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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Miss America; pen and camera sketches of the American girl - -Author: Alexander Black - -Illustrator: Alexander Black - -Release Date: August 30, 2022 [eBook #68869] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS AMERICA; PEN AND CAMERA -SKETCHES OF THE AMERICAN GIRL *** - - - - - - Miss America - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - MISS AMERICA - - PEN AND CAMERA SKETCHES - OF THE AMERICAN GIRL - - BY - - ALEXANDER BLACK - _Author of “Miss Jerry,” etc._ - - _WITH DESIGNS AND PHOTOGRAPHIC - ILLUSTRATIONS - BY THE AUTHOR_ - - - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - NEW YORK: _M DCCC XC VIII_ - - - - - _Copyright, 1898, by_ - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - _All rights reserved_ - - - University Press: - JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. - - - - - TO - - _THE AMERICAN GIRL WHOM - I HAVE KNOWN BEST_ - - MY WIFE - - _THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY - AND AFFECTIONATELY - DEDICATED_ - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - -_The_ APOLOGY: - - -_It will be suspected, perhaps, that in saying “sketches,” I have -wished to escape some of the responsibility which might have been -incurred by a more formal approach to a momentous theme, though the -entire truth of the description should carry its own justification. -And if the term be permitted in describing the text, it has equal -appropriateness in describing the pictures; for the photograph seldom -can be more than a sketch, and must be content with the limitations -as well as with the privileges of the sketch. The feminine eye will -discern unaided by data the chronological range of my pictures. To -other eyes, possibly, I should explain that the portraits represent a -period of six or seven years, and that those in conventional dress are -supplemented by various costume sketches with the camera recalling eras -in which there was no photography. What I have said of the American -type in the first chapter will explain my own difficulty in expressing -the American type by the aid of the lens, a difficulty which has not -been diminished by the privilege of wide travel. If I have not revealed -the geographical identity of any of the types reflected here, the -reservation may, I hope, seem to be as fully justified as certain other -reservations which the American girl herself so frequently chooses to -hold._ - -_I often have wished that it were easier to substitute for “American” -some name which should more specifically indicate the United States. It -is the United States girl I am talking about; it is the United States -spirit which I have sought to discover, and not the spirit of the wider -America of which the foreigner, and even the British foreigner, so -frequently, and so reasonably, seems to be thinking when he uses the -name “American.” Now that Miss America for the first time has seen her -soldier brothers go abroad to fight and to conquer, it may be that in -one way or another there will be a further modification of the term, in -which direction it would be difficult to say at this hour._ - -_Because this is an apology and not a mere preface, I may be -permitted, I hope, to express to the American girls in various States -of the Union, from Boston to San Antonio, who have sat before my -camera, my regret that I should have translated them so inadequately. -It would, indeed, be hard to do justice to the American girl, and one -well might hesitate to describe, or even to discuss her, were not her -always gracious generosity so safely to be looked for._ - - _A. B._ - - - - - [Illustration: CONTENTS - - - I. THE AMERICAN TYPE _Page_ 1 - - II. THE TWIG 23 - - III. A CENTURY’S RUN 47 - - IV. STITCHES AND LINKS 75 - - V. “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOCIETY” 95 - - VI. LACE AND DESTINY 121 - - VII. CHANCE AND CHOICE 143 - - VIII. THE NEW OLD MAID 165 - - IX. “AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED” 187] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - I - - THE AMERICAN TYPE - - - [Illustration] - -The tradition that the women of the region in which we live illustrate -all of those traits that give an abiding charm to the sex, is one that -sometimes may be unreasonable, perhaps even comic; yet it cannot be -discreditable. Balzac, who remarks somewhere that nothing unites men -so much as a certain conformity of view in the matter of women, may -seem unphilosophical when he remarks somewhere else upon the absurdity -of English women. His French antipathy has an unreasonably affirmative -sting. But we do not care how many Thackerays regard the English girl -as the bright particular flower of creation. We like and expect the -author of “The Newcomes” to say: “I think it is not national prejudice -which makes me believe that a high-bred English lady is the most -complete of all Heaven’s subjects in this world.” For the same reason -we delight in N. P. Willis’s confidence when he declares that “there -is no such beautiful work under the sky as an American girl in her -bellehood.” And Mr. Willis adds with the same whimsical consciousness -of national partiality: “I _think_ I am not prejudiced.” - -Of course this instinctive preference is fundamental. We are prepared -to hear from science that the African savage prefers the thick lips -and flat nose of the African girl to any other sort; that this is why -the African girl has a flat nose and thick lips; that gallantry is a -phase of natural selection, and so on. We can understand that there is -a merely relative difference of attitude between the savage lover who -woos his lady with a club, and the modern suitor who swears to give -up all of his clubs for her sake. What perplexes us is our anxiety to -explain our modern instinct, and (what is more perplexing) our anxiety -to explain _her_; to ascertain and even to catalogue her essential -traits--to discover, if not why we prefer the American girl, at least -what manner of girl it is that we thus are instinctively preferring. - -What is the American type? Is the typical American girl as the British -novelist so often has described her--rich, noisy, wasp-waisted and -slangy? Is she a “Daisy Miller” or a “Fair Barbarian”? Is she what -Richard Grant White feared she too often was, “a creature composed in -equal parts of mind and leather”? Is she Emerson’s “Fourth of July of -Zoology,” or is she illustrating the discovery which Irving claimed to -have made among certain philosophers “that all animals degenerate in -America and man among the number”? - - [Illustration] - -From those foreigners who make a Cook’s tour examination of us, the -evidence in favor of the proposition that we grow more pretty and witty -women to the acre than any other country in the world, is overwhelming. -But there are obvious reasons why we must distrust this foreign -comment. Too often it plainly is a propitiatory item, when it is not -illustrating a flippant wish among men writers to occupy Disraeli’s -position “on the side of the angels.” That traveller has a profound -distaste for a country who does not find that it has pretty women. - -If anything is more inevitable than this, it is that the traveller -will find fault with the type preferred by the men of the country he -is visiting. “What is most amazing,” says the observer in Zululand or -elsewhere, “is that the prettiest women, the women without this or that -hideous deformity, are not admired by the men.” The Kaffir prince on a -visit to England, or the Apache chief among the palefaces in the city -of the Great Father, invariably are astounded at the obtuseness of the -white men. I remember once listening to a group of New York artists who -were discussing preferred types of women, and it was agreed, with a -hopeless and resentful unanimity, that most New Yorkers preferred fat -women, since most of the good clothes and diamonds were worn by fat -women. All of which goes to show, perhaps, that natural selection is an -exclusive affair. - -Probably even patriotism does not demand of us an admiration for the -beauty of the very first American girls--the dusky darlings of our -primitive tribes. These earliest American girls were not dowered with -the fatal gift of beauty as we understand beauty. Indeed, it is quite -generally admitted that the American Indian girl is not and never was -so pretty as the girls of some of the Pacific islands, for example. -Far be it from me to attack any precious traditions concerning the red -man, or the red woman, either. Far be it from me to touch with impious -hand the romantic panoply of Pocahontas. I am not writing a scientific -treatise. I have no point to prove. It is quite possible that there is -something distinctive in the personality of the Indian girl, whether -she be as poetry has painted her or as she stands in the analysis of -science. If I pass her by it is in no spirit of partisanship toward -either view. She is an old story, and some day when she is a new story -we may have occasion for surprise. - - [Illustration] - -The fact is that I must content myself here with a glance at the -American girl of more recent times, though she also will seem to be -an old story if we permit ourselves to remember the number of things -which have been said. We are not likely to forget the unction with -which foreign visitors sketched the daughters of Colonial America. -Indeed, we are in a measure dependent upon those sketches for a -knowledge of these ancestral daughters. As in all judgments of remote -appearances, we here must lean upon mere opinion. There was no camera -in the days of Priscilla, nor in the days of Dolly Madison, and painted -portraiture, unchallenged by the photograph, had reached heights of -admirable gallantry. For purposes of pictorial reconstruction we have -an enthusiastic description, the dubious confessions of a diary, a -charming little miniature or a mellowing canvas in an old frame, a -quaint gown, wrinkled by time; but we have no photograph. I hear -the Romanticist mutter, “Thank Heaven for _that_!” Alas! the -photograph is an expert witness, and how he can disagree! Was ever any -human specialist on the witness stand so dogmatic, so insinuating, -so sophistical as the photograph? Who, without an obstinately -anthropological mind, shall regret that the beginnings of our national -life are veiled in the Ante-Photographic era--that we may invest them -with qualities we wish they might have had, as well as with those -qualities of which we think we know? Who shall say that humanity, A. -P., dwelling in a softening haze beyond the harshly illuminated era of -Realism, is worse off than humanity thereafter? Looking at the matter -practically, who shall regret that Lady Washington never had her pretty -head in a vise, her face masked a ghastly white with powder to make -her countenance more actinic, and her eyes instructed to glare at a -fixed point for upward of sixty mortal seconds! Surely there are some -compensations in being handed down like the Iliad or the masonic ritual -by word of mouth rather than by agencies associated with the arrogant -stare of the lens. - -But, after all, we do not conduct the trial wholly with expert -witnesses, and the camera has been a useful commentator--perhaps we -are more willing to say that it will be than that it has been, though -we never shall surpass in delicately literal perfection the image -of the daguerreotype. A new confusion may arise from the fact that -photography wants to be more than a science--is tired of being literal, -and seeks to be an art. If it shall become an art--that is to say, an -agency of personal opinion--posterity must, like ourselves, go on being -influenced in its judgments of pictorial fact by the expressions of -art, which the world has been doing from the beginning of time. - - [Illustration] - -Certainly it would be very hard for us to think of the English girl, -for example, however well we might know her personally, without feeling -the influence of the English artists, of Romney, and Reynolds, and -Sir John Millais, and Sir Frederick Leighton, and the multitudinous -expressions of her from the pencil of the author of “Trilby.” Du -Maurier’s English girl is an image, agreeable or not according to -one’s taste, which we cannot get out of our minds. A number of years -before he achieved a second fame by writing romances, Du Maurier made -a sketch in which he undertook to indicate his idea of a pretty woman. -He wrote of his ideal at that time: “She is rather tall, I admit, and -a trifle stiff; but English women _are_ tall and stiff just now; -and she is rather too serious; but that is only because I find it so -difficult, with a mere stroke of black ink, to indicate the enchanting -little curved lines that go from the nose to the mouth corners, causing -the cheeks to make a smile--and without them the smile is incomplete.” -I always have been glad to hear Mr. Ruskin say of the Venus of Melos, -with her “tranquil, regular and lofty features,” that she “could not -hold her own for a moment against the beauty of a simple English girl, -of pure race and kind heart.” - - [Illustration] - -And in the same way our notion of the American girl, of the typical -American girl, is inevitably affected by the pictures we see of her. -Our illustrators naturally have the best opportunity to mould our -judgments in this matter. I recall hearing one woman say of another at -a tea: “That girl is always sitting around in Gibson poses.” They used -to say the same thing in England of the girls who imitated Du Maurier. -Thus we see that the illustrator of life not only is reflecting but -creating forms and manners; and if you would know not merely what the -American girl is, but what she is going to be, study the picture-makers -and story-makers who influence her. - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - -Mr. Gibson would have us believe that Miss America is essentially a -statuesque girl, that, in general, there are good chances that she will -be tall, commanding, well-dressed, rather English in the shoulders. Mr. -Wenzell and Mr. Smedley present her to us as more willowy, with more of -what, if we had to go abroad for a prototype, we should be obliged to -call French grace and lightness. We have been under the spell of the -girl Castaigne can draw, have enjoyed the dainty femininity pictured by -Toaspern and Sterner and Mrs. Stephens. None has grudged a flattering -stroke, a prophetic outline. It is the old story. If we are to measure -a nation’s civilization by the degree of its deference to women, we -surely shall find much to confuse us in art, which in all lands, like -some joyous, enthusiastic child, always has heaped unstinted homage -at the feet of its goddesses, its Madonnas, its Magdalens and its -nymphs; which always has been ready to give to its fruit-venders and -flower-girls in the market-place the same refined beauty it bestows -upon its princesses; which has made its Pandoras beautiful with no -sign of resentment for any mischief its Pandoras ever may have done, -grateful only for the privilege of saying to the world as to her -precious private self, that she is very charming indeed. Germany, while -sending women to the plough, paints her radiantly as a deity, and when -England was selling wives at the end of a halter in the market-place, -there was no abatement in the ardor of her artistic tributes to -feminine loveliness. - - [Illustration] - -While the American artist has painted Miss America appreciatively, -with an enthusiasm creditable alike to his art and to his patriotism, -and seldom, surely, in the spirit of one who could say, “she _is_ -rather stiff just now,” unquestionably, like the rest of us, he has -been bothered at times by the fact that she is so various, that she -has so many pictorial as well as temperamental and (may I say) vocal -variations. - -There are several reasons why she should be various. The “Mayflower” -was a small ship and could not hold all of our ancestors. Like the -English who followed after the Conqueror, some of our ancestors had to -be content to “come over” at a later time, some of them at a shockingly -recent date. Thus we have greater divergences in type than exist in -countries wherein the “coming over” process was neither so protracted -nor from so many points of the compass. The American girl blossoms like -the pansy in so many and in such unexpected shades and combinations -that science falters, and bewildered art, determined to paint types -that will “stay put,” bolts for Brittany and sulkily draws sabots and -the Norman nose. We are a vast anthropological department store in -which the polite sociological clerk will show you human goods, not -only in the primary colors, but in every conceivable tint and texture; -and when you ask him, Is this foreign or domestic? he lies to meet the -requirements. Yes, Miss America sometimes, like our cotton, “comes -over” a second time with a foreign label, which _is_ puzzling! - -It is our habit to think that the American girl of English ancestry -presents precisely the right modification of the--what shall I call -it?--austerity of the purely English type, and which scorns the -melancholy of Burne-Jones and Rossetti. The American girl of German -parents is conspicuously with us, and very often is found supplying a -fascinatingly fair phase without which our galaxy scarcely would be -complete, adding a delightful sparkle to the demureness which we might -not find so modified in Berlin or Bremen. The American girl of French -parentage is found uniting the traits of the people which has produced -De Staël, and Récamier and George Sand, to the perhaps not greatly -different vivacity of l’Américaine. We trace the auburn tresses of the -Scottish lass, the teasing Irish eyes, the winsome oval of the Dutch -face. We see the too emphatic contrasts of the Spanish, the Italian -and the Russian types mellowed and refined; while Oriental blood, the -civilized African, the octoroon and the occasional Asiatic each add an -element of picturesque variety. - -And this is not saying a word about the differentiating fact that -this is a big country, and that Miss America in one section is by no -means the same as Miss America in another. I do not mean to say that -when we meet her in or from Boston we always know her by sight, but -when we come to average her in that neighborhood we are able to see -clearly enough that her quality is distinctive, that it is different -from the quality of Miss America elsewhere--in New York, for example, -where, by a trivial tradition, she is supposed to lay less stress upon -intellectuality, but where, under whatever guise of habit or manner, -you will find that she knows enough and has what she knows sufficiently -at her command to make you nervous. Again, the Philadelphia girl upsets -your preconceived notions, if you are foolish enough to have these, -by being nothing that suggests even remote relationship to the bronze -Quaker on the municipal tower. It is the familiar joke that the Boston -girl asks what you know, that the New York girl asks what you own, -and that the Philadelphia girl asks who your grandfather was. If this -amiable satire should have any foundation in fact, I wonder what the -Chicago girl is expected to ask. I myself have a theory, not wholly -dissociated from experience, that she does not ask anything, being -content to know that she, personifying the great traditionless middle -west, has been called the hardest riddle of them all. - -And, as I have said, we must admit that geography has much to do with -the case. Does any one deny that climate and history have made the -Kentucky girl a being apart--that the Kentucky horses which she has -ridden with so much spirit have had their effect in her whole style and -personality? Could we fail to look for a distinctive flowering in the -verdant slopes beyond the Sierras or amid that intensely American human -environment on the plains of Texas? Have you heard the Creole sing? -Have you heard the music of the Georgia girl’s talk? Have you ever let -a Virginia girl drive you, or danced with Miss Maryland? - -A southern dance! Perhaps it is inevitable that we should find -ourselves thinking of the Continental and early Federal society; -of old Georgetown and the powdered heads, and the minuet, and the -blinking candles behind the darkey orchestra; of the clinking swords -of the young Revolutionary soldiers, and the satin breeches of the -foreign lordlings, studying the precocious young republic and the -young republic’s daughters: of the quaint gowns Miss America used to -wear, and the taunting little caps and head-dresses, reflecting now -the whimsies of the Empire, now the furbelows of the Restoration, and -always her engagingly different self. Yes, time is working its -wizard tricks up and down the land, slowly here and quickly there, -now (as it might seem) in a romantic spirit, and again in brusque -paradoxical contrast to the thing we expect. - - [Illustration] - -We live quickly hereabouts, and to say that the vast changes which have -taken place in our national life have been mostly external is not to -say that the spectacle is on that account any easier to understand. -In an especial degree social situation with us, like the age limit -defining old maids, is wholly relative, subject to continual change. -To the foreign spectator who ignores this relativity, the American -girl naturally is bewildering, and we are likely to find her typified -in foreign comment in the words which Schlegel irreverently applied -to Portia, as a “rich, beautiful, clever heiress.” No, the typical -American girls are not all heiresses, nor all cow-camp heroines. -They were not always demure in the colonies, nor are they always -disconcertingly self-possessed in our own time. The girls with whom -Lafayette went sled-riding on the Newburg hills do not actually appear -to have been amazingly different from those who teased the Prince -of Wales in the fifties (I mean _our_ fifties), nor from those -who sent in their cards to Li Hung Chang in the nineties. It is very -shocking to us moderns, who let women preach and plead and vote, -to learn of the number of elopements in the days when women were -theoretically tethered to the spinning-wheel and forbidden everything -but hypocrisy. Which is to say, perhaps, that how much we shall regard -as distinctive in the modern woman may depend upon how little we happen -to know of the woman who has gone before. - -But time and place must leave their mark, and Miss America, though -she be like changeable silk, of varying hue in varying lights, -is undoubtedly, being the precocious product of a new era in new -territory, a new variety in the species, as new as if she were -grotesquely instead of subtly different. And in her presence the -American himself frequently seems to be awed and quelled, like the -Greek hero when Athena’s “dreadful eyes shone upon him.” His devotion -to her has excited derision; his deference has been misconstrued, -his boastful admiration has been catalogued as characteristic. Italy -once spoke of England as “the paradise of women”; and England in a -later day began to say the same thing about the United States, which -may or may not have something to do with the “star of empire,” and -probably, in any case, has some definite relation to the Anglo-Saxon -spirit, concerning which so much has been said of late. As for Miss -America herself, the sovereignty at which the foreign observer marvels -is a real appearance, however profound the misapprehension of its -philosophy. Miss America is no illusion, if some spectators have -doubted their senses. - - [Illustration] - -By the grace of nature she is that she is. If the American man -continues to pay her the supreme compliment of not understanding her, -that is his affair. It always is easier to perceive the other’s -folly than our own--especially when the exciting cause is a woman. We -know better than the spectator why _we_ permit certain seeming -tyrannies! We analyze the American girl in a purely Pickwickian -spirit, not because we expect actually to discover facts, but for the -immediate pleasure of the speculation. We neither seek nor assume to -comprehend this marvellous organism. We know better. When we pretend -to delineate the American girl it is in the spirit of Fielding’s -aside in “Tom Jones”: “We mention this observation not with any view -of pretending to account for so odd a behavior, but lest some critic -should hereafter plume himself on discovering it.” - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - II - - THE TWIG - - - [Illustration] - -As I said one day to the Professor-- - -But first I must tell you about the Professor. She is a young -woman--young even in an era that classes authors among the “younger -writers” until they are sixty, and is pushing the “proper age at which -to marry” into the period of severe and undebatable maturity. She -is young, but she exemplifies that educated precocity tolerated and -fostered by our era. She knows the past like a book and the present -like a man. She does not vulgarly bristle with knowledge like the -first products of the higher education. Her acquirements sit upon her -less like starched linen than like a silken gown that flows with the -figure. She is the educated woman in her “second manner,” as the art -critics would say. I do not know what the educated woman’s third manner -will be. No one acquainted with the charms of the Professor could help -hoping that there never would be any. - -The Professor graduated and post-graduated. She pottered in -laboratories, and at certain intervals wholly disappeared into the very -abysses of science. She read law tentatively, and made a feint at going -into medicine, but was deterred in each case, I fancy, by the fact, -repugnant to her exuberant energy, that a practice had to grow and -could not be mastered ready made. At one time there were both hopes and -fears that she would enter the ministry. Those who hoped banked on her -earnestness and wisdom. Those who feared quailed before her ruthless -independence and sense of humor. She delighted in the paradox of not -scorning social life, welcoming Emerson’s admonition with regard to -solitude and society by keeping her head in one and her hands in the -other. Indeed, she dances remarkably well when we consider that here -the dexterity is so far removed from the brain, and I have seen her -swim like--a mermaid, I suppose. She took a long course in cookery -for the pleasure of more pungently abusing certain of her lecture -audiences. One day when the plumbers didn’t come I saw her actually -“wipe a joint” in lead pipe with her own hands. Heaven knows where she -picked _that_ up! - -When she accepted the position at the Academy, doubtless it was with a -view to certain liberties of action in the sociological direction. She -was not quite through with the college settlement idea, and I suspect -that she had a feeling that city politics at close range might be -productive to her in certain ways. Because she is neither erratic nor -formidable, she has experienced various offers of marriage, and has -shed them all without visible disturbance. Just at present, panoplied -in learning, tingling with modernity, yet always charmingly unconscious -of her power, she stands, poised and easy, like a sparrow on a live -wire. - -In other words the Professor is one of those rare women with whom -you may enjoy the delights of a purely impersonal quarrel. She can -wrangle affectionately and cleave you in twain with a tender sisterly -smile. Indeed, she can make you feel of intellectual fisticuffs, -and, notwithstanding an occasional effect of too greatly accentuated -excitement, that it is, on the whole, a superior pleasure. And you -arise again conscious that she has no greater immediate grudge against -you than against St. Paul or any other of her historical opponents. - -One day I asked the Professor, not with any controversial inflection, -what she thought of Herbert Spencer, a bachelor, talking about the -rearing of children. - -“Well,” said the Professor, “it certainly is no more absurd than the -spectacle of Herbert Spencer analyzing love, or Ernest Renan doing the -same thing.” - -“Mind you,” I went on, “I don’t say that the unmarried may not discuss -with entire competency--” - -“I hope not,” interrupted the Professor. “I hope you wouldn’t say any -such absurd thing. Must a man have robbed a bank to write intelligently -of penology?” - - [Illustration] - -“My point is,” I went on--the Professor and I never take the slightest -offence at each other’s interruptions--“my point is that it almost -seems at times as if the unmarried should, in such an emergency, -assume, if they did not feel, a certain diffidence. To tell you the -truth, Professor, if it were not for you, I should doubt whether the -unmarried had a developed sense of humor.” - -“That is simply pitiful,” flung the Professor. “Can you not see that -it is a sense of humor that keeps many people from marrying? But -that is not the point. Who is better fitted than Mr. Spencer, who -has enjoyed freedom from an entangling alliance, who is unbiased by -social situation or personal obligation, to discuss with scientific -judiciality the problems of child-rearing?” - -“Theoretically, Professor, that is all right. But when Mr. Spencer -advises more sugar, it is awfully hard to forget that Mr. Spencer -never, presumably never, sat up nights with a youngster who had the -toothache. It is all very well for Mr. Spencer to suggest that when a -child craves more sugar it probably needs more sugar, but the parent -who manages his offspring on that basis is going to lose sleep. A good -rule, if you will permit me a platitude, is a rule that works. The way -that children _should_ be brought up is the way they _can_ be -brought up.” - - [Illustration] - -“My friend,” said the Professor-- - -Now, I am several years older than the Professor. By sheer age I am -entitled to her deference; but the Professor can ignore years as -well as sex or previous condition of servitude. Her impersonality is -adjusted to time, to space, and to matter. I am simply a Person. - -“My friend,” said the Professor, “it is another platitude that there -is a right way to do everything, even to bring up children. The way -children are brought up probably is not right, and no theory or method -of bringing them up is, of course, or could be more than relatively -right. But in getting as near the right as we humanly may there is no -wisdom in despising the advice of the spectator. The man digging a -hole in the ground may be less competent than a man not in the hole -to perceive that presently the earth is going to cave in. As a matter -of fact, old maids, for example, have been known to bring up children -very well indeed, for the reason, possibly, that nothing is more -detrimental to successful authority over children than relationship to -them. All experience shows that the scientific, the abstract management -of children is more successful, in the average, than the traditional -parental method. This scientific method, I need not say, is not less -kindly than the other; it actually is more kindly. Witness the absolute -triumph of kindergartens--” - -“Now, Professor,” I interposed, foreseeing the spectacle of Froebel -and Plato moving down arm-in-arm between the Professor’s periods, -“understand me--” - -“A very difficult thing at times,” she murmured. - -“Understand me--I am speaking now with my eye on the American child.” - -“And _that_,” twinkled the Professor, “requires some dexterity.” - - [Illustration] - -“The American child,” I pursued, “is accused by many of threatening -our destruction, and if the American view of rearing children is -wrong or requires modification, this radical suggestion of Mr. Spencer, -looking to greater rather than less liberty in making terms with the -instincts of children, becomes a matter for serious concern. If the -American idea has stood for anything it is more sugar--that is to say, -yielding something to the instinct, the personality of the child. I -think we have gone a long way with it. Our children are becoming very -self-possessed. Sometimes I have qualms. Take the American girl child--” - - [Illustration] - -“A vast subject,” commented the Professor. - -“The American girl child is getting a good deal of sugar--figuratively. -The question comes, Is it good for her? Is her freedom, her undomestic -training, her intellectual development, to the advantage of the race? -I believe with Mr. Ruskin that you can’t make a girl lovely unless you -make her happy. But how can we expect her to know what will make her -happy? Aren’t you afraid, Professor, that she is becoming a trifle -frivolous? Of course you yourself are a living contradiction--” - -“Don’t try to deceive me,” warned the Professor. “I perceive in what -you say, not the doubts of an incipient cynic, but the remorse of a -doting and indulgent man. Most really typical American men are in -the same situation. They are wondering if they haven’t overdone it, -and, being too busy to find out for themselves, are eager for outside -judgment, upon which they may act, _de jure_. The vice of the -American man is his indulgence of the American girl. The foreigner -commiseratingly thinks that the American girl demands this indulgence. -The American man in his secret soul knows that he has pampered her for -his own pleasure, and because, to a busy man, pampering is easier than -regulating.” - -“Yes,” I complained, “in the new paradise Adam is always to blame.” - -“No,” protested the Professor, “not always; just humanly often. -And don’t think that you have invented this modern anxiety for the -welfare of girl children. Before and since ‘L’Éducation des Filles,’ -they all have been ‘harping on my daughter.’ Women have been even -more despairing than men. Hannah More thought that ‘the education -of the present race of females’ was ‘not very favorable to domestic -happiness.’ Mrs. Stowe thought ‘the race of strong, hearty, graceful -girls’ was daily decreasing, and that in its stead was coming ‘the -fragile, easily fatigued, languid girls of the modern age, drilled in -book learning and ignorant in common things.’ Now that sort of thing -has been going on since our race stopped speaking with the arboreal -branch of the family. There is perpetual opportunity for a treatise -on ‘The Antiquity of New Traits.’ We are apt to think that we of this -era have invented the idea of educating girls, but civilized children -always have been educated early in something. Nowadays it is in -science. In our colonial days it was in piety. Miss Repplier, who -has a most relishable antipathy for prigs, in fiction and in life, -reminds us of Cotton Mather’s son, who ‘made a most edifying end in -praise and prayer at the age of two years and seven months,’ and of -Phoebe Bartlett, who was ‘ostentatiously converted at four.’ You are -not sorry to be rid of all that, are you?” - - [Illustration] - -“No,” I assented, “most assuredly I am not. It is pretty hard to find -the Juvenile Prig on this soil nowadays outside of the most inhuman -‘books for the young.’ And we all are glad of it. You may remember the -passage in the Chesterfield letters in which the father writes to the -son: ‘To-morrow, if I am not mistaken, you will attain your ninth year; -so that for the future I shall treat you as a _youth_. You must -now commence a different course of life, a different course of studies. -No more levity; childish toys and playthings must be thrown aside, and -your mind directed to serious objects. What was not unbecoming of a -child would be disgraceful of a youth.’ We certainly have outgrown that -view of things, and the American youngster comes nearer being without -hypocrisy than any product of civilization that I ever have studied. -But what have we in place of the piety and affectation? What is the -working result of so much independence? Are not the American girl -children, as well as the boys, a trifle irreverent?” - - [Illustration] - -“Yes, I know,” admitted the Professor, “the American child often -seems a shade too unawed. Balzac says somewhere that modesty is a -relative virtue--there is ‘that of twenty years, that of thirty -years, and that of forty years.’ Our ancestors believed in a severe, -hypocritical modesty for the young, trusting that they would get over -it. They did worse than that when they asked youth to anticipate the -hypocrisies of age. The same elegant person whom you have just quoted -once wrote to that same son: ‘Having mentioned laughing, I want most -particularly to warn you against it; and I could heartily wish that you -may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh while you live.’ -Although Chesterfield insisted that he was ‘neither of a melancholy -or cynical disposition,’ he was proud to be able to say to his boy -‘Since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard -me laugh.’ The next time you feel inclined to say mean things about -the Puritans remember that declaration by the Earl. Now, the American -seems to me not only to look at children differently, but to look at -life differently, and any new traits in the American child probably -represent one fact as much as the other. The American idea--I say -idea, but I mean the American habit; we explain our habits and call -the explanation a theory--merely obliterates age discriminations. -The American child is simply the diminutive American. The American -girl is her mother writ small. I don’t think that she is a whit more -independent or irreverent than her mother.” - - [Illustration] - -“You don’t mean to say, Professor, that a child should not, for -instance, be taught to keep a proper silence in company.” - -“Not an absolute silence. A child either has a right to be in a -company or it has not. If it is in the company it has a right to be -articulate like the other members of the company. If it is a sensible -child it will listen to its elders, not because they are its elders -but because they are its betters, because they know more, are more -competent to speak. If it is not sensible it will be made to suffer -for its foolishness, just as older members of the company are made to -suffer. From my observation, children naturally brought up take their -reasonable place very naturally in company.” - -“My fear is, Professor, that your naturalistic method overlooks -much of what we have become accustomed to think when we speak of -‘breeding.’ Now, children, even American children, do not acquire -this instinctively. Breeding includes restraint, externally applied -restraint--I don’t mean applied with a slipper or a rattan, though -restraint to have a really fine catholicity should, in my opinion, -include these symbols--but restraint inculcated by a wise, or at least -a wiser, authority. I believe sincerely that we have, in the past, -tried to bend the twig too far. But the beneficial results of guiding -twigs has been, I think, indisputably proved. Taking away too many -guides and supports must have its dangers. I think of these things -when I see the unhampered American girl of to-day. She is a lovely -spectacle. Yet I sometimes wonder, in a trite and old-fashioned way, -if her sort of training or absence of training is going to make her a -woman who will know how to manage a household and children. I can see -clearly enough that she is going to know how to manage a husband; but -the house--and the children--” - -The Professor was musing. “Your anxiety makes me think of the early -criticisms of the kindergarten. ‘What!’ they used to exclaim, ‘a mob -of unmanageable brats and no ferule?’ Yet it is so. Your misgivings -overlook, I think, the latitudes of training, the obligations of -breeding. The American seems to me to be guiding his children as he -guides his civic affairs, not by brute force but by giving and taking. -If his child is born with the right to the pursuit of happiness, he -believes in starting the pursuit early. I suppose that children in the -United States have greater liberty than children in any other country. -The conferring of liberty has its dangers, and those who confer it -cannot expect to escape the obligations that go with the gift. It has -cost the American some annoyance to confer liberty and privileges on -grown-up folks from various quarters. If he decides--and he does so -quite reasonably I think--to include his children, he is bound to stand -with the emancipated.” - -“Professor,” I said, “your words are soothing. They are alluringly -optimistic. I don’t want to reform the American child. I like him--and -especially her--as at present conditioned. I believe that the -irreverence is largely a seeming irreverence--an irreverence toward -traditions rather than toward people and principles; which simply is -saying what we should say of grown-up Americans. And I believe that in -any case the boy will knock his way out somehow. But the girl--I am not -doubting her; I am not believing that she is so petted a darling as -Paul Bourget, for instance, seems to think she is. I am not questioning -the intrinsic charm of her style, the piquing prophecies of her mind, -the perfection of her beauty, the delight of her companionship; I am -wondering whether this immediately agreeable sort of product is going -to meet the requirements of life as it is opening up to us in this -land, if--” - -“Well,” swung in the Professor, “if you were going to have a worry, it -is a pity you couldn’t have had a new one--the new ones keep us busy -enough. You are very trite this time. You sound like a reformer--” - -“Heaven forbid!” I cried. - -“--and a reformer nowadays has a passion for beginning on the -children. Please don’t. Some of these reforming women remind me of -the advertisement in the London paper: ‘Bulldog for sale. Will eat -anything. Very fond of children.’ These reforming women will reform -anything--and they are very fond of children.” - -“It is particularly the American girl,” I went on, “who is illustrating -the modern yearning to skip intervals, to ignore the ordinary processes -of time. She is like Horace Walpole, who found that the deliberation -with which trees grow was ‘extremely inconvenient to his natural -impatience.’ It doesn’t seem to make any difference how rigidly her -‘coming out’ time is fixed, she is getting to be a woman before her -time. Mark me, Professor, she knows too much, she--” - -“A strictly masculine anxiety, sir.” - -“--she knows too much, to the exclusion of some other things she -doesn’t know.” - - [Illustration] - -“Now _don’t_ mention the kitchen,” cried the Professor, “I am -dreadfully tired of that.” - -“No, Professor, her general cleverness always seems to me to make the -kitchen anxiety needless to a great extent. I mean that in knowing so -much and assuming so much the American girl child may be missing some -of that sweetness that for her lies in a more old-fashioned girlhood. -As a kind of unbent twig she is losing some of the more dependent -happiness belonging to her and not grudged to her. Mind you, Professor, -if a crime has been committed, I am accessory--” - -“I began with that assumption,” remarked the Professor. - -“--and I am hoping that there has been no crime, that the unbent twig -is growing all right on its own account, that our spoiled daughters, -weary of privilege, may be longing to serve, that if her modesty is -not expressed in meek eyes ‘full of wonder,’ her lofty glance is not, -Hermes-like, given to lying. Whatever the future may have in store, -she at least is what she seems to be. Her sentiments may sometimes be -irreverent, but they are her own. Perhaps the reason she seems more of -an individual than the archetypal girl is, as you have suggested, that -we have stripped her of the hypocrisy by which she pretended not to be -a unit but only the mute shadow of a unit.” - -“O, you will come around!” chuckled the Professor. - -“‘Come around,’ Professor? You mean sink back into the Slough of -Idolatry. I feel it in my bones that in spite of a gleam of intelligent -interrogation as to the wisdom of pampering the American girl, I am -going to keep right on--” - -“You mean, if you will be honest,” blurted the Professor, “that you -will keep on letting her alone as you do the boy child. That is all. -Own up. The most that you have done is cease the special repression of -the girl. For better or for worse the American has done simply that: -forget sex in rearing his young.” - - [Illustration] - -“Ah, Professor! when we forget sex are we not in danger of a costly -transgression? Are we not combating nature?” - -“On the contrary, my friend, you are ceasing to combat nature. There -is nothing nature is more definitely certain to do than to look out -for sex on her own account. Is not all of creation trying to teach us -this lesson? Is not all of creation trying to teach us the folly and -the futility of meddling? Let nature alone. She knows her business. Sex -duality is universal. No amount of sitting up nights will help you to -think out a way of successfully interfering.” - -I looked at the Professor. She is very much a woman. She suggested -a type that had been “let alone.” She is not a freak. Both her body -and her mind are well dressed, and she is good to look upon. To look -upon her sometimes fills me with a certain misgiving. But it is not a -misgiving for her. - -“And yet,” it came to me to say, though not precisely in rebuke, “there -is such a thing as human humility.” - - [Illustration] - -“Humility?” The Professor looked over at me with affected scorn. “Then -illustrate it, please. I cannot see the humility of interference. The -American does not repress his daughter. You admit that you like the -result. Why wrinkle your brow in contemplation of the future? Why not -believe that what seems to be true is true, that the American girl -flourishes agreeably in her freedom? Give her the natural privileges -bestowed elsewhere throughout creation. Let her _grow_. She is -not like Jupiter, without seasons. And you must take one of her seasons -at a time.” - -“Professor,” I said solemnly, “you remember Artemis?” - -“Yes,” she returned with equal solemnity, “and I remember the daughters -of Pandareas.” - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - III - - A CENTURY’S RUN - - - [Illustration] - -We are a very young nation, yet we have a past. In popular acceptance -we have little to live down, which should be a comfort. Just at present -there is a tendency to be disrespectful toward the past, to smile at -ancestral pretension, to humanize the Fathers of the Republic, to sneer -at the straw and bones on the floor of King Arthur’s dining hall, to -uncover the littleness of the ancient giants, to question the beauty -of the ancient heroines. Probably this needed to be done, particularly -in defence of the abused Present, which always hitherto has had a hard -time of it. “Every age since the golden,” says George Eliot, “may be -made more or less prosaic by minds that attend only to the vulgar and -sordid elements, of which there are always an abundance, even in -Greece and Italy, the favorite realms of the respective optimists.” The -author of “Romola” was willing not to have lived sooner, and to possess -even Athenian life “solely as an inodorous fragment of antiquity.” - -But even the past, sinfully boastful and complacent as it appears, has -rights which we must make some show of respecting, and we need not -too effusively applaud the present. Possibly the one good excuse for -finding out and confessing the whole truth about the past, is the need -to show, at whatever cost, that neither all of our vices nor all of our -virtues are entirely new. The passion for discovery is so strong that -some one always is ready to prove that the most trite and fundamental -of traits are absolutely novel, and the same passion appears in the -unction with which the pretension is ridiculed and overthrown. I talked -one day with a distinguished American historian, who confessed that the -supreme difficulty for the commentator on human character and events -was that arising from a tendency to “think disproportionately well of -facts which he himself has discovered.” Admit this to be a human trait -and we have a sufficient explanation of the ardor of the discoverer. - -Now, no man can regard as insignificant any fact concerning woman, -disproportionate as the importance of the fact may be made to appear -in comparison with other facts concerning her, so that we have no -greater difficulty in appreciating the noisy announcement of the New -Woman than in appreciating the only less audible contention that there -is no such appearance. Happily the foolish discussion is over. Only -a few catch-words now remind us of the hopeless debate. Of course, -Eve was the only new woman. She alone was incontrovertibly new; and -to seek by trick of title to invest with newness any woman who came -after her, was a frivolous and degenerate conspiracy. Not, indeed, that -newness is intrinsically a defect, though heraldry and afternoon teas -may be arranged upon that assumption; but in effect it is belittling, -destructive of certain benefits of the doubt, insulting to the woman of -the past and skeptical as to the woman of the present. - -However, our national past and our national present are so full of -superficial and even of fundamental contrasts, that if ever a merciful -sentence is to be passed upon one who, peering through the “turbid -media” of sociological analysis, mistakes the _Zeitgeist_ for a -new woman, it is in our own longitudes. Like a child growing up under -the eye of an arrogant and pompous parent, we have, nationally, been -made to feel from the beginning that we are new, even tentative, that -we are unclassified, all but vagrant in the ethnological sense. It is -possible that recent events will modify in certain important ways, -external contemplation of us as a nation, that, in spite of certain new -effects which we may be accused of producing, a consciousness and a -recognition of our definite maturity may have some responsive effect in -ourselves. - -Meanwhile it is pleasantly easy to detect many interesting changes in -the situation of the American girl within the span of the century. -Whether she merely illustrates the social and political changes which -have taken place, or, as we so often have been urged to believe, -actually indicates why they have taken place, she presents a spectacle -of peculiar interest, a spectacle which has so successfully piqued -the analytical spirit of the period that it would be expounding the -commonplace to do more than quickly sketch a few of the outlines. - -We have seen her bidding good-bye to the schoolma’am at a time when any -education was good enough for a girl,--good enough not only because -neither the kitchen nor the drawing-room exacted Greek, but because -heavier pabulum would utterly ruin her mental digestion; and we have -seen her at a later time when no education is too good for her, bidding -good-bye to an army of instructors at commencement time, radiant in her -cap and gown, the class song ringing pleasantly in her ears, the breath -of June in her life, with a crisp diploma to symbolize her triumphs. -In fact, we have seen the morality of educating her dismissed as a -settled question, and the matter of the quantity and quality left to -the perhaps not easy but at least final arbitrament of her individual -capacity. - - [Illustration] - -We have seen her yield up to strenuous and inventive man, one by one, -various and many offices once regarded as essentially domestic, and -even as bounding that debatable domain, her “sphere”; we have seen -the spinning wheel go into the garret and come down again years later, -pertly polished, with pink ribbons on the distaff and spindle; we have -seen the superseded milkmaid gathering bottled cream at the basement -door, the superseded seamstress wearing a man-made jacket; and all -without audible murmur at the displacement. - - [Illustration] - -We have seen the trained nurse succeed Sairy Gamp, many nostrums -disappearing gratefully in the transformation, and have found in -the new sisterhood of bedside saints a cheering sign of a finer -civilization, a prophecy of the future of medicine. We have seen the -amanuensis penning “Paradise Lost” and law briefs and grave history and -exhausting letters--the amanuensis celebrated in sentimental fiction -and unsentimental commerce, fulfil the promise of her own invaluable -service in the modern typewriter, whose little white fingers help move -the lever of the great mercantile machine, without whom modern trade -could scarcely stir, and whose taking away would rob all business life -of an inestimably sweetening influence. - -We have seen her needle placed in the jaws of a machine, and have -seen her yoked with men in service to this iron master. We have -seen her leave the fireside armchair to climb the tall stool of -the counting-room and the railway station. We have seen the bodkin -displaced by the scalpel, the lace cap by the mortar-board, the apron -by the vestment. We have seen her emerge from the shadows of the -sanctuary to speak in the councils of the elders, we have seen her -hurry the breakfast dishes to go and vote. - -We have seen her, once content to be the theme of art, become a master -of every medium, even of architecture, and throwing aside at last, and -without petulance, the insulting tributes that come under a sex label. -We have seen her, once forbidden to read newspapers, successful in -making them; committing errors, but under bad counsel and direction -rather than by any failure of her own taste, and winning highest honors -in journalistic art and conflict. - - [Illustration: - - _The_ Amanuensis - of - the Past] - - [Illustration: - - The Amanuensis - of - the Present] - -The philosophy of all these changes naturally is complex and difficult. -It is a truism to remark that the danger always is of assuming that -they mean more than they do. We perhaps instinctively measure a change -by the mere picturesqueness of the contrast. We require to be reminded -much that humanity changes very little from century to century, -that whatever the appearances, great revolutions in human sentiment -and motive probably have not happened. No student of human -nature comes oftener upon any discovery than upon that of the simple -persistence in the twilight of the century of the old human instincts -that prevailed at the dawn. So that we need not think to find in all -these new clothes any greatly different people. When the century’s -clock strikes the hundredth year, and Father Time, acting as master of -ceremonies, shouts “Masks off!” there, among all the masqueraders, are -the same faces that have grown familiar in the every-day of life. - -If the reader detects in this attitude any wish to escape the burdens -of an explanation, an anxiety to dodge the awful Why? in all these -outward modifications of Miss America, he, and especially she, is quite -at liberty to do so, for, as I perhaps have indicated, and must repeat -defensively from time to time, definitely to explain Miss America is -farthest from my thoughts; though I cannot deny an intention, which -doubtless appeared at an early stage, to express respectfully certain -untested, and, it may be, actually impulsive, personal opinions -regarding her. To refrain from exercising such a privilege under -circumstances which forbid interruption would be superhuman. - -More interesting to me at the moment are some appearances already -fairly familiar, yet new in garb and situation. The young woman in -new lights and new places has a natural fascination. I realized this -vividly one day in the hotel of a Western city, when I became conscious -that an unusual guest had arrived. She was a sturdy young woman, -yet delicate of feature, with a mild, undismayed blue eye. She came -swinging into the hotel, a darkey lad at her russet shoe heels with a -telescope bag. She herself carried a sleek yellow satchel which she -placed in front of the desk. She wrote her name in a firm, small hand, -took a heap of letters handed to her by the clerk, and dropped into a -near-by chair to open several of them with a quick flip of her gloved -finger. In no way was she radically dressed. Her tailor-made suit was -of a fine cloth, richly trimmed. Her clothes, like her manner, had not -an unnecessary touch. Later, I saw her interviewing the porter, who -presently was rolling three large sample trunks into one of those first -floor rooms provided by certain hotels for the use of drummers, whose -goods for display cannot well be taken upstairs. I saw her come in at -different times with three different shopkeepers, and others came, -evidently by appointment, to inspect many rolls of carpet which soon -littered the display room. - - [Illustration: Thanksgiving Day: Old Style] - - [Illustration: Thanksgiving Day: New Style] - -“She’s a trump!” muttered the clerk, with an admiring glance across the -corridor; “the best drummer Warp & Woof ever had. She succeeded one of -their New York men, and she beat his orders by forty thousand dollars -the first year. And there’s no fooling about her either. She doesn’t -try to mesmerize the customers, though she’s pretty enough to do that -if she cared to. She simply makes them want the goods, and she sells so -square that she doesn’t have any trouble coming back to the same -people.” - -“Is she a single woman?” I asked. Something in this inquiry amused the -clerk. Then he said: “Well, they say she’s engaged to a drummer for -Felt, Feathers & Co., and that if they ever manage to get into Chicago -at the same time they will get married.” - -One day in mid-Missouri a lean, brown, bare-footed boy was driving me -across country to a railway station. Suddenly the boy said: “We ain’t -goin’ t’ have no dog show.” - -“No?” The boy shook his head. Presently he added: “And that girl’s dead -sore on this town.” - -“What girl?” I demanded. - -The boy turned to me with a look of incredulity. “Didn’t you see ’er?” - -“You don’t mean that girl in the blue dress that was at the hotel -breakfast this morning?” - -“That’s her, yes.” - -I remembered that she had very dark eyes, and no color; that she wore -an Alpine hat and a neat gown, that she looked straight before her with -an almost sullen expression when she spoke to the waiter. - -“I drove her over to Bimley’s,” the boy said, “and she sat there where -you are for two miles without saying a word. Then she turned at me -quick and says, ‘Have you got a cigarette?’ and I said yes I had, just -one. Then she said, ‘Have yer got a match?’ and I give her that, and -she smoked for a long time without sayin’ anything. After a while she -let out and said this was the meanest, low-down town she ever struck, -that they was meaner’n dirt here, especially the college, and that she -never wanted t’ see it n’r hear of it agin. Yer see, she goes from one -town to another and gits up dog shows for the people that have fine -dogs, and they have the town band, an’ lemonade an’ cake an’ prizes. -Anyway, she had a hard time stirrin’ them up here; but she could have -got through all right only for the president of the college. He said he -wouldn’t let the girls go, and that settled it. They gave it up after -this girl’d blown in a two days’ bill at the hotel, and she got mad and -lit out. Well, she quieted down agin before we got to Bimley’s, and -when we was in the hollow by Moresville I looked at her and she was -cryin’.” - -One other glimpse: Miss Linnett was the typewriter at Stoke Brothers’. -At first she had been just the typewriter, coming highly recommended -from the typewriter school. She appeared at the minute of nine and went -away at the minute of five, unless one of the Stokes stayed beyond that -hour, or late letters and the copying book delayed her. She unvaryingly -dressed in black, wore her brown hair simply in a knot, and in the -depth of winter always had a flower of some sort on her table. The -elder Stoke was feeble, and his eyesight grew to be so poor that she -read his letters to him. The junior Stoke would never let her take -formal dictation, preferring to give her the gist of what he wanted to -say and letting her put it in her own way. In this habit they both came -greatly to depend upon her. After a time, too, her growing knowledge of -the business induced the cashier and bookkeeper to go to her in certain -contingencies, and she acquired, without either seeking or rejecting -it, various discretionary powers in regard to the machinery of the -business. If anything went wrong they resorted to Miss Linnett. If old -Stoke forgot anything Miss Linnett was a second memory to him. If the -younger Stoke was in a hurry he would hand over the letters to Miss -Linnett to answer as she saw fit. She knew all the correspondents of -the house and their prejudices. She knew the combination of old Stoke’s -private safe after Stoke himself had forgotten it. She had a way of her -own in putting away documents, and nobody ever thought of studying the -scheme. She met all of these obligations with a dispassionate serenity, -and everything she did was done with an easy and amiable quickness. She -became the brain centre of the office. She was Stoke Brothers. - -Then one night she broke down, fainted, there before old Stoke, who -fell on his knees beside her and wept in real anguish while the little -white bookkeeper ran for a doctor, and the cashier tremblingly fetched -water to sprinkle her face. When she did not come the next day at nine -the situation in the office was pitiful. Old Stoke was useless, and the -younger Stoke shifted his letters from one hand to the other in utter -misery. The bookkeeper and cashier fumbled through their work dazed and -unstrung. In the days of doubt that followed the situation grew more -gloomy. There was great excitement when one morning she came down town -in a cab, white and fluttering, and, leaning on the bookkeeper’s arm, -made her way from the elevator to the office. She smiled at the little -group, accepted the homage quietly, insisted on showing them where -certain papers were, promised them that she should be back very soon, -and went away again, old Stoke patting her hand and telling her to be -careful. At the end of the month she died. - -“What did they ever do without her?” I asked when I had heard the story. - -“They didn’t do without her. Stoke Brothers went out of business. I -suppose they had been thinking of doing that; they were pretty well on -in years--and they couldn’t get on without Miss Linnett.” - - * * * * * - -Yes, of all the changes that have marked this changeful century, of all -the transformations, social, political and economic, that have affected -the situation of women since the establishment of the Republic, that -change is most significant and potent which has placed her so widely -and so potently in business. Miss America is in business: patiently -ambitiously, grotesquely, indispensably in business. The social changes -have not been great,--indeed, one is often startled to find how slight -they have been. Political changes, important and prophetic as they -are, have not as yet sensibly affected the life of women in general; -while the extraordinary extent of women’s entrance into business in -co-operation with and competition with men, has had an unexampled -effect upon the American girl’s domestic, social and political -situation. - - [Illustration] - -The American girl is not, as yet, very definitely conscious of this -effect, although she has been told about it often and vehemently in one -way or another. Unless she is writing a paper for her club she hasn’t -time to think much about it. She enjoys business as distinguished from -plain work. The idea of a business training rather piques the fancy -of an era that has laughed away the tradition of a “sphere,” and the -sort of young lady who in a past era would have no obligations beyond -needlework, is found dabbling in shorthand and bookkeeping, as the -princes learn a trade. - - [Illustration] - -And so the scientific observer is greatly distressed at times by the -thought that there must be a mighty readjustment before things can -come out smooth again. You might think that the whole thing had come -upon science unawares, that it was, in the phrase of a young woman who -was not new, all “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.” But no sound -authority exhibits real worriment on this point. If it is man who -complains, it is man who refuses to get along without her. From this -time forth business is going to be a co-educational affair. We shall be -told many times again that somehow all this will detract from woman’s -charm, and whether we believe or mistrust so much, we shall, I suspect, -go on taking the interesting risk. - - [Illustration: The Editor’s Busy Day] - -By the natural processes of time, women, young and old, will, I -suppose, like the rest of creation, continue to become better off. -Doubtless this is optimism. Pessimism says that two and two make three. -Sentimentalism says that two and two make five. It is optimism that is -content, and with good reason, to say that two and two make four. - -The traveller in a scurrying railroad train becomes familiar with few -more thought-suggesting sights than the farm woman in the cottage -door. She comes forward with her hands in her apron, if not with a -baby on her arm. Sometimes she waves her hand to the unanswering -train. Sometimes she leans against the door-post and looks, one -might fancy wistfully, at the clattering cars, at the people who are -going somewhere. Sometimes the doorway is in a cabin with one room. -Sometimes the woman is slatternly, drooping; sometimes she has the -glow of content. The spectator in the car cannot but wonder what are -the emotions of the spectator in the doorway. Doubtless there is both -envy and commiseration on each side. If the spectator in the cars -sometimes pities the woman in the cabin door as one who is left out -and left behind, the spectator in the cabin door sometimes pities the -haste-hunted spectator who is being noisily flung about in the great -loom of life. - -To glance backward over a century is to feel that life constantly -reiterates this situation. We all of us are roughly divided--very -roughly, sometimes--into the two groups: the people in the cars and -the people in the doorways. The look of things must go on being -affected by the point of view. There is a view-point aloof from either -situation, but it is not one which the merely human sojourner ever can -be privileged to occupy. - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - IV - - STITCHES AND LINKS - - - [Illustration] - -“Did it ever occur to you,” demanded the Professor, “how few people -actually do fashionable things?--that we probably are just as -hyperbolical in assuming that young women once amused themselves with -embroidery as that they now amuse themselves with golf?” - -“Stitches and links,” I pondered, knowing that the Professor did not -expect an answer. - -“What proportion of folks should you say actually do concentrate their -functions in the ‘barbaric swat’?” - -I lifted my head; and she went on: - -“Yes, I know that there always must be a fashionable, a dominating -pastime, and I have no disparagement of golf as golf. It is a good -enough game in its way. I am bound to admit this after having made a -very good score myself. Moreover, it is Scottish, which is a guarantee -of a latent profundity. It is a large game, and, as Sir Walter said of -eating tarts, is ‘no inelegant pleasure.’ I have been told by those -who have had an opportunity to know, that it calls out a great variety -of qualities. That may be said of many other things; but no matter. -My suggestion is that the assumption of prevalence in a so-called -fashionable thing leaves something unexplained, something that may be -very important, a philosophical hiatus--” - -“Professor,” I said, “have you never stopped to think that fashionable -fads and fads that are not fashionable are potent in two ways, that -is to say, first and primarily, in participation, and second, in -contemplation? There is less golf than talk about golf. One game of -golf may be repeated any day, for example, one hundred million times in -print. As the newspapers play golf with type, so the physically present -spectators on the links are repeated many-fold in those who not less -are participants and spectators, who wear ostentatious golf stockings -without ever having seen a teeing ground. This secondary participation -and appreciation is the breath of life to social fads. Probably this -may be said of all not absolutely primary pleasures. And so society -says, ‘We are all playing golf,’ which is not true at all, but which -instantly produces a situation that amounts to the same thing. We shall -say that one woman in ten thousand who may be in a situation, so far as -opportunity is concerned, to play anything, is playing golf, but this -shall not make it possible for the other nine thousand nine hundred -and ninety-nine who are not playing golf, to play anything else and -make it fashionable at the same time. This could not be, any more than -that we could have more than one Napoleon, more than one most-talked-of -book, more than one absorbing scandal, at a time. All epidemics present -this feature of concentration. Napoleon was just as much an epidemic -as crinoline or ‘Robert Elsmere.’ The hypnotists have a word for this -which has escaped me at the moment--” - -“Multo-suggestion,” contributed the Professor, patiently. - - [Illustration] - -“Something to that effect, in which we have a scientific explanation of -the exclusiveness of fashion, an explanation of fashion itself. And the -thing could not be different. That susceptibility to the contagion of -enthusiasm which inspires the American with so passionate an interest -in all of his hobbies, is a susceptibility which explains his keener -interest in life, his democracy of sentiment, his ardent yet generally -cautious and sane pursuit of entertainment.” - -“Much of this,” interposed the Professor, in her ruthless way, “might, -it seems to me, be said with equal propriety of any civilized people.” - -“I think, Professor, that there are some significant points of -difference--points of difference associated very largely, I think, with -the American sense of humor, which we are in the habit of complacently -arrogating. I think, Professor, that your philosophical hiatus is -occupied very largely by a sense of humor.” - -“That,” laughed the Professor, “reminds me of that story of the boy -who was seeking to explain to his companion the characteristics of -spaghetti. ‘You know maccaroni?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you know the hole through -it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, spaghetti’s the hole.’ I do wish I could believe -more completely in your sense of humor theory. In the first place it -is hard to explain some of the things the young people do by their -possession of a sense of humor.” - - [Illustration] - -“On the contrary, Professor, I think American young folks develop a -sense of humor earlier than any other in the world, which is a Yankee -enough thing to say. This may be an odd contention from me, but to me -one of the most distinctive traits of the American girl is her gift for -being unserious. It is not always a sense of humor, either; if it is, -it is a sense entirely her own, for it certainly is not associated -with traits which we ascribe to a sense of humor in men. In any case -it is a saving sense, a sense that keeps her from taking things so -tragically as the unknowing or unsympathetic spectator might expect. -The American has a genius for radicalism, a creative defiance of logic -and tradition. Once in a while some philosopher discovers that the -frivolities of life have an immense importance. Scientifically the -physical distortions of a laugh are ridiculous. Yet we almost have -ceased to defend it, even in young ladies.” - -“A ready laugh,” the Professor said, “is no indication of a sense of -humor. The comic and the humorous are sometimes even antagonistic. You -have heard me defend irreverence in girls, but a want of seriousness -often indicates a want of humor, for a sense of humor, my friend, -is essentially a sense of proportion. Now, to my mind, the American -girl does not indicate so keen a sense of proportion in her golf, for -instance, as in her clubs.” - -“Well,” I ventured, “she is serious enough in them, surely.” - -“Only to those who do not understand her,” returned the Professor -severely. “That women take their clubs too seriously, too improvingly, -has been a matter of complaint for a long time. There has been almost -a missionary spirit among those who have sought to save our girls from -clubs. Some of the missionaries have preached total abstinence among -the girls. ‘If you take one club,’ they have said, ‘you will take -another. The appetite will grow on you. You pride yourself on your -power of resistance now; but after you have taken a club, a dreadful, -unappeasable craving will spring up within you, and you will want more. -You will not be able to pass a club without wanting it. Even after you -have yielded to a morning, afternoon, and evening indulgence, you will -find a temptation to take a luncheon club too,--and when you take them -with your meals they have a particularly insidious effect. From this -it is but a step to a Browning bracer at nine A. M. and a Schopenhauer -cocktail just before dinner. Take no clubs at all--especially the -subtle, supposed-to-be-innocuous reading club--’” - -“Look not upon the club when it is read,” I murmured. - -“‘--for these,’” the Professor continued, with her inimitable chuckle, -“‘for these lead surely to more deadly stimulants. Indeed, these are, -to those who truly know them, more deadly than many another sort.’ -Then there is the more moderate school of missionaries which is for -limiting the number of clubs to so many a week, or to cutting them -down gradually on the theory that a girl who has been taking clubs -right along cannot stop short without peril to her health. By dropping, -say, one club a week for a whole season, a girl may, from a repulsive -intellectual sot be brought back, by patient nursing, and in due time, -to decency and three clubs a week.” - -“But, Professor,” I said, “they must believe in clubs as a medicine, as -a stimulant in the case of a threatening mental chill--” - - [Illustration] - -“Don’t be frivolous,” commanded the Professor; “my irony was incidental -to the statement that all of this talk about the seriousness of women’s -clubs is based on a misapprehension. In outward form the clubs are -serious, and the theme, their ostensible _raison d’être_, almost -justifies the misapprehension. When you see a batch of women setting -in upon civil government, or mediæval pottery, or Sanskrit, or Homer’s -hymn to the Dioscuri, or the Heftkhan of Isfendiyar, it is, perhaps, -instinctive that the uninformed should jump to the conclusion that -these women are serious, though a moment’s thought might suggest a -wiser view. If women really took these things seriously they would not -survive. The truth is that the French Revolution, and the Rig-Veda, -and the Ramayana are all very amusing if you know how to go at them. -If the physical culture classes took the exercises as seriously as the -teachers I am sure the members would all break down. And it is the -same way with the study of cathedrals or street-cleaning.” - -I reminded the Professor of the lady I had heard of, who wanted to -know at the club whether the Parliamentary drill then organizing was -anything like the Delsarte movements, and of the other, who, at her -first meeting, being appointed a teller, wanted to know what she was to -tell. “I trust, Professor, that you will not take from me my simple, -unquestioning faith in the earnestness of these light-seeking ladies.” - -“Those instances,” smiled the Professor, “illustrate the first phase. -You must not be misled by them, for they actually are confirmatory. -You may discern in them the attitude of mind favorable to the feminine -way of taking things lightly. A woman who asks why, never gets nervous -prostration. It is when she gets above asking why that you may watch -for shipwreck.” - -“Well, Professor, all I can say is that you have left me in a state -of miserable darkness as to women’s clubs. Surely there are vast -misapprehensions somewhere.” - -“There surely are,” admitted the Professor. - -“But how do you explain them?” - -“The women?” - -“The clubs.” - -“By woman’s revolt against her segregation. Not, in my opinion, that -she is protesting against the gregarious advantages of man, but because -she is beginning to discover that her sisters are worth knowing. She -has begun to be impersonally interested in, as well as interesting to, -the other woman. The woman’s desire is not improvement; it is, whether -she knows it or not, the other woman, precisely as a man’s interest -in his club is the other man. It has been said that a man often goes -to his club to be alone, and that there is this advantage in a club -that is a place, over a club that is a state of mind. But a woman goes -to a club _not_ to be alone. I suppose there are times when it -would do a woman good to get away from her family, not into company, -but into lonesome quiet. Mrs. Moody, who has said so many wise things, -declares in her ‘Unquiet Sex’ that college girls are too little alone -for the health of their nerves. This may be so, yet women’s clubs are -contemporaneous with girls’ colleges. It begins to look as if it was at -college that the American girl learned that it is not good for woman to -be alone--even with her family. At any rate, that independence which -is so characteristic of the American girl, which is, as I have been -informed and believe, somewhat disconcerting to men, is, undoubtedly, -largely the result of the American girl’s improved relations with her -sister women. When she is as successfully gregarious with regard to -women as men are with regard to men, her sex maturity will be complete. -I know that you are wondering what sort of a woman she is going to be -in that matured state. Have no anxiety. She will not be less agreeable, -but more so. She will overdo the clubs, but she will recover from -that; she will shed them the moment they cease to serve her purpose. -I am going to a club now. I am going to talk to it about Savonarola. -The club will be very well dressed, and so shall I, if I know myself, -and we neither of us shall let smoke from the fateful fires of the -fifteenth century blind us to the fact that we are living in the -nineteenth.” - - [Illustration] - -“All of which,” I said, in a severe tone, “is illustrative of the fact -that woman is a sophist--though perhaps I should say an artist, for she -uses life as so much material with which to construct an effect.” - -“Life _is_ an art,” remarked the Professor at the mirror. - -“And you, Professor--” - - [Illustration] - -But she was gone. I understood well enough that the Professor had just -given an exhibition of her dexterity in taking the other side, taking -it in a feminine rather than in a pugnacious spirit. The Professor’s -negatives always remind me of how affirmative the American girl is. -There is an English painting called “Summer,” in which the artist (Mr. -Stephens) gracefully symbolizes the drowsy indolence of June. This -classic allegory may not have the English girl specifically in mind, -but I am quite certain that we should not be satisfied with an American -symbol for the same idea which did not in some way indicate that Miss -America, even in summer, is likely to be representing some enthusiasm, -Pickwickian or not as you may choose to make it out. The spirit of -fantasy, sitting in the midst of our variegated life, who should call -up the American Summer Girl, must summon a different company. The -spirit of fantasy would know that the American summer girl, though -she can be a sophist, and agree that this or that is the fashion -this summer, is nevertheless not to be painted as a reiteration. It -frequently was remarked of the Americans at Santiago that they had -great individual force as fighters. There always will be critics to -remark upon the hazard of this trait in war. At all events it was and -is an American trait. And in conducting her summer campaign against an -elusive if not altogether a smokeless enemy, Miss America is displaying -the same trait. She can accept a social sophistry, but you must leave -her individuality. She will not have tennis wholly put aside if she -does not choose. She will not give up her horse because a little steed -of steel has entered the lists, nor give up her bicycle because it has -become profanely popular. She may choose to arm herself solely with a -parasol, to detach herself from even the suggestion of a hobby, which, -to one who has the individual skill, is a notoriously potent way in -which to establish one of those absolute despotisms so familiar and so -fatal in society. There is the girl with a butterfly net, the girl who -goes a-fishing, the girl who swims, the girl who wears bathing suits, -the girl who gives a sparkle to the Chautauqua meetings in the summer, -the girl who gets up camping parties, the girl who gets up the dances, -the girl who plots theatricals, the girl with the camera, the girl who -can shoot like a cowboy,--where should we end that remarkable list? How -impossible to express the summer girl in any single type? - - [Illustration] - -Indeed, the American girl’s methods of amusing herself are so various -as to make it increasingly difficult to typify her at all, except as -a goddess who, like Minerva (though _she_ did not go in much -for amusing herself), shall illustrate a wide range of activities -serenely and successfully undertaken. There is a triteness in the -accomplishments of any period, yet the spirit of individualism in the -American girl introduces here, as elsewhere, a diversifying element. -I was reading the other day that Miss Mitford had that “faculty for -reciting verses which is among the most graceful of accomplishments.” -Where have all the verse reciters gone? Why did this elegant -accomplishment perish? Are we all less poetical? Are our girls losing -that sense of sentiment to which we used to look for so many of their -quieter charms? Has this change anything to do with another change, -surely not to be lightly accepted, which has of late years taken poetry -from the top of the page, where we once thought it belonged of natural -right, and placed it at the bottom? Is it finally to be crowded off -the page altogether? Has the fact that women no longer consider verse -an accomplishment anything to do with this subtle but revolutionary -change? And what shall poetry say? Will poetry go on as it has from the -beginning of time arming us with epithets of praise? - - If she be not so to me, - What care I how fair she be? - -I must ask the Professor some day what she thinks of the disappearance -of poetry--she would tell me to say verse--as an accomplishment. -For of course we cannot afford to ignore the significance of -accomplishments, their influence either upon those who display or -upon those who observe them. Accomplishments are more than an armor, -a decoration,--they are a vent. A boy has his fling; a girl must have -her accomplishments. It is long since hobbies were fitted with a -side-saddle, and we have had no occasion to resent the general results. -The concrete effect upon individual men is sometimes disquieting, -but that is another matter. Miss America is, after all, especially -accomplished in what she knows. The product of a system by which the -limits of her information are the limits of her curiosity,--for, in -general, she is not prohibited from reading the newspapers,--she has -acquired a faculty which may, for aught I know, have superseded her -quotation of verse,--the faculty for quoting facts. Yes, she still -quotes, and the newer accomplishment, if less elegant, is not one -which we may scorn or overlook. If in Tennyson’s phrase, she is part -of all that she has seen, we might add “in print,” as a supplemental -explanation of her attitude of mind. - -Perhaps if the author of “Les Misérables” saw her at certain times he -might use the qualified praise he applied to the Parisians when he -called them “frivolous but intelligent.” Yet if St. Jerome had seen -her on the beach I hardly think he could have had the heart to say, “I -entirely forbid a young lady to bathe.” Her whole effect is qualifying. -She carries into all her enthusiasms a modifying reservation. The -trait is typified and illustrated for us when we see her coming home -from the reading club on a wheel, or carrying her novel to breakfast. -The social hysteric always is sure that something dreadful is going -to happen, and then, in one of those sensational hairbreadth escapes -in which nature delights, the thing does not happen. The hysteric has -overlooked the reservation by which the fad escapes monomania, by which -the enthusiasm is subordinated to its owner. - - [Illustration] - -Intermittently her enthusiasms bring up the venerable charge of -mannishness. A hundred years ago the editor of the London “Times” -complained savagely that women were becoming wickedly masculine. “Their -hunting, shooting, driving, cricketing, fencing, faroing and skating,” -he cried, “present a monstrous chaos of absurdity not only making day -and night hideous but the sex itself equivocal. Lady-men or men-ladies, -‘you’ll say it’s Persian, but let it be changed.’” Ptahhotpou the -ancient Egyptian has something to the same effect, but I have forgotten -his phrase. - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - V - - “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOCIETY” - - - [Illustration] - -One day it happened with me, as with many another impatient traveler, -that I had to spend two hours between trains in a certain obscure town. -Perhaps I should say, in a certain obscure railway station, for the -town was singularly vague, uninviting and irresponsive, not at all the -sort of place that one would expect to know what to do with. It was, -indeed, the fragment of a town, as if, in the sprinkling of villages -along the railway, the material at this point ran short, leaving barely -a sufficient supply of elemental features. And being confronted by the -unprofitableness of the prospect,--by the drowsy, straggling street, -running (the word sounds ironical) from the station, the unfriendly -stare of the town hall, plastered over with play bills; the sunburned -whiteness of the little church; the obvious taciturnity of the man -smoking in front of the general merchandise store,--I bought the local -paper, for there was a local paper, with a “patent outside,” that -occurred every Friday morning. And the first thing that struck my eye -in the local paper was a conspicuous headline: “What is Going on in -Society.” - -I had seen the thing before in other papers, in Chicago, in Boston, in -Washington, in Atlanta, and in the provincial habit that falls to a man -who thinks of life from the view-point of a big city, I had associated -the line with something very different from any conditions that seemed -likely to be present here. I looked out of the station window at -the little white church, at the chromatic town hall, at the general -merchandise store, at a neat girl with a tan cape who was coming down -the main street,--and turned with curiosity to the society column. - -It was just the same as any other. It had all the adjectives of New -York, or Richmond, or St. Louis, and if Voltaire had been reading it -he might have hesitated to say that the adjective is the enemy of -the noun. Evidently, too, the same things were going on that were -going on elsewhere in society. It appeared especially that Miss Effie -So-and-So had just “come out,” and that the event was signalized on -Monday evening by a dance which was described at length as to the -spacious drawing-rooms, the floral devices, the orchestra behind the -fringe of palms, the cotillion, the favors, the elegant gown of Miss -So-and-So’s mother, the gowns and ornaments of the other feminine -guests, in detail, with a cordial closing word for the refreshments, -which had been served at eleven o’clock. On Tuesday night there had -been a birthday dance at the Sheriff’s, at which “society was largely -represented”; at a pink tea on Wednesday afternoon there had been -some novel decorations at small tables; and on Thursday evening the -young ladies of the Polaris Club had gone over to Sudley’s with Mrs. -So-and-So as chaperon. There was more as to a festival in preparation -by the ladies of the First Church, as to a euchre party for the -following Thursday, and as to a little surprise which it was whispered -that “some society men” were arranging for the close of the season. - -Here, certainly, was food for thought. Could anything more piquantly -have illustrated the relativity of the term Society, more brilliantly -have demolished the pretension that Society has any geography? We have -our book definitions, by which we agree glibly to say that society -is the cultured, the fashionable, the favored class (or elsewise, -according to your dictionary) of “any community”; but how easy it is -for city pretence (and provincialism is never so arrogant as in big -cities) to see in its own set the true title to social eminence. It is -indicative of that interesting individualism which prevails in the -United States, and which perhaps we may learn to prize as one of the -precious products of democracy, that no town regards itself as small in -any sense that shall restrict or disqualify its individuals. This is -particularly true of towns in their feminine population. You may find a -community without gas, electric light, telephones or a board of trade, -but you shall not on that account decide that it is too small to have -a woman’s club and a social calendar. We are accustomed to say that it -all is a question of degree. - - When Adam delved and Eve span - Who was then the gentleman? - - [Illustration] - -We are accustomed to admit that in the senate of society even the small -states shall say their say. But scarcely can we realize without much -travel how far the fact that this country is too big for the focussing -of society in any one, two, or dozen places, affects the demeanor -and development of the social units. The fact that there are widely -prevalent formulæ, helps us first to the assumption, safe enough, that -these are applied, that there is a wish and an occasion to use them in -some way. They help us further to an estimate of the relative activity -of social forces, to the points of emphasis. But there is one thing -the wide use of formulæ never will help you to find out, and that is -the most interesting fact of all--the local flavor of the conformity. -Society is an Established Church in whose pews the dissenters form -a majority; and if I could, by some chance, have let my train go by -and have been admitted into the circle of that village society, I -certainly