really efficient training in the art; and, frankly, while we hesitate to accept so distasteful, a, conclusion not fully enforced by eyi-de&if, ,. we; must admit that personal obser vation tends to confirm that view. We know inariy: women, whose faculties easily permit of primary reasoning, but almost invariably when hard pressed they reach a point where the logi cal faculty gives place to impatience at what they regard as captious contradiction, and instinct prompts a swift leap over intervening obstacles to a congenial conclusion. The goal often is the same as that reached by the slower and more guarded processes of close mental application, but confidence that it is indeed the true one necessarily rests solely upon the hypothesis of intuitive accuracy. To this seeming deficiency, we suspect, must be attributed the common by which we mean vulgar remark that a woman s argument is restricted to the word "because." Such an assertion is, of course, a gross exaggeration, cynical to a degree and unworthy, from its very 4 WOMEN, ETC. lack of qualitative discrimination, of one making the slightest pretence of sincerity. It is true, undoubtedly, that woman s inferences are drawn more frequently from inner consciousness than from the careful consideration of commonplace facts, such, for example, as have been establish ed by wearisome statistics, but this is due less to her dearth of knowledge than to her abun dance of information, which has so wide a range that specific application of any portion of it to the solution of a definite question irritates the mind much as a plaster of mustard inflames a constricted section of the body. After all, in such cases, results alone deserve serious con templation, and we have no hesitation in assert ing the superiority of the feminine deduction, in so far, at least, as any problem of morals or conscience is concerned. Why so few women are gifted with that in describable and invaluable quality vaguely de fined as a sense of humor we have never been able to understand; but, surely, adequate com pensation is to be found in the greater keenness of their wit. Indeed, speaking antithetically, man has ever been so generally recognized as the example, par excellence, of sheer stupidity that even the misogytiistical Elizabethan scholars did not take the trouble to give a feminine 5 WOMEN, ETC. termination to the word dolt. Certain writers have maintained that no woman could divine, without making direct inquiry, whether one is serious or whimsical, so one keeps one s face free from tell-tale expression; but is not this very fact, if such it be, evidence of her greater straightforwardness? Moreover, while it is un doubtedly true that most women lie about one thing or another from the time they enter upon what is termed their social existence, is not their comparative clumsiness in the practice of that art creditable rather than the reverse, affording, as it does, a clear indication of their natural in clination toward truthfulness ? We are constrained to admit that in philos ophy and correlative matters the more sensi tized intellect of woman has made little prog ress ; hence the obsoleteness of "casuistess." Why, we cannot tell. The defect for as such we must regard it, in view of the severe demands of citizenship may be inherent and incurable, or, as we prefer to believe, attributable to a condition of mind which has impelled them to reject any trait which might be displeasing in the eyes of men. It is in the hope that the latter diagnosis of cause is correct that we vent ure suggestions designed to induce rigid mental discipline while the mind is still in plastic form. 6 WOMEN, ETC. We have the greater freedom in making such suggestions because of our feeling of certainty that, however deficient she may be comparatively in reflective intellectuality, woman to-day is im measurably superior to man in a spiritual sense. This means that she is stronger in resistance to pain or misfortune in any experience so crucial as to require the support of the highest-minded fortitude. Despite the effects of hateful mod ern influences, there still exists no authority in the world so powerful as the simple purity of a good woman, before which no erring man can fail to feel abashed. The Greed of Women WHILE admitting, as we must if honest in our minds, that women possess the greater portion of the goodness of the world, we cannot deny and we should not overlook the patent truth that they are responsible also for nearly, if not quite, all of the evil practices prevalent among men. It is certainly trite and perhaps idle to hark back to the original example in the garden, but there is surely an unmistakable symptom in the unbroken continuance of a tendency which cannot rightfully be ignored. Montaigne noted it in the case of the woman who grossly pur- 7 WOMEN, ETC. Joined from her husband, that, as she told her confessor, she might distribute more liberal alms "as if," the philosopher adds, disdain fully, "anybody would believe a word of this religious dispensation." The fact, however, remains to this day that the dominance in the feminine mind of intuition over reason produces like paradoxes in morals, and is largely responsible for the trials and tribulations now being experienced in this curiously and somewhat causelessly unhappy land. Envy, it is true, lies at the root of our trouble; but, oddly enough, envy not of the rich who hold, but of the rich who give. Men continue to amass great fortunes and keep them to themselves or bequeath them to their own, and die uncensured by their fellows, to pass to their just rewards or punishments elsewhere; it is upon those who are suspected of purloining from the people in order that they may distribute more liberal alms, that the wrath of the popu lace is now visited. Undoubtedly, instinctive resentment of the double gratification thus ob tained of first acquiring and then bestowing constitutes the chief cause of this quite general disapproval; but it is clearly the fault, as we have indicated, of intuition inherited from wom an rather than of the reasoning faculty granted 8 WOMEN, ETC. by the Maker, for some purpose known only to Himself, to man. Greed lies at the bottom woman s greed, transmitted to her unfortunate sons. We cast no aspersions nor would we contemplate for a moment indulgence in complacent crimination; we merely state the truth as it seems to the dis passionate observer. Indeed, to us the ex ceptional greed of woman, painful but necessary to record, has ever seemed one of the most at tractive qualities of a being so complex that only divinity itself would have had the hardi hood to fetch it into existence. It corresponds in no sense to the gluttony of man in respect to food or drink, or the avarice of man as to worldly goods. We have never known a woman who could not, for appearance s sake, curb her appetite for fattening condiments with com parative ease; she, too, is a notable exception who fails to reduce mere money more closely than a man could possibly do to its proper place in relationship with other desirable pos sessions. Not that the woman is by nature the more generous; far from it; as to small things she is stingy; but in large ways her intuition is broader, wiser, and conducive to finer sacrifice of self than the more reflective trait of the average man. 9 WOMEN, ETC. A woman of Ardea, according to Machiavelli, refused to consent to the marriage of her rich daughter with a plebeian whose suit was favored by the young woman s guardians, and thereby stirred up strife between the classes to such a point that the lowly born appealed to the Volscians, and the nobility to the Romans, for aid. Savage warfare ensued, and when finally the Romans triumphed all the chiefs of what they were pleased to regard as the sedition were put to death. Whereupon the philosopher sad ly reflects that: "first, we see that women have been the cause of great dissensions and much ruin to states, and have caused great damage to those who govern them." What became of the girl and her dowry he fails to record, and at this late day, though regretfully, we may perhaps admit the unprofitableness of searching inquiry on that subject. The real point lies in the fact that the sagacious adviser of princes was disposed to reprehend the mother for insisting upon wedding her daughter to a noble. We behold similar examples to this day and smile occasionally at exhibitions of overweening social ambition ; but, after all, only the motive deserves consideration. Then, as often happens now, the mother realized that she was subjecting herself to ridicule, but she was 10 WOMEN, ETC. quite ready and willing to bear the odium for the sake of her child. Despite the disastrous results, therefore, her act, considered by itself, was noble. So it is with the greed of woman generally. It is more inordinate than that of man, but it is never sordid, and has its root almost invariably in devotion to one more beloved by her than herself. The only hunger, speaking broadly, she feels for self is for affection, and such greed, no less than that for the best that can be had for one s own, is, we maintain, not material, but truly spiritual and therefore worthy of God s lesser creatures. Of Friendship Among Women CAN women be friends? History and tra dition abound in evidences of great and en during attachments among men. "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David" so firmly that the Hebrew prince did not hesitate to incur the wrath of the great king, his father, and himself forfeit the crown; the Pythagorean Damon was happy to pledge his very life for the doubtful reappearance of Pythias; even the egoist Montaigne was so much affected by the death of La Boetie that, to escape from his ii WOMEN, ETC. melancholy, he "chose a new mistress," and at intervals to the day of his death, in the words of his own journal, "was suddenly seized with such painful thoughts of his friend, and it was so long before he came to himself, that it did him much harm." Subjecting this emotion to analysis, in con formity with his custom, he reached the con clusion that true friendship could exist only between beings wholly independent one of another. A father could not hold the relation ship toward his son, because of the stronger paternal attitude and the necessary disparity in age prohibiting equal comprehension of all subjects; between brothers, "the complication of interests, the division of estates, the raising of the one at the undoing of the other, strangely weaken and slacken the fraternal tie," since of necessity pursuing fortune and advancement by the same path they must often jostle and hinder one another; betwixt the sexes love intervenes, "more active, more eager, more sharp, but withal more precipitous, fickle, moving, and in constant, a fever subject to intermission," whereas true friendship is "a general and uni versal fire," temperate and equal, constant and steady, easy and smooth, "without poignancy or roughness"; indeed, even among them- 12 WOMEN, ETC. selves, women are pronounced incapable of maintaining the sacred tie, not being "endued with firmness of mind to endure the constraint of so hard and durable a knot." In this final, brusque declaration the philoso pher readily accepted the teachings of the an cient schools without regard to the fact, which even then he must have surmised, that recogni tion of his own great powers was to depend upon the unselfish devotion and untiring efforts of the adopted daughter, whose soul, he predicted, would "one day be capable of very great things, and, among others, of the perfection of that sacred friendship to which we do not read that any of her sex could even yet arrive." We can but conclude that, in common with the majority of his sex, the great man was convinced that a happy exception had been made for his par ticular benefit in suitable recognition of his extraordinary talents. But it is easy to convict a verbose philosopher of inconsistency; the question whether women are temperamentally capable of true friendship still remains. Sacrifices for the sake of love of man and offspring are recorded without number, but female Davids and Damons are not readily discovered in either history or legend. Pro fessions of Platonic affection continue to evoke WOMEN, ETC. jeers of incredulity, and the traditional dis- ingenuousness of "dearest friends" still plays well its part in caricature. The changeableness of woman s nature has become axiomatic. Can it be that, throughout the ages, even to these enlightened days, it has retained consistency in this respect alone ? It suffices for us to raise the question; to others of more certain mind we relinquish the hazardous privilege of adducing evidence and passing judgment. Of Woman s Right to Enhance Nature s Charms WE have never been able to understand why any one should wish to be younger or older than he or she really is. Vanity, of course, must be reckoned with as a potent force among human frailties, and is responsible, doubtless, for much of woman s resentment at the ravages of passing years. But it is not the flight of time, nor even the contemplation of a steady approach to the limit of human existence, that offends her in stinct; neither of these considerations really enters her mind. It is the change in physical appearance inseparable from growing old that sinks into her heart with every glance at a mirror and makes her sad; angry, too, with God for not imposing the same penalties upon 14 WOMEN, ETC. aging men. She would not express the feeling in those words; if so bluntly put, she might affrightedly deny its existence; but pressed for an answer, if truthful, as most women are in such matters, while dodging the fixing of responsi bility for this seeming discrimination against her sex, she will insist invariably upon the un fairness of the arrangement whereby a process that adds to man s physical distinction detracts from woman s charm. For ourselves, we make it a point seldom to criticise publicly the methods of the Creator in shaping the destinies of the human race; but in this instance we frankly concede the ap parent justice of woman s instinctive attitude. Happily, however, we seem to perceive in the wearing away of men s prejudices signs of miti gation of the inequity. Time was, not so long ago, when, holding the fixed opinions of youth, we sternly reprehended such innocent practices as changing the color of one s hair, or brightening the complexion on occasion, or even dieting seriously for the figure s sake. Not so now! The most casual consideration growing out of philosophical observation has not merely modi fied our views, but has virtually changed them altogether. It may still be, as once we con fidently asserted and now often hear from others WOMEN, ETC. like foolish, that there is nothing so beautiful as a young face in a frame of silver gray; but when the possessor of those incongruous features happens to be the wife of a man most often taken to be her son, we declare her resort to henna to be not only a right, but a duty to both. The custom of lacing we judge to be far less prevalent than it was a dozen years ago; the wiser method of dieting seems to have superseded it; but, even so, no fair-minded person can behold a woman without realizing that God meant her to be attractive; and He knows, as well as we, that there is nothing more hideous than an uncouth feminine appearance. In passing judgment upon this point, therefore, even on religious grounds, we could go no further conscientiously than St. Paul went in enjoining moderation in all things. Moreover, we believe in woman s right as well as in women s rights, just as we hang tenaciously to the doctrine of individual liberty for man. As a people, we will not go far astray if we sustain the time-honored principle that they are best governed who are least governed, and further insist that each and every thinking person may do whatever in the world best pleases himself or herself, so long as such conduct does not af fect deleteriously the welfare of the community. That is the distinctively American idea and the 16 WOMEN, ETC. basis of all true freedom; wherefore, we set our face fixedly against every opposing tendency, political or otherwise, and earnestly maintain that woman s enhancement, by harmless arti fices, of Nature s endowment of charm is as clearly her inalienable prerogative as immunity from interference with thought and speech is that of man. On Being Younger or Older THERE seem to be a beginning and an end of the above reflection, and there may be correla tion between the two, but if so we humbly con fess our inability to detect it. What the desira bility of growing old gracefully, in conformity with the plain intent of nature, has to do with safeguarding personal liberty would pass the comprehension of a Solomon. Who cares ? No journey is so delightful as that which leads no one knows whither, and whose end is unforeseen even by the wayfarer himself. And yet the mere orderliness of mind which should not countenance vagaries, leaving a premise suspended in the air, and never so much as pointing to a conclusion, surely calls for duteous observance. Why, then, do persons wish they were younger in years? Is the motive to be found in an WOMEN, ETC. honest desire to live one s life over and better, or in mere envy of those who seem to be lighter- hearted ? If the former, there is no good reason to believe that the wider experience brought into play would make adequate compensation for the certain loss of the enthusiasm of ignorance; if the latter, there could be no effect other than the unhappiness of mental, moral, and even physical isolation. The fulness of enjoyment of companionship can be had only with one s con temporaries in years, faculties, and sympathies. Ignorance may profit from association with wis dom, but only through distasteful confession of inferiority by the one and shameful waste of time by the other. Not even egotism can long abide such relationship; overweening con ceit, which itself is the essence of folly, alone can endure it. Undeniably, inspiration may be drawn from the young and useful lessons from the old, but these are mere helps to one s own equipment, such as can be obtained with greater readiness and a sense of surer guidance from books. We heard once, not authoritatively, of course, and yet with sufficient indication of verity, of an aged man who died and went to heaven, and, being accorded the privilege of appointing his own form of beatitude, seized the oppor- 18 WOMEN, ETC. tunity to gratify a desire that had possessed him for many years, and took his place among the young angels. He found himself in hell. The immaturity of their knowledge inspired in his breast only pity and contempt; his own superior wisdom, on the other hand, so bored their buoyant spirits that they flew away from him at every opportunity; necessarily, therefore, he was left solitary and miserable, and was glad, indeed, to return to the company of his equals. The famous American philosopher who re lated to us this incident would not guarantee its authenticity, but we have no doubt whatever that the result of a similar experiment on earth would be the same. Nature hedges us about with certain restrictions which may as well be recognized cheerfully, since they cannot be ig nored. For ourselves, after no small waste of time in testing theories, we find personal associa tion with men slightly younger and with women a few years older to be the most profitable. Lacking the opportunity of communing with either, we turn promptly to the ambitious and well-bred American lad or to his placid and spiritually inclined grandmother; with silly girls and vain old men we have no patience, and we extend to them only such consideration as courtesy exacts. 19 WOMEN, ETC. Under no circumstances would we, if we could, be a single day further from or nearer to the grave. A desire to be younger, carried to its logical conclusion, would result in a hope to live and strive for food and clothes or their equiva lents forever, than which surely no prospect could be more dreary or fatal to incentive. On the whole, we are disposed to believe that the wish to renew one s youth, which we hear ex pressed so often, is wholly thoughtless, and, if the opportunity for its gratification really of fered, would be abandoned as quickly as any person living would reject a proposal to make a complete exchange of soul, mind, body and all surrounding conditions with any other person. The Lesson of Aspasia SOMEBODY has mentioned Aspasia as an example of the superior possibilities of woman. Aspasia was, indeed, a genius. She was for bidden by the unique Athenian law to contract marriage with a citizen, but it would be a grave mistake to assume that she was thereby de prived of opportunities to achieve greatness. On the contrary, strange to say, her apparent disqualification was her real opportunity; for the high-born Athenian girl, seemingly more 20 WOMEN, ETC. fortunate, when at length she was wedded to a husband who had been chosen for her by old women in her early years, was by custom rele gated to the attic and forbidden that association with others which is essential to the refine ment of mind and manners. But possessing neither beauty nor certain other attributes now adays considered essential to the maintenance of a secure position in polite society, Aspasia s wit, wisdom, tact, and charm sufficed to win for her a personal influence over learned men not wielded before or since by any woman. In common with all of the stranger- women, she was free to practise arts of pleasing, and was encouraged by custom to invent new methods of feeding the vanity of men. Undoubtedly, too, in studying how best to first ensnare and then enslave, she profited from the advice of the experienced philosophers, just as the gentle Theodota was guided by Socrates himself. That her ultimate success was purely intellect ual is clearly evidenced by the fact that the most scrupulous citizens brought their own wives to her for instruction; but it is unlikely that the powerful Pericles would have been driven to the extremity of tears to win her acquittal from a sympathetic tribunal if, at the beginning, at least, her life had not been 21 WOMEN, ETC. as sensual as that of the majority of her class. But does not the real question of Aspasia s superiority relate less to the extent of her in fluence than to the good or ill wrought by its exercise ? It is true that she urged the unfort unate citizen-women to strive to attain a higher level by cultivating attractiveness of mind and person; but she must have realized, possibly not without gratification, that advice so sardonic necessarily, however earnest, could avail little. In point of fact, indeed, the effect produced was quite the reverse of that apparently hoped for. The citizen -women were depressed and the hetaerae were exhilarated by Aspasia s suc cess; and from the day of her ascendency the former lost ground steadily, and the latter be came more and more prominent and influential, until finally the wives were lost sight of alto gether. Not one of their names appears on the pages of history from Athens s golden age to its decline, while simultaneously the records abound increasingly in mention of the "companions." Nobody ever heard of Mrs. Plato, or Mrs. Aristotle, or Mrs. Epicurus, or Mrs. Isocrates; but Archeanassa, Herpyllis, Leontium, and Me- taneira were names familiar to every resident of Athens. So were scores of others. One writer 22 WOMEN, ETC. painted fascinating pictures of one hundred and thirty-three; the comic poets chronicled their witty sayings and turned them into verse ; sculp tors, inspired by the dazzling appearance of the most beautiful women the world has ever seen, preserved to posterity their fine features; artists, statesmen, teachers all were at their feet. Meanwhile, the wives remained at home caring for unloved children, and so lost to the refine ments of their ancestors that before the end of the dismal story we are told that they ate like dogs, tearing away meat with their teeth and cramming it into their mouths. And yet, in theory and before the law, these neglected and degraded women continued to be responsible for the propagation of a race, while no burden rested upon the shoulders of those better equipped, but unrecognized by the state. From the down fall of the nation which inevitably ensued, are we not forced not only to conclude that the decay of Athens began with the ascendency of Aspasia, but also to infer that no state can long survive the humiliation of one sex by the other, or even withstand the unavoidable effect of open disre gard of what might be termed instinctive conven tion? If so, the lesson is one well learned in these days of loosening marital ties, since it supple- 23 WOMEN, ETC. ments that which has come to be regarded as only a moral requirement with a vitally prac tical reason for sturdy resistance to further en croachments upon the wholesome condition tra ditionally attained through matrimony. The same thoughtless writer who has thus misrepresented the influence of Aspasia quotes the opinion of that satiric poet Hipponax, to the effect that the only two pleasant days a man has with his wife are those of her marriage and of her burial a remark which could find response only in the shallowest of minds. An observation based upon aught else than truth is not satirical, but silly and such is this of Hipponax. The fact, as, of course, every one of experience well knows, is that the most trying and profanity-provoking days in a man s life are those when he marries and buries a con sort. On neither occasion is he the central figure; on each he is an object of sympathy rather than of envy; and his masculine spirit revolts against the enforcement of passivity no less than against the interruption of business. A week or so later, in both cases, he becomes reconciled, enthusiastically or decorously, as the case may be, to the requirements of fate; but for the time he is the most wretched of beings. To offer such an opinion upon the authority of 24 WOMEN, ETC. a choleric humpback whose sole claim to dis tinction rests upon his invention of a choliambic measure substituting a spondee for the final iambus in an iambic trimeter is, to our mind, absurd. A "satiric poet," forsooth, who spared neither his own parents nor the gods, who never experienced even his own vaunted gratification at either marrying or burying a wife, because he never had one! A lot he knew about it as compared with us of the present enlightened day! Of the Ignorance of Women in the Management of Men THAT the modern woman approaching or passing through the tiresome middle age should attach more importance to the maintenance of her own figure in pleasing outlines than to that of her husband is not surprising; from child hood she has been taught that beauty and grace are essentials of the gentle sex only, strength being regarded as the main requisite of the other. No particular disadvantage, therefore, inures to a youth, in the esteem of his fair companion, from ruggedness of features, so long as his disposition is amiable, his attentions exclusive, and his prospects satisfactory; but if he be fat, his chances of winning favor are correspondingly 3 25 WOMEN, ETC. slim. It is not that a chubby appearance is so distasteful in itself, but rather that it is so provocative of ridicule as virtually to preclude serious consideration of him as a suitor in the mind of a proud and sensitive maiden. Insensible change of attitude follows marriage almost immediately, and grows and grows, until, in the forties, as we have noted, undivided at tention is given by the female to her form; and the male may with impunity disregard considera tions pertaining to his physical attractiveness, if he retain sufficient activity to be known to the community as a good provider. We need not question the propriety of one sex absorbing and monopolizing beauty in order to demonstrate the folly of such a policy; we may even go so far as to admit that greater goodness is the inevitable accompaniment of superior grace, and yet find a fatal weakness in the heedless custom. It is natural and right that a woman should be selfish; but, so being, she only deprives herself of full gratification if she fails to nourish her husband as carefully as she preserves pickles at least, and keep him good to behold and long to live. The aged saying that "at forty a man is a physician or a fool" may have some basis if he be a bachelor; but, if married, he is properly chargeable with no 26 WOMEN, ETC. obligation whatever to familiarize himself with the conditions which are conducive to his physical well-being. The entire responsibility rests upon the wife, who has vastly more at stake, to care for, while pretending to obey, him. It is his privilege, therefore, to be the fool and her duty to be the physician herself. And how ill-equipped for the performance of this task, however well-intentioned, is the aver age woman! Practically all she knows is that milk is good for babies, and all she thinks is that grown men must have much food to feed the furnaces of their physical organism. A failing appetite is to her a signal of danger, and, forthwith, anxious and well-meaning, she places before him tempting viands and pleads with him to try to eat more if only to please her, with the inevitable consequence that he, being weak and chivalrous, and hating to be hectored and wept over, lugubriously yields and adds fuel, often fatal, to a lurking disorder. Wilful ignorance is at the bottom of all such blundering; while fatuously striving to save them, women kill good providers by the score, and then hold themselves to be fit objects of sympathy be cause, forsooth, of their self-imposed widowhood. Frankly, we have no patience with such per sons. There is no more occasion for a woman 2 7 WOMEN, ETC. under sixty to be a widow than there is for her to be a spinster; the average man is tough, easily guided, and only too glad to conform to any subtle suggestions that are not too obviously for his good or too contrary to his inclinations. Tact is requisite, of course, but this is a possession common to all women; the lack is in rudimentary knowledge of the demonstrated methods of prolonging physical life. Take, for example, the simple matter of diet. Hardly a woman now alive is ignorant of what hers should be; to preserve that corporeal symmetry to which we have alluded she has sought pro fessional advice; but did ever one hear of a woman paying real money to a physician for prescription of a diet to obviate impending corpulence on the part of her husband ? For such purposes she relies unhesitatingly upon her boasted instinct; he smokes too much if bilious, or he drinks too freely if growing stout, and she so informs him; but the information is not news, and the truth is so disagreeable to any really human man that he feels quite justified in re marking, as he usually does in such instances, upon the propriety of officious persons mind ing their own business. His attitude is neither obtuse nor contumacious, but he desires tactful 28 WOMEN, ETC. suggestion of a rational remedy, not mere re proachful statement of bitter fact, and that is what the woman who has failed to equip herself for the performance of her duty as a caretaker is unable to give. Primarily, therefore, women are responsible, through ignorance, for the mul tiplication of tobacco hearts and the filling of married drunkards graves. We say it firmly but not unkindly, as we shall now proceed to demonstrate by indicating in a general way how a man, having been properly reared, may in ordinary circumstances be kept alive and work ing for his family as long as his services may be required. Much has been written but little learned re specting diet since the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Luigi Cornaro, at the age of eighty-three, set down the results of his personal experience in his first essay on regimen for the aged entitled, Discorsi delta Vita Sobria, pub lished at Padua in 1558. Thus he wrote: "There are old lovers of feeding who say that it is necessary that they should eat and drink a great deal to keep up their natural heat, which is constantly diminishing as they advance in years ; and that it is, therefore, their duty to eat heartily, and of such things as please their palate, be they hot, cold, or temperate; and that, were they to 29 WOMEN, ETC. lead a sober life, it would be a short one. To this I answer that our kind mother, Nature, in order that old men may live still to a greater age, has contrived matters so that they should be able to subsist on little, as I do, for large quantities of food cannot be digested by old and feeble stomachs. . . . By always eating little, the stomach, not being much burdened, need not wait long to have an appetite. It is for this reason that dry bread relishes so well with me; and I know it from ex perience, and can with truth affirm, I find such sweetness in it that I should be afraid of sinning against temperance, were it not for my being con vinced of the absolute necessity of eating of it, and that we cannot make use of a more natural food. And thou, kind parent, Nature, who actest so lovingly by thy aged offspring, in order to prolong his days, hast contrived matters so in his favor that he can live upon very little; and in order to add to the favor, and do him still greater service, hast made him sensible that, as in his youth he used to eat twice a day, when he arrives at old age he ought to divide that food, of which he was accustomed before to make but two meals, into four; because, thus divided, it will be more easily digested; and as in his youth he made but two collations in a day, he should, in his old age, make four, provided, however, he lessens the quan tity as his years increase. "And this is what I do, agreeably to my own experience; and, therefore, my spirits, not op pressed by much food, but barely kept up, are always brisk, especially after eating, so that I am obliged then to sing a song, and afterward to write. 