should have found that while it gave a sort of lip-service to -the social creeds, this society had its own way of doing so, and that -it adopted lightheartedly, like its new byword or improved flounce, -certain phrases, certain dicta of the world’s larger social groups, for -its own purposes, with its own reservations. I do not deny that I have -seen social formulæ grimly and mechanically used in certain quarters, -but the whimsical reservation is more characteristic. - - [Illustration] - -The American girl is so definitely a social creature, and her social -attributes are so personal, that she never appears to be dependent upon -social machinery. She brings into society the invaluable force of her -individual availability. That our social groups seem to cohere proves -that she must possess in some degree that deference to form which -begins in the acceptance of terms. Humanity can never pair well until -it has grouped well. Grouping is the beginning of that compromise which -reaches its crisis in pairing. Even the goddess of democracy, who is -presumed to dote upon calling a spade a spade, who hates the euphemisms -of effete monarchical society, may not despise the butler’s baritone or -the futility of attempting on one occasion six hundred different forms -of adieu. Even George Eliot admitted that “a little unpremeditated -insincerity must be indulged in under the stress of social -intercourse.” The trouble with unpremeditated insincerities, however, -is that you often wish you hadn’t said them, not (unfortunately for -the symmetry of the retribution) because they were insincere, but -because they were unpremeditated and inferior. It is much safer to -be unpremeditated with sincerities than with insincerities, and, as -the literature of social satire may help us to see, there is great -hazard in any case. It is a pity, perhaps, that the great advantages -of meeting your kind in your and their best clothes, must be bought so -dearly, yet, as Thackeray has observed, “if we may not speak of the -lady who has just left the room, what is to become of conversation -and society?” - - [Illustration] - -Social custom is so arbitrary that it might be, and doubtless would -be, a reckless and inconclusive thing for any one to assume that the -American girl in society is actually so radical as her reputation -in other avenues might suggest. I believe that it is quite commonly -agreed that while the French girl in society is, perforce, much more -reserved than the American, the English girl at a ball or an “evening” -exhibits a freedom from restraint not commonly seen in America. These -things, however, count for little except as showing the domination -of mere form, for there can be no doubt that in social life, using -the term broadly, the American girl has more liberty, and uses more -liberty than the English girl. If the privileges of a host’s roof are -liberally construed by the English girl, the American girl takes a -candid and undaunted view of a hotel and a public ballroom; and under -conditions which in any manner detach her from the immediate presence -of formality, she falls back upon her individual preferences, her -personally developed methods of meeting situations, with a readiness -and sureness that carry their own vindication. Because she can have -a developed individuality yet be no rebel, the American girl can -grasp and enjoy liberty without despising authority. Indeed, her very -possession of liberty must develop a certain personal conservatism -which as a mere subject of authority she might never acquire. A great -many fantastic things which at various times have been said about the -American girl might appear to have been uttered in ignorance of the -fact that there is an American mother. - -I have in mind a family living in Washington city, where there is, as -everyone knows, a highly seasoned and heterogeneous society, a society -utterly different from any that is to be met with elsewhere in this -country, and one which on that account offers peculiarly excellent -opportunities for study on the part of those foreign observers who -enjoy being misled about us. If there is any place in the United States -where the American mother has opportunity for her administrative -genius, it is at the national capital. The peculiar conditions created -by political, diplomatic and administrative forces in the capital -of a republic, the prevalence of the open door, and the presence of -both domestic and foreign transients who do not always appreciate -the limitations of liberal custom, make Washington a place apart. A -single instance may serve to illustrate the firmness of the women who -actually control social destiny. Under circumstances which it is not -necessary to detail, a certain elegant attaché of one of the legations -began calling upon the young lady of the family I have named. He was a -handsome and entertaining young man, easy with women and cordial with -men, glib in the arts, himself a good singer, and speaking English with -a fascinating inflection. One evening the mother said quietly to the -daughter: “Grace, the next time the Count calls I wish that you would -ask to be excused.” The daughter looked her astonishment. She was not -greatly interested in the count, yet he was very agreeable, and she -said so. But her mother said, “Grace, you must trust me.” And when the -count came again he was made to understand. - -It was a simple, unsensational incident, but because I knew the liberal -ethics of the mother and the apparently complete independence of the -daughter (she was twenty-three) the incident the more effectively -reminded me that though the American mother does not feel it incumbent -upon her to closely hover over her offspring with a solicitous wing, -she not the less observes and governs. It so happened that the gilded -count a few months later became involved in so gross a scandal that -his withdrawal from Washington became imperative. Influence in his -government saved him from worse annoyance than transfer to another -court. The mother’s instinct had been true. And who can doubt that a -liberally reared girl, when she herself assumes the office of mother, -will, without having to make sinister payment for her knowledge, be the -better equipped for a judgment of the world in the interest of those -who may be dependent upon her authority? - -That the American mother cares more for real than for apparent -authority, explains, to those who know, the visible and so often -misleading detachment of the daughter; and the daughter’s sense of a -dependence that is not irksome, a suzerainty that is not intrusive, -a mother care that has no vanity of assertion, appears in her freer -bearing, her finer self-reliance. Whatever her special gifts, meeting -her socially always is likely to have the charm associated with the -fact that she never is afraid either that she will not rise to the -occasion or that she will offend authority. She has not the first fear -because she is playing her own game. She has not the second because she -does not live in a threatening or too admonitory shadow. - -You think of these things sometimes when you sit opposite a fan. Her -fan! Have you not seen it blot out at the critical moment all that was -worth looking at in the world? Have you not realized that it is part -of her panoply? Have you not witnessed over and over again the genius -which she exhibits in the management of accessories? Have you not heard -in the flutter of her fan a note from that orchestra of sounds in which -she makes even her silk petticoat play a witching part? - - [Illustration] - -With her fan you quite naturally associate those two absolutely -unanswerable arguments--an American girl’s eyes. They are different, -believe me, these American eyes, from any other sort. The women of no -other country can look at you that way. You must admit, and in some -degree understand this, or you cannot hope to understand Miss America -in society or anywhere else. You may say of her eyes what Darwin -hinted of eyes in general, that they are the supreme physical paradox. -They do not peer like the virgin eyes of poetical tradition. It -has been complained that they have not at all the inquiring look once -thought to be so winsome in the young. They seem to _know_, yet -they are too feminine to assert. We say hard things about the poets -nowadays, but who can blame the poets for becoming emotional over her -eyes? Are eyes ever more a mystery, a contradiction, an uncombattable -force than when Miss America turns upon us her gentle yet fearless, -her wise yet maidenly orbs? We may have planned a battle. We may have -girded ourselves for a glance toward these twin guns in that implacable -turret, but at the first encounter our bravado withers. When she uses -these weapons as she pre-eminently knows how, we declare the motion -carried--the eyes have it. - -So soon as we grasp the fact that Miss America can look _and_ -talk, we are in a fair way to understand some of the secrets of her -power. It is quite generally admitted that she talks well, and very -seldom, I think, with any disparaging reservation. She is a good -talker. She is more; she is a good conversationalist, for she can -listen. If speech is silver and silence is golden, I am free to admit -that Miss America does not seem to believe altogether in the gold -standard. She appears to be somewhat of a bi-metallist. I don’t blame -her; and I always admire her method of dealing with men who believe in -the free silver of continuous talk. - -Her reserve here is characteristic of her agreeable poise in society -whenever and wherever she is called upon to say the right thing at the -right time. She never exhibits stage fright, though she has confessed -(afterward) to the symptoms. If, like Isabella, she is “loth to speak -so indirectly,” she doesn’t show it. She may, indeed, like the Venus -of Melos, be disarmed, but she never will be found, like the Winged -Victory, to have lost her head. Foreigners sometimes have said that -Miss America talks too loudly, but I am sure that this effect arises -from her vivacity, and one might retort that if her enunciation ever -is more than necessarily audible the chances are all in favor of your -being glad that you did not miss a word. - - [Illustration] - -Sometimes she has a way of talking to you at an oblique angle. She -likes to banter while she pours tea, for example, parrying and -thrusting with the agility of one of those Viennese girls who know -how to fence with a blade in each hand. When Mme. De Staël declared -that conversation, “like talent, exists only in France,” Miss America -had not grown up. It still is true, probably, as Mrs. Poyser pointed -out, that a woman “can count a stocking top while a man’s gitting his -tongue ready.” Man’s development has been distressingly slow. He never -has met but indifferently the supreme test of the _tête-à-tête_. -It may be that his habits of life dispose him to take an exaggerated, -sometimes even a morbid, view of the hazard of words. Regarding the -situation solemnly is fatal to facility. The situation is not, and -cannot be, intrinsically solemn, being devised to get away from -solemnity. The talk is no more momentous than the tea. Neither is an -end, but only a means. “It grieves my heart,” cried Addison, “to see a -couple of proud, idle flirts sipping their tea for a whole afternoon -in a room hung round with the industry of their great-grandmothers.” -Now this comment, surely, represents a most unwholesome frame of mind, -subversive of that relaxation which Delsarte and many charming women -disciples have bidden us cultivate. - - [Illustration] - -Alas! it would be a good thing if sipping tea for a whole afternoon in -one room were the worst sin practised by our young women. Sipping tea -in a dozen rooms on the same afternoon is surely a worse matter. In the -days when people gave up a whole afternoon to a call, conversational -stitching and tea drinking were reduced to a science, and gossip to a -fine art. In a later day, when the author of the Synthetic Philosophy -found occasion to marvel over and to lament the velocity with which -men and women were going about their affairs in this country, calling -customs had utterly changed. If our women had undertaken to perpetuate -throughout the year the New Year’s Day habits of the sociable Dutch of -Manhattan, they could not have been more successful. The potency of -pasteboard and the human imagination have not greatly diminished the -pressure, and will not so long as the intoxication of mere rapidity -continues to preserve its power. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table -has colloquially expressed the distressing celerity with which certain -classes of fashionable women rush in, laugh, talk, eat and disappear, -in the tersely alliterative “giggle, gabble, gobble, git.” - -These habits are, of course, utterly destructive of good talk. Modern -society talk under the pressure of numbers and a consent to oscillate -violently, is like the scattered fragments of a word game. A man--I -cannot speak for a woman--emerges from a “crush” with fresh emotions -toward the grotesquely ironical definition of words as the vehicle of -thought. - - [Illustration: Gossip] - -However, I am glad to think that Miss America does not seek to revive -the spectacular talking such as women did in the days of the old -French salons. A woman talking to a dozen men at the same time may -have been a charming affair. Mme. Récamier is credited with having -done it very well. But no sane and truthful man ever will admit his -contentment with the microscopic fragment of a woman’s attention. -Exclusive interest in a woman is undoubtedly a primitive instinct, yet -the great deference paid to success in the _tête-à-tête_ well -may justify this instinctive preference, and those hostesses surely -will be most successful who devise some liberty for this instinct. The -tendency of our social life is doubtless against centralization. There -can be no more monologists, it seems. “The worst of hearing Carlyle,” -said Margaret Fuller, “is that you cannot interrupt him.” The modern -social gathering, whatever its aims or variations, is quite sure at -least of this quality,--that it will interrupt. We cannot deny that -even “One-Minute Conversations with Nice Girls” is an experience having -its compensations as well as its drawbacks, for while a few eloquent -seconds with many women may not be so desirable in some ways as many -eloquent seconds with one woman, it always must be difficult to know -beforehand just when this will be the case. Mr. Warner has shrewdly -pointed out that some women are interesting for five minutes, some -for ten, some for an hour; “some,” he adds, “are not exhausted in a -whole day; and some (and this shows the signal leniency of Providence) -are perennially entertaining, even in the presence of masculine -stupidity.” The trouble is (as you might guess) that the interruption -always cuts you off at the end of three minutes with the girl who -would be interesting for a whole day. For aught I know, society may -have averaged this thing, and have discovered that the low limit is -safest, that it leaves both parties most completely in possession of -the benefit of the doubt. But how few men can start a new conversation -every ninety seconds with anything like the success that attends a -woman’s efforts to do the same thing? - -No, woman, who created Society with its capital letter, has succeeded, -whether by design or accident, in producing a situation in which she is -placed at a very definite advantage. She can riddle a man with deadly -small shot before he can roll up his heavy guns. Yet she never will -like the man who either refuses the close order or surrenders. She will -like him best if he “puts up a good fight.” If he stammers, she knows -just how to deal with his broken English and keep him going. _Quot -linguae, tot homines._ But you cannot multiply a woman that way. -One language is all that she needs. Small talk is a large question. -As the loose change of vocal currency, it is an indispensable -commodity. The larger denominations are not available. As for cashing -an intellectual check, good as your credit may be, it is out of the -question altogether; and a wise man recognizes the fact that in the -matter of this commodity woman is a banker who must always pocket a -margin. - - [Illustration] - -One day in a far Southwestern city the belle of the place drove me in -a dogcart for a memorable half hour. She was no taller than I, but she -wore a magnificent hat, one of those hats which even the girl could not -make you forget, and as she sat on the “dinky,” she arose beside me -in a quelling contrast. The horse was a smart stepper (at least that -is my confused impression), the road demanded a discriminating rein; -but though we drove past the leading hotel in the crisis of the event, -and drew the fire of a hundred eyes, that girl’s delightful wit never -faltered nor forsook her, that is to say, never forsook _me_; for, -of course, I needed a helping hand. No man not specifically trained -to it could gracefully maintain himself at such an altitude with any -credit to his power of speech. When I recall that dashing day, the -roll of the cart, the flutter of those lofty feathers, the firm grace -of those little gloved hands, the healthy glow of the face I looked -up to, I feel an accentuated humility, a deep conviction of my oral -inferiority. - -In society, as elsewhere, woman often reminds us of her superiority -to the algebraic axiom that things which are equal to the same thing -are equal to each other. There are qualified ways in which a man may -be equal to society. But to say that he is equal to a woman--that is -another matter. - -You will remind me that society is not wholly a matter of talk, large -or small. This is very true. Among other things, it is a matter of -clothes. - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - VI - - LACE AND DESTINY - - - [Illustration] - -Victor Hugo thought that “a book might be written with regard to the -influence of gold lace on the destiny of nations.” Carlyle wrote the -book, extending his discussion to the influence of lace that is not -golden on the destiny of society; and one may scarcely venture a few -tentative words upon the subject of clothes without the feeling that he -should, properly, apologize to “Sartor Resartus.” And yet, as we have -many reasons for remembering, there are new clothes, and if there is no -new philosophy, it is not impossible that the old philosophy may have -some new bearings, and that the new conditions, as sometimes happens, -modify the application of the eternal verities. - -Naturally one cannot throw out even a casual suggestion in such a -matter without realizing that we have gone very far from the primitive -standpoint. When Adam told Eve that she looked lovely in green, the -situation was strikingly different from any that we now can fancy, -not only with regard to the lady, but with regard to the situation -in general, for, as there could be no relativity in the sincerity -of the compliment, there could have been no diffidence in receiving -it. It is clear that either paying or receiving a compliment under -such circumstances must of necessity have had an inferior excitement; -yet we can have no difficulty in grasping the fact that between the -primitive dress reform situation presented in the wilds of Paradise, -and the highly evolved subtleties of modern dress, lie infinite ethical -complexities, a pyramid of riddles, a Mammoth Cave of doubt. It having -been established by centuries of habit that civilized men and women -shall always wear some clothes, and most of the time a great deal of -them, the question has not the simplicity which it might have had at -an earlier time. Clothes principles are now as intricate as apparel -itself. They are associated with ages of prejudice, libraries of -history, acres of painted art, mountains of dry goods. On the other -hand, certain notions now are entirely accepted, and the field for -debate, after all, is much narrower than might at first appear. - -It may not be amiss to remember the fact, flatly expressed by Carlyle, -that “the first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration, -as, indeed, we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized -countries.” In women, dress is this “spiritual want” touched by -artistic sentiment, I had almost said religion; and whatever we may -say of the essential barbarism of the sentiment, it seems quite likely -to prove one of those barbarisms that are fundamental and permanent. -If we might remember that it is fundamental much of modern discussion -would be simplified. I find Mr. Finck giving the following elements as -explaining the Fashion Fetish: the vulgar display of wealth, milliners’ -cunning, the tyranny of the ugly majority, cowardice and sheepishness. -These are all good explanations, but the list seems sadly deficient -without an allusion to this instinctive and ineradicable desire for -decoration. Mr. Theodore Child seems to have in mind the instinctive -and final phase of the situation when he bids us “enjoy in imagination -what the meanness of the age refuses to the desire of the eyes.” - -Woman herself seems to have adopted the view of Epictetus that “we -ought not, even by the aspect of the body to scare away the multitude -from philosophy.” Socrates meant the same thing when he said to one of -his too-ragged followers, “I see thy vanity shining through the holes -in thy coat.” Clothes, then, are not merely to warm or to conceal, but -also to decorate. Wherein they warm or conceal, they are a science. -Wherein they decorate, they are an art. The science is exact; the art -is rich in variety and change, making every other art its handmaiden, -every season its holiday, every sentiment its theme. It is an art -redolent of the years, tingling with the daring of youth. Above all, -it is an art in which woman chooses to express herself in a language -free from the inhibitions placed upon other arts, in which, ignoring -when she chooses, the primary excuses and incentives, she takes an -art-for-art’s-sake justification for showing us the separate and -independent fascination, in themselves, of sublimated clothes. No -one who cannot perceive the inherent interest, if not the inherent -justification, of clothes as clothes, ever can see deeply into the -philosophy of dress, or ever can see deeply into the philosophy of -women. - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - -The wide contrast, and one growing continually wider, in the -characteristics of masculine and feminine dress, on those occasions -when it most definitely expresses itself as dress, might suggest that -some variation in the governing philosophy of each had taken place, -perhaps at some definite time; for there was no such contrast in an -earlier day. It may be that at the time--and we may set this early -in the present century, easily within the period of our own national -history--when man began to simplify his attire, to put aside all -but the rudest decorative elements, woman definitely formulated her -justifications for perpetuating the idea of clothes for clothes’ sake. -We are bound to remember what she has had to live down. She has had to -live down Queen Elizabeth, and all the hyperbole of Continental fashion -when Continental fashion was in its most imaginative mood. Political -traditions were not the only burdens of our ambitious young republic. -Think of the gorgeous head-dresses, half as tall as the women who wore -them, and which afforded such delight to the caricaturist! Have you -ever stopped to think how few opportunities woman gives the cartoonist -nowadays, how severe a strain she places upon his ingenuity? There may -be an occasional note of excess. A recent foreign investigator found -the clothes of our women too much so, too perfect for repose. This -note of excess is the characteristic of genius. I myself have seen -American women who, to a merely masculine prejudice, seem to be wearing -too many rings. But we must make reasonable allowance for the natural -accumulations of time. It has occurred to me that I might do as we may -with a tree,--tell a woman’s age by her rings. - - [Illustration] - -So that in looking about and finding the whole of human society -“hooked, and buttoned up and held together by clothes,” we cannot hope -in any successful way to investigate the matter, if we forget for a -moment that the dress of women is to be looked at as a subjective -element. Going a little way with logical analysis, and agreeing, -for example, that “if the cut betoken intellect and talent, so -does color betoken temper and heart,” we soon meet with a mountain -height of contradictions introduced by the purely personal effect of -woman herself, and we find, long before attaining any symmetry of -information, that woman has invested certain material elements -of life, as she has invested so many elements of life that are not -material, with the interest she herself has for us. A little lace, a -ribbon she has worn in her hair, a glove, a satin slipper, a fan, a -shred of trimming, have an eloquence in their revelation of her, a -fragrance in their transmission of her touch, which eludes logic and -confounds investigation. By a faculty and privilege of making things -seem reasonable that are not at all reasonable, by a witchcraft, a -sophistry of fashion, a trick of illusion, in the presence of which -we forget every rule of art, every principle of proportion, every -prejudice of habit, she can utterly bewilder us in a master stroke -of invincible instinct. She takes, deliberately and with exquisite -selective tact, certain entirely simple, inoffensive elements,--things -which in themselves you must acknowledge to be harmless and almost -rational; she takes these simple elements and she puts them together -by a method, and in a manner, of which no man, if he lived to be one -hundred and eighty-six, ever would discover the secret, and, waving her -wizard wand over the entire mess, she calls it a hat! - -Nothing could be more preposterous, of course. When we study the thing -as an object separated from her, it might, even though we knew that she -had created it, excite our derision. But when we see this masterpiece -of absurdity upon her head, that which had seemed at once an offence to -nature and to art, the acme of decorative nonsense, immediately becomes -forgivable--immediately becomes right. It is not that we excuse it for -her sake. It is not that the apposition dismays our reason. We bow to -it, accept it, and end by perceiving that, whether it be taken as an -old fact of nature or a new fact of genius, it is unanswerable. - - [Illustration] - -No woman could be more completely, undebatably sane than the Professor. -I know what I am talking about. And yet the Professor wears a hat. I -had occasion, one day, when she had left it for a moment on a table, -to study it analytically as a creation. It was a fearful and wonderful -thing. No man ever can forget the moment when first, with mature -deliberation, and in a consciousness of the vast significance of life, -he takes up a woman’s hat, timorously, as if it were a ten-inch shell -or Minerva’s helmet, and gazes into its fragile fastness. When I -mentally grasped, as a man may in the absence of the wearer, the many -and extraordinary elements of the Professor’s hat; when I sought to -associate its multi-colored grotesqueness with the classic simplicity -of the Professor’s profile; when I figured its heterogeneous elements -as an object of decoration for the Professor’s outward and visible -effect; when I fancied the Professor’s brain flashing and glowing under -this riotous symbolism, I was filled with a new sense of the futility -of reason, a new awe for the wonder of woman. - - [Illustration] - -Dr. Holmes has spoken of the hat as “the vulnerable point of the -artificial integument”; but plainly he was speaking of the masculine -hat, for woman’s hat is no vulnerable point with her. It is her strong -point, her point of vantage, the citadel of her sophistries. You can -reason with her about other things, but you cannot reason with her -about her hats; not, mind you, because she will not listen, but because -she, or the hat, makes you not want to. This is not to say that it -makes no difference who wears the hat. It does make a difference. Take -a device like the calash, such as our great-grandmothers wore. There -were faces that did not look well in it, faces which quite naturally -might have made us think less well of the calash for the moment. Under -certain other circumstances--that is to say, over a certain other head, -its quaintness begins to have a meaning, and it seems as natural and -acceptable as anything else which the right face and the right person -choose to display for us. Thackeray contended that sauer-kraut tastes -good in Germany, and it is notorious that the bagpipes sound quite -reasonable in Scotland. In the same way, there is no form of hat yet -devised by human ingenuity that will not tempt forgiveness when it is -on the right woman. - -And woman herself quite clearly perceives the force of association, -the importance, if the significance of the hat is to be preserved -and understood, of keeping it on her head. If this were not so why -should we be confronted with the monumental paradox that our womankind -are keeping their hats on in church and taking them off in places of -amusement? At the theatre woman consents to be separated from her hat, -and to have her hat separated from her. At her devotions she is not -yet willing to commit this discord, and in the dim religious light it -twinkles and shimmers its owner’s insistent dictum: The hat is the -woman. In a thousand ways the hat declares the existence of occult -meanings. A woman who would cut a man who wore a made tie, who would -not buy a reproduced antique or pirated print, who knows Sèvres at -a hundred yards and a real Bokhara in the dark, will cover her head -with linen lilies and cotton-bloated roses. A woman who would hesitate -to put a jewel in her hair, will heap upon the dyed straw of her hat -festoons of glass and steel and wax, with the fretted carcass of a bird. - -After all, there is no occasion to take hats seriously, unless you -happen to sit behind one, which, of course, cannot always be happening. -They are a