30 WOMEN, ETC. " Nor do I ever find myself the worse for writing immediately after meals, nor is my understanding ever clearer, nor am I apt to be drowsy, the food I take being in too small a quantity to send up any fumes to the brain. Oh, how advantageous it is to an old man to eat but little ! Accordingly I, who know it, eat but just enough to keep body and soul together." Cornaro ate of all kinds of food, animal as well as vegetable, but in very small quantity, and he drank moderately of the light wines of his country, diminishing his slender rations as age increased. He finally died without agony, while comfortably seated in an arm-chair, at the age of one hundred and four. The mere fact that one never hears of a very old stout man establishes the wisdom of the method proposed for the aged; but it is equally applicable in middle life. After pointing out that, when the period of irrepressible vigor which belongs to youth has passed away, it is time to see that our intake of food should constitute a harmonious equality with our expenditure through such activity as we put forth, the learned physician, Sir Henry Thompson, says plainly: "The balance of unexpended nutriment must be thrown off in some form or other; it may be relegated in the form of fat to be stored on the 31 WOMEN, ETC. external surface of the body, or be packed among the internal organs, and thus he or she may be come corpulent and heavy, if a facility for con verting appropriate material into fat is consistent with the constitution of the individual; for some constitutions appear to be without the power of storing fat, however rich the diet or inactive their habits may be. When, therefore, this process cannot take place, and in many instances, also, when it does, the oversupply of nutritious elements ingested must go somewhere, more or less directly, to produce disease in some other form, probably at first interfering with the action of the liver, and next appearing as gout or rheumatism, or as the cause of fluxes and obstructions of various kinds. "Less nutriment, therefore, must be taken as age advances, or, rather, as activity diminishes, or the individual will suffer. If he continues to consume the same abundant breakfasts, sub stantial lunches, and heavy dinners, which at the summit of his power he could dispose of almost with impunity, he will in time certainly either accumulate fat or become acquainted with gout or rheumatism, or show signs of unhealthy deposit of some kind in some part of the body, processes which must inevitably empoison, undermine, or shorten his remaining term of life. He must re duce his intake, because a smaller expenditure is an enforced condition of existence." What folly, then, for a woman to endeavor, through the concoction of special dishes and by 32 WOMEN, ETC. means of earnest pleadings, to tempt the appe tite of her bilious provider! Better far deprive him of all food till the natural expenditure has exhausted the intake, and then resist rather than encourage the ravenings of nature. This is the first and most important lesson. The second relates to the use of stimulants in the form of alcohol and tobacco. Not so many years ago, perhaps even now, in New England, all alcoholic beverages were grouped as "rum," no distinction being made between the strongest spirits and the weakest of extracts of malt. This fulness of ignorance no longer exists gen erally, but a no less common error which does prevail is quite as injurious in effect. Few women perceive harm in the drinking of still wines with meals, and yet the most casual ob servation will convince any one that this is the custom which is almost invariably responsible for gout, corpulence, and general incapacity. On the other hand, it is not uncommon for foolish women to implore their husbands never, under any circumstances, to drink whiskey, being wholly oblivious of the fully established fact that the least harmful of all ways of feeding alcohol to the system is in the form of good whiskey diluted ten times or more in still water of moderate temperature. 33 WOMEN, ETC. Mitigation of the evil effects of the tobacco habit calls for psychological treatment. Man is one of the weakest members of the animal creation and must be dealt with accordingly. While one may, from fear or bravado, succeed in breaking from a fixed practice altogether, none living is strong enough to maintain for any long period of time a moderate limitation upon his cravings. He is a slave of his imagination, resentful of restrictions, and dogged in resistance to them. The wise and tactful guide will rec ognize the existence of these weaknesses of char acter, and, instead of trying to exterminate or overcome them, will seek to circumvent them. Having learned from painstaking inquiry that the only really hurtful smoking is that which precedes the evening meal, she proposes, not a hateful limitation, but a mere redistribution of indulgence. Thus, will he not, for example, smoke but one cigar in the morning and but two in the afternoon, if no complaint be made of the number consumed in the evening? This, like any other suggestion tending to deprive him of personal gratification, he will regard suspiciously at first, but will presently yield, having reasoned within himself that he is not acting under com pulsion and therefore has no cause of resent ment, and being wholly satisfied with any ar- 34 WOMEN, ETC. rangement, the making of which enables him to demonstrate in a condescending manner his ex ceptional strength of will power. The consequence is that no tax is put upon his imagination, no challenge is offered to his masculine pride, and he finds little difficulty in merely postponing a pleasure whose total de privation or definite limitation he would not consider for a moment. He does not perceive, and care should be taken not to point out to him, that in reality his total consumption of tobacco is materially reduced because of the simple fact that there is only so much time between dinner and bed at best and after awhile the hour for the repast may be quietly extended, but this should be done cautiously and for some shrewdly chosen foreign reason, so that the smouldering fires of resentment be not stirred. The inevitable result, of course, is prolongation of the life, improvement of the disposition, and enlargement of the powers of the provider, to the great advantage of her whose truly intellectual endeavor so reaps its just reward. Thus, wives, guide your husbands! realizing that in practical living an ounce of meditation is worth a ton of prayer, and was so by the Lord intended. 35 WOMEN, ETC. Of Second Wives and Husbands THAT a second wife fares better than one first wedded has become an axiom, the truth of which has been, and no doubt will continue to be, amply confirmed by observation. We won der why. The effect of gradual change from novel to commonplace relationship is under standable; so also is the result of a widening of mental, moral, and physical interest on the one side accompanied by a narrowing on the other, but these are features of existence wholly in cidental to and in accord with the immutable laws of nature. How often it happens in these days of women s exchange that, to the most kindly observer or even friend, the first seems vastly superior in all respects to the second companion, despite the abrupt change of at titude on the part of him most concerned from indifference or cruelty toward the former to patient devotion to her presumably fortunate successor ! The greed of man in the possession of woman has been manifest from the beginning. Adam undoubtedly would have taken more wives could he have spared more ribs; and, despite his subsequent exemplary life, barring an excusable tendency after service so strenuous to linger 36 WOMEN, ETC. too long with the wine, it is quite improbable that Noah lived as a recluse during those five hundred long years before he begat our an cestral Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Even the canny Jacob, after being tricked by the no less crafty Laban, doubtless in meet return for swindling his guileless brother, was unwilling to part with Leah, and put his hands to the plough for seven more long years to get Rachel. Apparently there was little difference in attrac tiveness between the two sisters. The "tender eyes" of the elder surely must have counter balanced the beauty of the younger; moreover, Leah gladdened her husband s heart with many lusty children long before Rachel placed in his arms the little Joseph, who subsequently en gaged in predatory activities that in these good days would clearly fall within the provisions of the Interstate Commerce act and subject their doer to stern rebuke for possessing a swollen fortune. Nevertheless, when, later, Jacob lifted up his eyes, in conformity with his characteristic caution, and beheld the red-headed Esau ap proaching with four hundred stalwart retainers, he promptly stationed the patient Leah and her children on the firing-line and secluded Rachel and the future young corn monopolist in a pro tected tent in the rear. We readily perceive, 37 WOMEN, ETC. therefore, as previously noted, that from the very beginning and for no apparent reason the second wife was unduly preferred, and so the cus tom has maintained even to these regenerate days. Further analysis of the causes of this con tinuing discrimination might prove interesting, but could hardly serve any useful purpose; so we may as well place the burden upon the au thority of Biblical tradition and cease to bear too heavily upon the modern usage, which virtu ally forbids one to divorce more than one part ner without encountering forbidding glances from scrupulous high society of the present day. Since the Puritanic dictum that, having made one s bed, one must lie in it, has proven too restricted for twentieth-century requirements, it is a comfort to reflect that observance of obliga tions to a second spouse must be maintained to avert the ban of social ostracism. But what happens to the second husband? To him no truism has been applied and we have never heard his case discussed. Is he, too, re garded more kindly than his predecessor, or is his position as insignificant as that of a bride groom on a wedding-day ? Upon this point no data seem to exist, nor have we been able by the most diligent inquiry to extract any trust- 38 WOMEN, ETC. worthy information from those best qualified to testify. On the Taxation of Spinsters WHY not tax old maids? As a class, they enjoy all of the advantages of civilization, bar ring those of a minor nature excluded by their own insistent regard for the conventions, and make no adequate return. True, their property, if real, is forced to yield a slight contribution to the common fund for preservation of order and protection of life and liberty, but their personal possessions are practically immune from im posts, and the less said of their contributions to customs -revenue, perhaps, the better. More over, the great majority of them have no sub stantial acquisitions and, though in special in stances no doubt a joy, are generally a burden upon patient relatives. Thus they become mere clogs upon the wheels of progress from the sheer obstinacy that holds them from the performance of their proper tasks in life. There was never yet a woman who could not marry, as she should, if she would. Undoubt edly, beauty of form, mind, and character, to say nothing of worldly possessions and other minor aids, contribute largely to facilitate a 39 WOMEN, ETC. man s discriminative selection of a mate, but none of these effects is really essential. It is only necessary to be a woman to win a man- some man. Eve surely was not rich and, judg ing from such portraits of her as we have seen, was quite plain in appearance; clearly, too, she was stupid or she would never have acted on a suggestion from a questionable source; but once she passed on the hint to him, how quick was Adam s fall! So it has ever been and ever will be. Spinsterhood is a purely voluntary condi tion, due to reprehensible contrariness, as is clearly proven by the non-existence of a single authentic claim to exemption because of lack of opportunity. Deliberate refusal to fulfil a destiny is, we grant, less inexcusable in this country than else where; we have even so high authority as Mr. Bryce, expressed in his American Common wealth, for the assertion that "More resources are open to an American woman who has to lead a solitary life, not merely in the way of em ployment, but for the occupation of her mind and tastes, than to an English spinster or widow." Our acquaintance with Englishwomen of the two classes designated is not sufficiently wide to justify disagreement with this careful view, even though we did not, as we do, hold 40 WOMEN, ETC. that widows are sui generis and should never be confounded with others of their sex; but in any case, in view of the fact already established that there is no such woman i. e., one com pelled to "lead a solitary life" the differentia tion between nationalities need not be con sidered. Paul s direct injunction was addressed to Timothy in these unmistakable words: "I will that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give no occasion to the adver sary to speak reproachfully." The excellence of this advice, as thus presented in the Author ized Version, was so obvious that the learned revisers ventured a change only in the most tentative manner. In point of fact, there can be little doubt that Paul s reference was really restricted to younger widows, not younger wom en, since he had just enjoined that none be en rolled as a widow "under threescore years old," because those who had not reached that age of reasonable discretion were accustomed to "de sire to marry" and "to be idle, going about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not." Apparently, at the time of writing to Timothy, Paul regarded remarriage of the younger widows as the only effective 4 4i WOMEN, ETC. remedy for harmful gossip ; and yet, but a short time before, he had written to his friends in Corinth, "I say to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I " i.e., as an old bachelor, since even then he was somewhat advanced in years. We must conclude that, although the clearest and wisest of teachers of his day in matters con cerning men, when he undertook to treat of those pertaining specifically to women, and to widows especially, Paul s mind became confused. Cu riously enough, the like might be said of nearly all of the great preachers who succeeded him surely, at any rate, from the days of Knox to those of Beecher. For some inscrutable reason each has seemed to lack the specific knowledge of feminine traits and inclinations derived from experience by many of us who are in other re spects comparatively ill informed. The real point at issue is whether the old maid of the present day renders a fair equivalent, or even tries to do so in one way or another, for what she receives; and to that our answer is decisively negative. As contrasted even with her uninteresting prototype of twenty or thirty years ago, she is less disposed to humble rec ognition of the ignominy of her position, often more petulant, and invariably more exacting, 42 WOMEN, ETC. contemptuous of children, and only in rare exceptions kindly disposed even toward cats, to say nothing of mice and other gentle and unoffending creatures. Decorous behavior has been relegated to the pages of mythology; and the Puritanic primness, whose very rigidity once constituted a unique charm, has been shame lessly supplanted by a seeming resentment at the recognized necessity of maintaining a serious appearance. It is a sad state of affairs, to which we have given much unavailing thought. As a last resort in search of a method of reformation, the ubiquitary remedy of taxation occurs to our mind as the only one holding forth hope of effectiveness. Bitter experience has demonstrated that no determined action on the part of local or State authorities can be anticipated in response to even so peremptory a demand in the plain in terest of an indivisible nation, but spinsters are proverbially peripatetic and flit from sister to sister, and from brother-in-law to brother-in-law, with facility ; so we may assume that they could readily be brought within the provisions of the act relating to interstate commerce, and be compelled by suitable "constructions" of the Constitution to meet their just obligations to the rapidly disappearing human race. 43 WOMEN, ETC. "Why Bachelors Should Not Be Taxed To INSIST, as some do, that if spinsters be taxed bachelors likewise should be compelled to contribute to the general fund is to our mind absurd. The two classes are quite distinct. As we have already noted, any woman may marry if she will ; but it often happens that the only lady who appears sufficiently pleasing in the eyes of a man obstinately refuses to mate with him. The one condition, therefore, is in a broad sense voluntary, while the other is un avoidable and, of course, not properly punish able. In the old days, it is true, the unmarried man was considered fit prey for the tax-gatherer. Ancient Sparta, indeed, treated celibacy as a crime of a minor nature, such as we would term a "misdemeanor." Rome was less brutal, but Julius Cassar discriminated shockingly against bachelors in the allotment of the Campanian lands, and a law was enacted, under Augustus, forbidding an unmarried man under sixty to accept a legacy. The purpose of Julius plainly was to induce the rearing of large families, as he barred from sharing in the spoils even the fathers of less than three children; and it is probable that the motive of Augustus was simi lar, since the prohibition against the inheritance 44 WOMEN, ETC. of legacies applied also to women under fifty, besides actually compelling a widow to remarry within two years after the decease of her hus band in order to secure her portion of his estate. From time to time special taxes have been imposed upon single men in Great Britain and Ireland, but only, it was always carefully stated, for the purpose of increasing revenues. In France, on the other hand, fear of depopulation is said to be at the root of a movement to exact toll for celibacy. It will be seen, then, that the actuating causes have varied widely; but, generally speaking, the discrimination has rested upon the Spartan principle that it is the duty to the state of every citizen to rear up legitimate children, although there is room for suspicion that, in some instances, the hen-pecked married men who made the laws felt that bachelors should pay well for happiness that seemed to them exceptional. Of the forty millions of persons of both sexes of a marriageable age in this country, more than twelve millions remain single. This number seems large enough to justify the insistence that, from the viewpoint of a far-seeing nation, desirous of providing cadets and midshipmen for a large navy, the indefinite continuance of such a condition is intolerable. Lest the 45 WOMEN, ETC. various States might be suddenly directed to enact laws that would bear unduly upon un married men or suffer them to be brought under the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, along with old maids, we earnestly beseech re flection upon certain facts established by our federal census. According to the statistics of 1900, for example, the country contained only 1,182,293 widowers, or only three per cent, of the entire male population, as against 2,721,564 widows, or seven and three-tenths per cent, of all the females. This surprising disparity surely merits serious consideration. We may not as sume, for chivalric reasons, that our delicately nurtured ladies are of tougher fibre and more enduring physical nature than their husbands; hence, we are driven to the conclusion that the hazard of matrimony is vastly greater for men than for women, as is evidenced by the great disparity in the actual fatalities. Moreover, the total of divorced men is only 84,903, or two- tenths of one per cent., as against 114,965, or three-tenths of one per cent., of divorced women, showing clearly that even after being freed from irksome bonds a comparatively small proportion of men have sufficient strength left to withstand the effect of their previous tribulation. That these significant facts do, or should, WOMEN, ETC. escape the thoughtful attention of a prudent bachelor is not to be expected; realizing, as he must from a study of the statistics, the com parative paucity of his chances of longevity during the matrimonial period and the virtual certainty of his discouraged spirit wasting away soon after divorce, is he not reasonably warrant ed in evading, in all seemly ways, the wiles of the spinster, and should he in equity be taxed for so doing? Clearly, it seems to us that such a course finds ample justification in the mere in stinct of self-preservation, which induces even a soldier to avoid engagements against undue odds. Having, therefore, as we believe, fully es tablished the rightfulness of discrimination in favor of the bachelor as against the spinster in matters relating to taxation, we regard the ad vancement of further obvious arguments, based upon the inherent rights of married hostesses in unattached men, as wholly supererogatory. Of the danger of matrimony itself falling into disfavor as an avocation, we frankly have no ap prehension; the philosopher, we fear, did not err greatly when he declared that, so long as the race continues human, marriage will be "like a cage ; those birds that are inside desiring to get out, and those that are out wanting to get in." 47 WOMEN, ETC. The Selection of a Husband BECAUSE it is the duty of every woman to marry some man, it by no means follows that she is deprived of the privilege of making acute discrimination; on the contrary, to fulfil her mission as completely as possible, she should exercise the greatest care in selecting a mate. Time was when she had no say in the matter, and in some countries she has little or none to day; but in this happily civilized land she still possesses, and will undoubtedly hold for all time, the right first to choose and then ensnare. It is a noble prerogative one, in our judgment, that should be appreciated and cherished above all others. And yet, as we have observed, it should be exercised with caution. Let nothing be left to chance, as Plato would have had it when he decreed that pairing should be done by lot; while not over-nice, be at least particular, in order that the one chosen may feel honored by the distinction conferred upon him, and so be the more readily induced to show his undying gratefulness. Much that was thought and written years ago on how to choose a wife was good enough for the time, but the recent reversal of the relative attitudes of seeker and sought renders it value- 48 WOMEN, ETC. less. Nevertheless, despite the fact that, in considering the points to be heeded and the precautions to be observed by womankind, we find ourselves in a fallow field, certain general principles may be regarded as established. It is best, for example, to capture a husband while he is still young, docile, and plastic. Preferably also he should be in love. He may then be trained after the manner best calculated to serve the convenience of her for whom thence forth he must and should toil. Under no circumstances would we, if a woman, unless a widow, marry a bachelor past forty years of age, and we should look askance at one approaching thirty-five. Such a one, however ingratiating in appearance and demeanor, is not only invariably trying, but actually hope less, and only too frequently commits suicide on the honeymoon, to the intense annoyance of the bride. Nor would we again, unless a wid ow, of course select a philosopher or a writer of essays upon the proper conduct of life and kindred disagreeable topics. Such as they know too much that is not true, and are prone to build in imagination absurd theories and then insist upon their being put into practice. Let the reader observe the matrimonial requirements of the learned Gibbon, who, at forty-seven, wrote 49 WOMEN, ETC. from Lausanne to the Right Honorable Lady Sheffield in this characteristic strain: "An excellent house, a good table, a pleasant garden, are no contemptible ingredients in human happiness. The general style of society hits my fancy ; I have cultivated a large and agreeable cir cle of acquaintance, and I am much deceived if I have not laid the foundations of two or three more intimate and valuable connections ; but their names would be indifferent, and it would require pages, or rather volumes, to describe their persons and characters. " With regard to my standing dish, my domestic friend, I could not be much disappointed, after an intimacy of eight-and-twenty years. His heart and his head are excellent; he has the warmest attachment for me, he is satisfied that I have the same for him: some slight imperfections must be mutually supported ; two bachelors, who have lived so long alone and independent, have their peculiar fancies and humors, and when the mask of form and ceremony is laid aside, every moment in a family life has not the sweetness of the honey moon, even between husbands and wives who have the truest and most tender regard for each other. " Should you be very much surprised to hear of my being married? Amazing as it may seem, I do assure you that the event is less improbable than it would have appeared to myself a twelve month ago. Deyverdun and I have often agreed, in jest and in earnest, that a house like ours would be regulated, and graced, and enlivened by an 50 WOMEN, ETC. agreeable female companion; but each of us seems desirous that his friend should sacrifice himself for the public good. Since my residence here I have lived much in women s company; and, to your credit be it spoken, I like you the better the more I see of you. Not that I am in love with any particular person. I have discovered about half a dozen wives who would please me in different ways, and by various merits: one as a mistress (a widow, vastly like the Eliza; if she returns I am to bring them together) ; a second, a lively, enter taining acquaintance; a third, a sincere, good- natured friend; a fourth, who would preside with grace and dignity at the head of my table and family; a fifth, an excellent economist and house keeper; and a sixth, a very useful nurse." It is pretty writing and probably not too seriously meant, but yet how indicative of the utterly selfish and calculating spirit of the bachelor in the forties! Assuredly, the erudite Gibbon and the crotchety Deyverdun would have liked a woman to attend to their household affairs, but each preferred that the other take the chance of assuming a burden; and, however prudent a wife thus obtained might have proven to be, we may be certain that her advent would have been attributed to human prescience and that she would not be regarded as coming, as the Scriptures truly say, "direct from the Lord." And yet the pompous Gibbon should 5 1 WOMEN, ETC. have known better. Twenty-odd years before, while still capable of feeling human emotion, he had fallen in love really and truly with the Lausanne minister s daughter, Susanne Curchod, and would have married her but for his father s disapproval; but self-interest prevailed, and he let the beautiful girl go, to become the wife of Necker and the mother of Madame de Stael. Doubtless the melancholy aspect of the great man s autobiography is due largely to his subsequent feeling of aggrievement at having deprived himself, by excessive caution, of a most desirable companionship. But it is ever so with men who have passed forty unsubdued by domestic discipline; their flagrant demands invariably exceed the bounds of reason. Observe Gibbon s requirements: a mistress, a lively acquaintance, a good-natured friend, a dignified head of the table, a frugal housekeeper, and a useful nurse all moulded into one feminine form. The enormity of the requisition becomes quickly apparent when we stop to think and realize that even few men possess so many qualifications in abundance. Indeed, if the truth be told, we can think of but two or three now living. In all fairness, however, it must be confessed that the learned one betrayed an appreciation, 5 2 WOMEN, ETC. somewhat humorous, of his own absurdities, having the grace finally to add to his letter: " Could I find all these qualities united in a single person, I should dare to make my addresses, and should deserve to be refused." Of his rightful deserts in such a contingency there can be no question, but in point of fact, of course, there was no need of apprehension, for the simple reason that such a female person never lived, and if she had and Gibbon had found her, he would have invented and de manded additional qualifications for the winning of his favor. How can a man, silly enough to have lived single until middle - age, expect to feel the "grand passion" and be "carried away"? Simple observation has taught us that it is con trary to some irrefragable law of nature to fall in love after forty. One may, of course, con tinue to hold to the very grave the inestimable blessing previously acquired; but that which, after two score, a gentleman of the present day considers a recrudescence of love is really no more than a blending of mawkish sentiment, growing out of passing fancy, with regard for creature comforts, derived from habits of self- indulgence. Of such male persons we say em- 53 WOMEN, ETC. phatically to all women, except widows, Be ware! in no wise, however, disavowing our pre vious declarations to the effect that if none bet ter can be had, the narrow path of duty lies straight and plain before the searching eyes of every living spinster. The Sagacious Frivolity of Widows WE have never been able to understand why even the dour Jeremiah should have regarded widowhood as a just cause of reproach. What ever may be their sentiments after the event, few women, while their husbands live, really wish to lose them, and, barring those who cultivate the habit of nagging or whining to their own great enjoyment, practically none can be held directly responsible for the demise of her partner. It was not uncommon, however, in the old days, to consider misfortune itself as deserving of censure, and it was in this cruelly harsh spirit, we assume, that the prophet spoke. We doubt if he would find much cause for lamentation if alive and observant to-day. Surely no reproach now attaches to widow hood, and we question whether, in point of fact, it is any longer regarded as an affliction and not, in the general run, as a somewhat happy cir- 54 WOMEN, ETC. cumstance. True, the lot of a woman, especially a young woman, suddenly deprived of the pres ence of the man whom she has grown accus tomed to see about the house, is still regarded as one of peculiar sadness; but it is, indeed, amazing to note the brevity of the time required to transform commiseration into congratulation, and even envy, on the part of her sisters. The primary cause of this attitude lies doubtless in the value attached to the acquirement of pecuniary independence and personal freedom, but unless we have misjudged the controlling forces of femininity, a most unlikely supposition, the enviousness is directly traceable to a sus picion that men are prone to consider widows more attractive than maidens or even married women of similar ages. One never hears of a sour young widow, and seldom of a gay old maid; the former is referred to invariably as " captivating," the latter usually as "crabbed," and it is needless to say which a man is asked to come to meet at teas, house -parties, and like functions, where the masculine presence is most desired and with the greatest difficulty obtained. It is an interesting fact, moreover, that the discrimination in favor of the widow finds ample justification, although it is probably accounted 55 WOMEN, ETC. for by the difference between what is expected of her and of her imwedded sister. No re sponsibility as to attractiveness rests upon the shoulders of an unalluring spinster, and, sen sitive to this depressing fact, she soon ceases to practise the arts of pleasing and relies for at tention upon cultivated personal satire, which quickly palls upon one seeking a more gracious form of amusement. The young widow, on the other hand, realizing that her shining qualities have been duly heralded, is constantly alive to the necessity of justifying her reputation for vivacity, sweetness of disposition, charm of manner or daring speech, as the case may be, and is induced by pride to exert her utmost en deavors to make herself agreeable. In this she profits from the American man s chivalry to women and fidelity to men, and is aided ma terially by the convention of polite society, which accords her a much wider range of topics than is permitted to her unfortunate rival, whose coquetry must be veiled by seeming innocence and becoming modesty. Not that demure appearance and coy glances lack efficacy; far from it. Even beauty, "all powerful as it is," according to Montaigne, "has not wherewithal to make itself relished without the mediation of these little arts"; if spinsters 56 WOMEN, ETC. had been endowed with a monopoly of such weapons the contest would be waged more evenly. Unfortunately for them, if not indeed for all of us, these qualities are common to all women, and are so susceptible of sedulous cul tivation by constant practice that the maiden s shyness of manner is fully counterbalanced by the greater adeptness of the widow in the ex ercise of flitting obliquity by eyelashes tinged to meet the requirements of harmonious ex pression. Indefinite continuance in the intermediate state, which we have seen to be far from un happy, would be contrary to feminine nature and distinctly unwise, as tending toward what might seem to have the effect of a professional condition, such, for example, as inevitably withers interest in a lady who has buried more than two husbands; but in the present state of our civilization, in view of the considerations herein set forth simply, yet to our mind con clusively, we unhesitatingly advise preliminary marriage with one carefully selected with a view to his early demise, to be followed by an interim of joyous widowhood before definitely and finally engaging in matrimony as a perma nent vocation likely to induce the placidity of rational existence. s 57 WOMEN, ETC. Love, Fiction, and Learned Ladies WHEN learned ladies discourse upon love we invariably pay strict attention and find much advantage in so doing less, we confess, on account of the instruction thus acquired than from the opportunity to study the subtlety with which barbs are forged for sisters not so fully endowed with knowledge. It was with no little zest, therefore, that we once opened a contem porary periodical bearing on its title-page the name of such a one as the author of an essay headed interrogatively, "Is Cupid a Conven tion?" Assuming that the name of the god was utilized chiefly to attract notice and that the discourse would be upon the thing itself, some disappointment met the discovery that the sole purpose of the learned lady was to make protest against the comparative dominance of the tender passion in modern fiction. Briefly, as we made her out, if the writer had the con struction of our novels, she would eliminate love as a motive, or even as an incidental feat ure, upon the ground that it has ceased to be a substantial influence and, in fact, no longer holds, except for the adolescent, any appreciable interest. Womanlike, and for no particular purpose WOMEN, ETC. that we can discover, other, perhaps, than to justify a striking title, the author opened her rugged essay with an attack upon the god him self that seemed to us little short of scurrilous. "Are we not obsessed." she cried, impatiently, in the very first paragraph, "by an exaggerated worship? This fat child with a ribbon on wingleted, and sometimes infelicitously crowned with a silk hat is he not largely a convention, poetic and pictorial?" Now, quite aside from this reprehensible flippancy in treating of even a pagan deity, the serious misrepresentation perpetrated by such a description merited stern rebuke. The true Eros symbolized much more than mere sickly sentimentality, as hinted by the learned lady; to the Spartans and Cretans he was the god of patriotism or love of country, and as such was accorded sacrifices previous to the commencement of a battle. Moreover, so far from being a chubby boy ridiculously and, to our nicer modern vision, inappropriately clad, he was represented as lithe of limb and graceful of form, a model of ripening youth unquestionably the most attractive figure in the Attic school of sculpture. As the god of the love that operates in nature, he had par ticipated in the creation of the world out of Chaos, and consequently occupied a position 59 WOMEN, ETC. higher than that of his fellow-deities, because it was he who swayed their passions no less than those of men. To depict him, then, as a little buffoon, as he appears in our comic pa pers, or as a mere trickster of human hearts, as he is found upon silly valentines, is unworthy of even a learned lady apparently prejudiced in favor of her own sex. But this only in passing; we hold no brief for the "shirtless darling," Cupid; nor need we, nor any one; the very armor of his recognized attri butes constitutes an impregnable defence against attacks from whatever source. The chief complaint is of those who write and print the love-stories of to-day. Our cen sor continued : "The simpler love-stories of earlier days now appeal only to children or to those whose novels are few and far between. Those who read many are inevitably wearied of a single monotonous theme, and demand other entertainment. The entertainer unfortunately knows no other theme, and finding his confection appeal but dully to the jaded palate, he forthwith adds to the strength of the concoction, makes it richer, hotter, more highly seasoned. For a while this held us, only to produce the same weariness by its ceaseless repetition. Then the distracted confectioner, knowing no dish but this, finding it no longer popular, either weak or strong, proceeds to let it grow sour and stale 60 WOMEN, ETC. ferment to beady foam or horrible decay. If we no longer want the love-story simple and easy, they give us the love-story complex and difficult. If we weary of it pleasant and satisfying, it be comes unpleasant and disappointing. If we tire of the natural and healthy, the virtuous and nor mal, then appear the unnatural and diseased, the vicious and abnormal of every degree." Herein lay truth undoubtedly , but by no means the whole truth. Mark Twain, Kipling, Steven son, and Stockton are but a few of those who have responded successfully to what the learned lady termed the call of progress. Indeed, she herself noted with satisfaction and as proof of her contention the favor won by David Harum and Mrs. Wiggs, in cheery disregard of the fact that she was indicating, not novels, but pictures. The truth, of course, is that lit erature, like religion, science, and life itself, is evolutionary. In the beginning, as Professor Brander Matthews concisely points out, fiction dealt with the Impossible with wonders and mysteries as of the Arabian Nights, with tales of chivalry like Amadis of Gaul, and weird ro mances. Then came the Improbable, full of adventurous deeds, such as chain the imagina tion but never are performed. Followed the Probable of Balzac, Thackeray, and Dickens, 61 WOMEN, ETC. accompanied by the Inevitable as represented by the Scarlet Letter, Romola, Smoke, and Anna Karenina. Precisely where we stand to-day it would be difficult to determine; certain it is that the recent recrudescence of unduly chi- valric tales has run its course, and more substan tial diet is demanded. May it not be possible that the reading public has become so large that there is no longer one, in the sense of hav ing a common taste, and that desires, likes, and dislikes are more diversified than ever before? If so, would it be the part of wisdom to dis courage the building of fiction around the mo tive which still possesses the greatest power of attraction ? True, as the learned lady observed, ambition is now a mighty force and merits the attention of our skilled story-makers. But that is no recent development. Ambition has always been a potent influence more potent invariably than love in the cases of those who have been most conspicuous in the world s history. This was true of Alexander and of Pompey; and any school-boy can tell which way Napoleon turned when forced to choose between the two. In Julius Caesar love and ambition seemed to jostle each other with equal force. A beautiful per son in himself, of a fair complexion, tall and 62 WOMEN, ETC. sprightly, full-faced, with quick, hazel eyes, according to Suetonius, all the great ladies, from the queens Cleopatra and Eunoe and the consorts of Pompey and Gabinius and Cassius, to the little sister of Cato, even his own four wives, we are told, loved him devotedly; but never for a minute of an hour did he step aside from an occasion that might conduce in any way to his advancement; and tales in plenty were written by himself and others of his con quests, but of armed men, not of susceptible hearts. Again true, as our learned lady said, the scientific spirit is lifting us forward and religion is broadening and enlightening, but is it a fact that "Education does more to advance human ity in a century than does Master Cupid in a thousand years"? It is a harsh and uncom promising view, making of us all mere hewers of wood, reducing the most divine of our attri butes to an utterly negligible quantity, disput ing the ennobling influence of spirituality, and leaving to life itself naught else than the deso lation of materialism as interpreted by science. Such is not advancement except in the minds of those unblessed with the finest of God s gifts to men and women the love that makes the world go round, and may ever, we trust, con- 63 WOMEN, ETC. stitute the basis of OUT stoiy -telling, though in nowise, of course, being barred as a topic of intellectual discourse among learned ladies who know less or more of that whereof they speak. Jealousy as a Curable Disease and as an Admirable Attribute BECAUSE the world continues to wag much as it did when Malory wrote, "There befele a lalousye betwixe kynge Marke and Sir Tristram, for they loved bo the one lady," we are greatly interested to hear from France that the most erudite of modern scientists are convinced that at last they feel justified in pronouncing jealousy a disease, like consumption, which, while not invariably curable, may yet be eradicated in most cases by enlightened treatment. The malady, according to these notable discoverers, may be traced through three distinct phases: "First, jealous hyperesthesia, or morbid excita tion of sentiments attended by uneasiness or fear; second, jealous monomania, which is a real mental disease leading to the mania of persecution; third, jealous insanity, which is the last stage of the two preceding phases, and this should be treated like any other form of in sanity." The conclusion logically follows that 64 WOMEN, ETC. jealousy is only an affliction of the nerve centres of the brain, and can be readily modified by the use of such ordinary therapeutic remedies as cold douches and bromides. The experiments now being made we shall follow with keen in terest, for the reason that a successful demon stration of the efficacy of the new treatment would obviously tend to exercise a material influence upon the intellectual and moral de velopment of the human race; and yet we are constrained to question whether any actual ad vantage is to be gained by dealing with this disorder through exclusively scientific means. It has become the custom of thoughtless and heedless persons to regard jealousy in all of its manifold forms as obnoxious, and its manifesta tion as discreditable; and so, undoubtedly, in its most vulgar phase it should be considered even by the thoughtful and heedful. One Pittacus, for example, as good and just and wise a man as lived in his day and generation, was probably justified in begging from the Senate of Mar seilles the privilege of killing himself because of the increasing clamor from the "jealous head" of his wife. Nor may we dispute the wisdom of the judicial body, which well knew and valued his worth, in acceding to his request, despite the lamentable and in our judgment un- 65 WOMEN, ETC. warranted bitterness indicated by his positive general declaration to the effect that there could be no happy marriage, except that of a blind woman to a deaf man. That the services of such a one should have been lost to the world for a cause so trifling to mankind as a whole, however exasperating to the individual, is, of course, regrettable; but there must have been inherent weakness of some sort in a man who would resort to a remedy which, from time im memorial, has been considered cowardly, and the attempt to employ which is to-day a mis demeanor under the law in a number of our States. A jealous wife, as we all know from sympathetic observation of the affairs of our neighbors, is a severe trial; but, clearly, a man s duty to his fellow-men should restrain him from pursuing a course which opens the way for her to foist her clamor upon another, and perhaps others, equally helpless. It is a matter of grave consideration whether the appropriation of a moderate sum of money for the building of a ducking-stool would not have better served both the Senate and the senator. But we suspect that the form of jealousy whose cure by the use of bromides and douches is pronounced by the French savans to be practicable is that defined by Addison as, "The 66 WOMEN, ETC. Pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally loved by the Person whom he entirely loves." This variety of suffering is not uncommon, and frequently ends in homicide followed by suicide. The mind of the man thus afflicted is not necessarily abnormal; it may be only sensitive and resentful. Even in these com paratively enlightened days barbaric notions pre vail as to the superior rights of the male; and it is as instinctive among humans as among beasts to feel a sense of deprivation of just dues if affection be not returned upon demand. Consequently, to the warped judgment murder becomes a mere act of justice, and self-destruc tion follows naturally to forestall the penalty of the law. Underlying all motives is the common and unreasoning misconception that love can be acquired by insistence upon a fancied or even real right to its possession. If persons thus afflicted, whose tragical doings are recorded daily and we fear with growing frequency in the newspapers, would emulate the example of Pittacus and restrict their activities to attempts upon their own lives, there would be little cause for grief; but unfortunately this happens so seldom and the efforts, moreover, are so often unsuccessful that we are disposed to welcome any discovery that would tend to save for others 67 WOMEN, ETC. the lives even of ladies of flirtatious dispo sition. But further than this we could not con scientiously go, for the reason that in all other phases jealousy has always seemed to us one of the most admirable and attractive of the traits directly imparted by divinity to human ity and shared with substantial equality by both. The minor prophet Pusey correctly in terprets the Old Testament s recognition of the attribute as one "whereby God does not endure the love of His creatures to be transferred from Him or divided with Him; it is twofold; an in tense love, not bearing imperfections or unfaith fulness in that which it loves and so chasten ing it; or not bearing the ill-dealings of those who would injure what it loves, and so de stroying them." From this comprehensive defi nition sprang the application to human affairs as voiced first by Bolingbroke when he marked the difference between jealousy and distrust, saying, "Men may be jealous on Account of their Liberties, and I think they ought to be so, even when they have no immediate Distrust that the Persons who govern seek to invade them," and reiterated by Emerson in the charac teristic phrase, "The jealousy of every class to guard itself is a testimony to the reality they 68 WOMEN, ETC. have found in life." In this broad, wise sense no nobler trait can be found in either divinity or humanity, and no exception can be taken to the direct declaration forbidding the worship of graven images, "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God," as the best of His creatures are to this day jealous men and jealous women, conserving in real stability the rights of others by insisting upon their own. The Theory and Practice of Osculation ORIGINALLY, kissing was a form of mere salutation, corresponding to the custom among the Eskimos of rubbing noses. Thus, in the very olden days, it seemed to many a proper and even pious act to kiss the feet of idols, just as even now millions would rejoice in the oppor tunity after the modern manner, of course to kiss the toe of the pope. St. Paul extended this phase of the ceremony by inventing and enjoin ng the holy kiss," or kiss of charity, signifying Christian love and brotherhood. So far as we have been able to learn, this method of presenting evidence of fellowship served sat isfactorily while confined to the brethren; but gradual, and apparently not unwilling, par ticipation in it by the sisters gave rise to un- WOMEN, ETC. certainties in the minds of so many husbands of selfish disposition that the practice was long ago discontinued, and is now never observed, except under an unusual stress of circumstance, or when a peculiarly plausible pretext can be found. As a matter of fact, the kiss prescribed by the Apostle was as harmless a thing as the kisses of Arabian women upon the beards of their male relatives; but, as the requirements of the times became less rigorous, the habit of osculation increased, and abandonment of the pretty custom became necessary, for reasons which we need not recount. But it is not the kiss as a symbol of friendship or respect, or even of such abject submission as is referred to by David in his well and favorably known psalm telling how it is well for certain undesirable citizens to "lick the dust," that we deem worthy of consideration at this time. In deed, we should as soon think of endeavoring to deduce a moral from a shake of the hand or a wag of the ear by one of the few known to be gifted with the capacity to practise that ac complishment. That which formerly fascinated us, we admit frankly, and to this day possesses an interest which we suspect to be shared by many, is the kiss upon the lips by reputable members of the opposite sexes such, for ex- 70 WOMEN, ETC. ample, as Jacob lifted up his voice and wept over, on first meeting Rachel, when, having rolled away the stone so that her sheep might reach the water, he took his reward after the pleasing manner of his kind of those patriarchal days. The notorious and reprehensible conduct of historians in neglecting matters of real impor tance to the human race is responsible for our lack of information respecting the precise time when the nature of the kiss insensibly changed from perfunctoriness to something more vital and worth while; but, apparently, the evolution was completed early in the seventeenth century. At any rate, the most observing of Frenchmen who thrived at the end of the sixteenth century bemoaned the fact that promiscuity had ren dered "of no esteem" the kisses which Socrates had pronounced "so powerful and dangerous for stealing hearts"; whereas, only twenty-five years later, Dr. Heylin, making his interesting Survaye of France, recorded his indignation at the incivility of the ladies in turning away from kindly proffers of salutation, and added in true British fashion his own belief that "the chaste and innocent kiss of an English gentle woman is more in heaven than their best de votions." We should hesitate to question the 7 1 WOMEN, ETC. exactitude, even as to adjectives, of one so high ly reputed for accuracy as the learned doctor, but his disappointment even chagrin, perhaps may be appreciated when we recall the fact that simultaneously Erasmus was writing from England to his friend Andrelinus, somewhat en thusiastically, in this wise: "If, Faustus, thou knewest the advantages of England, thou wouldst run hither with winged feet, and if the gout would not suffer that, thou wouldst wish thyself a Daedalus. For, to name one among many, here are girls with divine countenances, bland and courteous, and whom thou wouldst readily prefer to thy Muses. And, besides, there is a custom which can never be sufficiently praised; for, if you visit anywhere, you are dismissed with kisses; if you return, those sweet things are again divided; wherever you go, you are abundantly kissed. In short, move which way you will, all things are full of delight." We perceive, therefore, that France, as usual, established this fashion of regarding promiscu ous osculation by even bland and courteous ladies as improper, if not, indeed, immodest, at least in public; but the dissatisfaction of Eng land at being compelled to heed the decorous dictum of the true arbiter is clearly evidenced to 72 WOMEN, ETC. this day by the more responsive attitude of her own daughters when reasonably assured of im munity from discovery. But, however interesting may be the history of transition in national characteristics, it can be only dull and even tiring in comparison with consideration of a topic, not only so fascinating in itself, but so suggestive of related subjects and so helpful in a constant endeavor to point out to the human race the way of advancement along rational and practicable lines. So we re vert, with a certain sense of relief and antici patory joy, to reflections upon the theory and practice to which allusion has been made in our simple title. To begin, then, at the beginning: Is kiss ing a necessity or a luxury? Is it beneficial or harmful ? Under what circumstances, to what extent, and by whom should it be indulged in? And why, among those presumably capable of and responsible for the shaping of our common destiny, has it received so small a percentage of the attention which all of us not unfamiliar with its delights fully realize that it deserves ? Clearly, custom plays a large part in the de termination of these problems. The marriage service does not impose a specific osculatory obligation upon either party to the contract; 73 WOMEN, ETC. but nobody would question for a moment the implied right of each to kiss the other at suitable moments, and in a manner, of course, not in consistent with the maintenance of the dignity of both. Although, we may safely assume, in a large majority of cases the practice has not been wholly neglected during the period of court ship, there is general tacit recognition of an abrupt change taking place in the quality or flavor, if we may so term it, of the caress simul taneously with the exchange of marital vows. Indeed, no engraving is more popular, particu larly in our rural communities, than that of the tired and tearful bride receiving from the groom a salutation of the variety commonly described as "melting," as the minister and parents ostentatiously disappear through the doorway. In France, where young persons are permitted far less freedom than in America or even in England, the picture is truthfully labelled "The First Kiss"; but here the differ ence in condition is recognized by the substitu tion of "Wedded Bliss," or, as if spoken or breathed, "Mine!" and, in rare instances, "All Mine!" It is in this hint of possession that we detect the underlying cause of the change in quality or flavor; probably at no other moment, either 74 WOMEN, ETC. before or afterward, are necessity and luxury so happily blended. From that time forward, even among the best-regulated and least-fash ionable families, the caress, as an inevitable consequence of frequency and easy acquisition, gradually simmers down to an inoffensive but somewhat perfunctory evidence of friendliness. It by no means follows that this fact implies reproach; on the contrary, evolution in any oth er direction, especially toward a display of more ardent emotion, would be in flat opposition to the laws of nature, and consequently abnormal. A further distinction in the nature of the kiss, involving partial reversion to the earlier type, often arises from the decease of one of the part ners, usually the husband; but it may be ac cepted as a certainty that the savor peculiar to the original participation can never be wholly regained. A more apt illustration or more conclusive confirmation of this unhappy truth could not be desired than that contained in the appellations bestowed upon the products of his art by the most famous of concocters of beverages designed to induce a quickening of the appetite. Of the two mixtures from whose invention he derived the highest satisfaction, one he called "The Maiden s Prayer"; the other was designated as "The Widow s Delight." 75 WOMEN, ETC. Both were, and continue to be, according to current reports, deservedly popular; but the significance of the delicate differentiation and the certainty that even to the untutored mind a reversal of the terms would have seemed pre posterous tend greatly to clarify our sufficiently explicit, yet necessarily somewhat vague, as sertion respecting the constantly varying qual ity of the kiss as a consequence of changing conditions. We suspect, moreover, that the essentials to full appreciation of osculatory favors differ correspondingly; the ingredients, for example, composing that which the artist felicitously termed a "maiden s prayer," while sufficing in early life, in later years seeming insipid and inadequate as compared with the richer combination of elements comprised in a "widow s delight." Either would be regarded, of course, as a luxury. Indeed, broadly speak ing, we may safely assume that only such kisses as convention decrees that we may and should have at will, fall within the realm of necessity; all others, although in widely varying degrees, are indeed luxuries. Whether kissing should be regarded as bene ficial or harmful depends largely upon the point of view from which the subject is considered. In a strictly selfish sense, a nice balance, prob- WOMEN, ETC. ably, should be struck between the spiritual gain and the physical injury; but it is a grave question whether for any reason we are justified in withholding pleasure from others of a sex whose chief craving is for sympathy. To this extent we may agree with the physicians that osculation should be confined to those of ap proximately the same ages; the indiscriminate kissing of babies, keenly susceptible to attacks from germs of all kinds, and the fondling of young women by old men and of young men by old women, are practices not only offensive in themselves, but unjust in the sense of de priving others of their just dues. We know of but one instance of happiness, though of a mitigated kind, having been secured through abstinence from kissing. That was the case of a lady who married a man who had a bad breath, and who went to her grave conscious, of course, of the suffering she had undergone from such hateful contact, but quite unaware that her situation was in any way peculiar, as she sup posed to her dying day that all men s breaths were offensive. Inasmuch as the poor lady probably could not have divorced the wretch for such a cause, it may perhaps be urged that she profited from her ignorance; but we have never heard any boasting more absurd than 77 WOMEN, ETC. that of her relatives over so rare an example of perfect chastity. As a matter of fact, of course, the unfortunate lady s exceptional ig norance merely evidenced her unattractiveness ; because, surely, nobody will insist that a comely female, wed or unwed, deaf, dumb, or blind, ever passed through life in such utter darkness. That kissing in moderation among those of like ages and dispositions involves no great risk may be considered established; else it would not have been invented and authorized by Holy Writ. The difficulty lies in acting within rea sonable restrictions, but this is common to all fascinating practices; and the sure way to rout a total abstainer from any cause of enjoyment is to hurl Horace at his head, thus: " Insani sapiens nomen ferat, cequus iniqui, Ultra quam satis cst, virtutem si petit ipsam," or, as we would say: "Mad grow the wise, the just unjust are found, When e en to virtue they prescribe no bound." In such matters, those who desire to live rightly without depriving themselves unnecessarily of any form of enjoyment may well take home Paul s admonition to the Romans: "Be not wiser than you should, but be soberly wise," 78 WOMEN, ETC. Heed paid to this sagacious injunction will pre vent one from going very far along the wrong road, while simultaneously permitting suitable gratification of human impulses. Why osculation has received so little atten tion from wise men we cannot tell. It may be that thinking and kissing go not well together; if so, few of us would require long time to choose between them. Or, possibly, the subject has seemed to require too delicate handling; or it may have seemed trifling. We neither know nor care. The most valuable practical lesson to be derived from experience and now set down is that closing of the eyes is essential to perfec tion in kissing. Aside from this hint to those of congenial spirit, we would merely direct the attention of those who may decry the impor tance of the topic to the influence of the charm in retaining hold upon one worth keeping, and rendering less frequent and hazardous those absences which are only too likely to make the heart grow fonder of some one else. The American Girls and Boys WE wonder whether the observation which convinced Mr. Howells that the American wom an talks with a nasal twang is quite recent, 79 WOMEN, ETC. Time was, perhaps a score of years ago, when undoubtedly such an assertion would have been capable of easy demonstration, especially in New England and the Middle West peopled from the Atlantic coast; but, while hesitating to dispute the conclusion of the first living American student of social conditions, we can not refrain from expressing the opinion that a notable change in enunciation has been wrought during the past few years. It began simulta neously with the movement eastward of teach ers and mothers and daughters in search of combined education and recreation, and it has been intensified year by year in proportion to the swelling magnitude of that migration. In that fashionable society whose god or should we say goddess? is form, the nasal inflection has been wholly obliterated; and, while traces undoubtedly remain in certain segregated sec tions of the country, we seriously question whether anywhere it is now sufficiently com mon to justify the declaration that it is the chief defect in American young womanhood. Our girls have not yet acquired the peculiar beauty of the cultivated English voice because of a continuing disposition to speak with the muscles of the throat rather than of the lips ; but this practice is very far removed from the nasal 80 WOMEN, ETC. method, and possesses a distinct advantage in freedom from the English doll-like monotony. In common, we suspect, with Mr. Howells, we find little that is interesting, aside from her physical appearance, in the American girl of to day between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two. She has failed to keep pace in any respect with the American boy, whose advancement we have remarked with satisfaction. Indeed, if the blunt truth be spoken, she is rather a bore, self-conscious, ignorant, and concerned chiefly with matrimonial aspirations. To the Englishman her pertness, which he imagines to be chic, is fascinating and indicative of mental brightness, but this effect is attributable largely to his own dulness. It is the clever manage ment of a limited number of phrases, supple mented by copious use of what he considers delightful slang, not substance or even meas urable information, that appeals to his jaded mentality. In point of intelligence, she is, we believe, the equal if not the superior of her English cousin, but in the choice of language she is sadly inferior. The use of slang by boys finds some excuse in unavoidable association with unrefined men; its use by girls is simply odious and a direct reflection upon the atten tion and taste of their mothers. This is easily 81 WOMEN, ETC. proven by inquiry into the sources of the petted phrases. Take, for example, two of the more recent "Twenty-three" and "Skidoo." These have slightly different meanings, the exact in terpretation of the former being "to the rear," and of the latter "scamper" or "flee in haste." The former had its origin at the race-track, which ordinarily has only sufficient width to accommodate twenty-two horses standing side by side, so that the twenty-third is necessarily relegated to an unfavorable position. The use of the coined phrase, therefore, suggests a knowl edge of details of professional sport, the pos session of which by a young girl is distinctly unbecoming. The second is a mere substitute for "skedaddle," itself of American origin, and now regarded by common assent as egregiously vulgar. Scores of like illustrations might be put in evidence ; but these should suffice to con vince a mother, teacher, or even a compara tively ignorant girl herself, of the desirability of seeking the roots of terms whose use she has come to regard as an evidence of smartness. The mother of the present day, for whose comrade-relationship with her boys we have pro found admiration, is likely to be so apprehen sive that her daughter may seem old-fashioned and lack some of the immediately modern com- 82 WOMEN, ETC. petitive fascinations that she unwisely toler ates practices disagreeable to herself. Appar ently, she has yet to learn that, to the intel ligent American of marriageable age, pertness soon comes to be as distasteful as even priggish- ness. While, then, in no sense decrying atten- tiveness to the defect still considered serious by our kindly critic, we cannot conscientiously forbear indicating a foible, the importance, of whose elimination seems even more manifest. The defect lies in education. On the whole, there can be no question that an increase of responsibilities, demanding both absorption and application of ideals, would be beneficial not only to young women themselves but to all humankind. Therefore, endow them in com mon with their brothers with the right of direct influence in the conduct of the affairs of their country, and rear them in such a way as to inculcate in their minds a realizing sense of the obligations they are about to assume. It seems to us, on the other hand, that the quality of the boy now growing up in this coun try is peculiarly fine. He is not only less ob streperous and egotistical, but clearer and cleaner minded than the lad of twenty years ago. His advance physically will be manifest to any one who will compare the figures in a class photo- 83 WOMEN, ETC. graph of to-day with those of yesterday. He is taller, straighter, better-featured, finer-haired, handsomer, and more like a thoroughbred in every way. The exercise to which much of this improvement is attributable may be no more zealous, but it seems to be less spasmodic, more consistent, and better adapted to its true pur pose. As an inevitable sequence, his habits have become more regular, improving in turn his manners. Altogether, he has become attractive, partially in what he might resent being called a girlish sense, as the effect of his greater delicacy, but chiefly in a purely masculine way, since in point of reality he was never before so manly or so scrupulous of his personal honor. His mother is the one chiefly responsible for this happy evolution. Thirty years ago, her prototype donned a cap and became frankly middle-aged at marriage. From that day the principal feature of her personal appearance, her figure, ceased to interest her especially, and at forty she was satisfactory to a degree as a mother but utterly worthless as a comrade and a helper. To-day, at forty-five she is her daughter s equal in ap pearance, and usually, we believe, her superior in the possession of that mysterious, indefina ble, yet peculiarly fascinating, quality known as "charm." She has not only maintained, but 84 WOMEN, ETC. enhanced, her attractiveness by growing with, as well as for, her children. It is this daily association from babyhood with her to whom instinct accords earliest reverence that has re fined the boy. The father may have been no less congenial as a comrade, but circumstances have minimized in a comparative sense his helpfulness as a friend. Himself the product of a generation less care fully trained, and possessing the self-satisfaction of personal success, he is unable to perceive the desirability of a change in method tending to broaden development. Hence his patronizing attitude, his disposition to continue to treat as a child the son rapidly approaching manhood. It is the mother, persisting in being a girl, who is glad to be regarded and treated by the boy as an intellectual equal. To her, therefore, belongs the credit of a transformation which we believe to be clearly perceivable, and which bodes the greatest good to this vast American organism which soon will require the finest mental and moral fibre yet demanded by civilization. Of Obstinacy in Conversation WE seem to perceive, especially among wom en, a growing disposition to regard intellectual 8s WOMEN, ETC. obstinacy as a valuable adjunct of conversation and to exercise it accordingly. The method is simple. One merely makes a practice of em phatically denying the assertion or deduction of any other, thereby enforcing immediate elucida tion, of whose necessity there has been no an ticipation and for which preparation is naturally lacking. It is a convenient and, if unexpected, an effective way of shifting the burden of proof in such a manner as to profit shrewdness at the expense of wisdom. The resultant irritation, familiar to all who have and express opinions of their own, we frankly admit not only to have felt ourselves but to have noted with inward glee in others. This fact alone sufficing to stamp the practice a3 being unworthy as it is obviously unintellectual, the tendency, if our premise be correct, merits consideration. Judgments respecting the value of mere dis putation or, as we prefer to term it, mental obstinacy, differ widely. Plato entirely prohib ited the exercise to "weak" or "ill-descended" minds, and Montaigne after declaring that "we only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and, every one contradicting and being con tradicted, it falls out that the fruit of disputation is to lose and nullify truth" tacitly assents when he demands "To what end do you go about 86 WOMEN, ETC. to inquire of him who knows nothing to pur pose?" This, however, savors not only of rare petulance, but even of the sly inconsistency of Mark Twain s dictum that he admires criticism if it is his way ; because in no other place did the great French philosopher waver from his positive declaration that "contradictions do neither offend nor alter, but only rouse and exer cise me." Recognizing a presumptive truth in the elder Cato s observation that "the wise may learn more from the fools than the fools from the wise," he professes to admire "stout expressions amongst gallant men," irrespective of the merit of the utterances or the intellectual quality of those speaking; he values only "the friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigor of its communication, as love, in biting and scratching; it is not vigorous and generous enough if it be not quarrelsome, if civilized and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears a shock." Such are