wonderful study; there are so many different kinds; they -have been talked about so much, and have filled so large a place in -our lives, especially in public audiences. They have been discussed as -widely and as fervidly as the Federal Constitution. Because of them, -men have passed laws and sleepless nights. Because of them men fought -duels in the last century and lawsuits in this. To make it possible -to have them more refulgent and fetching, husbands and fathers have -worked on Sundays and stopped smoking. Though it has been assailed -with fanatical bitterness, buffeted by satire, stripped by statute, -stoned by envy, disciplined by reform, the hat serenely survives, a -defiant catalogue of every trait for which it ever has been either -praised or condemned. From out the din of conflict and discussion it -rises unscathed and unashamed the proud emblem of woman’s pictorial -supremacy, which all nature has said must and shall be preserved. - -And you know what she can do with a veil; she can make you forget that -a veil is barbarous; she can make you forget that you shouldn’t like -veils,--she can make you like her in one. She can make it increase her -effect of preciousness, if that effect is in her line; or make it -increase her sphinx-like effect, if that happens to be in her line. -She no longer is extravagant in contriving them. Sarah’s was to cost a -thousand pieces of silver. She now is content to make it a direct and -specific instrument of illusion. - - [Illustration] - -If the late Mr. Darwin had given serious attention to veils he would -have remarked that the wearing of them has developed new expressions -of countenance among women. When they wrinkle,--I mean the veils,--the -wearer has a way of pursing her lips to push the silken gauze free from -the end of her nose, having accomplished which, her fingers gently -pull the thing into subjection from the lower hem. At certain seasons -and under certain conditions the habit is strangely general, until -you might think that woman, like the novelist in his last chapter, is -always drawing a veil. The more expert can pull out the wrinkles by -supplementing the pout of the lips with an indescribable wrinkling -of the nose, and without calling assistance from the hand. I do not -suppose that girls are educated to do this in any particular way, yet -the uniformity of the habit is little less than astonishing. - -Speaking of uniformity of habit, I have observed the same thing about -her back hair. The gesture of the fingers with which a woman readjusts -a hairpin, or, perhaps, simply ascertains that it is doing its duty, is -wonderfully similar among all women. Yet the gesture may to a singular -degree be a reflection of her personal style, and in that latitude for -purely personal grace you sometimes are brought to the compensatory -fact that in sitting behind the hat you also are sitting behind the -hairpins. - - [Illustration] - -This crowning glory of her hair! How it has fluttered in song and -story! How it has shimmered here in comedy and there in tragedy! -How it has dowered and decked and framed her, and puzzled us by its -mysterious fickleness of color, now this shade, now that, on the same -saucy, shapely head! How quaint a picture she can make for us when -she masks it in powder and carries us back to the days of Copley or -Watteau! How it has served to remind us, in some forbidden discovery -of the crimping pin or the curl-paper, that from the beginning woman’s -pleasures and her conquests have not been unmixed with pain! - - [Illustration] - -How much fashion owes to hair and hair to fashion! How inexhaustible -are the harmonies of line of which it is capable! How fascinating, by -association, are the combs, and patillas and wimples and ferronières -which have caressed and curbed it! We no longer dye it blue as the -Greeks did, though we still, as the Greeks did also, produce blondes -at pleasure. Far be it from this page to express any preference as -between blonde and brunette. If, as we have been told, all of the poets -from Homer to Apuleius doted on blonde hair; if Aphrodite was blonde, -and Milton’s Eve; if Petrarch loved his blonde Laura (with crimps) -and Boccaccio delighted in tresses of gold, who shall attach any more -final significance to this than to the fact that woman at his moment is -whimsically dressing her hair like Botticelli’s Grace? - -Reason does not meet these matters. “I am highly pleased,” wrote -Addison, “with the coiffure now in fashion.” That is the ideal attitude -of mind, a point of view above reproach. No man really is normal who -does not think that “the coiffure now in fashion,” yes, and all else in -fashion that expresses the invincible instinct of woman, is peculiarly -and especially likable. - -“Professor!” I cried, in a moment of fresh and profound conviction, -“I am assured that it is a measure of sanity in a man that he shall -like woman in whatever she wears. She can confound our most precious -theories by doing as she pleases in the matter of dress, for the effect -is always right because she has produced it. It all is _her_. You -might as well find fault with the shade of crimson in the feathers on -the bosom of a robin as to find fault with the color of her hat or -gloves. Some combinations make us wince when we first see them, and in -the weakness of that moment we even may entertain a doubt as to the -safety of the proprieties; but we come to excuse the doubted effects, -and end by putting them into the very grammar of color. I have detected -a score of instances in which woman, or fashion speaking for her, -has met and turned the judgment of art. I have a theory that certain -painter prejudices have simply been demolished by the instinct of -woman.” - -The Professor was reading an exciting book on “The Evolution of the -Vertebrata,” and I knew it, but she was quite patient, and said -quietly, “Those are not the only prejudices that have been demolished -by the instinct of woman.” - -“True,” I admitted, curious, yet not disposed to challenge enumeration. -“Do you know,” I went on, “that your comment brings up an interesting -question as to the effect upon woman herself of a pampered instinct. -Will not the reckless gratification of instinct, charming as its -effects may be, tend in time to differentiate her unfavorably? Though -you meet vertebrata with your reason, when you turn your instincts -loose upon millinery are you not vitiating--” - -“_Will_ you stop!” expostulated the Professor, “before both -instinct and reason co-operate in boxing your ears? Prattle about a -woman’s instinct is a man’s way of dodging admission of woman’s subtler -sense. If I actually had the time I should like to impress upon you the -fact that dress is a department of the fine arts; that it has a logic -and a language, principles, rules, functions, and a future. But that -is another matter. Man is hampered by absurd prejudices as to clothes, -especially as to the clothes of women. Our Concord philosopher remarked -that the consciousness of being well dressed imparts a peace and -confidence which even religion scarcely can bestow. Beneath the fact of -this dependence lie emotions and impulses to which women yield frankly, -but to which men turn a hypocritical squint. The candor of woman toward -her clothes instincts does her good. A free, natural love of clothes as -clothes is a sign of health in a woman.” - - [Illustration] - -“Professor, if I did not know how fearfully and wonderfully it was -made, and how unpromising for the purpose, I should say that you were -talking through your hat.” - -The Professor rewarded me with her choicest twinkle. “Well,” she said, -“I sha’n’t be able to laugh in my sleeve much longer; fashion is making -it tighter every day!” - -“Can you not see,” I went on, “that the tightness or looseness of a -sleeve, for example, must have some direct effect upon the mental -attitude of a woman? Are not these constant changes destructive of -intellectual repose and progress? If dress is a language, how can you -escape a resulting confusion in this instability?” - -“My dear sir, that constant change of which you speak is not an -instability, but a consistent and symmetrical ebb and flow.” - -“It may be pure curiosity, Professor, but even if Rosalind did not have -‘a doublet and hose in her disposition,’ it seems to me that we well -may wonder how far the current bloomer affects the mind of the current -young woman. It cannot be possible that so momentous and revolutionary -a condition as the bloomer shall be without effect upon the mind of -woman--and not merely upon the women who wear them, but upon the whole -sex. It has been said that not only the physical structure but the -character of men have been modified by the fact that men persistently -avoid bagging their trousers at the knees. Will not the divided skirt -divide woman’s attention--” - -“As for bloomers,” said the Professor, “and all related forms of dual -garmentature, I am going to lecture about them before the Zenith -Club, and, if you are very good, when my paper is quite completed I -shall read it to you. Meanwhile, I may remark that the bloomer is not -‘current’ at all, save, perhaps, in a modified and semi-visible way in -partnership with an abbreviated skirt,--but this is anticipating.” - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - VII - - CHANCE AND CHOICE - - - [Illustration] - -A distinguished general and admirable gentleman once was said to have -lost the Presidency because he called the tariff a “local issue.” It -might be difficult for us to discipline Coleridge for calling love -a “local anguish.” Yet the plausibility of the statement should not -defend the culprit. Love is, actually, not at all local, particularly -when it is an anguish. It is immensely pervasive, an international -issue, an inter-planetary, a universal issue. The light of love may -be hidden under the bushel of modesty, yet its undaunted X-rays will -penetrate the farthermost spaces. - -But it is too late, or too early, in other words wholly unfashionable, -to write about love, and I certainly should not have committed the -offence of the foregoing paragraph had it not been for an entirely -orderly and even timely thought as to the possibility that love, like -any other malady or manifestation, might have a purely national flavor, -not merely in its outward symptoms, but in its inherent quality. That -is to say, I had wondered in what way, if in any way, the American -girl’s definition of love would be distinctive. If I had asked the -Professor, she would, had she consented to take me seriously, have -described love as “the sum and sublimation of all possible inter-human -attachments,” or something of that sort. She would have been abstract, -for woman, however personal she may incline to be by virtue of her sex -and method, loves the abstract in definition for so much of reservation -as it may leave to her. There is safety and breathing room in a large -definition. Doubtless we never shall be able to get at Miss America’s -sentiments except in a purely empirical way, and if I were writing -a treatise instead of setting down a few notes, I should have felt -an obligation to study out the question by observing critically the -conduct of the American girl in the processes of courtship. - -The difficulty of such observation always must lie in the fact that -the most interested man in any specific instance himself is wholly -incapable of making report if he would. A man who could be analytical -in any circumstances which included a settlement of his own fate, would -be fit for every treason. He might go through a variety of mental -motions which to him, at the time, passed for the convolutions of pure -reason. He might, and doubtless often has, fancied himself as studying -her, as penetrating the mask of her femininity, as dispassionately -dissecting her sentiments. Indeed, every prudent man must at some -stage weigh, with whatever sobriety may be possible to him, the chances -of what she will say; and this must always include some estimate of -what she is thinking. - -The relationship between what she is thinking and what she will say -is one of the most complex in nature, and I fancy that in our climate -and environment its fundamental complexity has been increased. I know -that it is the habit of science to assume that the reason woman seems -more contradictory than man is not that she is dishonest, but that she -is impulsive. Impulse naturally is far less uniform than reason. “They -change their opinions,” complains Heine, “as often as they change their -dress,” a sentiment which proves conclusively that Heine had credulous -intervals. A woman who always had the same opinion would instinctively -realize the stupidity of that condition, as she would the condition -of always being seen in the same dress; and if she didn’t have a new -opinion she might do with the old opinion as with the old dress, turn -or cut it over. You cannot say from the notorious inaccuracy of a -woman’s gesture when she presumes to place her hand on her heart, that -she has not a heart, that she is unaware of its precise location, or -that it is not in the right place. - -If a man means less than he says, and a woman always means more, we may -see at a glance that it is easier to subtract than to add. But this is -not the chief difficulty. A man, if I may be pardoned the dogmatism, -always speaks in the original, while woman must be translated, and -it is vastly easier in any case, to translate his hyperbole than -her meiosis. When woman was simpler, she had less of this quality. -When she said no, and simply meant yes, man learned to translate and -understand her. Even a man could work out by the least subtle of -reasoning that when she said “No!” most fiercely she really was saying, -“_Idiot!_ why don’t you _make_ me say yes!” But after a time, -perhaps because she suspected, for good reason, man’s discovery of the -cypher, because she saw that it was not enough to turn the alphabet -upside down, woman began to qualify rather than to invert, and man -was no longer in possession of the key. The whole arithmetic of the -calculation was infinitely lifted, and rose from the rule of three into -the higher realms of pure mathematics. If she _always_ called him -back he would know just what to do. If a little absence _always_ -made her heart grow fonder, the process was capable of exact and -circumstantial procedure. But no longer is it so. She may, indeed, -still mean yes when she says no. She reserves her constitutional -rights. But to read her language now, to filch from her swift talk the -true meaning, to trace in the deceptively deep stream of her feminine -philosophy the faintly shining pebbles of pure fact, is a function -calling out the highest that is in man. - - [Illustration] - -In Miss America, then, we have this quality at its best, or its worst, -as you may view the matter; and the quality in her is coupled with -others that belong to her, and perhaps to her only. The degree of -independence which she has achieved has had a natural effect upon her -relations to courtship. This independence has not merely accentuated -the elusiveness which belongs to her as a woman. The quality of being -hard to get is not new in woman, or in any degree original in any -race. Ranging from the conditions in which barbaric woman is knocked -down by the strongest bidder, to those in which she is knocked down -to the highest, there is a uniform, because instinctive, outward -habit of indifference or aloofness in the sex. But Miss America’s -independence affects the whole question of her choice and the method -of her choice. And, committed as she is, by virtue of being a woman, -to a vast and fateful chance, she has, more certainly than any other -woman in the world, a choice. For good or ill, and in whatever degree -social station and social habit may modify the practice, she has an -actual participation in the forming of the matrimonial partnership. The -world has seen marriage by capture, by service, by purchase, by social -convenience, by free and natural choice. The experiment of marriage by -free choice has received in our own country its fullest trial. Marriage -by social convenience and by purchase still survive, even with us, and -there are many among us who think that marriage for love may not be -final as a national trait, and that we will discover that the compact -of marriage, being in the interest of society and actually under the -government of society should be made directly in conformity with the -convenience of society. Meanwhile, the trait is under scrutiny, the -practice is under trial. - - [Illustration] - -Marriage for love, is marriage in which woman is the arbiter, so -that Miss America is carrying out, side by side with her brother’s -experiment in democracy, an extraordinary and unprecedented experiment -in social practice. She believes, and reasonably, that Plato prophesied -this system in his conservatively worded remark that “people must be -acquainted with those into whose families and with whom they marry -and are given in marriage.” She believes that if marriage is to be -“chiefly by accident and the grace of nature,” it shall be left to her -to illustrate the grace of nature. And most men who are candid with -themselves know that while man may have the nominal initiative, she is -in charge of the situation. There is a German saying that a man cannot -be too careful in choosing his parents. It is equally true that a man -cannot be too careful in letting the right woman pick him out. - - [Illustration] - -If I have been able to grasp it, the American girl’s idea is that -marriage is best when it is a culminated friendship, that is to -say, when it includes friendship. This is a new idea, of course, -revolutionary in more than may at first appear. Indeed, we might more -correctly call the American idea, marriage for friendship. Balzac -has said a very severe thing of love that does not include “an -indissoluble friendship”; but it cannot be denied that we often are -perplexed to see that in this business the greater does not always -seem to be including the less. If the American girl shall succeed in -definitely incorporating friendship into the essentials of marriage -she will have accomplished a great triumph. “As to the value of other -things,” says Cicero, “most men differ; concerning friendship all have -the same opinion.” - -If she shall succeed in making friendship an essential of marriage, -Miss America will, indisputably, have founded the American practice of -a pre-matrimonial acquaintance. We shall go on believing that when we -meet her with a “Fate-can-not-harm-me-I-am-engaged” look, she cannot, -as often happens in other civilizations, be in ignorance of his name. -And we can see at a glance that by insisting that she shall _know_ -the man she is to marry, Miss America is assuming an intimate and -personal dominion over courtship. She not only is assuming a power and -a responsibility, but confessing the delicate truth of her individual -jurisdiction. It will make no difference what formula she uses for “You -may speak to father.” The euphemisms behind which she now can hide -herself are as diaphanous as her finest veil. - -Yet, is there any to doubt her mastery of the situation she has -invented? Is there any to doubt that in her new situation she has -a new power? I know what has been said of the women who have gone -before. “And this I set down as an absolute truth,” said Thackeray, -“that a woman with fair opportunities and without an absolute hump may -marry _whom she likes_.” And I do not mean, and perhaps should -specifically protest that I do not mean, that Miss America is a whit -more assertive in her selection than the women of whom Thackeray has -chosen to say this much. But there is a sense in which Miss America, by -virtue not only of peculiar privileges, but of peculiar endowments, is -giving a new significance to courtship. Her attitude of mind is not to -be confused with mere independence. We have many antecedent examples -of independence. “At all events,” wrote Mrs. Carlyle to her insistent -suitor, “I will marry no one else. That is all the promise I can and -will make.” She thought that an agreement to marry a certain person at -a certain time was simply absurd. Miss America’s independence is the -product of conditions which have produced a sex attitude of mind as -well as an individual attitude of mind. - -It has seemed as if the development of this sentiment, and the -realization of responsibility, were making the American girl more -conservative in certain ways, and that she was, in the matter of -early marriages for example, drawing nearer to the older systems. -Sentimentally, early marriages are a good thing. Perhaps they are -practically also. Martin Luther and other wise commentators have -pointedly advised them. But the century has scarcely offered approval. -Stubbs, in his “Anatomy of Abuses,” complained bitterly that it -should be possible for “every sawcy boy of xiiij., xvi., or xx yeres -of age to catch a woman and marie her without any fear of God at all.” -Early marriages were a source of great complaint in our colonial days. -Probably the caution of our young women is responsible for the fact, -now frequently quoted, that early marriages are less frequent. At the -first sign of a new caution there is always the alarmist who jumps to -the conclusion that he is to be put off until the time De Quincey set -for the amusement of taking home a printing press,--“the twilight of -his dotage”; and it will be said of this or that section when some one -is in the mood to say it, as Heine said of France in 1837, that “girls -do not fall in love in this country.” - - [Illustration] - -Some characteristics of the era may not be attributed to anything that -is new in our system. Flirtation, for example, is a very old vice. -Yet, as every calling has a conscience of its own, I like to think -that flirtation has been harshly painted in some respects. If it does -not show specific modifications in our longitudes, we must conclude -that it is a necessary evil. At any rate we know from more than one -biologist that flirting is not solely a human trait. This in a measure -disperses and softens the responsibility. And one must not be hasty in -marking flirtation. There is the seeming and the real, like true and -false croup. Many women have been accused of flirting who were never -more serious in their lives, just as we have known them to be cruelly -accused of sincerity at a time when their whimsicality should have been -patent to the least intelligent of observers. - -In an era when letter-writing is said to be dying out, it is not -surprising that love-letters should come under suspicion. Indeed, -there have been many temptations to cynicism. The law courts have been -invoked to decide whether love-letters belong to the sender or to the -receiver; nice questions have grown out of misunderstandings as to -proposals of marriage. It is hinted that men are to become revoltingly -crafty as to things put upon paper, and that the young lady of a not -remote future will receive her lover’s notes moist and blurred from the -embrace of a copying book. - -The general decrease in the quantity of letter-writing due, among -other reasons, to the telephone, the trolley and railroads, and the -increased rapidity of life in general, undoubtedly has influenced the -mere bulk of sentimental correspondence, though concrete instances are -conflicting. One young man of my acquaintance writes to his sweetheart -every day. Another, who has been engaged for some months, confessed to -writing to the young woman (she lives in another city) once a week; -“and do you know,” he said, “I have a deuce of a time to find anything -to say!” - -Whatever tendency the American girl herself may be willing to foster -or accept, it always will be true that the gift for writing the -right letter to the right person is one of the most potent known to -civilization. There are genuine, warm-hearted charming-mannered men who -can write only a brutally dull letter, and there are reprobates who -can fill a letter with the aroma of paradise. In an affair beginning -with letters the reprobate must have the advantage. Indeed, I knew a -girl who went on believing in the author of certain letters after the -most disenchanting honeymoon that ever woman endured, after society had -looked askance at her, after the towering lie of those letters had cast -a blighting shadow across her life. - - [Illustration: Thoughts] - -One pretty and pleasant little woman in Kentucky told me that when she -was engaged she sometimes got two letters a day. “And when we were -married I missed those letters so!” And this was indubitably a happy -marriage. I knew in just what sort of place those letters would be -kept, and just how they would be tied up, and could fancy just how she -would look in the dim of a rainy day when she brought them forth and -spread them out--by the cradle. - - [Illustration: Thoughts] - -Who can tell what passes in the heart of a woman? Who can read her as -she reads her letters over there in the corner of the summer hotel -verandah? Who can say what she is thinking there in the shadow of the -birch-tree picking off the petals? “He loves me--he loves me not”--no, -surely something more modern. What could be more piquing than that -partnership--nature and a woman? If she chooses to take another member -into the firm, that is her affair. If she has a tryst, who shall have -the meanness to wish any more or less than that he may not keep her -waiting an unseemly time--or that she may not have followed a habit she -has, and have gone absently to the wrong place? Yet she may have chosen -to walk alone and to let the summer pass and the hectic colors of the -dying season flaunt themselves in her face without giving a sign. Who -can say what passes in the mind of a woman? When she opens the book of -her own heart, and turns to the last page first to see how the thing -comes out, is she not puzzled sometimes to find all the print running -backward? Who can say, if a fairy came out of the wood, what manner of -choice she would ask of that fairy, what fortune she would consider -sweetest, what form of man she would ask for her Prince Charming? How -small the chance that she knows what she wants, or that if she did -know she would regard it as safe and symmetrical not to ask for the -opposite? - -In the old romances the dead leaves crackled, and the cavalier of her -dreams whispered the soft right word in her ear, and she murmured -“Yes!” spelling it with two letters and a capital N as in the present -hour. Would the gallant of the past be to her liking to-day? Would she -receive him civilly, or would she tease and taunt him in her provoking -modern way, abusing the qualities she liked in him, sending him away -because she didn’t want him to go, telling him that he should never win -her because she had begun to fear that he would? - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - -Neither the brusqueness nor the diffidence of the Puritan lover would -be likely to please her. The Puritan lover would lack a great many -of the qualities she now admires in men, chief among these, mayhap, -the quality of not being too solemn. She is far from Puritan severity -herself, and she would, I fear, see him go with a sigh of relief. In -the quality of not being too solemn, she might find the beau of Louis -XVI.’s time more to her liking, though his eagerness to draw his sword -for her would certainly make her laugh. She never would appreciate the -romance of his dainty duels. - -His pretty speeches would amuse her for a little while, but the man -who flatters her nowadays must be a more expert artist to escape the -mortal wound of her ridicule. In a later day compliment undoubtedly -became more of an art, and the dude of the Directoire, whom you might -have found in the quaint drawing-rooms of old Boston, or Philadelphia, -or Georgetown, as well as upon his native soil, was an ingratiating -gallant in many ways. He posed, because Napoleon was making it the -fashion to pose, but he posed well, and he studied the best methods -of saying caressing things without making them nauseatingly sweet. -This art of compliment, of not saying the right thing to the wrong -woman, nor the wrong thing to any woman, reached an interesting -point of development in the contemporaries of Beau Brummel. Possibly -Miss America would have liked a Beau Brummel in an artistic spirit, -and Brummel had, as a spectacle, many traits of gracefulness and -fascination. Her elusiveness would have piqued him and his not too -grovelling deference would have made her think him an entertaining -fellow. His dress was elegant without effeminacy, his hat was the most -extraordinary yet devised by the ingenuity of man--which itself should -be a bond of sympathy. But hats pass away, and beaux melt among the -hazy images in the tapestry of time. - - [Illustration] - -Yet they are always with us. Every age has blamed its beaux for wanting -the true gallantry of beaux in the past. We all have heard Miss America -say, rather petulantly, that the days of chivalry are gone. Perhaps -they are; perhaps our men give too little attention to the graces of -life. But let us hope that the modern man is not always as satire -paints him, that for the little shams of chivalry he has substituted -some real essence of an even deeper homage. - -And we must not forget, in considering courtship, that she, too, though -she may not have greatly changed in fact, has produced an effect quite -as puzzling as the change in man. One of the German painters, possibly -under the influence of Sudermann, has shown the modern girl, assisted, -and possibly instigated by Cupid, paring hearts with a knife. But this -is an old partnership--Cupid & Co., Limited. I cannot say what sign the -firm puts up over the door in Germany. In this country it certainly -should read: “Hearts extracted without pain.” - - [Illustration] - -Yes, she is cool. The caterer’s sign “Weddings Furnished,” does not, -I fear, ever give her a thrill. She asks no one to furnish a wedding -for her. She seldom appears to be in the mental situation described -by the thought-curers as one of “intense expectancy.” And she is, -it must be frankly admitted, developing a keen, a disconcerting, -critical sense, an inevitable result to be sure, yet carrying its own -bewildering effects. This is the American spirit, the inquiring spirit, -the tendency to insist upon the re-establishment of standards. The -American girl always is in the attitude of being willing to admit the -superiority of man--if he can prove it. Here enters her Americanism. -Her contention is that you cannot transmit relativity. She summons -science to show that new criteria are necessary, and she continually -is calling man into the lists to defend his titles, to repeat his -victories, or surrender the trophies. - -If you look at it squarely it simply is iconoclasm, a social form -of image-breaking, the image in this case being traditional man. -Observe, however, that woman does not actually destroy the image. -She tentatively takes it down from the pedestal. Who knows but that, -having dusted it off, she may, after all, decide to put it back on -the pedestal again? Meanwhile, man is under scrutiny. It is a trying -moment. It is like an examination in a postgraduate course. The -American girl is examining man for a new degree. And man has no choice -but to struggle for it. He absolutely is without an alternative. He -must face the most exacting social service examination ever imposed by -human caution or sociological skepticism. To meet the test will be to -wear a proud title. - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - VIII - - THE NEW OLD MAID - - - [Illustration] - -The complacence of the unmarried is regarded by many as one of the most -distressing spectacles in modern life. Perhaps there is some resentment -of this as an apparent lack of faith, or at least of hope; others may -be inclined to add, of charity. Eliminate these from woman and it -may be difficult to mend the situation by making her president of a -kindergarten society. - -It is natural enough that the unmarried woman rather than the unmarried -man should be the particular mark for attack. There are obvious reasons -why woman’s resentment of the unmarried man should be concealed or -disguised. Woman, outside the resolution committee at a suffrage -convention, cannot gracefully seem to resent an impairment of the -selecting instinct in man. Even though she were quite securely removed -from the possibility of social commiseration she always would be in -danger of appearing to speak with something less than strictly abstract -feeling. She knows her fundamental limitations in the casting of -missiles, and the boomerang of personalities is least to her liking. To -her, natural selection may begin to wear the appearance of a huge joke, -an immense, fantastic contradiction. “This,” she may say, “is natural, -but it is not selection.” Under the circumstances who can blame her -if she resort to a paraphrase of evolution and bewilder man by an -unnatural rejection? - -Man’s resentment is more vocal, and so often does it seem to be -touched with real asperity that we well may feel that he has begun to -contemplate the situation with more than a languid interest. I suppose -there is a fair question as to who began it. Gallantry dictates that a -man should neither admit nor declare that he did. The excitements of -scientific controversy doubtless often cause the masculine debater to -overlook this obligation. Certainly it often is beyond all dispute that -the American girl has succeeded, with or without design, in affecting -man with a definite awe, and it is claimed that, in certain quarters -at least, this awe has resulted in making him afraid to marry her, -which, if it were true, would have to be regarded as a calamity of the -profoundest moment. To admit the existence of such a condition would be -deeply humiliating, since it must belittle both man and woman, though -it should be admitted that woman would appear to better advantage as a -creature that had frightened man than as one that had ceased to attract -him. - -As I said one day to the Professor, science is not treating us quite -fairly in this emergency. “As a scientific person,” I said to the -Professor, “you will remember the things science once undertook to -tell us about the great dualities. ‘Witness,’ said science, with not a -glimmer of insincerity, ‘the beautiful interdependence of the two lobes -of the cerebrum! How marvellous is their union! Each individual in form -and function, yet working in an eternal harmony. One cannot get along -without the other. Let one side of the brain be hurt and the other -droops in sympathetic inactivity.’ This was lovely. It fortified every -advocate of the fitness of marriage. ‘Observe,’ we could say to the -skeptic, ‘that this duality proceeds throughout nature. Interdependence -is universal,’ and so on. But what happens? Just as we have this -impressive object lesson in good working order, along comes science, -with a frown and a cough, to remark that it was mistaken in the matter -of that absolute interdependence theory, that the brain lobes can, -after all, each get along quite well at times without the other; that -the injury or decay of one is, indeed, sometimes followed by a steady -increase in the powers of the other, one taking up the functions lost -or dropped by the other. Nor was this the worst thing that happened. -You know well enough what they used to say about the marriage of the -two lobes of the cerebrum by the _corpus callosum_. The _corpus -callosum_ at least seemed secure. We could have worried along with -the _corpus callosum_. We always could say: the lobes are highly -independent in action, but they are firmly married by this wonderful -ligament--if it is a ligament. Even this comfort is now taken from -us. Science has just rudely snatched away the _corpus callosum_. -‘The two lobes can get along without it,’ grunts science. ‘People have -lived for years with no impairment of their brain power with a totally -shrivelled _corpus callosum_.’ It is hard to keep pace with these -cynicisms of science.” - -“You simply have been punishing yourself for whimsical analogies,” -remarked the Professor dryly. “Moreover, you are quoting abnormalities.” - -“Alas, Professor!” I cried, “it makes little difference about the -abnormality. Admit an exception and the law is dead. We could conjure -with the law. What can we hope to do now? The American girl dotes on -exceptions--especially on illustrating them.” - - [Illustration] - -“You must remember,” said the Professor, her eyes glowing solemnly, -and with the tone of being consciously judicial and at a great -altitude, “you must remember certain facts about the selecting--the -pairing--instinct. Now, in the case of man it is necessary that the -selecting instinct be special and not general. So long as a man permits -himself to think of woman as an abstraction, continues to admire -ideals of womanhood and does not seek or is not drawn to seek charms -in a particular woman, he is likely to remain a bachelor. His -instinct must be, and has become by centuries of custom, an instinct -for specific selection. On the other hand, the instinct of specific -selection so favorable to the man, is distinctly unfavorable to the -woman--that is to say, unfavorable to the woman if we accept marriage -as her natural destination. A woman who grows up with the habit of -mind which predisposes her to search for a particular man, is likely -to remain unmarried. To favor pairing in her case, the instinct toward -marriage must be general rather than specific. A woman does not select -a mate from all the men in the world, as a man is supposed to select a -mate from all the women in the world. She selects from among those who -ask her, or, at most, from the group which she may have attracted into -debatable ground.” - -“But--” I interposed. - -“Wait a moment,” pursued the Professor firmly. “This is not to say -that a woman has no actual right to a privilege of selecting quite -as definite as that permitted to man. It simply is saying that under -present customs an effort toward specific selection on her part is not -favorable to marriage. There may, and probably will, come a time when -custom will permit to woman a more specific selection, without hazard -as to the chance of marriage, and without loss of status on her part in -any resulting marriage.” - -“I am glad,” I said, “that you have touched that point, for of course -woman could not afford to be specific at the loss of prestige. It -seems to me that the present system gives an immense advantage to -women, since, in any matrimonial emergency she may always retort, -‘Nobody asked you, sir.’ Man’s initiative gives her the benefit of -the doubt in all after judgments from the world; for if man selects -her, and she accepts him or yields to his selection, and there should -possibly be error, plainly, as with Mark Twain’s mistaken lynchers, -the joke is on him. She cannot escape responsibility, but her -responsibility always is lesser, and all the privileges of reservation -are on her side.” - -“My personal opinion,” observed the Professor (I always accept this -form of approach as a great concession), “is that she loses more than -she gains by these conditions. It is generally believed that during the -past century, particularly during the past half-century, woman, and -especially the American woman, has been selecting more definitely than -at any previous time in the history of civilized society. One result -of the habit of a more specific selection on the part of woman is a -decrease in the number of early marriages among women in circles or -classes where these ideas prevail, and a general increase in the whole -number of unmarried women. It may be that a further development of this -instinct will still further increase the proportion of the unmarried, -unless custom shall so far modify the arrangement of marriages that -women may more equally participate in the selection without, as at -present, exciting the antipathy of society, or, as you have suggested, -destroying her prestige under the partnership. There is, of course, no -final reason why matrimonial partnerships should not be arranged upon a -basis of as perfect equality as any other partnership. It simply is a -question of instinct on the one hand and expediency on the other.” - - [Illustration] - -I quote the Professor’s opinions here with especial gratification, -since in this instance they seem triumphantly free from sex bias,--a -freedom which, indeed, is a growing trait with women. And there is -something not always comfortable in the sign. Is the time coming when -we no longer can say, “Just like a woman”? - -Perhaps we may discover that sentiment has more to do with the case -than has been supposed. If the progress of education has menaced -sentiment, who shall say that the greatest of sentiments may not be the -first to suffer? Nothing is truer than that all women are not equally -capable of sentiment. Some women seem to like the symbol of an emotion -quite as well as if it were the genuine article. To them the innocuous -make-believe of love is quite as satisfactory as the real thing. They -play with a great sentiment as they used to play with their dolls, -which gave much less trouble than real children and furnished just -as much sentimental excitement as if they actually had been alive. I -suppose this is particularly true of imaginative women, who know how -to drape their souls in nun’s garb and let their fancy play the devil. -Their character is illustrated by the modern fashion which permits them -to wear gowns sombre to superficial observation, but which, you may -have the opportunity to discover, possess a riotously crimson lining. - -What is to happen to the world if women are to acquire a fondness for -the mere symbols of sex, if femininity is to become disembodied, is -a vast and vital question which prudence well might refer to one of -their own eager and tireless committees. - -The other day I boldly put the thing to the Professor. “What,” I asked, -“is going to happen to the world if the number of old maids keeps on -increasing?” - -“Well,” mused rather than replied the Professor, “the present rate of -increase in the number of old maids--” - -“By which,” I said, “I assume that you mean hopelessly unmarried women.” - -“I do not like that word,” retorted the Professor, a little sharply, -“it makes me think of hopelessly insane. I should prefer to say -affirmatively unmarried--the present rate of increase in the number -of affirmatively unmarried American women might suggest at the -first glance that something very annoying to evolution was going to -happen by-and-by. Indeed the conditions might seem to be positively -detrimental to the Darwinian hypothesis.” - -“Not at all,” I protested, “if you remember the married old maids. -Their transmitted instinct is bound to count sooner or later.” - -“But I have no fear that anything absurd is going to happen.” (I adored -the smile of which the Professor was guilty at this point.) “Nature -will work out the scheme. I mean supply and demand.” - -“I hope you cannot mean,” I protested, “that the American girl has -deliberately set about creating a corner in wives for the sake of -raising the market--” - -“Not precisely that,” returned the Professor; “though in the evolution -of altruism that might not be so absurd. But you must see that -old-maidism will not flourish unless it advantages the race somehow. -You cannot think that a girl would set about being an old maid for any -other reason than to please or profit herself--” - -“Unless,” I said, “it were to get even.” - -“Get even!” laughed the Professor, “think of getting even by being odd! -No. The American girl simply is experimenting in independence. If it -pays, she will keep it up. If it does not pay, she will revert to the -alternative.” - -“Yes,” I admitted, “she always can do that.” - -“And meanwhile,” pursued the Professor, “I insist that girl-bachelorism -must not be considered as in any sense final. The suggestion that woman -can get along without man is an impeachment of his charm and of her -wisdom. One thing is always to be remembered: a man cannot reasonably -expect to conquer a woman by not marrying her. If the girl bachelor -does not know what is good for her, if her position is untenable, if -she is losing precious time, a cynical attitude in the man bachelor -does not seem at all likely to help the matter. The presumption that -the American girl knows what she is about may be erroneous, but ill -temper in the opposition will simply fortify her. She will smile and -smile and be a spinster still.” - - [Illustration: A SPINSTER] - -A spinster! How oddly the word sounded! How grotesque the contrast -between the image called up by the name and the image that fills the -eye of modern contemplation! The old maid of tradition has become a -fantastic figure, as fantastic as if she had no actual successor--which -possibly is the real fact, for old-maidism is not strictly a social -condition but a state of mind. Nothing could better demonstrate this -than the prominence and multiplicity of married old maids. It is a mere -truism to say that old-maidism is not even restricted by gender. Who -does not know the masculine old maid! He is an altogether different -creature from the normal bachelor. Indeed, _he_ sometimes is -married. In this instance contemporary satire is entirely within facts; -he alone is the new woman. - -It is not always an easy matter to estimate or to define the effect -of the new-spinsterism upon the mind of the opposition. If we were -to judge from certain acrid comments, the new state of mind not only -is more affirmative, but is vastly more aggressive than the old. A -shrill tenor note here and there complains that the sopranos are -sounding with an inelegant and disproportionate vigor. There is an -ill-concealed admission that man in general is still wholly unadjusted -to the affirmative attitude on the part of woman. Man cannot open the -door for her or help her out of the coach unless she lets him precede -her. The whole structure of gallantry is built upon her acquiescence in -his leadership,--his giving upon her taking. If she is to ignore the -tradition of his leadership and goes forth upon her own account, what -is to prevent the occasional, perhaps even the frequent, awkwardness of -her actual leadership? And when she ceases to follow she already has -begun to restrain. So runs the charge. You would think, to hear some -people talk, that the modern woman should be indicted for delaying the -males. - -It is hard to live down a tradition. Take the tradition about the -college girl, for example, the tradition that she is a sombre person, -strenuous, unlovely, dominated by an ambition to subdue man and -emancipate her sex by sheer force of learning. You can call up a -picture of her at work, her brain throbbing with great thoughts, her -face seared by study, greeting you with a smileless challenge to -talk to the point, mostly in Latin, and with a decent frequency in -quotations from Plato and Epictetus. This gruesome tradition makes her -the pallid, gloomy, absorbed, spectacled member of the household, with -a soul above clothes, glorying in unfeminine incapacities, shuddering -at fashion magazines and peevishly rebuking the frivolities of -girlhood. She uses vast words, communes with literary gods, and stands -forth as a sort of Book in Bloomers. - - [Illustration: THE COLLEGE GIRL OF SATIRE] - - [Illustration: THE COLLEGE GIRL OF FACT] - -This, I say, is the college girl of tradition, of the older comic -papers. But what is the simple fact?--no, I cannot say the simple -fact, for she is a fact of the most complex variety; what, rather is -the literal, photographable truth? Very different, surely from the -absurdities of satire; in fact, simply the American girl, alive to -all of life, woman first and student afterward, continually up to the -mischief of teasing the social scientist by being lovely and actually -marrying, college education and all! - -Yes, we are making some new traditions. The new old maid is a charming -perplexity. The old maids of the past read Plato together and -established Boston marriages. They read in Cicero and elsewhere that -friendship is less undebatable than love. The traditional old maid -talked about “the faded fire of chivalry.” Like Walpole on his Paris -journey, she “fell in love with twenty things and in hate with forty,” -which fully restored her equilibrium. Yet she did not “vow an eternal -misery,” nor grow combative at the thought that St. Chrysostom found -woman to be a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic -peril, a deadly fascination and a painted ill. She acquired a beautiful -serenity. She could read Schopenhauer’s proposition to rid the world of -old maids by establishing polygamy, without even an audible snort of -contempt. She filled her leisure by admonitions to younger girls as to -the fathomless hazards of credulity. She was securely and splendidly -detached. - -Of the new old maid, variously titled, it is, of course, too early to -write. Whether she is sweeter or the world less sour, there certainly -is less antipathy between her and the world. Society certainly likes -her. She has been discovered to be immensely convenient. She has no -asperity. “It is not,” she murmurs to man, “that I love you less, but -that I love my freedom more,” for answer to which, man is sitting up o’ -nights in profound thought. She does not even claim that her mood is -permanent. At the first feeling of heart failure she knows just when to -appoint a receiver. - -All women can fool us some of the time, and some women can fool us all -of the time. - - [Illustration] - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - IX - - “AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED” - - - [Illustration] - -One day when the Professor had called a bachelor a bird without feet, -and I had retorted that an old maid was a bird without wings, the -Professor remarked significantly: “the old maid at least settles -better,” and we fell to talking of settling as a proposition. Between -the predicament of a bird who cannot fly and that of a bird who cannot -alight, there might not be much of a choice, though the Professor did -her utmost to prove that the bird condemned to perpetual flitting was -in the more pitiful situation. But it occurred to me as significant -that the man should dread to lose the privilege of flight, and the -woman the privilege of settling. I wondered if there was anything more -in it than the accident of contention. - -We had agreed with Tolstoi, that “nothing complicates the difficulties -of life so much as a lack of harmony between married people”; we had -agreed that much of complication arose from a lack of antecedent -harmony as to the matrimonial proposition. - -“Do you not think, Professor,” I asked, “that much of the trouble -comes--that most of the trouble comes--from the simple error of -forgetting that an institution cannot be better than those who -represent or expound it? Is there not a tendency, a very old one, -doubtless, to expect that marriage, in itself, will somehow, transmute -the participants? Can marriage be more of a success than people, or -less of a failure than people? Marriage is a bond, with a benediction, -if you like; but it is not a translation. Surely we cannot take from -marriage more than we carry to it--unless it might be the reasonable -and natural interest on the combined capital.” - -Seeing that I was entirely serious, the Professor said: “My feeling -always has been that the chief reason for the want of success in -marriage and the deterrent spectacle it so often has presented, is the -tradition that any legerdemain of sentiment or ritual can make two -people one. Understand me, I believe wholly in the ideal of a spiritual -oneness. I have no quarrel with the Scriptures on that score. But we -cannot walk the path toward a spiritual oneness with our eyes shut, -by lying to ourselves. The interests of two people may be one in the -highest sense, they may have one aim, if they are absolutely congenial -they may have one wish; but nothing conceivable under the sky ever can -make them more or less than two people. The other day some of us were -debating whether we should say ‘seven-and-five _is_ twelve’ or -‘seven and five _are_ twelve.’ They called seven and five here -a ‘singular concept’ and some were for _is_ in consequence. But -at least man and woman _are_. One and one do not make one, they -make two. Indeed, after marriage, the two are more definitely two -than they were before. Personal sacrifice proceeds in the order of -intimacy. Society is built upon individual sacrifice. Friendship lives -by concession, and the intimacy of marriage carries to the extreme -point the idea of inter-personal compromise, the recognition of the -personality of another. To expect two people to lose, without effort, -by the mere fact of marriage, the individuality which they had before -the compact, is as absurd as it would be to take two clocks and tie -them together with a piece of pink string and expect them instantly -to begin keeping absolutely the same time. What would you find in the -case of the clocks? They might be mated clocks, and on opposite sides -of the room might pass for two clocks keeping precisely the same time. -But when you put them side by side you would discover, unless they -were supernatural clocks, that they were running some seconds apart, -and those few seconds would be as potent in visibly differentiating -the clocks thus married as a full minute or more would be on opposite -sides of the room. So that when two lovers, who have made elaborate -concession to each other before marriage, anticipating each other’s -desires, yielding to each other’s prejudices, proceed after marriage to -throw the whole burden of preserving harmony upon some vaguely defined -potentiality in the marriage relation itself, they certainly are -tempting Providence into impatience. It is the lesson of sociology that -man must pay something--yield something--for the companionship of the -other man, and the closer you wish to be to the other man the more you -must pay, the more you must yield. When it comes to the companionship -of the man and the woman, and when the woman receives or demands equal -rights and privileges, the need of concession is vastly complicated, -for now the association is not only between two persons but between two -sexes; there is both the individual equation and the sex equation.” - -“Should you not be afraid, Professor, to take away this illusion? -Should we not be striking a further blow at marriage if we withheld -from those about to marry the hope, false though it be, that something -beyond themselves is going to bestow its benediction upon marriage?” - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - -“I cannot agree,” protested the Professor, “that any kind of ignorance -can be a good thing in the end. Moreover, I think this false hope, -after doing little good, does a vast deal of harm. The trouble comes -when the two who are married, and who have looked for this magic, find -it not, find that they still are two; and when they are three, the -momentous equation must be carried forward.” - -I suggested that probably there was no sex in the illusion, that the -man and the woman were alike sentimental in the matter. - -“Probably,” admitted the Professor; “but as woman suffers the more by -it we are likely at times to think that her illusions must have been -deeper. I think the American girl has fewer illusions than some others, -and I think that somehow she is going to work out a higher plan than -the world has had the luck to exploit hitherto.” - -“Let us hope so,” I said fervently. - -The Professor turned quickly toward me. “Not,” she said, “that I think -that marriage has been, relatively, unsuccessful with us. The American -marriage has come nearer, in my opinion, to being a happy marriage than -any yet invented. The very development of the divorce system, monstrous -as that is, shows that nowadays and hereabouts people are beginning to -insist that marriages must be happy. Both before and after marriage the -American girl is asking fair play.” - -“Fair play!” It was like the Professor. It was the Anglo-Saxon of -her. Fair play--even in marriage. Applause to the sentiment! If Miss -America stands for anything, if she personifies anything, I suppose -it is social fair play. Sometimes woman seems to be asking a great -deal, like the politicians, on the theory that nature is a reform -administration and will cut down the appropriation. But whatever we may -think of this, Miss America certainly is showing the influence of large -concessions. I scarcely think that investigation will indicate that she -is at all sordid. If her personal jurisdiction has thrown upon her the -need to know about a man’s income, we must not despise the candor of -her investigation. She may not agree with Perdita that “prosperity’s -the very bond of love,” but she has seen the miseries engendered in -marriages for money by lack of love, and in marriages for love by lack -of money, and she perceives that money has caused the trouble in either -case. - -If marriage is a lottery, we may note that this is one of the reasons -for its popularity. The gambling instinct is strong in the human -family, and I suppose that if marriage were a sure thing it would -appeal to many with inferior force. It was a pretty Texas girl who -said: “This lottery suggestion introduces a sort of sporting element -into marriage that makes it fascinating. Marriage is the greatest game -of all.” And quite plainly she was no cynic. - -But women are not such good gamblers as men. I fancy that is one of -the reasons why they turn to the last page first. They do not like -uncertainties, though they can create them. They will even marry to get -at the end of the story. - - [Illustration] - -It is plain enough that Miss America is not losing her sentiment. She -can never lose her sentiment while she retains her superstitions. I do -not mean to say that she countenances the cheaper superstitions. When -I see a woman get off a street car because it is numbered thirteen, -or witness the spectacle of a hundred busy shoppers, eager to get -somewhere, held at a corner by an interminable funeral, because they -dare not cross between the carriages, I accept that safe inference, -dear to all patriots, that the victims are foreign. In what we might -call the higher superstitions she is versed and even proficient. - -Speaking of superstitions, no better name belongs to that prejudice by -which it sometimes is held that Miss America is often too tall to pair -well, that the bride is not exemplifying a proper proportion. Who shall -challenge the processes of evolution? Who shall say that in a wiser era -folks may not like the new proportions better? Probably there is no -occasion to worry. In this Darwinized era we cannot be persuaded that -she very well can get to be taller unless she wants to be, or unless -she is preferred that way. If gallantry lags, patriotism will insist -that the more we see of her the better we like her. - -Did you ever see a bridal scrap-book? A Tennessee girl, wedded a year, -unfolded one for me, and it proved to be a wonderful affair. In the -early pages were pasted invitations, dancing cards, concert and theatre -programs, tinfoil from bouquets, ribbons from gifts, valentines and -a curious miscellany of souvenirs. Then came the cover from the box -that had held the engagement-ring, a copy of the wedding invitation, -newspaper comments on the engagement and the wedding. Later pages held -a railroad map showing the wedding journey, Pullman car vouchers, -express labels, hotel menus, miniature camera “views,” with much more -that I cannot remember. And on a certain page of this scrap book, -reserved somehow, for the purpose, all of the guests at the wedding -had written their names. A few months after the wedding the husband -fell ill, and at the crisis his young wife chanced to find that the -list of names in the book omitted, among all of those who were at the -wedding, his alone. She was not superstitious, but the absence of that -name filled her with a new terror. The thing preyed upon her, and in -the still of night she slipped into the sick-room with book and pen, -and taking her husband’s unconscious hand, she traced his name there -upon the right page. He did not die, and when, one day, he came upon -the tremulous lines of that grotesque autograph, he did not chide the -forger. - -We may have changed the names of some things, the cool breath of -realism may have touched the habits of our modern life, but probably -the heartbeat of sentiment to-day is not greatly faster or slower -than in the long ago. There was a noble tenderness and dignity in -some of the formalities of the past, as when John Winthrop began his -letter with: “Most kinde Ladie, Your sweete lettres coming from the -abundance of your love were joyefully received into the closet of my -best affections.” We do not say, “My only beloved Spouse, my most sweet -friend & faithful companion of my pilgrimage,” but let us hope that -nothing of the intrinsic beauty of love and marriage has suffered any -real loss. - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - -Distrust those who seek to show that there is a discordant note in -the old tune of love. Distrust those who claim that the old harmonies -have been superseded, that the new chords are less sweet than the old, -that the eternal duet which has tinkled and murmured down the ages -ever will be ended. The strings and the keys are new, but the tune -is the old tune. All the new notes and the new titles, and the new -words are but an obbligato, an ornament to the love-motive glowing -like a golden strain in the majestic symphony of life--the recurring -melody always new, always old; always a surprise, always as certain -as spring; so conquering in its power that Miss America, with all of -her self-reliance, with all of her assumed superiority to wizard wiles -and incantations, falls under the spell and has no regret. She is as -willing as ever she was to sit at the feet of the right man. She knows -her woman’s power. She is as willing as ever to follow a leader. She -only asks that she may elect her leader, not with a ballot, but with -the benediction of her love. She knows, with her truest insight, that -there is no device of science, nor ideal of sentiment that ever has -been or ever can be a substitute in this world for the love of one man -for one woman and of that one woman for that man. She sees down the -long road of life, alternating patches of sunlight and shadow, chances -of trial, certainties of pain, but she sees no cowardly doubt of the -nobility and the triumph of her free choice. The snows of time will -whiten her hair, and what better fate can she ask from the giver of -gifts than that she may sit there, as in the other years, beside her -re-elected leader in some hour of peaceful communion; to look back on -the paths of their journey, and forward over the long road, recalling -the joys and sorrows of the pilgrimage, and realizing here as at the -beginning that the stoutest defence against the shafts of fate is the -divine ægis of love.... - - * * * * * - - [Illustration] - -The Professor had come into the room girded for one of her intermittent -departures into the outer world. I thought then, and it has seemed to -me since, that she never presented a more agreeable spectacle than at -that moment. She dawned so radiantly there that I never could remember -what she wore, save that it was a new gown with a pale becoming pink -somewhere. - -“Professor,” I said, helpless before her discovery of my glance, “woman -is the only product of civilization which we might praise to excess, if -we ever found the words, without critical resentment.” - -“You always are either rampantly sentimental,” she said over the last -button of her glove, “or remorsefully satirical.” - -“I protest, Professor, that now I am neither. At this instant, -Professor, you are reminding me anew of the infinite variety of woman. -It may be that there is something in the raiment, but you, quite -typically, I fancy, burst upon me in fresh phases, fresh flavors. A man -is a mixture to be sure, a medicine, if you like, or a mixed drink. -But a woman is a _pousse café_, never twice the same nectar, and -one drains the glass delighted and confused.” - -“I have no means of estimating your comparison,” returned the -Professor, “for I never tasted a _pousse café_. I fancy it is -degenerate.” - -“Should you ever test my symbolism, Professor, you will, I think, admit -that it is more accurate than Thackeray’s comparison of a woman’s -heart with a lithographer’s stone. ‘What is once written there,’ he -says, ‘never can be rubbed out.’ Now if Thackeray had known anything -at all about lithographers’ stones, he would have known that they are -used continuously for new writings until they have become too thin for -service. Thackeray would have given woman more of the benefit of the -doubt if he had called her heart a palimpsest. You sometimes can make -out something more than the very last writing on a palimpsest.” - -“I am afraid,” murmured the Professor, with a glance that puzzled me, -“that you would not be able to read even that last writing.” - -“Alas! Professor, I never have boasted any dexterity as an expert in -love’s handwriting.” - -“You are a man,” she said briefly. - -“Is there a last writing on your heart, Professor?” - -“Yes,” she answered, a little startled, yet speaking quietly, “there is -a first and a last in one, and the ink isn’t dry, either.” - - [Illustration] - -“You don’t mean--” - -“Yes, I do,” she added firmly; “I have been intending to tell you about -it.” - -“You are--not going to be--married?” - -“Yes.” - -“Professor!” I had breath but for that one gasp. “And you never said a -word!” - -“Yes, I did--to him.” Then, seeing my look, “I wanted to tease you a -little; but I am going to tell you all about it--very soon.” - -“I suppose,” I said, after a pause, “it is that fellow who was hurt at -Santiago?” - -“The very same.” - -There was a little awkward silence. Then I arose and stood near her, -and she glanced up at me with a droll, fluttering smile. “Does he -understand women?” - -“No,” she replied softly, yet with some of her old spirit, “he isn’t so -foolish as to try. He only understands--me.” - -“Oh,” I said. - -It was dusk. Somehow the moment was like the end of a chapter. A -strange thing had happened, and the Professor---- Who can describe that -change which follows the oldest and newest of miracles? It was not the -same Professor who shimmered there in the twilight.... No, not the -same. Something had gone. And there was a new light in those dauntless -eyes. - -A little later I saw her at the door, her little gloved hand cajoling -for a moment the rebellious bronze of her back hair. I saw her through -the window as on the steps she gathered the loose of her gown, flashing -the fire of her flounce lining. I saw her flicker for a moment in the -windy street. 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-font-size: 90%; -} - -.poetry -{ -display: inline-block; -text-align: left; -margin-left: 2.5em; -line-height: 100%; -} - -.poetry .stanza -{ -margin: 1em 0em 1em 1em; -} - -@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } -.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;} - - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Miss America; pen and camera sketches of the American girl, by Alexander Black</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Miss America; pen and camera sketches of the American girl</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Alexander Black</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Alexander Black</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 30, 2022 [eBook #68869]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS AMERICA; PEN AND CAMERA SKETCHES OF THE AMERICAN GIRL ***</div> - - -<p id="half-title" class="p6">Miss America</p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter" id="frontis"> - <img - class="p2" - src="images/frontis.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - - -<div class="border"> - -<div class="figcenter" id="titlepage"> - <img - class="p2" - src="images/titlepage.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<h1>MISS AMERICA</h1> - -<p class="center">PEN AND CAMERA SKETCHES<br /> -OF THE AMERICAN GIRL</p> - -<p class="center p2 xs">BY</p> - -<p class="center">ALEXANDER BLACK<br /> -<span class="xs"><i>Author of “Miss Jerry,” etc.</i></span></p> - -<p class="center sm p2"><i>WITH DESIGNS AND PHOTOGRAPHIC<br /> -ILLUSTRATIONS<br /> -BY THE AUTHOR</i></p> - - -<p class="center sm p6">CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br /> -NEW YORK: <i>M DCCC XC VIII</i></p> -</div> - - - - -<p class="center p6 xs"><i>Copyright, 1898, by</i><br /> -<span class="smcap">Charles Scribner’s Sons</span></p> - -<p class="center xs"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> - - -<p class="center sm p6">University Press:<br /> -<span class="smcap">John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.</span></p> - -<p class="center sm p6">TO</p> - -<p class="center sm"><i>THE AMERICAN GIRL WHOM<br /> -I HAVE KNOWN BEST</i></p> - -<p class="center">MY WIFE</p> - -<p class="center sm"><i>THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY<br /> -AND AFFECTIONATELY<br /> -DEDICATED</i></p> - - -<div class="border"> - - <div class="figcenter" id="apology_b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/apology_b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<div> -<img class="drop-cap" src="images/apology_a.jpg" width="50" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="p-left box"><i>It will be suspected, perhaps, that in saying “sketches,” I have -wished to escape some of the responsibility which might have been -incurred by a more formal approach to a momentous theme, though the -entire truth of the description should carry its own justification. -And if the term be permitted in describing the text, it has equal -appropriateness in describing the pictures; for the photograph seldom -can be more than a sketch, and must be content with the limitations -as well as with the privileges of the sketch. The feminine eye will -discern unaided by data the chronological range of my pictures. To -other eyes, possibly, I should explain that the portraits represent a -period of six or seven years, and that those in conventional dress are -supplemented by various costume sketches with the camera recalling eras -in which there was no photography. What I have said of the American -type in the first chapter will explain my own difficulty in expressing -the American type by the aid of the lens, a difficulty which has not -been diminished by the privilege of wide travel. If I have not revealed -the geographical identity of any of the types reflected here, the -reservation may, I hope, seem to be as fully justified as certain other -reservations which the American girl herself so frequently chooses to -hold.</i></p> - -<p class="box"><i>I often have wished that it were easier to substitute for “American” -some name which should more specifically indicate the United States. It -is the United States girl I am talking about; it is the United States -spirit which I have sought to discover, and not the spirit of the wider -America of which the foreigner, and even the British foreigner, so -frequently, and so reasonably, seems to be thinking when he uses the -name “American.” Now that Miss America for the first time has seen her -soldier brothers go abroad to fight and to conquer, it may be that in -one way or another there will be a further modification of the term, in -which direction it would be difficult to say at this hour.</i></p> - -<p class="box"><i>Because this is an apology and not a mere preface, I may be -permitted, I hope, to express to the American girls in various States -of the Union, from Boston to San Antonio, who have sat before my -camera, my regret that I should have translated them so inadequately. -It would, indeed, be hard to do justice to the American girl, and one -well might hesitate to describe, or even to discuss her, were not her -always gracious generosity so safely to be looked for.</i></p> - -<p class="r2"><i>A. B.</i></p> -</div> - - - <div class="figcenter" id="contents"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/contents.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<h2 class="big">CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="contents" class="smaller"> - <tr> - <td class="chn">I.</td> - <td class="cht">THE AMERICAN TYPE</td> - <td class="pag"><i>Page</i> <a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">II.</td> - <td class="cht">THE TWIG</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">III.</td> - <td class="cht">A CENTURY’S RUN</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">IV.</td> - <td class="cht">STITCHES AND LINKS</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">V.</td> - <td class="cht">“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOCIETY”</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">VI.</td> - <td class="cht">LACE AND DESTINY</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">VII.</td> - <td class="cht">CHANCE AND CHOICE</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">VIII.</td> - <td class="cht">THE NEW OLD MAID</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="chn">IX.</td> - <td class="cht">“AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED”</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="image001a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image001a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - -<h2>I<br /> -<span class="subhed">THE AMERICAN TYPE</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image001b" style="width: 200px"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image001b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">The tradition that the women of the region in which we live illustrate -all of those traits that give an abiding charm to the sex, is one that -sometimes may be unreasonable, perhaps even comic; yet it cannot be -discreditable. Balzac, who remarks somewhere that nothing unites men -so much as a certain conformity of view in the matter of women, may -seem unphilosophical when he remarks somewhere else upon the absurdity -of English women. His French antipathy has an unreasonably affirmative -sting. But we do not care how many Thackerays regard the English girl -as the bright particular flower of creation. We like and expect the -author<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> of “The Newcomes” to say: “I think it is not national prejudice -which makes me believe that a high-bred English lady is the most -complete of all Heaven’s subjects in this world.” For the same reason -we delight in N. P. Willis’s confidence when he declares that “there -is no such beautiful work under the sky as an American girl in her -bellehood.” And Mr. Willis adds with the same whimsical consciousness -of national partiality: “I <i>think</i> I am not prejudiced.”</p> - -<p>Of course this instinctive preference is fundamental. We are prepared -to hear from science that the African savage prefers the thick lips -and flat nose of the African girl to any other sort; that this is why -the African girl has a flat nose and thick lips; that gallantry is a -phase of natural selection, and so on. We can understand that there is -a merely relative difference of attitude between the savage lover who -woos his lady with a club, and the modern suitor who swears to give -up all of his clubs for her sake. What perplexes us is our anxiety to -explain our modern instinct, and (what is more perplexing) our anxiety -to explain <i>her</i>; to ascertain and even to catalogue her essential -traits—to discover, if not why we prefer the American girl, at least -what manner of girl it is that we thus are instinctively preferring.</p> - -<p>What is the American type? Is the typical American girl as the British -novelist so often has described her—rich, noisy, wasp-waisted and -slangy? Is she a “Daisy Miller” or a “Fair Barbarian”? Is she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> what -Richard Grant White feared she too often was, “a creature composed in -equal parts of mind and leather”? Is she Emerson’s “Fourth of July of -Zoology,” or is she illustrating the discovery which Irving claimed to -have made among certain philosophers “that all animals degenerate in -America and man among the number”?</p> - -<div class="figright" id="image003"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image003.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>From those foreigners who make a Cook’s tour examination of us, the -evidence in favor of the proposition that we grow more pretty and witty -women to the acre than any other country in the world, is overwhelming. -But there are obvious reasons why we must distrust this foreign -comment. Too often it plainly is a propitiatory item, when it is not -illustrating a flippant wish among men writers to occupy Disraeli’s -position “on the side of the angels.” That traveller has a profound -distaste for a country who does not find that it has pretty women.</p> - -<p>If anything is more inevitable than this, it is that the traveller -will find fault with the type preferred<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> by the men of the country he -is visiting. “What is most amazing,” says the observer in Zululand or -elsewhere, “is that the prettiest women, the women without this or that -hideous deformity, are not admired by the men.” The Kaffir prince on a -visit to England, or the Apache chief among the palefaces in the city -of the Great Father, invariably are astounded at the obtuseness of the -white men. I remember once listening to a group of New York artists who -were discussing preferred types of women, and it was agreed, with a -hopeless and resentful unanimity, that most New Yorkers preferred fat -women, since most of the good clothes and diamonds were worn by fat -women. All of which goes to show, perhaps, that natural selection is an -exclusive affair.</p> - -<p>Probably even patriotism does not demand of us an admiration for the -beauty of the very first American girls—the dusky darlings of our -primitive tribes. These earliest American girls were not dowered with -the fatal gift of beauty as we understand beauty. Indeed, it is quite -generally admitted that the American Indian girl is not and never was -so pretty as the girls of some of the Pacific islands, for example. -Far be it from me to attack any precious traditions concerning the red -man, or the red woman, either. Far be it from me to touch with impious -hand the romantic panoply of Pocahontas. I am not writing a scientific -treatise. I have no point to prove. It is quite possible that there is -something distinctive in the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>personality of the Indian girl, whether -she be as poetry has painted her or as she stands in the analysis of -science. If I pass her by it is in no spirit of partisanship toward -either view. She is an old story, and some day when she is a new story -we may have occasion for surprise.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="image005"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image005.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>The fact is that I must content myself here with a glance at the -American girl of more recent times, though she also will seem to be -an old story if we permit ourselves to remember the number of things -which have been said. We are not likely to forget the unction with -which foreign visitors sketched the daughters of Colonial America. -Indeed, we are in a measure dependent upon those sketches for a -knowledge of these ancestral daughters. As in all judgments of remote -appearances, we here must lean upon mere opinion. There was no camera -in the days of Priscilla, nor in the days of Dolly Madison, and painted -portraiture, unchallenged by the photograph, had reached heights of -admirable gallantry. For purposes of pictorial reconstruction we have -an enthusiastic description, the dubious confessions of a diary, a -charming little miniature or a mellowing canvas in an old frame, a -quaint gown, wrinkled by time; but we have no photograph. I hear -the Romanticist mutter, “Thank Heaven for <i>that</i>!” Alas! the -photograph is an expert witness, and how he can disagree! Was ever any -human specialist on the witness stand so dogmatic, so insinuating, -so sophistical as the photograph? Who, without an obstinately -anthropological mind, shall regret<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> that the beginnings of our national -life are veiled in the Ante-Photographic era—that we may invest them -with qualities we wish they might have had, as well as with those -qualities of which we think we know? Who shall say that humanity, A. -P., dwelling in a softening haze beyond the harshly illuminated era of -Realism, is worse off than humanity thereafter? Looking at the matter -practically, who shall regret that Lady Washington never had her pretty -head in a vise, her face masked a ghastly white with powder to make -her countenance more actinic, and her eyes instructed to glare at a -fixed point for upward of sixty mortal seconds! Surely there are some -compensations in being handed down like the Iliad or the masonic ritual -by word of mouth rather than by agencies associated with the arrogant -stare of the lens.</p> - -<p>But, after all, we do not conduct the trial wholly with expert -witnesses, and the camera has been a useful commentator—perhaps we -are more willing to say that it will be than that it has been, though -we never shall surpass in delicately literal perfection the image -of the daguerreotype. A new confusion may arise from the fact that -photography wants to be more than a science—is tired of being literal, -and seeks to be an art. If it shall become an art—that is to say, an -agency of personal opinion—posterity must, like ourselves, go on being -influenced in its judgments of pictorial fact by the expressions of -art, which the world has been doing from the beginning of time.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="image009"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image009.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Certainly it would be very hard for us to think of the English girl, -for example, however well we might know her personally, without feeling -the influence of the English artists, of Romney, and Reynolds, and -Sir John Millais, and Sir Frederick Leighton, and the multitudinous -expressions of her from the pencil of the author of “Trilby.” Du<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -Maurier’s English girl is an image, agreeable or not according to -one’s taste, which we cannot get out of our minds. A number of years -before he achieved a second fame by writing romances, Du Maurier made -a sketch in which he undertook to indicate his idea of a pretty woman. -He wrote of his ideal at that time: “She is rather tall, I admit, and -a trifle stiff; but English women <i>are</i> tall and stiff just now; -and she is rather too serious; but that is only because I find it so -difficult, with a mere stroke of black ink, to indicate the enchanting -little curved lines that go from the nose to the mouth corners, causing -the cheeks to make a smile—and without them the smile is incomplete.” -I always have been glad to hear Mr. Ruskin say of the Venus of Melos, -with her “tranquil, regular and lofty features,” that she “could not -hold her own for a moment against the beauty of a simple English girl, -of pure race and kind heart.”</p> - -<div class="figleft" id="image010"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image010.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>And in the same way our notion of the American girl, of the typical -American girl, is inevitably affected by the pictures we see of her. -Our illustrators naturally have the best opportunity to mould our -judgments in this matter. I recall hearing one woman say of another at -a tea: “That girl is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> always sitting around in Gibson poses.” They used -to say the same thing in England of the girls who imitated Du Maurier. -Thus we see that the illustrator of life not only is reflecting but -creating forms and manners; and if you would know not merely what the -American girl is, but what she is going to be, study the picture-makers -and story-makers who influence her.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image011"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image011.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image012"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image012.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Mr. Gibson would have us believe that Miss America is essentially a -statuesque girl, that, in general, there are good chances that she will -be tall, commanding, well-dressed, rather English in the shoulders. Mr. -Wenzell and Mr. Smedley present her to us as more willowy, with more of -what, if we had to go abroad for a prototype, we should be obliged to -call French grace and lightness. We have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> under the spell of the -girl Castaigne can draw, have enjoyed the dainty femininity pictured by -Toaspern and Sterner and Mrs. Stephens. None has grudged a flattering -stroke, a prophetic outline. It is the old story. If we are to measure -a nation’s civilization by the degree of its deference to women, we -surely shall find much to confuse us in art, which in all lands, like -some joyous, enthusiastic child,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span> always has heaped unstinted homage -at the feet of its goddesses, its Madonnas, its Magdalens and its -nymphs; which always has been ready to give to its fruit-venders and -flower-girls in the market-place the same refined beauty it bestows -upon its princesses; which has made its Pandoras beautiful with no -sign of resentment for any mischief its Pandoras ever may have done, -grateful only for the privilege of saying to the world as to her -precious private self, that she is very charming indeed. Germany, while -sending women to the plough, paints her radiantly as a deity, and when -England was selling wives at the end of a halter in the market-place, -there was no abatement in the ardor of her artistic tributes to -feminine loveliness.</p> - -<p>While the American artist has painted Miss America appreciatively, -with an enthusiasm creditable alike to his art and to his patriotism, -and seldom, surely, in the spirit of one who could say, “she <i>is</i> -rather stiff just now,” unquestionably, like the rest of us, he has -been bothered at times by the fact that she is so various, that she -has so many pictorial as well as temperamental and (may I say) vocal -variations.</p> - -<p>There are several reasons why she should be various. The “Mayflower” -was a small ship and could not hold all of our ancestors. Like the -English who followed after the Conqueror, some of our ancestors had to -be content to “come over” at a later time, some of them at a shockingly -recent date. Thus we have greater divergences in type<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> than exist in -countries wherein the “coming over” process was neither so protracted -nor from so many points of the compass. The American girl blossoms like -the pansy in so many and in such unexpected shades and combinations -that science falters, and bewildered art, determined to paint types -that will “stay put,” bolts for Brittany and sulkily draws sabots and -the Norman nose. We are a vast anthropological department store in -which the polite sociological clerk will show you human goods, not -only in the primary colors, but in every conceivable tint and texture; -and when you ask him, Is this foreign or domestic? he lies to meet the -requirements. Yes, Miss America sometimes, like our cotton, “comes -over” a second time with a foreign label, which <i>is</i> puzzling!</p> - -<p>It is our habit to think that the American girl of English ancestry -presents precisely the right modification of the—what shall I call -it?—austerity of the purely English type, and which scorns the -melancholy of Burne-Jones and Rossetti. The American girl of German -parents is conspicuously with us, and very often is found supplying a -fascinatingly fair phase without which our galaxy scarcely would be -complete, adding a delightful sparkle to the demureness which we might -not find so modified in Berlin or Bremen. The American girl of French -parentage is found uniting the traits of the people which has produced -De Staël, and Récamier and George Sand, to the perhaps not greatly -different vivacity of l’Américaine. We trace the auburn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> tresses of the -Scottish lass, the teasing Irish eyes, the winsome oval of the Dutch -face. We see the too emphatic contrasts of the Spanish, the Italian -and the Russian types mellowed and refined; while Oriental blood, the -civilized African, the octoroon and the occasional Asiatic each add an -element of picturesque variety.</p> - -<p>And this is not saying a word about the differentiating fact that -this is a big country, and that Miss America in one section is by no -means the same as Miss America in another. I do not mean to say that -when we meet her in or from Boston we always know her by sight, but -when we come to average her in that neighborhood we are able to see -clearly enough that her quality is distinctive, that it is different -from the quality of Miss America elsewhere—in New York, for example, -where, by a trivial tradition, she is supposed to lay less stress upon -intellectuality, but where, under whatever guise of habit or manner, -you will find that she knows enough and has what she knows sufficiently -at her command to make you nervous. Again, the Philadelphia girl upsets -your preconceived notions, if you are foolish enough to have these, -by being nothing that suggests even remote relationship to the bronze -Quaker on the municipal tower. It is the familiar joke that the Boston -girl asks what you know, that the New York girl asks what you own, -and that the Philadelphia girl asks who your grandfather was. If this -amiable satire should have any foundation in fact, I wonder what the -Chicago girl<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> is expected to ask. I myself have a theory, not wholly -dissociated from experience, that she does not ask anything, being -content to know that she, personifying the great traditionless middle -west, has been called the hardest riddle of them all.