the brave words of the great man, but, alas! they ring as untrue as his accounts of amours, which lived only in his imagination, and are completely confuted by his subsequent naive assertion: "When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger; I advance towards him that controverts me, as to one that instructs me ; the cause of truth ought to be the WOMEN, ETC. common cause of both; what will he answer?" Sincerity flies out of the window; policy enters the door. Less qualified yielding to the de testable Socratic method of setting traps for the unwary could not be imagined. Even our own canny Franklin was more ingenuous when, glee fully recounting his discovery of the art in Xenophon s Memorabilia, he wrote: "I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it. Therefore, I took a delight in it, practised it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowl edge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. "I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of ex pressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, un doubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I con ceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it 88 WOMEN, ETC. appears to me, or I should think it so and so, for such and such reasons ; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. " This habit, I believe, has been of great advan tage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting." The cross-questioning of Socrates, the silly pretence of Montaigne, and the crafty caution of Franklin, as combined in the method of those who display what we have termed ob stinacy in their conversation, suffice to try the patience of a saint; and yet we cannot deny that the extreme contrary is equally unworthy and obnoxious. We are driven, therefore, to inquire whether there may not be a complete divergence from both which would have the seeming of a happy medium? If, for example, one be neither hatefully disputatious for effect nor hypocritically humble from policy, but frank, natural, and wholly honest in both word and mind, is there not a reasonable probability that the impression made upon others would be as agreeable as they have a right to expect ? A Plea for Loquacity WHY do American women talk so little? Have they suddenly become so religious that 7 89 WOMEN, ETC. they consider it advisable to heed even the dicta of Solomon and the injunctions of Paul? We can hardly believe this to be the case even in the Lenten period. As we have noted frequent ly, neither the wise king nor the eloquent apostle was suitably equipped by experience and association for the guiding of womankind; one had too many wives, the other had none; wherefore the viewpoint of each, though vary ing widely from that of the other, was preju diced and untrustworthy. The very petulance of Solomon s language in expressing preference for life in a "corner of the house-top" rather than "with a brawling woman in a wide house" suggests the likelihood of an annoying experi ence still fresh in mind, else he would not have dwelt with so much particularity upon the size of the mansion. Clearly the observation was based upon an actual occurrence resulting ap parently in personal chagrin and disappoint ment at the untoward conduct of one of the six hundred whom he had recently installed in the gilded palace. It is worthy of note, in passing, moreover, that there is no intima tion in the proverb to the effect that the cosey corner on the house-top was uninhabited. In deed, circumstantially, in view of the necessity of stowing away so many companions, it would 90 WOMEN, ETC. seem quite improbable, so we may reasonably assume that the king s peevish utterance was only discriminatory and consequently as a mat ter of general application meaningless. A like conclusion is not so obvious from the further observation that "it is better to live in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman," but the propinquity of the re marks indicates that the two were inspired by the same obstreperous lady. And even at that, as has been the case usually since, the conscience of the husband seems to have been pricking even then, for he ingenuously and almost im mediately adds, "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles" a significant reflection and sound to this very day. Paul s adjuration to the brethren in Corinth to forbid women to speak in the church also was made for a specific, not a general, purpose. The Corinthian women were so forward that they frequently appeared unveiled, contrary to the custom of their country, and not only spoke their minds freely in public assembly, but garbed their persons in fine raiment to attract favorable attention. Needless to add, their efforts were successful, and the meetings of the church were characterized by scenes of WOMEN, ETC. ribaldry and profligacy. It was only fitting and necessary, consequently, for Paul, whose first unfortunately unrecorded warning had passed unheeded, to insist that "if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home" in other words, let them remain away from the church altogether until they should be willing to "adorn themselves in modest ap parel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array," and "learn in silence with all subjec tion." It was a severe rebuke, and justified t but meant only for the flirts of Corinth, not for women generally. So in every instance it will be found that the occasional Scriptural in junctions to silence so frequently quoted were placed upon womankind solely to remedy local or spasmodic evils. There is no ecumenical prohibition of feminine loquacity applicable by any stretch of the imagination to women of the present day. Their growing reticence, there fore, cannot spring from religious motive or prejudice. Can it be that Nature is reasserting her au thority? We may not deny that upon all fe males, except those politely considered as hu man, she did and does enjoin submissive silence. It is the cock that crows, the gander that honks, 92 WOMEN, ETC. the father bird that sings, the bull-frog that gulps, and even the masculine grasshopper that stridently rasps his wings. So to-day, in con formity with barbaric custom, quietude is im posed upon the harem of a Turk as upon that of a chanticleer, but how long since not without cause did we suppose we perceived the disap pearance of the habit among civilized peoples! Are we not, then, driven to the conclusion that women of to-day are beginning to talk less in the hope of thus better pleasing men? If so, while commending the motive, we would unhesitatingly question the method. American women err grievously in assuming that their actual or would-be lords dislike to hear them converse upon all suitable occasions. The mere music of their voices as contrasted with the raucous male note easily counterbalances any possible disparity in the ideas xpressed. And, compared with sheer stupidity or studied sulki- ness, loquacity is a joy to all mankind. Upon all grounds, therefore in the interest of prog ress and enlightenment, for the unburdening of the spirit, to enhance cheerfulness, to discour age care, to brighten the home, for sincerity s sake no less than for circumspection s, even for the preservation of peace and quiet within and without the American family we cry out for 93 WOMEN, ETC. a loosening of the delicate tongues now so strangely and so suspiciously stilled. The Necessity of Woman Suffrage WE are convinced that the time has arrived when the welfare of the nation would be most effectually conserved by conferring upon wom en the privilege of voting and holding polit ical office. The claim of leaders of the cause that the franchise should be granted because of a presumed inherent right we cannot admit. Whether or not in strict conformity with purely ethical considerations, it is nevertheless a fact of surpassing moment that, since the world be gan, the possession of power has depended upon ability to acquire and hold it. Practically, there has been no change in this regard, certainly since the German barons took possession of the valley of the Rhine; and, theoretically, custom of long prevalence often confers authority equal to that of written law. Man himself is not permitted in this country to vote except in compliance with arbitrary regulations, which universally disfran chise him until he reaches the age of twenty-one, and frequently during his entire lifetime. Advocates of the change only weaken their case by resting it upon the untenable proposition 94 WOMEN, ETC. that the action of the founders of the republic in restricting suffrage to their own sex was im moral. Nor do they strengthen it by insisting that the policy was unwise. Ethically they may in their arguments adduce a semblance of justi fication, but the fact is that the franchise can be obtained only by convincing those in actual authority that the time has come when the bestowal of the privilege would be advantageous to the country. Surely nothing can be gained by devoting to resentment of a condition time and energy which might be employed in com passing a remedy. Moreover, if real achieve ment be the true goal, existing circumstances cannot be ignored. A lawyer visited a man in jail, Lstened to his statement of the cause of his incarceration, and said, indignantly: "This is outrageous; they cannot lock you up on such a charge!" "But," said the untutored man, with plaintive voice, "here I be!" The women of a century, or even half a century, ago were notoriously unfitted for the performance of political acts. They possessed neither of the requisites education and ex perience. But mighty progress began with the recognition of mental alertness as the chief in gredient of real attractiveness in women, and was greatly enhanced by the sense of responsi- 95 WOMEN, ETC. bility aroused by their acquirement of rights in property. To-day we are satisfied that the in tellectual equipment of the average American woman is quite equal to that of the medial man. Morally, it is admitted, she is his superior, and therein lies the basis of our conviction that as a matter, not of right, but of policy, she should be taken into full political partnership. To those who advance the time-worn argu ment that women would not exercise such a privilege, it suffices to say that hundreds of thousands of citizens now qualified to vote sel dom exercise their prerogative, but may be de pended upon invariably in an emergency. Equal reliance, we firmly believe, might safely be placed upon women. In any case assertion to the con trary is wholly speculative, in view of the fact that the condition has never arisen and the opportunity has never been accorded. The fur ther objection, based upon a suspicion that uni versal suffrage would threaten the family rela tionship, we consider a mediaeval notion, and no more sound than a theory that sons should not be permitted to vote lest they might not follow the lead of their fathers. These are days of en lightenment, independent action, and individual responsibility, not of subjection of any portion of the human race morally and intellectually 96 WOMEN, ETC. capable of exercising authority for the common good. The three evils most menacing to the country to-day are (i) debasement of moral standards in politics and business; (2) absorption by a few, at unwarranted cost to the many, of the com mon wealth; and (3) unreasonable and violent expression of resentment by the multitude. With each of these perils the American woman is quite as competent to cope as the American man. That she would be less tolerant of moral deficiency in a candidate for public office re quires no demonstration ; that, as a careful house holder and ambitious mother constantly prac tising economies for the advancement of her children, she would take an active part in re straining monopolies from adding undue profits to the cost of general living seems evident; that her keen personal interest in the preservation and protection of homes and property would inevitably constitute her a conservative balance against the increasing horde of foreign-born voters may also, we submit, be accepted as a certainty. Until recently the necessity for woman s in fluence in politics has not been apparent; it is now, and it will become increasingly so during the next few years. It is true, doubtless, that 97 WOMEN, ETC. at the moment the average woman is not ad equately equipped with information respecting public affairs; but may not this be due chiefly to the absence of occasion for its acquirement ? Moreover, is it certain that she is not even now as well qualified, at least, as the average unit in the great mass of American voters? And, at the very worst, would not her mere instinct afford a guide wiser and safer than the sordid motives which now actuate so great a proportion of the electorate ? For the purposes, therefore, of purifying the ballot, of establishing and maintaining lofty standards as to the qualifications required of candidates for public office, of effecting an evener distribution of earnings, of providing a heavier balance of disinterestedness and conservatism against greed and radicalism, we reiterate the expression of our firm belief that universal suf frage has now become, not only desirable, but almost a paramount necessity. The Unequal Conditions of Men and Women IT is not so long ago when members of a relig ious sect were firmly convinced that there was but one road to heaven. Now there is a quite general consensus of tolerant opinion that there 98 WOMEN, ETC. are many ways, and that no one of the avenues is so narrow as that solitary path once fixed by creed or inherited prejudice. The chief point we would make in this connection is that actu al accomplishment in the extension of the suf frage to women is dependent upon ability to convince those who really possess authority, rightfully or wrongfully, of the wisdom or ne cessity of sharing it with others who, in point of fact at the present time, are deprived of the privilege of exercising it. Appeals to conscience and sense of fairness may be effective with some men; therefore let them be made without stint, and God speed the effort! But why impair the full force of these appeals by reservation of any kind not absolutely required by moral law? Frank recognition of existing conditions is the first essential requisite of reformation always. We may as well admit, then, at the outset, that the average modern man is egotistical and the average modern woman parasitical. Neither fully appreciates this simple truth, and none, of course, will admit it; but the fact remains, and is easily demonstrated by the most casual observation. The cause lies in the utter in equality of the sexes, developed by ages of pre sumably progressive, but surely artificial, ex istence. There was no such disparity in the 99 WOMEN, ETC. beginning of earthly things, as we know them. Primitive man and primitive woman differed only in characteristics which have continued to this day; in other respects they were of sub stantially the same rank. The chief difference lay in the fact that his nature was destructive, as it still is; while hers was, as it continues to be, constructive. When he sought to kill the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air for food, she learned from the animals how to extract the poi son from herbs and provide sustenance, if need should arise, through domestication of plants. His exploits were more brilliant and venture some and, when successful, more satisfying; but it was her work that afforded safeguard against failure, and transformed a mere chance into a certainty of existence. There ensued, as a matter of course, the equality of interdepen dence, the material daring and aggressiveness of the one admirably supplementing the greater patience and foresight of the other, and, mirabile dictu, he regarding her invariably with respect, not tolerance, and she relying in no sense upon him for protection from chivalrous motives or instinct. To trace the change wrought by what is or dinarily termed " the intellectual development of the human race would surely be wearisome and 100 WOMEN, ETC. quite likely unprofitable. Moreover, it.irught, be a question not easily determined, even though we had a choice, which would be the better way of living theirs or ours. The chief fact to reckon with for the moment is the difference, and that becomes apparent when we admit, as we must, if truthful with ourselves, that every man living to-day unconsciously assumes superi ority over woman, and no living woman, at least in America, questions for a moment her inherent right to demand support and protection from man. Clearly, while such conditions continue, talk or thought of true equality is farcical to a degree, and mere expediency offers as sure a basis for argument in favor of universal suffrage as claim of actual prerogative, if not, indeed, a surer one. But, since the opening of one road does not necessarily close another, there would seem to be no good reason for restricting choice or for bickering at the crossways. A Decalogue for Women ? FEW women, we suspect, appreciate the mag nitude of the sacrifice they would be required to make to be placed upon a plane of abso lute equality with men. They cannot hope to acquire equal rights and privileges without as- 101 WOMEN, ETC, Sliming simultaneously equal obligations under ifcligiot^s as well 33 under secular law. To those who are unacquainted with the inestimable boon which they now possess in being exempt from the prohibitions imposed by the Decalogue upon men in respect of certain specified acts, the acceptance of full responsibility signifies little, if any, addition to the burdens now borne. Wiser ones doubtless appreciate the extent of the immunity which they now enjoy, and they may well hesitate for a long time to forsake, for mere temporary advantages, a position likely to prove so serviceable in the hereafter. Whether feminine opposition to the attempt to establish equal rights on earth is based, in part, upon intelligent realization of the accompanying ne cessity of waiving this precious privilege, we cannot say; but it is clear that no woman should be permitted, through ignorance or mis apprehension, to adopt a course which might tend to her undying regret in the world to come. The fact, of course, is that women are not only not bound by, but are freed, at least by inference, from any obligation to observe the requirements of our fundamental religious law. The Ten Commandments were written for men and apply to men exclusively, except in so far as indirectly, through the agency of men, cer- 102 WOMEN, ETC. tain minor duties are imposed upon members of their households, and even here the full re sponsibility devolves upon the head of the tribe or family. The Fourth Commandment, providing for a proper yet practicable observance of the Sab bath, directs that "in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." All mem bers of the household are comprised within the prohibition except one. "Nor thy wife" does not appear, and some have been led to suppose that the significant omission means that "thou" includes both husband and wife. The true ex planation is quite different, as we immediately perceive upon comparing this with the Tenth Commandment. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor s." Clearly here "thou" does not include the wife with the husband; the injunction is ad dressed explicitly and exclusively to the head of the household, who is very properly forbidden to covet any of his neighbor s properties, some of which are specified in the order of their value. 103 WOMEN, ETC. Two omissions from this commandment as contrasted with the Fourth possess peculiar significance. The head of the family must not permit his son or daughter to work on the Sabbath, but he is not forbidden to covet the children of his neighbor. The reason for this differentiation is plain. Any except necessary toil on the seventh day would be unseemly in the one case, and, in the other, there was no need to forbid the coveting of the privilege of supporting non-producing young persons. Only the wives and servants and oxen and asses pos sessed actual value in common with inanimate possessions. The reason for the omission of "thy wife" from the Fourth Commandment now becomes manifest. Nature required that sustenance should be supplied to the human body even on the seventh day, and it had, of course, to be prepared and served by some person. The in junction against work being performed by any member of the household except the wife leaves no room for doubt as to who that person was. Moreover, the custom of the Jews at that period and to a much later day confirms the theory that on this day even the servants were to re main idle, "that they," in the amplified Deuter onomy version, "may rest as thou" i. e., the 104 WOMEN, ETC. head of the house and that the wives should perform the necessary services. The careful phrasing in both forms of the Fourth and Tenth Commandments definitely disposes of any idea that the laws were meant to apply equally to husband and wife, and that "thou" comprises both. If such had been the intent, clearly Thou shalt not covet thy neigh bor s wife" would have read "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor s consort," or some like comprehensive term. Besides, upon the falla cious assumption noted, the deliberate failure to forbid the coveting of husbands implies posi tive permission to do so, thus creating a dis tinction which would be most unfair. Further proof of the fact that "thou" refers exclusively to the head of the family is hardly required. It follows necessarily that none of the other commandments, in which no distinction in re spect to sex appears, such as "Thou shalt not steal," applies to women, since none was ad dressed to them, but all were directed exclu sively to the men, who were held and are of course to-day, strictly speaking, accountable under our fundamental religious law for the earthly conduct and heavenly prospects of their wives. The fact that men have imposed restrictions upon women during the ages of their 8 105 WOMEN, ETC. control since the Decalogue was promulgated is wholly immaterial and need be considered only in a diplomatic, not at all in a moral, sense. Of the two versions of the Decalogue, that in Exodus is regarded by the majority of scholars as the older, although even in this, as well as in the version presented in Deuteronomy, am plifications have been introduced which did not exist in the original form, and traces of one yet older appear in the thirty-fifth chapter of Exodus. Both Philo and Maimonides, in order to remove all anthropomorphic conceptions, in sist that the Ten Words were not spoken by God s voice, but by an impersonal voice created especially for the enunciation; and both the Jews and Karaites hold that the writing on the tables was likewise a "creation," although, of course, the direct divine origin of both the spoken and written words is unquestioned. Nor is there any doubt that Moses was the in termediary and expositor, but there is only very general ground for the belief that his many amplifications were fully inspired. It is well, therefore, in trying to reach the true mean ing of expressions pertaining to the point in issue, to consider the environment and attend ant circumstances which may have influenced the prophet s mind. 106 WOMEN, ETC. What, then, was the personal attitude of Moses toward women? That he possessed pe culiar powers of attraction for them there can be little doubt. It was because he was so beau tiful as a babe that Amram and Jochebed de termined, at no small risk to themselves, to preserve his life, and that the gentle heart of Thermutis went out to him. "God did also give him that tallness, when he was but three years old, as was wonderful," writes Josephus; "and as for his beauty, there was nobody so impolite as, when they saw Moses, they were not greatly surprised at the beauty of his coun tenance; nay, it happened frequently that those that met him as he was carried along the road were obliged to turn upon seeing the child, that they left what they were about and stood still a great while to look on him; for the beauty of the child was so remarkable and natural to him on many accounts, that it detained the specta tors, and made them stay longer to look upon him." This pretty description we may well consid er to be the product of a vivid imagination, but Josephus s detailed account of how Moses, while a young man, utilized his personal at tractiveness to great advantage cannot be ig nored, since it is confirmed by the more pains- 107 WOMEN, ETC. taking Irenaeus. According to this tale, while at the head of an Egyptian army besieging the Ethiopian city of Saba, Moses was seen by Tharbis, the daughter of the king, who forth with became enamoured of him, and sent a message to him, saying that she would procure the delivering up of the city if he would take an oath to marry her. Although dusky, Thar bis was a princess and good to look upon, and the youthful Moses accepted the proposition. Thereupon his army was admitted through the wall and took the city, and the princess dropped her title to become plain Mrs. Moses. What became of her subsequently nobody knows. The record merely states that Moses led his victorious army back to Egypt, and remained there until Pharaoh threatened to kill him. Then, as all will recall, he ran away and drew water from a wayside well for the seven daugh ters of Reuel, who was so grateful that he gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage. One would suspect that Moses was obliged to accept whichever of the seven was offered to him, because it seems incredible that a young man of his discernment would not have selected one more amiable. Zipporah, despite the fact that her name signifies "a bird," must have been a very peevish young lady. It is quite 108 WOMEN, ETC. possible, too, that, being a daughter of a high- priest, she felt that her social position was better than that of her husband. In any case, she behaved so badly and scolded so loudly that she disturbed the patrons of the inn at which they were tarrying while on their way to Egypt, and Moses, finding that he could abide her no longer, packed her and her children upon the back of an ass and sent them home to her father. The significant point in this incident, of course, is that so meek a man would not have treated a high-born, high-spirited lady in such a manner, even under so severe provocation, if he had not shared the common opinion of his day which classed married women with slaves and beasts of burden, as live personal proper ties. Years afterward, when her father, the high- priest, brought Zipporah to her husband, then become a great man, Moses received her kindly, but no further word of either her or her sons appears in the record. Many careless writers refer to Zipporah as an Ethiopian, because Miriam and Aaron complain ed of Moses for having brought disgrace upon their family by marrying a member of that dusky tribe; but there is no real basis for such a belief. Reuel was a noble as well as a high- priest, and originated the plan of organization 109 WOMEN, ETC. of the tribes adopted by Moses, thus indicating the possession of a stronger intellectuality than was common among the Cushites. Josephus, as we have seen, accounts for the cause of the accusation in a romantic but probably fanciful manner. Many years elapsed after the mar riage with Zipporah and the reported marriage with Tharbis before Miriam complained, and it is most unlikely that the proud and sharp- tongued prophetess would have waited so long. We are driven, then, to the learned Doctor Fausset s conclusion that the Ethiopian re ferred to was a lady whom Moses espoused after the death or departure of Zipporah. We must not assume, however, that the Almighty indicated His approval of miscegenation by re buking Aaron and Miriam for murmuring over their brother s choice of a helpmeet, because the words "ethiopian" and "cushite" were often used as synonymous with "beautiful," and it is altogether probable that the jealous prophetess cried out in resentment at the impairment of her own influence over Moses. On the whole, therefore, it seems reasonably certain that the great lawgiver s domestic life was praiseworthy in view of the fact that his first wife proved to be a shrew, and that in expounding the laws he was influenced by no consideration no WOMEN, ETC. that could conflict in any way with the ac cepted doctrine of the time that man is and ought to be the head of a tribe or family and personally responsible for the acts of all mem bers thereof. The real question, as we stated it at the be ginning, is whether the waiving of exemption from the prohibitions prescribed for men by the religious law can be counterbalanced by purely mundane gain such as would be derived from universal suffrage. Clearly that is a point which should be determined by women them selves. If they should see fit to waive their obvious prerogative for the common good, the decision would redound greatly to their credit, but it is one which, frankly, we, if in their place, should make only after most careful considera tion. But we feel satisfied that men now pos sessing authority will make no further marked concessions in respect to the governing power unless and until women voluntarily place them selves under equal moral limitations. Whether, in the event of their deciding to do so, an at tempt should be made to revise the Command ments to conform to modern conditions, or to compose a special Decalogue for Women , is a ques tion for the theologians, and one which, at the moment, we do not feel called upon to discuss, in ETC. ETC. The Folly of Worry, and Its Cure BEING human, happily or unhappily, we can not deny the comfort to be found in the reflection that misery never lacks the company it loves. We all have our troubles, and some of us derive much satisfaction from the contemplation of them. Indeed, there are those who are happy only when wretched ; but these we believe to be as few in number as they are disagreeable in association; the vast majority of humans are normal, and disposed, therefore, in conformity with natural law, to smile when the skies are clear and to grieve under the portent of clouds. Hence the ease with which worry takes posses sion of the mind, colors the disposition, and makes a cripple of effort. That causes abound we know and must admit, as we do almost un consciously the certainty of death; but too little cognizance is taken of the fact that the effect "5 WOMEN, ETC, of mere apprehension, which is all that worry really is, may be subjected to simple mental treatment and be overcome. We would undertake, first, to demonstrate the folly of worry. This may seem supereroga tory, but it is wise always to place well the foun dation of the simplest proposition and yet more important to make plain the substantial advan tages to be gained from heeding a suggestion. As a force, then, worry is purely negative and therefore destructive ; it never incites ; it always discourages, because back of it is fear fear, not of something in view, but of the terrifying un seen. It is the nightmare of day, cruelly ab sorptive of mental and physical energies and, of all diseases, the most nerve-lacerating. Such a force obviously cannot help, but must necessa rily hinder, the removal of obstacles, since itself has already sapped the very qualities essential to success and broken the power of resolution. Moreover, constant brooding often brings to pass the. very thing dreaded, which otherwise would not have happened. We all have noted instances of the making up of a story from noth ing, and its telling and retelling so many times that ultimately the author himself honestly be lieves it to be true. So with worry, beginning with doubt and mere imaginings, proceeding 116 WOMEN, ETC. by steady stages through more definite appre hension to settled expectation, and finally cul minating in actual realization Even though this conclusion be not reached, it often happens that a mere fancy feeds and feeds and grows and grows, until the continuous thought be comes so dominant that the effect of the dread becomes as harmful as that of the unfulfilled reality would have been. Yet more serious is the deprivation of aid from others brought about by the transference of im pression. In these days of co-operation, none is capable of really great accomplishment single- handed; each is dependent consciously or un consciously upon his fellows. It is essential, therefore, to maintain the effectiveness of the helpful forces which must be drawn upon from that source. Instead of doing this, as some suppose, by creating sympathy, worry exercises a directly contrary influence by self-communica tion to other minds. "It is now a thoroughly established scien tific fact," says Dr. Leander Edmund Whipple, "that an Image clearly formed in mind may be transferred to other minds by direct reflection. Through this action the other mind receives the impression and begins to think the same idea." Therefore, the learned metaphysicist con- 117 WOMEN, ETC. eludes: one who permits the imagining faculty to picture a dread in thought form immediately arouses the mental activity of his associates, and "puts into operation the most powerful forces of earthly life for the speedy destruction of his own hopes and desires. So worry," he logically concludes, and we may now agree, "is always ill- advised." But can it be avoided or overcome? Is the disease curable without divine interposition? Undoubtedly, if the theory of thought-trans ference be accepted as indeed an established scientific fact; because surely an Image tending upward can be communicated as freely if not, in fact, with greater readiness, because of the larger receptivity for that which is pleasing as an Image tending downward. Thus, clearly, there may be brought into action for success those very forces which worry excites for ruin- forces which may or may not be irresistible, but certainly are, as the wise doctor observes, the most potent of earthly life and, consequently, all that we poor humans can summon to our aid, unless we adopt the effeminate practice of those silly persons who constantly annoy the Almighty by beseeching Him to tide them over their petty difficuties. Not that their troubles seem slight to them; far from it; invariably they are more 118 WOMEN, ETC. serious than any others can possibly be; but the mere certainty that, if God should stamp them out directly, instead of leaving such work, as He does and ought, to nature, other trials of no less consequence would promptly arise, shows clearly enough that, in reality, all individual tribulation is trifling. Occasional reflection upon this great truth will do much to drive away the bad fairy and open the way out of despondency; but better yet is constant realization that one can do for either himself or others only that which lies within him to perform, and, having satisfied himself on that score, he possesses an inalienable right to disregard all possible consequences, and need give them no more consideration than a sagacious person accords to idle speculation as to whether, when he awakes, he will find himself in heaven or in hell. Supplement knowledge of the recognized folly of regret with appreciation of the fact that worry is never over actual, but always over imaginary, ills, and is therefore as unnecessary as it is unwise and inefficient, and a long step will be taken toward the definite elim ination of the chief bane of mankind. For ourselves, too, in these nerve-racking days of turmoil and strife, we find distinct advantage in occasionally emulating the example of a great 119 WOMEN, ETC. Peacham philosopher, who, when asked how he maintained his exceptional composure, slowly and sagely replied, "Sometimes I set and think, and sometimes I just set." Of American Manners OUR manners are improving. The change is not marked, but is taking place, nevertheless, in that gradual fashion which is best because it makes for permanence. Time was in this hardy young land when the grace of the Frenchman in particular evoked a contemptuous sneer as be fitting only effeminate eaters of frogs; but travel has worn away much of this prejudice, and no sight is more common in Paris nowadays than that of American visitors beaming sympathet ically, yet with rare attempt at emulation, upon manifestations of courtesy which would have seemed to their fathers absurd. We shall never be as polite as the Latins; no Saxon or Teuton may hope to be, nor would we if we could. The preservation of a racial charac teristic is far preferable to what can never be come more than mere imitation, and no persons are more ridiculous than those who are ever trying to show better manners than they really possess. Moreover, true courtesy is by no means 120 WOMEN, ETC. altogether in the seeming; the unspoken word is often more eloquent than the most eager pro testations of respect or even affection. The traditional boorishness of the English must be admitted, but only of the great middle class, which constitutes the hardihood of the nation; the deference of those comprising the lower strata is, in fact, offensive; and to our mind the finest manners in the world are those of the re fined aristocracy. Their merit lies chiefly in their simplicity and appropriateness. Our an cestors were quite justified in refusing with in dignation to " . . . let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee" to such a monarch as George III., but prob ably there never lived a ruler, even in our own land, to whom Americans would so gladly have rendered personal homage as Queen Vic toria. True, in so doing, they might have erred, as many err now, we are told, in addressing the king as "Your Majesty" instead of using the simple "Sir," as once they should have said "Ma am" to the gracious mother of her people; but such exaggeration, if resting upon sincerity, cannot be held to be offensive. We would that those and similar terms were employed more 9 121 WOMEN, ETC. punctiliously by us. Gladly would we part with the uncalled-for and, in England, long since dis carded "Mister," among men of like age and position, if we might substitute "Sir" for it as a token of respect for age and achievement. Pre cisely where the line of demarcation should be drawn it is difficult to say; for ourselves, we make it a practice invariably to address one ap proximately fifteen years older than ourselves as "Sir," and we frankly appreciate a like courtesy from those correspondingly younger. Among women we greatly prefer "Madam" to the Eng lish "Ma am," and, of course, we detest "Lady" as used by menials, the hissing "Missus" of too- familiar husbands, nicknames, and all terms whatsoever of petty or maudlin endearment. But it is not at this time our purpose to scold; we wish only to note the gradual removal of a just cause of reproach against Americans by older peoples and to encourage a gratifying ten dency. It is not true, as declared in the form of mottoes upon the walls of a famous boys school in England, that "manners make the man," but they help; and, much as we may despise them as a mere outer garment and superficial soul-cover ing, we cannot ignore the fact that they are still vital conditions of social intercourse and afford much of the charm without which existence 122 WOMEN, ETC. would be unendurable. Beautiful manners are as captivating as a beautiful face or hand or form, and, unlike these, may be acquired. To be born and bred well is a great blessing, but it is not necessary to chide Fortune, as Shake speare did, for not having provided better for his life "than public means which public manners breed." Suavity and gentleness cost only a little self- restraint and a little thought now and then, and yet they not only occasion much pleasure to others, but save ourselves much of the tumult and ugliness and embroilment of life. Lucky, in deed, is that deservedly popular woman, Ameri can born and English bred, who once said to us, "I am always polite because it is so much trouble to be rude." After all, we cannot be very much better than our manners, any more than our clothes can surpass our taste, but it may be that goodness can be developed in the inner consciousness by outer conditions. At any rate, we know one woman who smiles con tinuously because she firmly believes that, if she persistently wears the expression of harmony, the inner mood will respond. We are unable to perceive a very considerable change as yet, and we must admit frankly that we could not endure 123 WOMEN, ETC. for long an unyielding smile ; and yet we have no doubt that considerate manners would in time tend to the development, in part, of the inward gentleness of which some of us still stand some what in need. Of Sleeping, Dreaming, and Snoring CONSIDERING the fact that a person living the allotted period passes fully twenty years in bed, it is questionable whether sleep engages its just proportion of the attention of mankind. At tempts to diagnose sleep, so to speak, have been singularly futile. Why one person finds it easy to drop into normal unconsciousness almost at will, while another, of apparently similar phys ical condition, strives in vain for repose, is a problem that still continues to baffle scientific inquiry. That sleep of itself is a boon of in estimable value we all know, and yet the precise duration of it that yields the greatest benefit has not been approximately determined. The Duke of Wellington s famous prescription of six hours for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool has been formally repudiated by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. A series of experiments upon representatives of the three classes convinced the learned men that 124 WOMEN, ETC. the allowance in each case was too small. Further than this, however, they conservatively forbore to commit themselves. They would not even go on record as to the necessity of dividing human kind into classes at all. Experience seems to indicate that nature de crees a longer period of unconsciousness for the young than for the old, but it is by no means certain that the successful training of the will to induce longer periods of recuperative repose would not prolong life. An experiment of one of the British professors bears directly upon this notion. He had prepared several arithmetical problems equally difficult of solution. Then he arranged to be awakened after having slept half an hour at one time, an hour at another, and so on. He found as a result that his mental condi tion was quite as effective in application to math ematics after a sleep of half an hour as it was after one of several hours. But similar experi ment, designed to test his memory, definitely established the fact that power of recollection grew in proportion to the duration of mental rest. It may be, therefore, that the pathetic loss of memory by old people is due to too little sleep. If so, there is no doubt that a remedy could be obtained through the exercise of will power in changing the habit. The familiar theory that I2 5 WOMEN, ETC. one hour of sleep before midnight is more bene ficial than twice as much after midnight seems readily confirmed in practice, and yet, so far as we are informed, nobody has taken the trouble to carry this idea to its logical conclusion, and regularly retire at dusk and rise before dawn. There certainly is good reason to suspect that our entire general method of living, so far as differentiation of waking and sleeping hours is concerned, is wrong, but it does not seem as yet to have occurred to the learned men to make the simple experiments requisite to the acquirement of exact knowledge. Any one, of course, can do it to his own satisfaction, but the individual re sult of an unscientific test would be far from conclusive. An effort by one of our own societies to determine whether there may not be in this simple revolution of hours a universal panacea for American nerves, would seem to be in order. We should not, of course, anticipate any im mediate effect, whatever the result of such ex perimentation, because human nature is ob stinate, and long evenings by the fireside are notoriously agreeable. One effect, generally con sidered highly desirable, we suspect would be certain. Almost surely such sleep would be less dreamful, and, consequently, according to both the learned men and experience, more 126 WOMEN, ETC. restful physically and more recuperative men tally. But here again practice would encounter the serious obstacle of disinclination. Dream ing either by day or by night is one of the great est of luxuries. It is not, of course, a physical necessity, since we all know many persons who never dream at all, and yet continue to be ex- asperatingly healthful. But observation teaches us that such persons invariably are most unin teresting. They may and often do possess in a notable degree sweetness of disposition, but they are so devoid of imagination as to be out of touch with the fantasies of existence. We should, therefore, strongly encourage the cultivation of the habit of dreaming; not, how ever, to the limit of demanding expression through snoring, which to us has ever seemed a reprehensible practice and a just cause for divorce. Excuse upon the ground of unpre- ventability is absurd. If snoring were merely an obnoxious utterance of unconscious emotions, it might be wo fully endured, but in fact it is a purely physical manifestation of the effect of excessive indulgence in food and drink, or of ignorance of good form in recumbency. We may conclude generally that "early to bed, early to rise," continues to produce the beneficial effects accorded by tradition to the habit, and 127 WOMEN, ETC. that less turning of night into day would add materially to the sum of human happiness. Day Dreams are the Better OF the two we prefer dreams by day; they are under surer control than those by night, are almost invariably more agreeable, yield finally to an awakening far less rude, and are, in con sequence, infinitely more restful and beneficial. Not that even in the profoundest sleep, when, according to the scientists, there is total lapse of mentation, guidance is wholly unattainable; both theory and practice testify to the contrary, although no way has yet been found of tracing the cause from the effect. Why, for example, does speaking in a low, monotonous tone close to the ear of a sleeper induce him to dream of ship wrecks, drowning, and the like ? Is there a tone in the voice analogous to and sympathetic with the unceasing moaning of the waves of the sea ? or, is the mere general relationship existing be tween various phases of melancholy responsible ? Science as yet offers no solution beyond the curious suggestion that practically all dreams are attributable to the effect of external sounds upon the brain. Pierre Eyquem attached so much importance to this theory that he made a 128 WOMEN, ETC. practical application of it in the development of his dull-witted son s genius. For an hour each morning before the boy s awakening, he played soft music in the adjoining room. What part this performed in the making of that mar vellous mind cannot, of course, be determined, but there seems to be substantial reason for the belief that some effects resulted, even though, assuredly, the tranquillity one would naturally anticipate was not one of them. The creator of Peter Ibbetson tacitly admitted the predominant effect of sound, but was so thoroughly convinced of the efficacy of combined mental and physical condition that he set down with audacious precision a primary rule to this effect: "You must always sleep on your back, with your arms above your head, your hands clasped under it, and your feet crossed, the right one over the left, unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment cease thinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep and get there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what you are when awake. You must join the dream on to reality." This method is easy, and may have served well the Duchess in her vividly imagina tive flights through prison walls and miles of space, but alas! there is a nervous defect in the 129 WOMEN, ETC. modern temperament which renders the process worse than unavailing. We return, then, to the initial assertion of the superior advantages of dreams by day arising chiefly from the greater ease with which they may be regulated. And surely no greater boon has been conferred upon humankind. Take out of life those blissful drowsing moments when the youthful orator has foreseen himself holding a multitude in the hollow of his hand, moving them to laughter or tears at will, or even by the sheer power of his eloquence compelling a jury to free the confessed murderer; deprive the country girl, trudging her way to school, of the vision of an entire court, including both of their gra cious majesties, bowing before her loveliness; bar even the wretched player of golf from con juring before the eye of his mind a perfect game, stroke by stroke, made with such grace, power, and precision as to be regarded by a thousand on-lookers as truly marvellous; rob a statesman of his mental picture of countless generations reverently holding his memory as that of the greatest of the great; steal from the composer the anticipation of slipping shyly from his high chair while the great house resounds with fitting applause of the most impelling opera ever writ ten; take from the girl in the choir the weekly 130 WOMEN, ETC. vision between hymns of the ultimate triumph of voice and beauty; and what is left but husks of life? To actual achievement, and to even dreary realism their due; but not less appropriate to the reverie of life than to the sleep of death is the exclamation of the poet: "What dreams may come!" On the Proper Conduct of Funerals WE would not deny the gravity of death; it is a quite serious matter even to those of us who, while conscious of, or at least admitting, no really sinful performances in the past, would nevertheless, if pressed, confess to certain minor indiscretions which we would be only too willing to join with the Lord in forgetting. Neverthe less, if form or ceremony or general interest be considered the criterion, dying is one of the most popular things one can do. Nobody goes to see a man born, but the entire community turns out to see him buried. Indeed, it is well known that many people, perhaps a majority, derive actual enjoyment from beholding with their own eyes life flicker out of a person s body. The almost universal satisfaction found, from time immemo rial, in witnessing a hanging we can understand; WOMEN, ETC. the event is more spectacular and less expen sive than a circus, possesses grisly human inter est to a distinctive degree, is presumably grimly just, and, in any case, is unpreventable. If the hanging is to take place anyway, why shouldn t we see it ? That is the reasoning and it seems good enough if one cares for that variety of sport. But we could never understand why old women should, as they unquestionably do, love to at tend funerals, or how anybody could be induced, except as a matter of duty, to make a business or profession of the handling of corpses. We have often wondered how it would seem to be an undertaker. Although no other trade seems quite so grewsome, there are many we can imagine more distasteful. Indeed, the really proficient undertaker, while notoriously consid erate and even ostentatiously patient in deal ing with those whom he classifies in a broad pro fessional way as "the bereaved," nevertheless bears himself in a manner singularly proud, and so affords the most nearly perfect example to be found anywhere of an harmonious blending in one personality of haughtiness and humility. Physically, he conveys the impression of un- healthiness; his liver in particular always seems to have been making injudicious secretions; but this is a condition inseparable, doubtless, from 132 WOMEN, ETC. the nature of his work. What can be reasonably expected of the liver of a man whose business it is to maintain constantly a mournful mien? Exercise, too, is beyond the pale of his consid eration. Who ever saw an undertaker playing tennis or even so deadly a game as golf ? How could one given to such practices hope to retain the custom of the elite ? He may with propriety, it is true, attend divine service; but to one con stantly engaged in semi-participation in similar rites, the relaxation to be obtained under even the most shocking ministrations must necessarily be limited. Indeed, the most casual observa tion confirms the suspicion of the futility of this method of securing relief. We have seen under takers in church many times, but never one awake; their very familiarity with death seems to blunt their consciousness of the presence of souls within their own bodies and the desirability of arranging to have them saved. Gradually they come to regard themselves as apart from other men and so, perhaps, they are, as a sexton is or a hangman. Of the undertaker s home life we know prac tically nothing. Does he preserve the official demeanor through meals, and at other times when free to mingle with the family? Does he romp with his children? Does he even have WOMEN, ETC. children? Would it be proper for an under taker s wife to fetch such obvious distractions into the world? And, as a matter of fact, did any one ever hear of the son or daughter of an undertaker? That progeny is not uncommon to executioners we know, because in the old days the business, then more profitable than it is now, was kept in the family through many gen erations. Whether a like thrifty spirit animates the undertaking clans we cannot say, but if so it would be interesting to know whether a male child is taught to subdue his emotions from the beginning and forced, perchance, to wear black mitts in the cradle. It is doleful to be unable to pass on to interested readers authentic data respecting the inner life of the undertaker, but partial compensation is found in the revelation of the outward aspects of his existence and of his attitude toward humanity contained in a sadly fascinating book now lying before us, written by a distinguished member of the craft, decorously clad, and entitled The Funeral. It is a suggestive and comprehensive work, comprising four distinct parts, viz.: (i) The Un dertaker; (2) The Minister; (3) The Bereaved; and (4) The Friends. That the undertaker should be accorded first place in the book is but natural, since obviously WOMEN, ETC. the writer regards him as the central figure and best fitted to withstand successfully the glaring rays of publicity. But, while he should not shun duty, he must not seek business. "Like a modest damsel," says the mentor, "he is to wait until called. Any attempt on his part to bid for the privilege of caring for a body is vulgarity." Although he does not say so ex plicitly, we are confident that our instructor would disapprove of manifestations of excep tional interest in the precise condition of a sick person or undue promptitude in the use of the telephone upon receipt of information that dis solution had taken place. Not that the under taker should disregard the business aspects of his calling. No. "He should make money, but he should make it decently; he should advertise in legitimate ways, but to contest for work like cab-drivers is disgraceful; let the work seek the undertaker, not the undertaker the work." The work having found him sitting, like a modest damsel, in his shop door, he must manifest "responsive tenderness," whether he feels it or not, "for the sake of policy" i. e., as we con strue it, in order to insure subsequent orders from related sources. For the same reason he should give personal attention to the singers, whose comfort is so often neglected. "In the 135 WOMEN, ETC. opinion of the writer, it would be a paying in vestment for the undertaker to furnish free of charge, if necessary, a carriage for the accommo dation of the singers; it would add greatly to the undertaker s popularity and ultimately to his business." The ideal undertaker is progressive; "the world moves"; so must he. "That undertaker who is content to follow antiquated customs and willing to abide forever in old ruts is no credit, but rather a disgrace, to his profession." And yet he must not be unduly insistent. "If the bereaved are positively set in their ideas, it will be difficult for the undertaker to effect any change, and it may be a decided mistake to attempt it. Tact must decide." How true this simple dictum seems in view of the blunders of which we are all cognizant such, for example, as the inconsiderate announcement of an un dertaker who, having relieved the distressed widow by promising to attend to the wig on the head of the deceased, afterward informed her with a smirk of satisfaction that she need feel no further apprehension, as he had tacked it on. Even though the operation did seem necessary and was, of course, harmless, how tactless such an observation at such a time! The Minister is regarded by our author as an 136 WOMEN, ETC. unsatisfactory assistant. True, "a successful minister is usually a very busy man and can not be expected to give himself in a spiritual way to funeral reforms"; nevertheless, he should forego the use of "antiquated methods" and "by practising modern and correct customs" co operate with the undertaker. He should take care, too, that his remarks be appropriate. Un der no circumstances should he "attempt to preach a departed to heaven regardless of the life he had lived"; even "to conduct the service of a notoriously bad person and ask the choir to sing Safe in the Arms of Jesus is hardly the proper thing." Briefly, says the undertaker, people should not be led to believe that a man can live like a devil and die like a saint. Much is said, and well said, respecting the arrangement of the physical details of the cere mony; thoughtfulness, consideration, tact are heavily drawn upon, although it is doubtful whether the keenest foresight could provide for every contingency. There was, for instance, the sad case of the man who, having buried his wife successfully, complained at the store in the evening that his having been obliged to ride to the graveyard with his mother-in-law had "spoilt the whole day" for him. Fortunately, such un happy incidents are so rare that our author does 137 WOMEN, ETC. not perceive the necessity of considering them. Each general situation he treats comprehensive ly and with delicacy ; exceptions he leaves to the individual. The Friends are dealt with somewhat sum marily. They are urged to exhibit no vulgar curiosity, and are warned, in particular, that, "if engaged by the bereaved to sit up with the body of the departed, they should not make a picnic of the occasion, since laughing and jok ing, and otherwise offending the feelings of the bereaved, is exceedingly bad manners." So the helpful little book ends. One more deco rous than itself or more completely given to the cause of decorum we have never read. In but a single instance is there the slightest departure from the prevailing tone. "If a person is never seen in a church on ordinary occasions, he should never be seen there on a funeral occasion, unless the funeral be his own," maybe based upon sound judgment; but it seems somewhat suggestive of flippant satire hardly becoming the treatment of a subject shrouded in solemnity. In view of the fact, however, that in the multiplicity of directions to all participants, from the man who tolls the bell to the boys who hitch up the teams, this is the only sign of a hint, respecting seemly conduct, to the departed, the slighting nature 138 WOMEN, ETC. of the allusion may well be regarded as pardon able. With all other conclusions of the writer we find ourselves in complete accord. A Holiday for Capital HOLIDAYS have ceased to be rare even in this workaday nation. Although still far be hind England, where enforced leisure takes precedence over necessary toil, we nevertheless have to our credit the establishment of a suf ficient number of days of recreation to arouse restiveness among the Puritanic shades, and scarcely a year passes without having added one to the accumulation. Of the distinctively na tional festal days, the Fourth of July continues to maintain its own, but Thanksgiving Day, for some unaccountable reason, has ceased to be held in observance outside of New England, and Fast Day has become a mere spectre of the past. Instead, we have universal recognition of Washington s Birthday, while commemora tion of Lincoln s Birthday is becoming more and more general. It is a curiously interesting and perhaps significant fact that our latest holiday, Labor Day, has already won a place in the first rank of general recognition, if not celebration. Theoretically, if, as we believe, everybody in i39 WOMEN, ETC. America does or ought to work, no holiday merits wider observance. Its peculiar signifi cance lies in the fact that Labor Day has come to be regarded as a time of special recognition of those who toil with their hands. Really, there fore, it is by tacit assent a class holiday, since every one acknowledges that manual labor is but one of the factors of progress in civilization. Having in mind the consideration due to the weaker partner or competitor, as the case may be, might it not be well to set aside a holiday for down-trodden capital? This would afford the capitalist an opportunity, now notable by its absence, for the expression of his views. Just as on Labor Day the radical leader makes a point in his public utterance of emphasizing his con servatism, so on Capital Day the possessor of vast accumulations might dwell, with convinc ing earnestness, upon his innate sympathy with his presumably less fortunate brethren, and point the way, for his associates, at any rate, to live better and broader lives. Under present con ditions the millionaire is at a disadvantage as contrasted with the spokesman of the toilers. Politicians either disregard him entirely, or toler ate him only in secret conference. The newspa pers indicate full appreciation of the fact that he is but as one to a hundred among readers, and 140 WOMEN, ETC. even the ministers are disposed to yield to the allurements of popularity with the multitude. Instinctive regard for fair play would seem to warrant the making of an opportunity for a class which, though numerically weak, is finan cially strong, and, after all, is essential to the prosperity and happiness of the community. Indeed, in seriousness, we are convinced that the thought of extending consideration in some form to capital in a time of national perturbation need not be dismissed as necessarily idle. It prob ably is quite true that its most conspicuous rep resentatives who have suffered serious discom fort during the past few years have received no more than their arrogance and intolerance mer ited ; but there can be no question that the lesson has gone home, and developed in them a spirit of reasonableness and an earnest desire to meet their rightful obligations as gratifying as it is novel. In common with the great majority of our countrymen, we have never felt and do not now feel any moral obligation to safeguard the in terests of the very rich. They have proven themselves quite competent in the past to pro tect their own affairs, and there is no manifest indication that their cunning has departed. But the time will come, if indeed it has not already arrived, when all American interests should co- 141 WOMEN, ETC. operate, for the common good, at least when rivalry with other countries is involved. It is right and necessary to correct abuses which have ensued inevitably from our exceptionally rapid material development, but it is not the part of wisdom to bestow upon foreigners an unde served benefit in consequence. The declara tion, for example, of the greatest, most success ful, and most widely known of our corporations, to the effect that its business abroad was being seriously injured by the continuance and viru lence of newspaper attacks at home, seems to us worthy of the serious attention of rational and patriotic citizens. The foreign trade won by our supremely capable corporations surely in sures in no small degree regular employment and wide-spread benefits to our own citizens. To deliberately check its growth, or to harass its managers unnecessarily in their efforts to hold and acquire the markets of the world, is action so foolish as to be almost criminal. The biting off of one s nose for the mere purpose of spiting one s face has never proven advantageous. More over, however we may deplore those wrongful methods in domestic competition now in process of eradication, there is no reason why Americans at home should not rejoice, as the English people even glory, in the commercial triumphs of their 142 WOMEN, ETC. countrym n abroad. For ourselves, somewhat timidly yet without serious apprehension, inas much as we lack political aspirations and have no intention of seeking pennies in great numbers through the publication of a lively newspaper, we have only God s forgiveness to ask for saying that we are frankly proud of each and every great American corporation which has distanced its competitors in the commercial arena of the world. We do not believe in the morals, wisdom, or efficiency of the established policy of our older English relatives of washing all of their linen in private, but we do go so far as to insist upon the fatuity of stretching a clothes-line from Liver pool to Hong-Kong for the information and delectation of our common rivals. In all cases and at all times, if this Nation is to endure, right must and shall prevail; but the attendant truth need not be overlooked that undue, flagrant ex ploitation of wrong for the gratification and ad vantage of competitors is, from a nationally commercial viewpoint, quite as harmful as fail ure to correct the evils themselves. One Disadvantage of Great Riches ONE pathetic phase attending the accumula tion of great riches is the necessity of dying. WOMEN, ETC. A millionaire not long ago deceased never used the word "death," and always resented its ut terance in his presence. We know another man, quite as rich in worldly goods, who suffers from the same dislike in a degree even more intense. A standing order maintains in his household that all obituary notices be clipped from newspapers before they reach his eye. It is not because he is fearful of consequences in the hereafter, for he sincerely believes himself to be a good man, and if his name were given the consensus of opinion would be that he has lived a better life than the majority of human beings. Having this con viction, and being satisfied further that he can rely upon the justice at least of the One in whose image he himself was created, he feels no appre hension of an untoward fate. He simply cannot bear the thought of dying. He loves to live to do good. It may be that, being human, he en joys the distinction of his exceptional oppor tunities, and that, like Thomas Jefferson, he objects to going even to heaven as one of a flock. The greatest of philosophers pronounced the building of a church or chapel by a rich man an act of cowardice. Mark Twain calls it " hedg ing." But this man is not a coward; nor does he feel the necessity of currying favor with the Almighty. It simply is that the consciousness 144 WOMEN, ETC. of what he can do now is present in his mind in every waking moment, and the apprehension that he may be less efficient in the Beyond is what troubles him. Probably the very rich man is firmly convinced that even partial ac complishment here and now is preferable to a possibility of complete resurrection hereafter. In business, it is the difference between certainty and speculation. Proverbially, the gambler does not fear to die. Death is only one of his many hazards. But the truly good man, having much to lose, not only in worldly possessions, but in opportunities for doing good, is tormented often to the limit of endurance by his inability to pierce the clouds. Doubtless, if there were any pros pect of success, a large fund could be raised to promote a Society of Inquiry that could discover what Croesus is now doing, and whether or not, or in what way, he is enjoying himself. Those who have less to lose naturally have smaller cause for worriment. So on the whole not only the merely well-to-do, but the very poor, may comfortably assume a reasonable equality in the distribution of happiness during earthly exist ence. As to the immediate value of material possessions, probably Disraeli was not far wrong w r hen he declared that the most contented man is he who is known to have an income WOMEN, ETC. of five thousand pounds and who really has twice as much. As Oar Cousins Behold Us WE have never manifested excessive enthu siasm over professions of friendliness to this country by our English relations; to our ears such protestations have sounded hollow and in sincere, and they have been made, seemingly, only at times when America s apparent favor would serve Britain s political purposes in deal ing with other Powers. While holding firmly, however, to this view as the lesson derived from rather close inquiry, we have given unqualified admiration to the excellence of the pretence. Of all of England s important public journals, but one has been openly antagonistic to this country since the aristocracy and the statesmen concluded that our good-will was worth catering for and, through their estimable king, made their determination known to the publicists of the upper middle class. True, that one we refer to the famous Saturday Review has not thriven upon its policy in comparison with its contemporaries, but it has possessed the knowl edge that secretly it was cherished and that its opinions were shared by those whose favor it 146 WOMEN, ETC. most ardently desired, and with that it has been content. We have always felt that this shrewd journal voiced the true British spirit which we con sider to be the spirit of selfishness and envy and not long ago signs were multiplying daily in apparent confirmation of the correctness of this opinion. Our cousins seemed to think that we were in trouble, politically, socially, commercial ly, financially as, indeed, we were and that the time for giving vent to sentiments hitherto restrained was consequently propitious. Hence an avalanche of censorious expressions from the great daily journals of London and the resump tion by weekly reviews of the sneering attitude formerly affected. An aggravated, though in our view not in the least aggravating, instance was afforded by the well-known and representa tive literary periodical called the