</p> - -<p>And, as I have said, we must admit that geography has much to do with -the case. Does any one deny that climate and history have made the -Kentucky girl a being apart—that the Kentucky horses which she has -ridden with so much spirit have had their effect in her whole style and -personality? Could we fail to look for a distinctive flowering in the -verdant slopes beyond the Sierras or amid that intensely American human -environment on the plains of Texas? Have you heard the Creole sing? -Have you heard the music of the Georgia girl’s talk? Have you ever let -a Virginia girl drive you, or danced with Miss Maryland?</p> - -<p>A southern dance! Perhaps it is inevitable that we should find -ourselves thinking of the Continental and early Federal society; -of old Georgetown and the powdered heads, and the minuet, and the -blinking candles behind the darkey orchestra; of the clinking swords -of the young Revolutionary soldiers, and the satin breeches of the -foreign lordlings, studying the precocious young republic and the -young republic’s daughters: of the quaint gowns Miss America used to -wear, and the taunting little caps and head-dresses, reflecting now -the whimsies of the Empire, now the furbelows of the Restoration, and -always her engagingly different <span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>self. Yes, time is working its -wizard tricks up and down the land, slowly here and quickly there, -now (as it might seem) in a romantic spirit, and again in brusque -paradoxical contrast to the thing we expect.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image017"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image017.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>We live quickly hereabouts, and to say that the vast changes which have -taken place in our national life have been mostly external is not to -say that the spectacle is on that account any easier to understand. -In an especial degree social situation with us, like the age limit -defining old maids, is wholly relative, subject to continual change. -To the foreign spectator who ignores this relativity, the American -girl naturally is bewildering, and we are likely to find her typified -in foreign comment in the words which Schlegel irreverently applied -to Portia, as a “rich, beautiful, clever heiress.” No, the typical -American girls are not all heiresses, nor all cow-camp heroines. -They were not always demure in the colonies, nor are they always -disconcertingly self-possessed in our own time. The girls with whom -Lafayette went sled-riding on the Newburg hills do not actually appear -to have been amazingly different from those who teased the Prince -of Wales in the fifties (I mean <i>our</i> fifties), nor from those -who sent in their cards to Li Hung Chang in the nineties. It is very -shocking to us moderns, who let women preach and plead and vote, -to learn of the number of elopements in the days when women were -theoretically tethered to the spinning-wheel and forbidden everything -but hypocrisy.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> Which is to say, perhaps, that how much we shall regard -as distinctive in the modern woman may depend upon how little we happen -to know of the woman who has gone before.</p> - -<p>But time and place must leave their mark, and Miss America, though -she be like changeable silk, of varying hue in varying lights, -is undoubtedly, being the precocious product of a new era in new -territory, a new variety in the species, as new as if she were -grotesquely instead of subtly different. And in her presence the -American himself frequently seems to be awed and quelled, like the -Greek hero when Athena’s “dreadful eyes shone upon him.” His devotion -to her has excited derision; his deference has been misconstrued, -his boastful admiration has been catalogued as characteristic. Italy -once spoke of England as “the paradise of women”; and England in a -later day began to say the same thing about the United States, which -may or may not have something to do with the “star of empire,” and -probably, in any case, has some definite relation to the Anglo-Saxon -spirit, concerning which so much has been said of late. As for Miss -America herself, the sovereignty at which the foreign observer marvels -is a real appearance, however profound the misapprehension of its -philosophy. Miss America is no illusion, if some spectators have -doubted their senses.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image021"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image021.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>By the grace of nature she is that she is. If the American man -continues to pay her the supreme compliment of not understanding her, -that is his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> affair. It always is easier to perceive the other’s -folly than our own—especially when the exciting cause is a woman. We -know better than the spectator why <i>we</i> permit certain seeming -tyrannies! We analyze the American girl in a purely Pickwickian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -spirit, not because we expect actually to discover facts, but for the -immediate pleasure of the speculation. We neither seek nor assume to -comprehend this marvellous organism. We know better. When we pretend -to delineate the American girl it is in the spirit of Fielding’s -aside in “Tom Jones”: “We mention this observation not with any view -of pretending to account for so odd a behavior, but lest some critic -should hereafter plume himself on discovering it.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image022"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image022.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image023a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image023a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - -<h2>II<br /> -<span class="subhed">THE TWIG</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image023b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image023b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">As I said one day to the Professor—</p> - -<p>But first I must tell you about the Professor. She is a young -woman—young even in an era that classes authors among the “younger -writers” until they are sixty, and is pushing the “proper age at which -to marry” into the period of severe and undebatable maturity. She -is young, but she exemplifies that educated precocity tolerated and -fostered by our era. She knows the past like a book and the present -like a man. She does not vulgarly bristle with knowledge like the -first products of the higher education. Her acquirements sit upon her -less like starched linen than like a silken gown that flows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> with the -figure. She is the educated woman in her “second manner,” as the art -critics would say. I do not know what the educated woman’s third manner -will be. No one acquainted with the charms of the Professor could help -hoping that there never would be any.</p> - -<p>The Professor graduated and post-graduated. She pottered in -laboratories, and at certain intervals wholly disappeared into the very -abysses of science. She read law tentatively, and made a feint at going -into medicine, but was deterred in each case, I fancy, by the fact, -repugnant to her exuberant energy, that a practice had to grow and -could not be mastered ready made. At one time there were both hopes and -fears that she would enter the ministry. Those who hoped banked on her -earnestness and wisdom. Those who feared quailed before her ruthless -independence and sense of humor. She delighted in the paradox of not -scorning social life, welcoming Emerson’s admonition with regard to -solitude and society by keeping her head in one and her hands in the -other. Indeed, she dances remarkably well when we consider that here -the dexterity is so far removed from the brain, and I have seen her -swim like—a mermaid, I suppose. She took a long course in cookery -for the pleasure of more pungently abusing certain of her lecture -audiences. One day when the plumbers didn’t come I saw her actually -“wipe a joint” in lead pipe with her own hands. Heaven knows where she -picked <i>that</i> up!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span></p> - -<p>When she accepted the position at the Academy, doubtless it was with a -view to certain liberties of action in the sociological direction. She -was not quite through with the college settlement idea, and I suspect -that she had a feeling that city politics at close range might be -productive to her in certain ways. Because she is neither erratic nor -formidable, she has experienced various offers of marriage, and has -shed them all without visible disturbance. Just at present, panoplied -in learning, tingling with modernity, yet always charmingly unconscious -of her power, she stands, poised and easy, like a sparrow on a live -wire.</p> - -<p>In other words the Professor is one of those rare women with whom -you may enjoy the delights of a purely impersonal quarrel. She can -wrangle affectionately and cleave you in twain with a tender sisterly -smile. Indeed, she can make you feel of intellectual fisticuffs, -and, notwithstanding an occasional effect of too greatly accentuated -excitement, that it is, on the whole, a superior pleasure. And you -arise again conscious that she has no greater immediate grudge against -you than against St. Paul or any other of her historical opponents.</p> - -<p>One day I asked the Professor, not with any controversial inflection, -what she thought of Herbert Spencer, a bachelor, talking about the -rearing of children.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the Professor, “it certainly is no more absurd than the -spectacle of Herbert Spencer analyzing love, or Ernest Renan doing the -same thing.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p> - -<p>“Mind you,” I went on, “I don’t say that the unmarried may not discuss -with entire competency—”</p> - -<p>“I hope not,” interrupted the Professor. “I hope you wouldn’t say any -such absurd thing. Must a man have robbed a bank to write intelligently -of penology?”</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image026"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image026.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“My point is,” I went on—the Professor and I never take the slightest -offence at each other’s interruptions—“my point is that it almost -seems at times as if the unmarried should, in such an emergency, -assume, if they did not feel, a certain diffidence. To tell you the -truth, Professor, if it were not for you, I should doubt whether the -unmarried had a developed sense of humor.”</p> - -<p>“That is simply pitiful,” flung the Professor. “Can you not see that -it is a sense of humor that keeps many people from marrying? But -that is not the point. Who is better fitted than Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> Spencer, who -has enjoyed freedom from an entangling alliance, who is unbiased by -social situation or personal obligation, to discuss with scientific -judiciality the problems of child-rearing?”</p> - -<p>“Theoretically, Professor, that is all right. But when Mr. Spencer -advises more sugar, it is awfully hard to forget that Mr. Spencer -never, presumably never, sat up nights with a youngster who had the -toothache. It is all very well for Mr. Spencer to suggest that when a -child craves more sugar it probably needs more sugar, but the parent -who manages his offspring on that basis is going to lose sleep. A good -rule, if you will permit me a platitude, is a rule that works. The way -that children <i>should</i> be brought up is the way they <i>can</i> be -brought up.”</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image027"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image027.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“My friend,” said the Professor—</p> - -<p>Now, I am several years older than the Professor. By sheer age I am -entitled to her deference; but the Professor can ignore years as -well as sex or previous condition of servitude. Her impersonality is -adjusted to time, to space, and to matter. I am simply a Person.</p> - -<p>“My friend,” said the Professor, “it is another platitude that there -is a right way to do everything,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> even to bring up children. The way -children are brought up probably is not right, and no theory or method -of bringing them up is, of course, or could be more than relatively -right. But in getting as near the right as we humanly may there is no -wisdom in despising the advice of the spectator. The man digging a -hole in the ground may be less competent than a man not in the hole -to perceive that presently the earth is going to cave in. As a matter -of fact, old maids, for example, have been known to bring up children -very well indeed, for the reason, possibly, that nothing is more -detrimental to successful authority over children than relationship to -them. All experience shows that the scientific, the abstract management -of children is more successful, in the average, than the traditional -parental method. This scientific method, I need not say, is not less -kindly than the other; it actually is more kindly. Witness the absolute -triumph of kindergartens—”</p> - -<p>“Now, Professor,” I interposed, foreseeing the spectacle of Froebel -and Plato moving down arm-in-arm between the Professor’s periods, -“understand me—”</p> - -<p>“A very difficult thing at times,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“Understand me—I am speaking now with my eye on the American child.”</p> - -<p>“And <i>that</i>,” twinkled the Professor, “requires some dexterity.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image029"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image029.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“The American child,” I pursued, “is accused by many of threatening -our destruction, and if the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>American view of rearing children is -wrong or requires modification, this radical suggestion of Mr. Spencer, -looking to greater rather than less liberty in making terms with the -instincts of children, becomes a matter for serious concern. If the -American idea has stood for anything it is more sugar—that is to say, -yielding something to the instinct, the personality of the child. I -think we have gone a long way with it. Our children are becoming very -self-possessed. Sometimes I have qualms. Take the American girl child—”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image033"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image033.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“A vast subject,” commented the Professor.</p> - -<p>“The American girl child is getting a good deal of sugar—figuratively. -The question comes, Is it good for her? Is her freedom, her undomestic -training, her intellectual development, to the advantage of the race? -I believe with Mr. Ruskin that you can’t make a girl lovely unless you -make her happy. But how can we expect her to know what will make her -happy? Aren’t you afraid, Professor, that she is becoming a trifle -frivolous? Of course you yourself are a living contradiction—”</p> - -<p>“Don’t try to deceive me,” warned the Professor. “I perceive in what -you say, not the doubts of an incipient cynic, but the remorse of a -doting and indulgent man. Most really typical American men are in -the same situation. They are wondering if they haven’t overdone it, -and, being too busy to find out for themselves, are eager for outside -judgment, upon which they may act, <i>de jure</i>. The vice<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> of the -American man is his indulgence of the American girl. The foreigner -commiseratingly thinks that the American girl demands this indulgence. -The American man in his secret soul knows that he has pampered her for -his own pleasure, and because, to a busy man, pampering is easier than -regulating.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I complained, “in the new paradise Adam is always to blame.”</p> - -<p>“No,” protested the Professor, “not always; just humanly often. -And don’t think that you have invented this modern anxiety for the -welfare of girl children. Before and since ‘L’Éducation des Filles,’ -they all have been ‘harping on my daughter.’ Women have been even -more despairing than men. Hannah More thought that ‘the education -of the present race of females’ was ‘not very favorable to domestic -happiness.’ Mrs. Stowe thought ‘the race of strong, hearty, graceful -girls’ was daily decreasing, and that in its stead was coming ‘the -fragile, easily fatigued, languid girls of the modern age, drilled in -book learning and ignorant in common things.’ Now that sort of thing -has been going on since our race stopped speaking with the arboreal -branch of the family. There is perpetual opportunity for a treatise -on ‘The Antiquity of New Traits.’ We are apt to think that we of this -era have invented the idea of educating girls, but civilized children -always have been educated early in something. Nowadays it is in -science. In our colonial days it was in piety. Miss Repplier, who -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>has a most relishable antipathy for prigs, in fiction and in life, -reminds us of Cotton Mather’s son, who ‘made a most edifying end in -praise and prayer at the age of two years and seven months,’ and of -Phoebe Bartlett, who was ‘ostentatiously converted at four.’ You are -not sorry to be rid of all that, are you?”</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image036"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image036.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“No,” I assented, “most assuredly I am not. It is pretty hard to find -the Juvenile Prig on this soil nowadays outside of the most inhuman -‘books for the young.’ And we all are glad of it. You may remember the -passage in the Chesterfield letters in which the father writes to the -son: ‘To-morrow, if I am not mistaken, you will attain your ninth year; -so that for the future I shall treat you as a <i>youth</i>. You must -now commence a different course of life, a different course of studies. -No more levity; childish toys and playthings must be thrown aside, and -your mind directed to serious objects. What was not unbecoming of a -child would be disgraceful of a youth.’ We certainly have outgrown that -view of things, and the American youngster comes nearer being without -hypocrisy than any product of civilization that I ever have studied. -But what have we in place of the piety and affectation? What is the -working result of so much independence? Are not the American girl -children, as well as the boys, a trifle irreverent?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know,” admitted the Professor, “the American child often -seems a shade too unawed. Balzac says somewhere that modesty is a -relative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> virtue—there is ‘that of twenty years, that of thirty -years, and that of forty years.’ Our ancestors believed in a severe, -hypocritical modesty for the young, trusting that they would get over -it. They did worse than that when they asked youth to anticipate the -hypocrisies of age. The same elegant person whom you have just quoted -once wrote to that same son: ‘Having mentioned laughing, I want most -particularly to warn you against it; and I could heartily wish that you -may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh while you live.’ -Although Chesterfield insisted that he was ‘neither of a melancholy -or cynical disposition,’ he was proud to be able to say to his boy -‘Since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard -me laugh.’ The next time you feel inclined to say mean things about -the Puritans remember that declaration by the Earl. Now, the American -seems to me not only to look at children differently, but to look at -life differently, and any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> new traits in the American child probably -represent one fact as much as the other. The American idea—I say -idea, but I mean the American habit; we explain our habits and call -the explanation a theory—merely obliterates age discriminations. -The American child is simply the diminutive American. The American -girl is her mother writ small. I don’t think that she is a whit more -independent or irreverent than her mother.”</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image037"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image037.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“You don’t mean to say, Professor, that a child should not, for -instance, be taught to keep a proper silence in company.”</p> - -<p>“Not an absolute silence. A child either has a right to be in a -company or it has not. If it is in the company it has a right to be -articulate like the other members of the company. If it is a sensible -child it will listen to its elders, not because they are its elders -but because they are its betters, because they know more, are more -competent to speak. If it is not sensible it will be made to suffer -for its foolishness, just as older members of the company are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> made to -suffer. From my observation, children naturally brought up take their -reasonable place very naturally in company.”</p> - -<p>“My fear is, Professor, that your naturalistic method overlooks -much of what we have become accustomed to think when we speak of -‘breeding.’ Now, children, even American children, do not acquire -this instinctively. Breeding includes restraint, externally applied -restraint—I don’t mean applied with a slipper or a rattan, though -restraint to have a really fine catholicity should, in my opinion, -include these symbols—but restraint inculcated by a wise, or at least -a wiser, authority. I believe sincerely that we have, in the past, -tried to bend the twig too far. But the beneficial results of guiding -twigs has been, I think, indisputably proved. Taking away too many -guides and supports must have its dangers. I think of these things -when I see the unhampered American girl of to-day. She is a lovely -spectacle. Yet I sometimes wonder, in a trite and old-fashioned way, -if her sort of training or absence of training is going to make her a -woman who will know how to manage a household and children. I can see -clearly enough that she is going to know how to manage a husband; but -the house—and the children—”</p> - -<p>The Professor was musing. “Your anxiety makes me think of the early -criticisms of the kindergarten. ‘What!’ they used to exclaim, ‘a mob -of unmanageable brats and no ferule?’ Yet it is so. Your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> misgivings -overlook, I think, the latitudes of training, the obligations of -breeding. The American seems to me to be guiding his children as he -guides his civic affairs, not by brute force but by giving and taking. -If his child is born with the right to the pursuit of happiness, he -believes in starting the pursuit early. I suppose that children in the -United States have greater liberty than children in any other country. -The conferring of liberty has its dangers, and those who confer it -cannot expect to escape the obligations that go with the gift. It has -cost the American some annoyance to confer liberty and privileges on -grown-up folks from various quarters. If he decides—and he does so -quite reasonably I think—to include his children, he is bound to stand -with the emancipated.”</p> - -<p>“Professor,” I said, “your words are soothing. They are alluringly -optimistic. I don’t want to reform the American child. I like him—and -especially her—as at present conditioned. I believe that the -irreverence is largely a seeming irreverence—an irreverence toward -traditions rather than toward people and principles; which simply is -saying what we should say of grown-up Americans. And I believe that in -any case the boy will knock his way out somehow. But the girl—I am not -doubting her; I am not believing that she is so petted a darling as -Paul Bourget, for instance, seems to think she is. I am not questioning -the intrinsic charm of her style, the piquing prophecies of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> mind, -the perfection of her beauty, the delight of her companionship; I am -wondering whether this immediately agreeable sort of product is going -to meet the requirements of life as it is opening up to us in this -land, if—”</p> - -<p>“Well,” swung in the Professor, “if you were going to have a worry, it -is a pity you couldn’t have had a new one—the new ones keep us busy -enough. You are very trite this time. You sound like a reformer—”</p> - -<p>“Heaven forbid!” I cried.</p> - -<p>“—and a reformer nowadays has a passion for beginning on the -children. Please don’t. Some of these reforming women remind me of -the advertisement in the London paper: ‘Bulldog for sale. Will eat -anything. Very fond of children.’ These reforming women will reform -anything—and they are very fond of children.”</p> - -<p>“It is particularly the American girl,” I went on, “who is illustrating -the modern yearning to skip intervals, to ignore the ordinary processes -of time. She is like Horace Walpole, who found that the deliberation -with which trees grow was ‘extremely inconvenient to his natural -impatience.’ It doesn’t seem to make any difference how rigidly her -‘coming out’ time is fixed, she is getting to be a woman before her -time. Mark me, Professor, she knows too much, she—”</p> - -<p>“A strictly masculine anxiety, sir.”</p> - -<p>“—she knows too much, to the exclusion of some other things she -doesn’t know.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image041"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image041.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p> - -<p>“Now <i>don’t</i> mention the kitchen,” cried the Professor, “I am -dreadfully tired of that.”</p> - -<p>“No, Professor, her general cleverness always seems to me to make the -kitchen anxiety needless to a great extent. I mean that in knowing so -much and assuming so much the American girl child may be missing some -of that sweetness that for her lies in a more old-fashioned girlhood. -As a kind of unbent twig she is losing some of the more dependent -happiness belonging to her and not grudged to her. Mind you, Professor, -if a crime has been committed, I am accessory—”</p> - -<p>“I began with that assumption,” remarked the Professor.</p> - -<p>“—and I am hoping that there has been no crime, that the unbent twig -is growing all right on its own account, that our spoiled daughters, -weary of privilege, may be longing to serve, that if her modesty is -not expressed in meek eyes ‘full of wonder,’ her lofty glance is not, -Hermes-like, given to lying. Whatever the future may have in store, -she at least is what she seems to be. Her sentiments may sometimes be -irreverent, but they are her own. Perhaps the reason she seems more of -an individual than the archetypal girl is, as you have suggested, that -we have stripped her of the hypocrisy by which she pretended not to be -a unit but only the mute shadow of a unit.”</p> - -<p>“O, you will come around!” chuckled the Professor.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p> - -<p>“‘Come around,’ Professor? You mean sink back into the Slough of -Idolatry. I feel it in my bones that in spite of a gleam of intelligent -interrogation as to the wisdom of pampering the American girl, I am -going to keep right on—”</p> - -<p>“You mean, if you will be honest,” blurted the Professor, “that you -will keep on letting her alone as you do the boy child. That is all. -Own up. The most that you have done is cease the special repression of -the girl. For better or for worse the American has done simply that: -forget sex in rearing his young.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image044"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image044.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“Ah, Professor! when we forget sex are we not in danger of a costly -transgression? Are we not combating nature?”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, my friend, you are ceasing to combat nature. There -is nothing nature is more definitely certain to do than to look out -for sex on her own account. Is not all of creation trying to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> teach us -this lesson? Is not all of creation trying to teach us the folly and -the futility of meddling? Let nature alone. She knows her business. Sex -duality is universal. No amount of sitting up nights will help you to -think out a way of successfully interfering.”</p> - -<p>I looked at the Professor. She is very much a woman. She suggested -a type that had been “let alone.” She is not a freak. Both her body -and her mind are well dressed, and she is good to look upon. To look -upon her sometimes fills me with a certain misgiving. But it is not a -misgiving for her.</p> - -<p>“And yet,” it came to me to say, though not precisely in rebuke, “there -is such a thing as human humility.”</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image045"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image045.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“Humility?” The Professor looked over at me with affected scorn. “Then -illustrate it, please. I cannot see the humility of interference. The -American does not repress his daughter. You admit that you like the -result. Why wrinkle your brow in contemplation of the future? Why not -believe that what seems to be true is true, that the American girl -flourishes agreeably in her freedom? Give her the natural privileges -bestowed elsewhere throughout creation. Let her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> <i>grow</i>. She is -not like Jupiter, without seasons. And you must take one of her seasons -at a time.”</p> - -<p>“Professor,” I said solemnly, “you remember Artemis?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she returned with equal solemnity, “and I remember the daughters -of