Academy, which published, over the signature of Mr. Arthur Machen, the following interesting summary of articles apparently published previously: " Readers of the Academy may remember my very inadequate attempt to depict the horrible body of death, decay, and wickedness which is called the United States of America. Briefly, I showed, from American evidence and from un challenged reports, that (i) the whole judicial WOMEN, ETC. system of America had fallen into contempt; (2) that it was corrupt; (3) that its proceedings [in a certain murder trial] were in the highest degree degraded, offensive, and abominable; (4) that its ordinary police methods were beneath the standard of Hottentots; (5) that in Chicago, for example, the magistrates and the police were brigands and thieves in league with thieves; (6) that when a poor man, without money to bribe the loathsome press and the more loathsome judge, was executed, he was killed with hideous and revolting tortures; (7) that the deficiencies of American justice were supplied by the kerosene-can of the obscene Judge Lynch; (8) that a peculiarly savage and abominable form of slavery was actually engineered by legal officers; (9) that all the municipalities of America are corrupt, and (10) frequently depend on en forced bribes from brothels; (n) that children are held to industrial slavery; (12) that the condition of the poor is unspeakably wretched and far worse than in any other country; (13) that the legislat ures are corrupt; (14) that every kind of noisome and poisonous adulteration flourishes, together with (15) a host of peculiarly squalid, silly, and mis chievous impostures known as new religions. " There is no call for extended comment upon these somewhat vehement statements; the sep aration of those which, in any sense, or to any degree, are warranted from those that are not can be readily made by the most casual of ob servers. It is not true, of course, on the one hand, that our courts are corrupt or have fallen 148 WOMEN, ETC. into contempt, while, on the other, it is a fact deeply regretted that the proceedings in the trial referred to were indeed most distasteful. The remaining points in the indictment are matters partly of opinion and partly of fact; for some, we sadly admit, there is too much justification; for others, none whatever. The reference to "new religions" we do not under stand; the only new religion, so called, that has come under our notice in recent years is that promulgated in England by an English preacher ; and, so far from its being squalid or silly, we found much in it that was appealing and likely to prove helpful. But it is provocative of ill-nature and un- kindliness to discuss assertions that seem un warrantably severe, and we have no intention of doing so; our sole purpose is to present an indication of what we have long considered to be the real attitude of the Briton of high class toward Americans of whatever walk in life. We do not resent it; indeed, strictures that are de served may well be brought to our attention for our own good, and exaggeration or vindictive- ness never offers adequate cause for offence to properly balanced minds. The only point we would make relates to our own attitude toward other peoples. Let it be not influenced by hypo- 149 WOMEN, ETC. critical professions or sentimental racial appeals in one direction, or by futile and unworthy re sentment in another; let it be the same to all men and to all nations, forbearing, generous, modest as befits youth, yet properly insistent upon recognition of real worth, and, most im portant of all, as free from entanglements of whatever nature as the fathers, if living, could wish the great Republic to remain. Of Yankees and " Yankee Doodle REFERRING to certain sneering and intem perate allusions to this young land by English publicists as indicative of the true British atti tude toward us, Mr. Andrew Lang once chided us gently for assuming that such diatribes are really representative, and made fresh declara tion of the unselfish friendliness to us of our older cousins. Such assurances, especially from a source so distinguished, and presumably au thoritative, find ever a ready welcome among those of us who continue to regard ourselves as lovers of peace and concord; and it was with peculiar satisfaction that we prepared to accept these in particular while sojourning temporarily within his Majesty s dominions. Imagine, then, the distress of mind which ensued, almost im- 150 WOMEN, ETC. mediately, upon our finding that on that garden spot discovered by the Spanish Bermudez, but appropriated by the English Somers, American boys are prevented from attending schools by English lads who congregate in great numbers for the deliberate purpose of hazing them. Grant ing readily the essential brutality of youthful exuberance the world over, and conceding, of course, the non-participation and even perhaps the disapproval of their elders, the dominance of resentful prejudice in the breasts of these young Britons of the better class against their American relatives can only be held to mean that the dis appearance of the traditional distrust and dis like which grew out of the Revolution is not yet complete. Whether, if the cases were reversed, American school-boys would behave with like discourtesy we would not venture to assert; if common reports of actual experiences be correct, probably not; but positive protestation would ill become one in whose eyes the red coat is still nearly, if not quite, as hateful as it was in those of the embattled farmers at Lexington. Such we imagine the effect to be, as English writers bitterly complain, of the accounts of the struggle against oppression formerly given in our primary school-books and reiterated with emphasis by teachers at the multitude of rural "four corners" WOMEN, ETC. throughout the length and breadth of the land. For the gradual but, as we are informed, certain elimination of these resentful teachings from the school-books of to-day we should, of course, be duly grateful and probably are. There is delightful irony in the fact that the most derisive term applied by an English lad to an American boy is "Yankee." True, since our own Civil War, during which social amenities prevailed to a limited degree between "Yanks," on the one side, and "Rebs," on the other, the word has taken on a new colloquial meaning; but, as originally used, it actually stood for "Eng lish," having been coined by the Indians, whose guttural limitations restricted their pronuncia tion of "English" to "Yengees," then "Yan- gees," from which "Yankees" easily followed. Even though Thierry s theory be accepted, that "Yankee" is a corruption of " Jankin," a diminu tive of John, applied by the Dutch of New York to the residents of New England, the reference was, of course, to Britons, and therefore, from their viewpoint, necessarily complimentary as "John Bull" is, or even "Tommy Atkins." Moreover, as early as 1713, it was held to denote great excellence, being used at that time by the Cambridge farmers at their auction sales of Yan kee good horses," "Yankee cider," and the like. WOMEN, ETC. Possibly that exasperating tune, "Yankee Doodle," had something to do with the discover ing of the term "Yankee" by the English; and, if so, one could hardly blame them for harboring a prejudice against the Yankee nation, although even at that, if we admit their own pretensions, they had only their own stupid selves to blame. It has ever been the wont of the British upper classes to speak opprobriously of their stronger antagonists and sometimes, if we may be so bold, of their betters. When Charles I. ascended the throne a ditty familiar in the nurseries of high society was "Lucy Locket," afterward known in New Eng land as "Lydia Fisher s Jig," and running like this: "Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Lydia Fisher found it; Not a bit of money in it, Only binding round it." A smart cavalier, adapting the jingle to political conditions, produced the following: "Nankey Doodle came in town, Riding on a pony, With a feather in his hat Upon a macaroni." A "doodle," according to Murray, was a simple- WOMEN, ETC. ton, "a sorry, trifling fellow ; a "macaroni" was a knot in the ribbon. The particular Nankey characterized thus derisively in this case was Oliver Cromwell. The next adaptation appeared in 1766 in connection with a caricature ridicul ing William Pitt for espousing America s cause, and incidentally sniffing at the French and Vir ginia negroes thus: "Stamp Act! le diable! dat is de job, sir: Dat is de Stiltman s nob, sir, To be America s nabob, sir, Doodle, noodle, do." It was but natural that shafts of the wit of the period should be aimed at the uncouth American soldiers ; and there was much hilarity in the British camp in Boston when an officer-poet recited the "ines which became the real "Yankee Doodle," beg nning with the familiar verse: "Father and I went down to camp, Along with Captain Goodwin, Where we see the men and boys As thick as hasty-puddin " and continuing with the well-worn references to "Captain Washington," "My Jemima," et a/., after the well-known fashion designed to "take off" the provincials thus: 154 WOMEN, ETC. "There was Captain Washington Upon a slapping stallion, A-giving orders to his men: I guess there was a million. "And then the feathers on his hat, They looked so tarnal finea, I wanted pockily to get, To give to my Jemima. "And then they had a swampin gun, As large as log of maple, On a deuced little cart A load for father s cattle. "And every time they fired it off It took a horn of powder; It made a noise like father s gun, Only a nation louder. " I went as near to it myself As Jacob s underpinning And father went as near agin I thought the deuce was in him. "Cousin Simon grew so bold, I thought he would have cocked it; It scared me so, I shrinked off, And hung by father s pocket. "And Captain Davis had a gun, He kind a clapped his hand on t, And stuck a crooked stabbing-iron Upon the little end on t. 155 WOMEN, ETC. "And there I see a pumpkin-shell As big as mother s basin, And every time they touched it off They scampered like the nation. "And there I see a little keg, Its heads were made of leather: They knocked upon t with little sticks, To call the folks together. "And then they d fife away like fun And play on cornstalk fiddles; And some had ribbons red as blood All wound about their middles. " The troopers, too, would gallop up And fire right in our faces; It scared me almost half to death To see them run such races. "Old Uncle Sam come then to change Some pancakes and some onions For lasses cakes, to carry home To give his wife and young ones. "I see another snarl of men A digging graves, they told me, So tarnal long, so tarnal deep, They tended they should hold me. "It scared me so, I hooked it off, Nor slept, as I remember, Nor turned about till I got home, Locked up in mother s chamber." 156 WOMEN, ETC. Some years before a British army surgeon stationed at Lake George had composed one or two sneering verses entitled " Yankee Doodle," and Ethan Allen, whose liking for stirring mel ody was stronger than his taste for classical music, promptly appropriated the tune, so that the fifers and drummers at Dorchester were fully prepared when they received a copy of the Boston composition, and the shrill tune became, prob ably for all time, our favorite national marching air. It is essentially English, as we have pointed out, but only in our judgment as adapted ; in any case, rightly or wrongly, we prefer to accept Duyckinck s declaration that it was taken by the predatory British from an old Dutch harvest- song whose refrain ran: "Yanker didee doodle down Didee dudel lawnter, Yankee viver, voover, vown, Botermelk und Tawnter." The British officer-poet, however, is entitled to the credit of having made the first use of "Uncle Sam" on record, although there is no indication that he meant it to refer to the States then united only for defensive purposes, thus leaving to the Albany pork inspector the high WOMEN, ETC. honor traditionally accorded him for sardonic humor in the use of a branding-iron. Disregarding considerations relating to the or igin of the appellation or traditions enveloping it, what is the true position of the Yankee of the present day? Should one, so called, feel abased or exalted ? Has he cause for shame or reason for pride ? Assuming an intermingling of vices and virtues in the typical human, which in his case dominate? Does his traditional meanness pale before the glint of his stern morality, or have both been so modified as to be virtually lost in a flabby present? Verily, is there to-day a Yan kee living, as Yankees once did live, with malice toward all and charity for none whose existence seems to be unrighteous? This is a fruitful topic peculiarly inviting to our commercially consanguineous Jew and Scot; but, for the present, contrast may well be con fined to the race whose physical robustness and dogged determination have served to triumph over the presumably superior intellectual attri butes of their racial rivals. We should say, then, that in common estimation the Yankee is keener, shrewder, less dogmatic, and more ca pable of sharp practices than the Briton. In combat, commercial or other, the two are about evenly matched, the exceptional quickness of the WOMEN, ETC. one nearly, if not quite, balancing in effective ness the developed brutality of the other. True culture sits lightly on both. In minor morals the Englishman excels; in major probities the Yankee is incomparable; the former being cer tain, the latter undecided, as to the future life. Neither could ever be agreeable to or sympathetic with the other. There is, therefore, little to choose between them in a personal way, espe cially if one be indisposed to regard his fellow- humans with persistent gravity; but as to the effect of the national characteristics of each of the races, respectively, upon its activities and destined purposes, there is no possibility of com parison. Despite the splendid personal freedom which he has achieved and of which he justly though too frequently boasts, the Englishman has become so wholly imbedded in the feudal system represented by a landed aristocracy that he is a worse stifler of progress than a Turk. All in England to-day is paternal; therefore, socialis tic and absurdly tentative in the face of threaten ing revolt against wrongs, not fancied, but real, because mentally stultifying by decree of those exercising fatuous authority. It is idle to deny that like perils confront us in America, but even this briefest of great national existences has already indicated that subversion 159 WOMEN, ETC. of a political ideal based upon encouragement of individual enlightenment and achievement is at least remote, if not in point of fact impossible. The self-reliant Yankee made this nation, welded it together successfully, and thus far, in every crisis, even to financial cataclysms, has not only proved equal to, but dominated, every emer gency. His habitation is no longer New Eng land, but the entire country, as events have proven, and his civic creed continues to be faith in the supreme ability of mankind, educated to think and act individually, to solve all human problems. Thus the Briton! thus the Yankee! Between the two, diffidence characteristic of a young and modest segment of the greatest of human races prohibits choosing. Long Live Elijah Pogram! HOWEVER exasperating in the eyes of others we Americans have been, and continue to be perhaps in some respects, none will gainsay our exceptional contribution to the gayety of na tions. If, for example, we had never cultivated the habit of bragging, how serious would have been the deprivation of our English cousins! It is with peculiar gratification, therefore, that we 160 WOMEN, ETC. are enabled to note signs of a revival of what was beginning to seem to be a flagging interest in our traditional idiosyncrasies. Somewhat sadly, yet not without avidity, the discerning representa tive in this country of the National Review re corded his discovery that the eagle, so far from having completely lost his voice, is still a scream er. He found his evidence in a political utter ance of an enthusiastic statesman of the Middle West, who, rising to the full requirements of ora tory in urging the necessity of electing a certain candidate for the Congress, delivered himself of this eloquent and stirring peroration: "The glorious American people, torch-bearers of Liberty; this American Republic, hope of the world; this American land, so nobly placed, so rich in all that ministers to human use and hap piness; that people will not be corrupted by their prosperity, because their prosperity will be honest and pure ; that Republic will not decay, because its Government will be kept close to that people; that land will not be spoiled and rifled by crazed efforts for hasty wealth, but made richer by in telligent industry and care. Development, not exploitation; progress, not decadence; while even brighter shines the light of the true freedom that men call equity before the law, onward and up ward, carried by the American millions as they press forward in the strength and joy of righteous living, passing by the gods of gold and leaving 161 WOMEN, ETC. behind them the false worship of the broken idols of the market-place a market cleansed, set in order, and regenerated. So shall American civil ization be made immortal and American institu tions a blessing to mankind!" To English ears, wrote our solemn critic, this sounds ridiculous. "It is gasconade so absurd that one fails to understand how a prominent public man should be guilty of anything so childish, but the newspapers do not regard it as extraordinary, and I am sure the audience and I speak with a long experience of American audiences sat there spellbound, drinking in every word, thrilling in every emotion, believing all that they heard, and glorying in the thought that they were the chosen people." We dare say the audience chuckled ; we are quite sure that we should have done so if we had been there ; and why not? Our national institutions are so few and our Elijah Po grams have become so rare, since an inconsiderate Speaker effectually discouraged oratorical exhibitions in the House of Repre sentatives, that such a gush of pent-up emotion is more than welcome. Back go our memories to the happy days when the great General Choke was accustomed to speak to the visitor from a benighted monarchy such fervid words as these: 162 WOMEN, ETC. "You air, now, sir, a denizen of the most power ful and highly civilized do-minion that has ever graced the world; a do-minion, sir, where man is bound to man in one vast bond of equal love and truth. May you, sir, be worthy of your a-dopted country!" Surely no true man could wish to expunge these noble sentiments from the fair pages of our glorious history or fail to rejoice in their occasional recrudescence. As we have already hinted, what cheer could we bestow upon our ancestral cousins if we should perfect the un happy resemblance now partially existing ? The oddity, also traditionally characteristic, lies in the inability of our self-contained relatives to perceive that one may derive genuine amusement from the exuberance of one s own verbosity. Un like them, we have not yet acquired the remark able capacity of always taking ourselves seriously. Let us seize this opportunity to be frank and disabuse their minds! We should not like to have the admission repeated to the Latins or, above all, the Germans; but the fact, for family consumption only, is that some of the assertions of our present-day Elijah were not quite true. We are a "glorious people," of course, and "torch-bearers of liberty" and the "hope" or prey of that portion of other communities con- 163 WOMEN, ETC. sidered undesirable at home; our land, too, is, if not nobly," at least comfortably, "placed" in comparative isolation and is really sufficiently fertile for all immediate necessities. We would not, however, insist very earnestly, except for purposes of oratory, that exploitation has yielded entirely to development, and we have at times given utterance to rather strong suspicions that the light of true freedom guaranteeing all men "equality before the law" is blazing somewhat less brightly than it might burn with propriety and usefulness. Nor are we absolutely certain that we have passed all of the gods of gold or broken the last of the idols of the market-place, but the shattering process is well under way, and we are truly looking forward to a renewed ex perience at no distant day of the "joy of right eous living." Meanwhile, we beseech our an cestral relatives to be patient with us; we are young and crude, not hardened yet, as others are, even in sin and we do love to hear ourselves talk because thereby, without irritating others unduly, we amuse ourselves at our own cheerful expense. For a New National Hymn WILL not some one kindly compose a new national hymn? We should dislike to lose "The 164 WOMEN, ETC. Star-spangled Banner" chiefly because of its patriotic origin on board an American frigate during a British bombardment, and we love to recall such incidents as that in Castle Garden, when Daniel Webster, to the distress of his wife and the delight of the audience, set the example of rising, which has since become common, and, by main strength and with mighty voice, joining in the chorus with Jenny Lind. But, after all, only the words are American, the atrocious music being that of " Anacreon in Heaven," com posed by an Englishman. It is therefore dis tinctively national only in part, and after nearly a century of trying service might well be laid upon the shelf. A yet more efficient reason for seeking a substitute is found in the fact that the American people have been trying in vain for nearly a century to sing it. Despite the general cultivation of voices, the endeavor of an audience to-day to respond to the demand upon their patriotic spirit continues to be as pathetic as it has ever been desperate. Even our loyal navy takes "America" in place of "The Star-spangled Banner" at evening colors. From time to time it is suggested that this sub stitution be generally made, but here again ob jection arises from the fact that only the words of "America," too, are American. On British 165 WOMEN, ETC. ocean steamships a prior right is tacitly accorded to the British, and "God Save the King" is sung. While we persist in adherence to "The Star- spangled Banner," it is fitting that this recogni tion should be extended to our British cousins, although as a matter of fact their claim upon the air of "America" for a national hymn is no stronger than ours and materially weaker than that of others. It was composed by the French man Lully in the seventeenth century, was adapted to the house of Hanover by Handel, and promptly taken over by Switzerland for "Rufst du, mein Vaterland," although the Hanoverians never abandoned it, "Heil dir im Siegerkranz," not "Die Wacht am Rhein," being to this day the national hymn of Germany. Consequently, the eve-song of British, Swiss, German, and American soldiers about to go into battle would consist of the same music and a jumble of words by Carey, Harries, Rev. Samuel F. Smith, and whoever wrote the Swiss words. For double- quick marching "Yankee Doodle" continues to be satisfactory and "Hail, Columbia" is not without merit; but "America" is of too common use among the nations and "The Star-spangled Banner" too throat -rending; so again we ask, Will not some one kindly present us with a new distinctively American national hymn? 166 WOMEN, ETC. Of Japanese Humor THE preternatural solemnity of the Japanese is probably responsible for the original impres sion that they lack that quality so essential to human happiness known as the sense of humor, and yet such acquaintanceship as we have made with those who have visited us has surely tended to its confirmation. It was with no little sur prise, therefore, that we learned that we had been misled, and that the Japanese really possess a subtle understanding quite as keen as that of the fun-loving folk of China. The discovery was made by an American war correspondent, who, having been politely deprived of the privilege of depicting scenes of battle, found food for reflection in the study of charac ter. We regret the necessity of saying that the illustrations presented by the discoverer in sub stantiation of his assertion were far from con vincing. For example: On a certain day the Japanese adjutant said to the correspondents, "To-morrow you shall go to the war"; but when the morrow came the honorable promise had been politely forgotten; whereupon the impatient foreigners appealed to the Baron General, chief of staff, who listened with the customary grave WOMEN, ETC. courtesy, and, after due consideration, instructed the interpreter to reply as follows: " His Excellency the General says you shall have not longer cause to make complaint. You make complainings because one day we the most un worthy Japanese say one thing and the next day something different. It shall not so be. Yester day we the Japanese say you the honorable cor respondents should go to the war to-morrow ; we shall not say different to-day. No, to-day his Excellency say he wishes in name of honorable Government to repeat same thing, To-morrow you shall go to the war. " At the door the interpreter stopped the correspondents and gravely added: "His Excellency the Baron General say honorable foreign sirs come to-morrow we the unworthy Japanese tell them same things. Always same thing every day, To-morrow you shall go to war. " The bit of amusement afforded by the anec dote is appreciated, but the writer is under a serious misapprehension respecting the nature of his discovery. This was not humor; it was not even irony; it was characteristic deceit, pure and simple, practised with avowed hypocrisy. The correspondents had come a long distance at great expense and were received with a simulation of excessive courtesy, only in the end to meet with an insult in the guise of a joke. In this country, where the sense of humor is not only developed, 168 WOMEN, ETC. but refined, sarcasm and satire long ago ceased to be regarded with favor; even wit must be harmless, and mere smartness in evasion of a serious pledge, such as the Baron General s, would be considered intolerable. The true hu morist is patterned after the real lady, who, we are informed, always remembers others and never forgets herself. Are We Unconsciously Becoming Socialistic? IT was the custom of the Puritans to instil into the minds of their sons the theory that striving for material success is wholly in unison with the worship of God, and almost, if not quite, as praiseworthy in the eyes, not only of their fellows, but of their Maker. The respective rewards, almost equally desirable in their es timation, were appreciation of achievement in this world and a satisfactory abiding-place in the world to come. Particular credit was supposed to attach to the prosperous issue of the endeavors of those born with few advantages. The tradi tional poor boy who went forth and conquered the world became an heroic example and found his way into the songs of the people, down to the day of the poet Lowell, who portrayed in delicate verse his priceless heritage. Even to is 169 WOMEN, ETC. the past generation the teaching prevailed, and came to be regarded as possessing a quality dis tinctively American. Some who call themselves individualists still persist in advocacy of the familiar doctrine; but generally it seems to have been left behind, and sometimes we wonder whether as a people we are not becoming un consciously socialistic. Take, as an illustration of the present ten dency, the case of one of our very rich men whose success would have been the wonder and ad miration of the past generation. He left home as a poor boy in the customary manner, wholly dependent even for a living upon his personal exertions. Good-fortune did not come quickly. He remained comparatively indigent for many years; but, after a time, inherited mental capac ity and developed industry and perseverance wore away the barriers, and step by step he advanced, until to-day he is the active director of the greatest and most successful business in the world. Fifty years ago, such an one would have been honored, his opinions heeded, and his favor sought. His influence would have been not only great but affirmative, as was, for ex ample, Peter Cooper s. Now it is restricted to a class whose chief weakness lies in its financial strength, and, broadly speaking, it is wholly 170 WOMEN, ETC. negative. In recent years, men occupying sim ilar positions have refrained from expressing judgment bearing upon the conduct of public affairs because of the apparent unwisdom of so doing; and, although we have known well this particular man and observed his conduct some what closely, we cannot recall a single utterance from him of the character mentioned since he achieved his pre-eminence. We were surprised, therefore, to note a departure from his life-long custom, when, in a newspaper interview, he frankly espoused the cause of a certain political candidate upon the ground that the opposing force was a menace to the business interests of the country. The effect was quick and inevita ble. Those in whose favor he declared sighed; those of whom he disapproved exulted. The former discreetly minimized, the latter loudly magnified, the significance of the utterance; and we have no doubt that the consensus of opinion would be that the one acted wisely and the other shrewdly. And yet the judgment possesses great value and the personal interests represented thereby are quite in common with those of the people as a whole. But we hear some one say that we have not told all, that there must be other reasons why advice from such a source will not be heeded. 171 WOMEN, ETC. This very successful American must be a bad man personally, or he must have engaged in wrongful practices in building up his business and his fortune. We know of but few men, rich or poor, to whose careers the word "saintly" would apply precisely, but, speaking in a com parative sense, the objection has no force in this case. This man is not a bad man. On the con trary, there are many evidences of exceptional goodness. Like his traditional prototypes, he has endowed his native town with a lavish hand and is known to be an unostentatious yet gen erous contributor to scores, even hundreds, of commendable efforts on behalf of those who are less fortunate. The crowning manifestation of his fidelity is found in the fact that his friends, though few because of the simplicity of his life, are invariably loyal. In the conduct of his business he has done only those things which others have done and only those things that his honored predecessors in the earlier period of our national existence did. Undoubtedly, in deal ing with unscrupulous men he has, as they say, fought the devil with fire; but, in all the torrent of abuse that has been poured upon him, there has never been so much as a hint of disloyalty to an associate ; the basis of his achievement has been extraordinary sagacity. These facts are 172 WOMEN, ETC. well known, and yet, as we have observed, his public influence is notoriously negative. There is nothing singular in this American man s case; he is but one of hundreds in like circumstances confronted by the same condition. How can the fact be accounted for, except as an indication of an almost revolutionary change in our traditional theory of commendable existence ? Can it be possible that appreciation of individual achievement and acquisition has been supplant ed so quickly by determination to enforce a dis tribution of the results of the endeavors of others ? If so, surely the brink of Socialism is not far distant, and the subject is one which should en gage the earnest attention of serious minds. Whether the plainly discernible tendency, fo mented by demagogy and self-seeking, prove to be temporary or lasting, there can be no doubt that we are face to face with a condition such as confronted Germany twenty years ago, and is surely making headway to-day even in conservative England. Unlike the Continental Empire, we have no autocracy with which to combat heresies; but, unless the fathers and sons of the Republic even to the present genera tion have been grievously mistaken, the spirit of patriotism is not dead and cannot be killed. The living questions are whether it has not been WOMEN, ETC. permitted to lie dormant too long, and in what way it can be aroused to the necessity of recog nizing and solving, with wisdom and tolerance, the immediate problems involved in the guid ance of a posterity to be counted by hundreds of millions. A Droning Voting Socialist "WHY I am a Socialist" is an ancient title, under which many men, and women, too, of diverse minds have undertaken to enlighten the world. Reasons "why," as set down, have been so numerous and so various that an attempt at recapitulation would be futile, but we think we are safe in assuming that the basis has been in variably that most estimable quality commonly designated as "altruism." But we have de veloped among us a new school of philosophy, whose expounders refuse to permit their un- wilted intellects to be shackled by tradition. It is without appreciable shock, therefore, that we were awakened by an explication whose chief characteristic, aside, of course, from its hidden merit, was its artless novelty. The expositor is one of the youngest of our teachers. His grand father was a poor printer, who built up a great newspaper in the metropolis of the West, and WOMEN, ETC. died happy in the knowledge that he had be queathed to his descendants an honored name and the wherewithal to carry forward the ad mirable work that he had so well begun in the service of the community. That the accumula tion painfully acquired by him for the purpose of assuring the essential independence of his public journal would be regarded by any of his natural successors as a personal embarrassment doubtless never occurred to that simple mind. Yet such was the pitiable case, and the predica ment in which the grandson found himself was clearly set forth over his own signature in an article bearing the alluring caption, " Confessions of a Drone." When a rich and free-spoken young man, not known to be irrevocably averse to the fasci nations of fame, raises aloft a banner such as that, one is apt to sit up and contemplate with pleasurable anticipation the possible advent of a Rousseau or, at least, a George Moore. But our earnest young friend really had little to con fess. Speaking "as a type, not as myself the individual," he stated that he had an income of between ten and twenty thousand dollars a year ; he spent all of it; he did no work; he produced nothing. Once upon a time he served as a re porter for the newspaper created by his grand- 175 WOMEN, ETC. father and earned fifteen dollars a week. For some reason not given this occupation develop ed unsatisfactory features, and so he became a "type." As such he appeared before an un enlightened public primarily as an expositor of the principles of Socialism and incidentally as a horrible example. Altruism found no abid ing-place in his creed. His difficulty lay wholly in dissatisfaction because he was not obliged to work for a living, and because others receive more than they earn. Some time ago there was another teacher, often spoken of as a Social ist, whose advice was sought by a young man in very much the same position as our melancholy drone. The mind of that young man, too, was troubled and he sought a remedy. The answer is found in Matthew xix, 21: "Go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor." It is a simple solution, and one quite as efficacious to-day as it was nineteen hundred years ago. Human nature undergoes little change from the wear of time. That young man also went away sorrow ful, for he had great possessions, and, we dare say, he too became a type and continued to drip bitter tears upon coupon-clipping scissors. We would not ask so much of our ingenuous philosopher as was required of his predecessor. The most we would venture to suggest to him is WOMEN, ETC. that he unite his capital and energy, cease to be a type and do something worth while. He owes that much at least to the memory of the grand father who toiled earnestly, though mistakenly, to make a wider opportunity for an addle-pated descendant. Our droning Socialist need feel no apprehension of the failure of such a union. All the requisites are at his command. He has money for use and a craving for toil. Brains he can buy in the open market. The Value of a Little Knowledge WE know a man who has great interest in and little knowledge of things scientific. Fort unately well-to-do and free from the necessity of constant endeavor, he is able to acquire such information respecting modern developments as he can comprehend, and to make various and devious experiments of a nature which would be regarded generally as impracticable and waste ful. Such an one could not but be greatly stirred by the discovery of the mysterious force known as radio-activity. Forthwith he sought and obtained all existing data, few though they proved to be, respecting the qualities and adapta bility of this incomprehensible energy. For a long time mystified and beginning to despair, he 177 WOMEN, ETC. was greatly cheered by the news from Austria that the learned scientists of the Continent, in conference assembled, had discovered that the light of the sun was radio-active, and that water surfaces exposed to the sun s rays became charged with this mysterious force; therefore, he reasoned, there must be a material value and peculiar remedial and strengthening qualities in water surfaces. How to demonstrate his theory was most per plexing, but he finally hit upon a plan. Through his woodland and meadows ran a brook. Pres ently he built a dam at such a point as to create a sheet of water of considerable size, upon which the sun s rays fell as constantly as the perpetual whirling of the earth permitted. Over the dam naturally and necessarily there dripped a steady stream of water from the very surface which he suspected to be surcharged with radio-activity. It happened that, being an American, the builder had a wife who had many nerves, one child who had what is often referred to as an everlasting cold, another afflicted with weakness of the spine, and a third who had indulged his tastes so lavish ly that he had seriously impaired the operation of his digestive organs. He himself suffered from no complaint except chronic laziness, but he could not ignore the fact that even this minor WOMEN, ETC. and unreprehensible trouble had been noted at intervals, and, indeed, somewhat freely com mented upon, by members of his family group, more especially, perhaps, by the ubiquitous and, of course, inestimable sister-in-law. The ex cellent purposes which he had conceived as a consequence of his theory he carefully refrained from announcing. When the dam was com pleted and all was in readiness for the actual test, having full knowledge of the inherent curiosity of human and especially feminine nature, he arose one morning an hour or two after the sun had made its appearance and beaten upon the surface waters of the pond, and proceeded stealthily to a platform which he had constructed furtively beneath the dam. There he revelled in the falling water with great glee, knowing full well that his action would be observed and surely imitated by those constantly tormented by the suspicion that he, or somebody else, might ob tain some benefit or enjoyment of which they were balefully deprived. Cannily, as morning after morning he repeated the operation, he smil ingly but firmly resisted all attempts to draw from him information respecting the effect of his experiment, but his anticipations were in due course of time fully realized. One by one the members of the family group fell under the spell ; 179 WOMEN, ETC. and, after the first somewhat terrifying ex perience, all yielded to the fascination of the buffeting of their bodies by surface waters pre sumably charged with radio-activity. And, curiously enough it came to pass that nerves passed out of the real head of the family, leaving a sweetness of disposition notable theretofore by its absence, the perpetual cold of the second in authority disappeared, the weak spine became strong from what the commonplace family physician, knowing nothing of radio-activity, declared to be water massage, and the collegian recovered so completely from his indigestion that he was enabled to resume his position in the crew. Even the altogether admirable sister-in- law, who had begun to view with apprehension the multiplication of weighing-machines, suc cumbed to the hardening process of radio-activ ity bountifully applied, and with the firm deter mination characteristic of American ladies thus disposed, persisted with sufficient success to jus tify hope in an effort to attain slenderness. Thereupon the impracticable theorist rejoiced greatly until, to his horror, he awoke to the fact that his own tendency to indolence was slowly but surely being dissipated. Nevertheless, he chuckles gleefully over his unbetrayed discov ery of a universal cure, and never misses an 1 80 WOMEN, ETC. opportunity to make a test upon an unsuspect ing ailing friend. He declares upon his honor that his experiment has proved successful in every instance. And, oddly enough, he is, al though impracticable, a truthful man. Existence in a Great City WE wonder if the people throughout the coun try are as glum as those who have their being in the great city where it is our misfortune to live. Here everybody rich man, poor man, beggar- man appears depressed. The thief alone, ac cording to the newspapers, is blithe and gay; all others abide in an atmosphere, if not of gloom, at least of meditation, tinctured with discontent. Everybody is cross the merchant, because he is obliged to transact more business upon a closer margin of profit ; the banker, because high rates for money do not counterbalance a sense of instability; the broker, because only the elect make gains in a declining market; the manu facturer, because the greater cost of materials and higher wages exceed the enhanced value of his finished product; the minister, beca.use his flock is sinful and indifferent to the needs of his family; the directors of great industries, because 181 WOMEN, ETC. further expansion is stopped by capital s fright at official activities; women, because landlord, grocer, and butcher absorb the increase in income, and more, leaving less than ever for plumage and fine raiment, and so it goes throughout the list. Statistics seem to demonstrate that we are prosperous, but personal observation contradicts the conclusion. Worthy charities never required so much; yesterday we were accosted by three beggars on a single block; this morning come urgent appeals to save two families from being turned into the street ; willingness to work appar ently exceeds the opportunity. Everybody is ill in body or mind, but chiefly in the throat ; the streets are filthy ; the air laden with germs of disease ; none opens his mouth but to cough or sneeze or utter profane language ; the hand of the dentist trembles and lacerates the nerves ; the physician cannot heal himself ; there is no health in us. The newspapers scold and scold and scold. There is no fun any more no ray of relief from the incessant clamor of real or fancied wrongs, no sign of joyousness. We wish the snow and slush would go away, and the robins would hasten their coming; we want to hear somebody laugh. 182 WOMEN, ETC. The Conquest of the Air IT is eminently fitting that the conquest of the air, which now seems assured, should crown the achievements of this creative age. None, if indeed all combined, of the wonderful inven tions of the past century has wrought so many and so radical changes in the conditions of physical existence or is laden with such a variety of possibilities as this final mastery of the at mosphere. Long before the days of Darius Green there had appeared at intervals signs of success, only, however, to share the fate of the famous flying-machine itself ; but now evidences of the solution of the physical problem that has most puzzled man from the beginning are con vincing. Accepting, as we must, the navigation of the air as a question only of time, what will happen when it becomes an accomplished fact? That the new system will possess some advantages over all existing means of transportation is obvious, having what might be termed plain sailing at times, and always immunity from the burdensome cost of road-beds, bridges, and the like. In the matter of speed, too, it is well known that certain birds fly twice as rapidly as the fastest express train; why not the aeroplane, 183 WOMEN, ETC. built upon the same principle? In respect to competition with other methods of transporta tion, however, we opine that owners of securities of existing transportation companies need feel no apprehension. The street-car did not suc cumb to the elevated, the elevated to the sub way, the horse to the motor, the telegraph to the telephone, nor the cable to the wireless. This growing world seems to require all facilities as rapidly as they can be supplied by the genius of man, and each addition, apparently, seems only to aid, rather than to cripple, the others, in consonance with the familiar saying of railway men that travel makes travel that is, individual examples form a communal habit. But what of regulations making for safety not only of passengers in the air, but of those over whose heads the air-ship must sail? In view of the difficulty experienced in the restraint of motor-cars on land, where at least they can be numbered, located, and stopped, the employment of winged angels or demons as policemen would seem likely to be requisite to the maintenance of speed regulations in the sky and to the protection of the heads of people on the planet. Whether any considerable number of persons, any num ber, at least, of sufficient size to give commercial value to aero-transportation, will ever utilize the 184 WOMEN, ETC. method, is doubtful. It seems unnatural; ap parently man was built to stand upon the ground. Strife against the force of gravity, therefore, may be regarded as contrary to the intention of the creating power; a fact which may account for the intense dislike and even fear of the majority of men and women on looking down from a great height. For this reason alone it is certain that the percentage of inhabitants of the earth who would now hazard a trip through the air is in- finitesimally small. And yet a similar prejudice once prevailed against sailing on the seas; and those who climb steeples and work on high buildings seem to have demonstrated that even the distressing dizziness experienced by most of us yields readily to the potent influence of famil iarity; so we really can tell very little about it, and, despite the example of the rapidity of the development, once begun, of steam and electricity, we question whether in many gen erations there will be reason for serious con cern. Nations are more immediately concerned than individuals. Visionary may have seemed and, perhaps, may still seem the anticipa tions of the poet, when, peering into the fu ture far as human eye could see, in imagina tion he 13 185 WOMEN, ETC. Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations airy navies grappling in the central blue." But even now, in war, dirigible balloons are em ployed. True, the air battle-ship is not readily imagined; and yet apart from possible en gagements of aerial fleets a very small naviga ble aeroplane could take aloft a sufficient amount of highly explosive material to demolish a small city like New York or London. Fortunately, however, British writers have already settled in their minds that a Berne Convention will precede the fighting air-ship and limit the scope of its work, but in just what manner the heavens will be patrolled for the capture of pirates has not yet been made clear. Perhaps the necessity will not arise. Modern Educational Methods THE cleverest of recent English essayists, him self the son of an archbishop and the master of a college, is distressed by the inadequacy of edu- 186 WOMEN, ETC. cational methods of the present day. Tennyson s famous indictment of Cambridge "Because you do profess to teach, And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart" excites him, and he becomes the prey of melan choly. "We are," he feels and says, "too pro fessional; we concern ourselves with methods and details; we swallow blindly the elaborate tradition under which we have ourselves been educated; we continue to respect the erudite mind, and to decry the appreciative spirit as amateurish and dilettante." Such words from an authoritative source gratify the dreamer incapable of incorporating into concrete expression his admirable vagaries and make pleasing reading for all, but once sub jected to the test of ordinary analysis they are quickly resolved into mere evidence of "fine writing," indicative of a woful lack of compre hension. Despite the pretty phrasing, there is really no good reason for ceasing to respect the erudite mind or to decry the flabby and un wholesome "appreciative spirit," whose most recent symbol in England was the sunflower protruding offensively from the button-hole of erotical genius. To this day, we cannot doubt, WOMEN, ETC. Eton exudes information if not knowledge, and paves the way for the acquirement of wisdom. Tennyson s plaint may be dismissed unresent- fully as the cry of a poet ; but from a competent student of human progress, such as Mr. Benson unquestionably is, we have a right to expect finer discrimination. The difficulty to which both allude lies not in the trammels of method or professionalism or regard for tradition, but in refusal or inability to differentiate in conscience between that which is good and that which is bad. The wisdom they reprobate is that of the serpent, celebrated in adage and heedlessly ac cepted as possessing Scriptural authority, al though Solomon plainly condemned it, by in ference, the Saviour in no sense indorsed it when He enjoined mere ordinary caution upon the apostles about to go forth "as sheep among wolves," and God Himself at the very beginning of creation cursed its source. The difference between the wisdom urged upon mankind by all divine, and indeed by any re spectable human, authority, unless we accord to Niccolo Machiavelli a position not commonly conceded to him, and that disparaged by the poet and the essayist, is as wide as the gulf between praiseworthy sagacity and detestable shrewdness. The heart requires nourishment, 188 WOMEN, ETC. to be sure ; so does the liver ; but the business of teachers is to feed and discipline the mind, having a care only not to impair the normal strengthening of the body nor to check the natural broadening of sympathies. When they bewail the restrictions imposed upon their pro fession by ages of experience, they indulge in talk not merely idle but distinctly harmful, tending only to induce in the youthful mind excuse for slothfulness. Fie upon such modern philosophy! In haste we return to the ancients. Ne.sutor ultra crepi- dam, and let the school-master stick to his task, leaving to the hardy Saxon heart the privilege it has ever enjoyed of acquiring spirituality in proportion to its needs and its capacity. The Power of Sentiment WHAT is the impulse that causes wide-spread protestation against changes in spelling ? There is nothing revolutionary in such a proposal. Comparison of the words of Chaucer with those now used shows the extent of evolution wrought by time without arousing resentment. Indeed, the fact is universally recognized that a lan guage, like a human being, must undergo con stant change or cease to live. Moreover, all 189 WOMEN, ETC. admit that the spelling of hundreds of English words is not only unnecessarily confusing, but really absurd. And yet. as we have seen, an at tempt to effect a general simplification or even a minor modification invariably incites a storm of disapproval. Why ? Advocates of the so- called reform insist that all reason supports their effort and that opposition, therefore, must rest necessarily upon prejudice. But this is asser tion rather than argument, and capable of use with equal force by the other side. We wonder if sentiment does not lie closer to the root of the antagonism than either reason or prejudice. Language itself becomes a part of one s being almost as early as love, and is cherished accord ingly. The written word lags behind the one spoken, but soon becomes as dear. Even the reformers pause before reverence and incon sistently retain the "u" in "Saviour," while eliminating it from other words of like ending. It is a pretty saying that a rose by another name would smell as sweet, but it is not true. Mary Jane would not be Mary Jane if called Maud, and nobody would recognize John addressed as Clarence. The reformers seem to establish the rightfulness of their cause and the absurdity of opposition by noting the evolution in spelling in the short time that has elapsed since this in- 190 WOMEN, ETC. scription was written for the most famous of known tombs: "Good frend, for lesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dust encloased heare; Blese b e ye man y* spares thes stones, And curst be he y fc moves my bones." But who would manifest the daring or have the heart to suggest the change of a single letter? Conscience at the Custom-house WHAT of the American conscience of the present day? Are its warrants and inhibitions the effect of inward conviction denoting princi ple or only the logical outcome of mental argu ment affected by desire and convenience ? What would be the answer of the thousands of men and women now arriving daily from abroad after passing through the ordeal of conversation under oath with the customs officers of the govern ment? The situation is one familiar to all travellers. We may take for granted that nine-tenths of the returning tourists have in their trunks articles for their own use and for presentation which cost materially more than the insignificant sum fixed by the government as the total value of pur- 191 WOMEN, ETC. chases exempt from tariff duty. It is also cer tain that not one-tenth make declaration to that effect. A large majority solemnly affirm, with raised right hand and with the help of God, that they have no dutiable goods concealed about their persons or elsewhere. But they have, they know that they have, and the customs officer knows that they have. How, then, can we reconcile the perjury for that is what it really is with the further assertion, which we unhesi tatingly make, that they are honest persons? The various explanations and excuses of those culpable are familiar. One seriously convinces himself or herself, usually herself, that the pur chases, whatever their cost, would not be worth more than a hundred dollars to any one else, or would not sell for more at the auction block. Not that this consideration has any bearing upon the matter; it is only self -condonation, but it is preferable to frank admission of fault. An other finds excuse in the obnoxious features of the regulations, and argues glibly that, since the government will not accept his or her word under oath in any case, there is no obligation to speak the truth. A third takes exception to the meanness of the law itself in depriving faithful and law-abiding citizens of some vague inalienable right. 192 WOMEN, ETC. But we suspect that only those whose moral sense has not yet been blunted by frequent aberrations find such explicit extenuation es sential to freedom from apprehension of annoy ance in the hereafter. Long experience enables the customs officer to detect such an one at a glance. He notes the heightened color, the twitching hand, the hesitating voice, and the ill-concealed movement of the throat, sugges tive of the resemblance between a conscience and the swallowed angleworm of his boyhood that was accustomed to tickle when it squirmed, and reminiscently, though gravely and sympa thetically, he smiles as he affixes his signature to the fateful document. The greater number, however, comforted by the fact that they sin in large company and that a whole people can not be indicted, complacently assure themselves that, while the regulations are doubtless essen tial to the apprehension of wicked smugglers, the duties were really meant to be placed only upon articles intended for sale, of which he generally he, in this instance has none. This is broad reasoning but probably as good as any, and, frankly speaking, the best we our selves, after no little searching, have been able to descry. We do not, of course, recommend its adoption by God-fearing people who see wrong 193 WOMEN, ETC. in granting to conscience even so brief a period of rest; we merely record the facts as bearing gently though fixedly upon the inquiry sug gested. Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not! THE unusual prominence lately accorded by the public mind to the use of spirituous liquors as a topic of discussion was directly attributable to two widely divergent causes, the first being the surprising wave of prohibitory legislation that swept over our Southern States, and the second, unfortunately, the individual action of a conspicuous candidate for the position of Chief Magistrate in offering to his guests a mixture chiefly of gin and bitters vulgarly and unjusti fiably designated as a cocktail. The prohib itory laws enacted in the South were brought into being to avert the inevitable effect of strong drink upon the weak intellects of negroes, and were warranted, undoubtedly, as involving a practical precaution against the commission of brutal crimes. The wide-spread criticism of the reported act of the eminent and exemplary citi zen referred to, however, was based less upon practical than upon moral considerations, cen sure having been expressed freely by fellow- 194 WOMEN, ETC. brethren in the church for the violation of what has come to be regarded by many, especially of the Methodist persuasion, as a tenet of the faith. Many minds confound the laws of man with the laws of God, and this fact is responsible for wrong assumptions without number, but none probably so common as this, that the drinking of spirituous liquors is forbidden by Biblical authority. Excessive indulgence, indeed, is de nounced in many passages as unwise, but hardly, except by inference, as sinful, and the practical Lemuel went so far as to distinguish in recom mendation between wine as best for those that be "of heavy hearts," and strong drink" for him that is "ready to perish," counselling even that such should " drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." In the days of the great temperance crusade in New England the ribald were wont to taunt the re formers with the statement that the Saviour turned water into wine, but the answer promptly given was to the effect that the water became only unfermented grape - juice, and then in variably came the stern admonition: "Touch not, taste not, handle not!" No single text in the Bible probably has been pressed into service more frequently than this ; and surely the mean ing of none has been so generally and completely 195 WOMEN, ETC. perverted. The interesting fact is that, instead of making the prohibition as commonly inter preted, the apostle distinctly forbade the Gen tiles of Colossae to observe the injunction uttered by another probably the gnostic philosopher, whose teachings had so distressed the good Epaphras. A noted divine of Brooklyn, hav ing been taken severely to task for hinting as much, made no response, evidently fearing to impair his usefulness as a religious teacher by overturning a cherished tradition. Being our selves, fortunately, unembarrassed by such ap prehension, we are enabled, without prejudice or fear of consequences, at least in this world, to make a presentation of the case, which should be as convincing as it will be brief and simple. Despite the doubts expressed by Professors Oort and Kuenen respecting the authenticity of the Epistle to the Colossians, and their in sistence that it must have been prepared by a disciple subsequent to the death of Paul, we may reasonably assume that it was written, as is generally supposed, by the apostle himself while in prison in Rome, in response to an earnest appeal from Epaphras, who had sat under his teachings at Ephesus and, returning to Colossse with Philemon and Archippus, had founded the true church. Success had crowned their efforts, 196 WOMEN, ETC. and for a time all was well ; but presently specious teachers of false doctrines appeared, and, being unable to cope with them, Epaphras hurried to Rome and induced Paul to write to the people directly, confirming and expanding the simple gospel which he and his companions had pro mulgated. The most adroit disturber, accord ing to Conybeare and Howson, was an Alexan drian Jew, who abounded in precepts that seem ed admirable and therefore likely to induce the subordination of religion to morals. It was this tendency which Paul undertook to coun teract in the very fine epistle borne back to Colossae by Tychicus. His purpose was to dis sipate the clouds of philosophy or gnosis which depreciated dependence upon the Christ and, by warning the people against observance of Jewish ceremonials, to win them back to the simple faith. To accomplish his intent, it was necessary to make a sharp distinction between spiritual and material excellencies, exalting the one and, for the sake of contrast, deprecating the other. Hence the much-quoted phrase, as presented in the Authorized Version (Chapter II.), thus: 20. Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 197 WOMEN, ETC. 21. (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22. Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men ? Or, according to the Revised Version: 20. If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances, 21. Handle not, nor taste, nor touch 22. (all which things are to perish in the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men ? In each of these versions, in conformity with custom, the phrase appears in a separate verse and has been freely quoted as if in fact a segre gated injunction. The free translation by Cony- beare and Howson puts it more connectedly, thus: If, then, when you died with Christ, you put away the childish lessons of outward things, why, as though you still lived in outward things, do you submit yourselves to decrees (hold not, taste not, touch not forbidding the use of things which are all made to be consumed in the using) founded in the precepts and doctrines of men? In other words, if they were indeed true Christians and dead with Christ (; . e., dead to the world) , they needed pay no heed to specious moral precepts because necessarily their living would be righteous, and the giving of undue 198 WOMEN, ETC. attention to things "consumed in the using," such as meat and drink, would serve only to con fuse and distract the mind from consideration of inward grace and spiritual life. That a doc trine so true and pure and exalted should be dis torted into a specific prohibition of the use of spirituous liquors is surely no more creditable to modern intelligence than the frequent at tempts to find warrant for their use in the apostle s admonition to take "a little wine for thy stomach s sake," when as a matter of fact no general application was intended nothing, in fact, beyond a wise and sympathetic suggestion to his friend Timothy, who was dyspeptic, to avoid the use of water and substitute a fluid more readily digested. We shall pursue this phase of the subject no further than to add that persons incapable of reading with understanding should carefully re frain from drawing from the Bible misleading quotations, whose possible detection cannot fail to create in open minds serious misgivings re specting the teachings of the entire Book. Of Editors and their Critics IT is not uncommon to hear unappreciated genius speak up, especially with sarcastic ref- 199 WOMEN, ETC. erence to the "intellectual pretensions" of edi tors of magazines whose business it is to choose from many stories submitted a few for publi cation. Formerly, disappointed authors were prone to accuse these unfortunate judges of forming a ring around personal favorites; but gradually this accusation has yielded to recogni tion of the inevitable effect of keener competi tion. It is found necessary now, therefore, to con vict the entire body of incompetency, and mere numerical enlargement has made this almost as difficult as to indict a whole people. Still, it may be done, if an anonymous correspondent of a conspicuous newspaper be believed and his deduction be accepted. It seems that a casual discussion with a non- literary friend" led to the making of a test "one perhaps of questionable propriety, but nev ertheless a test, and a relentless one," namely: "One of Kipling s most popular short stories was selected. The environment of the tale was English, but as the story depended little on local color the scene was easily transferred to Amer ica. An entire change of names of characters was accomplished after considerable mental ef fort. Aside from this, I give my word of honor not a paragraph, a line, a word, or a punctua tion was changed. The manuscript so prepared 200 WOMEN, ETC. was typewritten and sent to sixteen periodicals. Each of the sixteen editors declined the story, with the stereotyped form of thanks. "Finally, to make the position of the undiscerning pub lishers superlatively ridiculous, the manuscript was forwarded to Kipling s original publishers of the story. After an interval of about seven weeks we received a letter containing a check and acceptance. The check was returned by us, with the explanation that the story was to be amplified into a novel, and in due time we received our manuscript back. This experience is as true as the result was preposterous, and is a commentary and a reflection on somebody s intellectual pretensions upon whose we will leave it for the public to decide." To the writer, and doubtless to his non-literary friend, the result of this stupid fraud seems con clusive. Really, it is scarcely even indicative. We have no means of ascertaining the precise reasons why each of the sixteen editors returned the manuscript, but we do happen to know the cause of two rejections. It was sufficient for one editor, for example, to recall that he had de clined the story when submitted originally by Mr. Kipling s representative. To another it was a matter of weary routine. Each month brings to his desk so many meritorious stories and *4 201 WOMEN, ETC. articles which, on the presumption that they have been forgotten, some witless investigator, prying into the ways of the literary world, has doctored in a similar manner, that long ago he ceased to rebuke or invite any controversy whatsoever with the dishonest sender. If the equally censurable maker of this "test " gave his true name, he may rest assured that it has found its proper place upon more than one well-laden blacklist. He, however, was prob ably more cautious than his prototype who called in person upon a certain editor of the Atlantic Monthly of the name of William Dean Howells, and, producing a poem and courteous note of declination, indignantly demanded an explanation. "Do you mean to intimate that this is not a good poem?" he challenged. "By no means," hastily remonstrated Mr. Howells; "I think it is very good indeed." "Then why" in a somewhat mollified tone "do you de cline it? I consider it the best I have ever written." "Ah, well," said Mr. Howells, "after all, we have very few differences of opinion. Do you know," he added, in his gentlest voice, "I have long regarded it as the best that Tennyson has ever written." But it was the purpose of our smacking in quirer "to make the position of the undiscern- 202 WOMEN, ETC. ing publishers superlatively ridiculous," and he flatters himself that he succeeded when he won acceptance and a check from the publishers of the original story by Kipling. He may, there fore, be justified in claiming that he has brought "a reflection upon the intellectual pretensions" of one out of sixteen editors by demonstrating his ignorance or lapse of memory. Further than that he seems only to have convicted himself and his non-literary friend of moral perversion in having practised gross deception, to the pos sible injury of an innocent person, and of pitiful cowardice in hiding behind anonymity. Of Honesty in Advertising THAT advertising pays is a fact now gener ally recognized; but it is still an open ques tion whether truthful advertisements produce results equal to those of announcements which, if not quite deceitful, are nevertheless obvious exaggerations. The first exponent of paid-for publicity on a large scale was a famous manager of circuses to whom was accredited the cynical observation that "the American people love to be humbugged." It is a significant fact, how ever, that the practice of that able showman did not conform to his precept, and that the con- 203 WOMEN, ETC. tinuance of his success was really due to the excellence of his productions. Doubtless, he was as well aware of this truth as anybody else, and merely chuckled over the additional ad vertising obtained at no cost, through a witty observation that could not fail to appeal to the American sense of humor. Second only to the showman in using what seemed to be a daring innovation was the publisher of a story-paper, who, also, always gave more than he promised. Not a few ambitious emulators of these pio neers mistook the true cause of their successes and endeavored to achieve similar benefits by mere pronouncements, without regard to ac curacy. But it did not take long, for merchants especially, to discover that lasting gain could not be obtained in this manner, and year by year they have become more heedful of the in junction that, irrespective of its inherent merit, honesty is the best policy. It is, therefore, a curious and interesting fact that, of those who are still convinced of the efficacy of the ap parently mistaken notion that gross exaggera tion is essential to attracting public attention, the most conspicuous are themselves purveyors of advertising. A recent example was the pros pectus of a comparatively new periodical, which, we were informed by the enthusiastic publisher, 204 WOMEN, ETC. "is not only an unprecedented success," but "has at once taken a position in the front line." Curiously enough, so simple a method as re ducing its price enabled it to immediately "strike the key-note of success," which it was sure to maintain because "probably never be fore has there been such a list of prominent writers of world-wide reputation engaged by a single publisher." In conclusive confirmation of these broad assertions, the publisher submitted the expert opinion of a distinguished statesman whose books, incidentally, he printed to the effect that "it is by a long shot best of all the August magazines." Now, each of these assertions was untrue and known to be untrue, not only by the publisher responsible for them, but probably even by the kindly disposed statesman, and surely by the experienced reader. If, by chance, there should be a person sufficiently credulous to make an experimental purchase only to find that he has been deceived, what, we wonder, is the effect upon his mind anticipated by the publisher? Probably that, while recognizing the artifice, he might nevertheless be convinced that the prod uct was really worth the smaller purchase price required and that he would continue to be a customer. The chief aim, however, we suspect 205 WOMEN, ETC. was to get his attention at all hazards, by what ever method. This is only a minor illustration of a prac tice which seems reprehensible and is becoming rather more general. Publishers of books, for example, have discovered, or think they have discovered, that an effective inducement to a prospective purchaser is the knowledge that many persons have bought and presumably read with delight the offered product. Hence the frequency of announcements to the effect that so many thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of copies of a certain book, usually a novel, have been sold or at least printed. We do not doubt that some reputable houses are scrupu lously exact in making such statements; but, in the majority of cases, the figures present a woful exaggeration. We have too much respect for the intelligence of the American public to believe that they are regarded seriously, and yet their presentation must have some effect or publishers would not persist in the usage. So, too, in respect to the circulation claimed for periodicals. False claims are the rule rather than otherwise. We know a publisher who re fuses to make any statement whatever, simply because he has a prejudice against misrepresen tation and his chief competitor has not. He 206 WOMEN, ETC. does not consider it a part of his duty to chal lenge the assertion of another, even though he knows it to be false. Consequently, although certain that many thousand more copies of his periodical are sold than of his competitor s, he is obliged to require the prospective customer to convince himself of the fact unaided. We doubt if he suffers material loss of desirable trade by reason of his attitude, and yet the predica ment is surely awkward and ought not to be. At times we have secretly hoped that some of our professional reformers would attack the problem and effect a wholesome change, but this is probably too much to ask, or even dream of, since their own vehicles of expression are as a rule the worst offenders. After all, experience has convinced us that the quality of a publica tion itself is usually a sufficient guarantee of its popularity among people whose attention is worth having, and that heedfulness of exactitude in the advertising of wares is, in the long run, both politic and profitable. Permanence of a Helpful Pastime A SOMEWHAT distinguished commentator upon current events was distressed by what he termed the "hypertrophy of golf." What he meant to say, in plain English, was that the recent im- 207 WOMEN, ETC. provements introduced, represented in partic ular by rubber balls and long-handled clubs, might make proficiency so easy as to impair the interest in the game. As an example confirm ing his apprehension, he noted that professionals nowadays find no difficulty in circling the long est courses with less than seventy strokes. This to our critic s mind meant the likelihood of changing golf to mere cross-country pedestrian- ism, and he longed for a recurrence of the good old days when "the putting of little balls into little holes with instruments very ill-adapted to that purpose " was more onerous. It would be a pity, indeed, if the fears of our friend should be realized, even in a minor degree. Golf has ceased to be a fad. It has become an institu tion of very great value to the community. It affords practically the only sane recreation for men of middle-age, who stand most in need of open air and moderate exercise. It is upon this class, not upon professionals or limber boys who perform marvellous feats, that the permanence of the pastime depends; and, despite the fore bodings noted, we are convinced from experience and observation that this reliance has a sub stantial basis. No invention as yet has been wrought that can effect a material improvement in the quality of golf played by one who has 208 WOMEN, ETC. passed his fortieth birthday. Constant practice and strict attention to the unsatisfying merit of accuracy may improve the performance of such an one to the extent of from five to ten strokes, but no more. With the passing of years, one becomes staid physically as well as mentally and morally. We venture the assertion that, even with the aid of the modern improvements, the number of strokes required by a very large majority of middle-aged men who indulge in the pastime regularly is nearer one hundred and ten than ninety. To them the invention of the rubber balls and the long handles was, and con tinues to be, a happy circumstance, relieving somewhat the discouragement attending the in evitable recognition of the bitter truth that exceptional proficiency could not thereafter be attained. So far as we have been able to per ceive, the game has lost none of those exasperat ing features which constitute its chief charm; nor is there any lack of competitive joy among the wise who have come to recognize the de sirability of restricting their associations on the links to those of their own limited capacity. The Helpfulness of Fishing ABILITY to cast a fly has so long been recog nized as the chief requisite of a true fisherman 209 WOMEN, ETC. that those who profess to be sportsmen are prone to shrug their shoulders at mention of one who merely angles; and yet the great Izaak himself, whose rambling dialogue, "sweetening the tem per of any man who reads it," has become a classic, was so ignorant of the more delicate art that a friend was called to make discourse there on in the "compleat" book. We are probably justified, then, in assuming that there are two sides of the argument, the decision depending chiefly upon the purpose held in view. To one seeking active sport the lithe rod and shrewdly selected imitation of a familiar insect are essen tial, but the philosopher seeking opportunity for reflection needs only the troll, the bob, or the amiable worm. One of our most exemplary citizens, chiefly distinguished from having twice served as Chief Magistrate of the nation, used the bob sturdily and skilfully, yet withal so considerately as to have achieved no small measure of popularity beneath the surface of the waters. It is this method of fishing that affords the widest range for meditation, and we are pleased to know that some of the thoughts that came to him in the intervals of waiting he saw fit to set down for publication in a book, the reading of which is a delight, especially if one permit one s 210 WOMEN, ETC. imagination to depict the conditions attendant upon specific reflections. For example: "Fish ing stories are always to be believed" brings before the mental vision the inevitable doubter of the sad truth that "the biggest fish are always lost"; a clear conscience ensuing from stern re sistance of temptation clearly appears in "It is better to go home with nothing killed than to feel the weight of a mean, unsportsmanlike act " ; unconscious disapprobation of certain political methods may be suspected from "The unstrenu- ous, philosophical fishing fraternity does more good for humanity than the strenuous people"; and, finally, a plea for leisure as a cure for present evils is plainly manifest in "There can be no doubt that the promise of industrial business, of contented labor, and of healthful moderation in the pursuit of wealth, in this democratic coun try of ours, would be infinitely improved if a larger share of the time which has been devoted to the concoctions of trusts and business com binations had been spent in fishing." Here spoke the statesman as well as the philosopher, the man of experience and affairs no less than the calm, dispassionate observer of current ten dencies. It is well, indeed, as Dr. Prime would say, to go a-fishing when one may catch such helpful 211 WOMEN, ETC. thoughts, but better far and vastly more prof itable to the jaded mind and worn conscience is the inestimable privilege of renewing acquaint ance with one s self amid the singing of the birds and the sighing of the trees. Such, in considering the true need of the American man, we suspect to have been the feeling, though un expressed, of our worthy sage. Should Waiters Wear Beards ? WORD came some time ago from Rome to the effect that the Waiters Union of the Eternal City had decreed that hereafter each member should wear a beard. The brief news para graph bearing this interesting information did not contain the various " whereases " which must have preceded it and stated the reasons for the resolution, but undoubtedly the action was a revolt against the indication of servitude. In taking this view the waiters had a precedent of long standing, since, according to Tacitus, even the ancient Germans regarded a clean-shaven face as a sign of menial occupation. In the eyes of our Biblical forebears the beard was almost sacred, and it was so universally worn that the great lawgiver, instead of pro scribing the use of the razor, forbade the chosen 212 WOMEN, ETC. people to "mar" so much as the "corners of their beards. Also when Hanun wished to humiliate David s messengers he shaved one side of their faces, and when they returned to their master they were obliged to become social recluses until their hair should grow again. In more modern times customs have varied widely. The fan tastic trimming into formal shapes correspond ing to old-fashioned box-hedges began during Elizabeth s reign, and has continued to a greater or less degree to the present day. In England now a gentleman is supposed to wear a mus tache, and until comparatively recently the growth of one was the first ambition of the youth of this country. It is hardly ten years since the American usage changed, but the revolution was so complete, when it did arrive, that nowadays young men are almost invariably clean-shaven, and their elders are gradually yielding to the new fashion. Why the absence of a beard was regarded by the Germans as a sign of servitude is not re corded, but in recent times the custom, as applied especially to waiters, undoubtedly had its origin in regard for neat and cleanly ap pearance. Mere contemplation of flowing beards in proximity to plates of soup would seem to in dicate sufficient ground for the present arrange- 213 WOMEN, ETC. ment to justify its continuance. Hair-dressers have certain, though unsatisfying, excuse for utilizing their beards as convenient receptacles for their various combs, but a waiter has no such practical extenuation. In fact, the modern germ theory alone probably would suffice to de prive him of the privilege. Moreover, as we have pointed out, in this country the clean-shaven face is no longer a sign of servitude, but rather an evidence of freedom from blemish. There is also a growing indisposition on the part of those who do actually serve to resent the recognized signs of their occupation. We question whether ever again the beard or mustache will become popular. After all, wom en make fashions for men, as well as for them selves, and the wearing of a beard or mustache, we are informed, has become in their view ob noxious. If it be true, then, as we suspect it is, that the chief purpose of American men is to gratify those whom they are pleased to idealize, no general response to the movement inaugu rated in the Eternal City need be anticipated here. The Passing of the Deacon IT is a pity, if true as reported, that the office of deacon has ceased to be regarded with favor 214 WOMEN, ETC. by members of the Protestant churches in New England. Time was when the title conferred distinction and honor, and was sought with as great diligence as could be considered seemly by good and pious men. Once acquired, too, it wrought a marked, though unconscious, change in the demeanor of the possessor, who forth with became graver and more chary of speech, except in saying grace at table and, in the really old days, at the beautifully simple home services known as "family prayers." But, as the spirit of irreverence gradually permeated unregenerate days, stories of uncouth humor were spun about the deacon as a central figure, comic papers de picted him chiefly as indulging on the sly a liking for a horse-race, and, all in all, the title con tinued to lose its former dignity and significance, until now, as we are told, it is not only no longer sought, but rather generally avoided. Although perhaps sometimes forgotten, it is a fact, scarcely surprising to those given to in vestigating the origins of customs, that widows are directly responsible for the earliest appoint ment of church officials of the class we have in mind. When the apostles realized the necessity of providing bodily sustenance for those who were in attendance on their ministrations, they made the requisite arrangements; but appar- 215 WOMEN, ETC. ently the distribution was unsystematical, and presently the Grecians were egged on by their widow folk to complain that the Hebrews were obtaining more than their fair share of the provender. Whereupon the Twelve took counsel and de cided that, since it ill became them as spiritual teachers to serve the tables, the appointment of certain brethren of good repute to superintend the business was in every way desirable. Seven were chosen Stephen, who subsequently was famed for his faith and good works; Philip, another admirable man; Prochorus; Nicanor; Timon; Parmenas and the proselyte Nicolas and they were designated fittingly from the nature of their task as deacons from the Greek SICLKOVOG or its Latin derivative diaconus, mean ing attendant, or one who serves. That these first members of the order performed well their work is evidenced by the fact that the widows ceased to murmur, and by their own rapid ad vancement in authority, until some were per mitted to preach and even to do miraculous deeds. To this day, in the Methodist Episco pal Church, deacons are ordained by the bishop and may serve as travelling preachers, solem nize marriage and administer the rite of bap tism. In the Congregational bodies they seldom 216 WOMEN, ETC. preach, but often read a sermon in the absence of the pastor, and invariably distribute the elements of the Communion. They are also supposed to act as almoners after the fashion of Stephen and Philip, and in some States are em powered to hold as trustees the property of the church. In the very early days there were deaconesses also; but, as the widows generally selected apparently did not enjoy being classified as "of mature age," the practice fell into disuse, although the order is still maintained in Ger many, and to a limited degree by various sects in this country. The office suffered much in the old country from the reprehensible conduct of a Scotsman of the name of William Brodie, a deacon in an Edinburgh kirk, and as canny a rascal as was ever reared on oatmeal. It was his custom to pass the plate of a Sunday morning and then proceed directly to his wood-yard, where he would meet others of like sportive inclinations in gratifying his passion for the abominable sport of cock-fighting. In his professional capacity as " wright " and cabinet-maker he had access to warehouses, shops, and the residences of well-to- do citizens, and there occurred to his ingenious fancy the idea of taking the impressions of keys in putty, making duplicates, and levying toll is 217 WOMEN, ETC. upon his friends and acquaintances while they were asleep. Sometimes his exploits were as tonishingly daring; here is an instance: " One Sunday an old lady, precluded by indis position from attending the kirk, was quietly read ing her Bible at home. She was alone in the house her servant having gone to church when she was startled by the apparition of a man, with crape over his face, in the room where she was sitting. The stranger quietly lifted the keys which were lying on the table beside her, opened her bureau, from which he took out a large sum of money, and then, having locked it and replaced the keys upon the table, retired with a respectful bow. The old lady, meanwhile, had looked on in speechless amaze ment, but no sooner was she left alone than she ex claimed, Surely that was Deacon Brodie! which subsequent events proved to be the fact." At first Brodie was content to work by him self, but as his ambitions widened he selected accomplices. Robbery after robbery was suc cessfully carried through, the rich of Edinburgh went quaking to their beds, the guardians of the law seemed powerless. And all this time the incomparable deacon serenely walked the streets of his native city, attended to his legitimate business, entertained and was entertained by admiring friends. Then there came to him the magnificent idea of breaking into the General 218 WOMEN, ETC. Excise Office for Scotland, where large sums of money were stored. In this adventure he had three accomplices. All would have gone well save for one of those accidents which are the despair of criminals. While their work was in progress they had already found some sixteen pounds Mr. James Bonar, Deputy Solicitor of Excise, hurriedly returned to the office to find some papers. The deacon, for the first and last time in his life, lost his nerve; he incontinently fled. The other men, hearing footsteps and dis covering Brodie s absence, departed also. All might still have been well, for Mr. Bonar sus pected nothing, but one of the accomplices, fear ing detection and hoping to save his own neck, made a confession, and the game was up. But for a long time the deacon eluded capture, even staying some days in London within five hun dred yards of Bow Street. From London he escaped to Flanders, and finally, through his own indiscretion, was captured in Amster dam. The trial which followed was one of the most celebrated in the annals of Edinburgh. Deacon Brodie conducted himself with perfect com posure. A contemporary account said: "He was respectful to the Court, and when anything ludi crous occurred in the evidence he smiled as if 219 WOMEN, ETC. he had been an indifferent spectator." The ver dict was "Guilty." In prison he kept up his spirits, and when a friend visited him sang with the utmost cheerfulness from the "Beggar s Opera." On the scaffold he was still unper turbed. "Twice, owing to some defect in the adjustment of the ropes, did the deacon descend the platform and enter into conversation with his friends. . . . With his hands thrust carelessly into the open front of his vest . . . the deacon calmly took that step out of the world which his own ingenuity (he had made some improve ment in the gallows drop) is said to have short ened." Even after the execution there were re ports that the deacon had "cheated the wuddy " after all. Not even our happily versatile land has pro duced a scamp so picturesque or so thoroughly calculated as Brodie to bring his honorable office into disrepute. For the disfavor now said to attend it in this country, we suspect the comic papers are chiefly responsible, although prob ably a searching inquiry would reveal that the widows are still somehow concerned in the mat ter, as they have been from the beginning. Whatever the causes, the fact, if such it really be, is, as we have said, a pity, for the office is a high and holy one, and has been filled by thou- 220 WOMEN, ETC. sands of godly men in all ways worthy successors of Stephen and Philip. A Christmas Plea for Vanity WE question whether Solomon actually wrote or dictated the words of the preacher; it seems far more likely that, in his old age, he let his moody spirit feed upon the shrewdly pessimistic philosophy of his courtiers, and himself became the editor of epigrammatic phrases, most favor ed if sardonic. "Vanity of vanities, all is van ity," is the expression, not of wisdom, but of folly a weak admission of spiritual depression unworthy of a strong character or even a trained intellect. In other books comprised in the Old Testament the word, subsequently translated into the Latin vanitas and now into the Es peranto vaneco, signified a heathen god or per sonification of vice; but, clearly, in Ecclesiastes it was used to represent mere emptiness, indi cating the futility of endeavor, as, for example, Cooper poetically defined death as reducing all to the same views of the "vanity of life," and Poe mournfully bewailed " the hollow and high-sounding vanities Of the populous Earth!" 221 WOMEN, ETC. As, of course, we all know, the accepted mean ing of the word changed long ago ; precisely when we cannot tell, but certainly before the frankest of philosophers argued that it was less vain than immodest in a man to speak freely of himself. To-day our latest, revised and professedly up- to-date dictionaries define vanity as (i) "a feel ing of shallow pride, especially as characteris tic and demonstrative, and as manifesting an overweening desire to attract notice and gain admiration in a small way on slight grounds"; (2) "mental elation arising from a high opinion of one s own attainments or achievements, or from an overestimation of possessions more showy than valuable "; and (3) "inordinate self- esteem. The third interpretation we reject as an encroachment upon the prerogatives of egotism and conceit; the first and second we accept as exact in the modern sense, and from that view point we insist that the trait has undergone se rious misrepresentation. Vanity, as we and our modern dictionaries comprehend it, is not displeasing in manifesta tion. King Solomon himself would not have resented a natural effort upon the part of a child "to attract notice and gain attention in a small way on slight grounds"; though wise, he was intensely human, as we could readily demon- 222 WOMEN, ETC. strate from his autobiography, and he would have entered sympathetically into the spirit of the future woman joyously exhibiting her bows of pink and blue. Moreover, while of course only well-to-do as compared with our own mod ern billionaires or multi-millionaires, he never theless possessed much gold and silver, to say nothing of an aggregation of concubines difficult of acquirement in these hypercritical days, and could appreciate the naturalness of "mental ela tion arising from an overestimation of posses sions." And so, despite the disparity in the possession of worldly goods, can we or any fitly constructed person. An exhibition of vanity on the part of one unduly rich is but normal and no more offensive than a similar manifestation by a happy child. Even having the power, to deprive either the one or the other of the harm less personal enjoyment arising therefrom would be a surly performance, incompatible with the spirit which should predominate during the cele bration of Christ s mass. Christmas week is the time of all the year when blessings from the heart fall most bountifully upon the vast majority of humankind who work to live. To those who have so much that the most shrewdly selected gift can but add to a hopeless surfeit it is a season of comparative 223 WOMEN, ETC. bitterness. They are the ones, then, most im mediately in need of sympathetic commiseration, and for them, on this eve of the celebration of the Nativity, we bespeak the kindly feeling of all good people and gentle tolerance of vanities inseparable from great possessions. On Behalf of Satan As we approach the season of Yuletide, when hearts are warmed by emotions of forbearance for saints and charity for sinners, it would seem to be fitting that somebody should say a good word for the devil. We fully recognize the dis favor in which he is ostensibly and somewhat ostentatiously held by those of us who would re luctantly admit, if pressed, that we may be better than our neighbors ; and we appreciate the odium likely to be incurred by one who pleads for any thing like a "square deal" for a cosmic politician whose regard for righteousness suffers sadly from the nature of his business. And yet, accustomed as we are to grant that any one who has achieved noteworthy success possesses some merit, we may not logically or fairly deny the right of con sideration to an archangel who, after thousands of years of strife unexampled in point of bitter ness, still manages, according to current opinion, 224 WOMEN, ETC. to hold his own. True, we think or, at least, are glad to hope that the seemingly everlasting struggle between day and night, light and dark ness, good and evil, is gradually working to the ultimate salvation of a small, though select, seg ment of the human race; but, even so, to depre ciate the fighting quality of our chief adversary would reflect little credit upon a breed accus tomed to acclaim its own sportsman-like spirit. Surely, if it be true, as our most religious ob servers declare, that Satan still has a greater following than all of the good angels combined, the fact is full of significance. And how ac counted for? That he is shrewder and more industrious than the others we have been taught and may readily believe; but even that painful admission hardly suffices as an explanation. May it not be that Satan, in common with other politicians, has been misunderstood and mis represented? His original offence seems not to have been unduly serious; he was only so ambitious, as we are informed, that he could not keep quiet, and his restlessness made of him a common nuisance, as it has of others since, and St. Michael was instructed to put him out. Un fortunately for us, he landed eventually upon our earth in the vicinity of an attractive new garden, and, assuming the guise of a serpent, im- 225 WOMEN, ETC. pertinently accosted an imprudent lady in such beguiling fashion as to produce those disastrous results of which we all are now cognizant. It was not a manly or generous act thus to impose upon the credulity of a newly made lady quite destitute of experience; but there is no reason to believe that it was regarded as wholly without excuse even at his home, because, ac cording to the Scriptures, he kept going back and forth and handing in reports until he overshot the mark by practically betting that poor Job could be nagged into repudiation of his faith. We have never been able to understand how Satan got permission to have that test made. Job was an inoffensive, law-abiding citizen, wholly devoted to his own flocks and wives, and in all other ways exemplary in thought, expres sion, and conduct. But, calm and simple though he seemed, he was, as we all who read the Bible know, strong enough to resist temptation, and the ambitious Satan, losing prestige in conse quence in heaven, was virtually forced to pass the remainder of his days between hell and earth, and in this latter resort we must confess he has been and is to this day most annoying and pertinacious. Fortunately, there is no reason to believe that his ministrations will continue beyond this life. 226 WOMEN, ETC. There was at one time such an idea shared by even such men as Milton and Dante and Calvin, but later advices indicate to the scientific rnind that it was fallacious. In the first place, it is now conceded that hell is not a hot place, but a land of bitter cold and icy walls, gloomy enough to irritate sinners, and yet not entirely devoid of material comforts. Its original name was Niflheim, but since none but Germans could pronounce it properly, it was changed as a compliment to the Teutonic goddess Hel, when she became its queen, and has since been known to all by that title short, easily spoken, and capable of being uttered, at times, with appro priately explosive emphasis. Thence, in mid winter, seeking shelter from the Icelandic blasts, travelled the djoful, as he was then known in that vicinity. It was a red-letter day in Hel when the devil arrived; the jovial residents had long wanted a butt for their jests, and the half-starved wan derer supplied the need. "In the most good- humored manner," Professor Max Muller in forms us, "they exchanged a flitch of bacon for his marvellous quern ; and when he had satisfied the cravings of hunger, they played many pranks upon him." One cannot but feel some pity for the poor 227 WOMEN, ETC. devil in those early days. He was young and inexperienced, lacking both patrimony and friends, and looking forward to a protracted existence and strenuous career. The Germans thought he was stupid, and their legends contain so many accounts of ludicrous ways in which they invariably outwitted him, that Southey once confessed that he "could never think of the devil without laughing." It was in this con temptuous spirit that the English, having in mind the nix or nixy of the German fairy-tales, corresponding to the nicor of Beowulf, designat ed him laughingly as Old Nick. But the devil was nobody s fool. Despite the loss of his quern, his indefatigability and developed talents have won for him a place in history equal, if not superior, from the view -point of mere per sonal achievement, to that of a mediaeval con queror or modern hero. His tragic death at the hands of a common button-moulder, as related in the legends, we must regard, not as the record of an actual happening, since we know only too well that he is still with us, but as prophetic that his career will not continue beyond this life. Many who have had visions of hot griddles, burning oil, and the like will be comforted by this assurance ; and yet it is not easy to foresee how we can get along without him even in the world 228 WOMEN, ETC. to come. Certain it is that those of us who have no cause for personal apprehension will not only miss the jaunty goings-on which we now find enlivening, but will also consider it almost a breach of faith to be deprived of an occasional peek at certain people we know smarting under the treatment they so richly deserve even now. We really cannot tell. It may be that the Teutonic notion is wrong, and that the good old Presbyterian conception will yet be realized. If so, how tempting the prospect of long winter evenings before the fire, listening to the sardonic prince s tales of his personal experiences among our fellow-men! We can even now see Mark Twain sitting there smoking, drinking in those autobiographical reminiscences, and slowly turn ing green from envy. But meanwhile, possess ing our souls in patience, let us be not accused of unworthy hedging if, at this appropriate season, we ask the prayers of all good people for Satan himself, no less than for his multitudinous flock. We shall rather be bringing ourselves into healthy accord with the high sentiments of those whose sympathy finds bounds neither in race, nor in clime, nor in geographical line, nor in extra-terrestrial condition, but who desire the universal welfare like Robert Burns, who thus exhorted his fellow-sinner to repentance: 229 WOMEN, ETC. But fare-you-weel, Auld Nickie-Ben! O, wad ye tak a thought an men ! Ye aiblins might I dinna ken Still hae a stake: I m wae to think upo yon den, E en for your sake!" Is God Omnipotent? WE find much that is appealing in the new theology that is making such headway in Eng land. Its objection to ecclesiastical labels; its belief in the essential oneness of God and man, sharply differentiating from the Unitarian theory which makes a great gulf between God and man ; its refusal to admit any essential distinction be tween humanity and the Deity; its insistence that all men are divine, although in a lesser degree than Jesus Christ; its treatment of the Bible as literature, "a unique record of religious experience," instead of as a fount of dogma; its rejection of the common interpretation of atone ment, which makes one suffer for another s fault, and, finally, its basing belief in the im mortality of the soul only on the ground that every individual consciousness is a ray of the universal consciousness and cannot be destroyed all these are tenets of our own faith. But one basic principle of the old theology re- 230 WOMEN, ETC. tained by the new we must reject absolutely. We do not believe that God is omnipotent. To our mind, the name or word, "God," stands for the infinite reality which is the source of all things, but is itself still in process of fulfilment, in a manner which is suggestively adumbrated in the evolution of humanity. The insistence of all sects that God really is all-powerful has done more to retard the progress of true religion, to create doubts and misgivings, and to check moral and spiritual development than all other false teachings combined. How many thou sands, perhaps millions, have been driven from the church, from ideals, from uplifting to down- bearing associations, by the hideous picture of such a Being threatening to visit eternal punish ment upon all who do not visibly fcr.r and tremble before Him, instead of letting them live their lives with such clear conscience as they might, manfully willing to abide the conse quences of a fair balancing of their good and evil deeds as worthy creatures of a noble Maker! How many sincere beliefs have been shattered and how many pure hearts have been broken by instances seeming to prove that, if He is omnip otent, He must be indeed a jealous God, revel ling in practices wantonly cruel! What answer, other than the futile expression of inability to 231 WOMEN, ETC. fathom the inscrutable ways of Providence, has ever been, or ever can be, made to the infidel s pertinent query, If your God be all-powerful and true and kind, why does He permit sin and suf fering to sadden countless generations of His chil dren who wish to revere and love Him ? What possible motive can induce service of such a God except the very cowardice and fear which must be in His own eyes the most contemptible attri butes of humankind ? How quickly, on the other hand, are all doubts resolved, how readily are all questions answered, when once admission is made that, lacking com plete potency, He, too, is striving against the forces of evil, and that He seeks the co-operation of His children instead of demanding their abase ment! What inspiration in the call of such a God of a partly human God to his partly divine children as contrasted with the irresist ible despair attending the hateful threats of a God whom we have been taught, not to love, but to fear lest we perish! THE END THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. NOV 13 1939 MAY 11)970 OS fieCSIVED ADD 5 f 7fl -M AM ArK c u WHIH | ^x.1 >t"rv- EEC. CIR. HUR 7 75 DEC / 1983 CIR. at i NOV 3 11984 DEC 31984 CIRCUIATION DEFT LD 21-100r/. GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 986148 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY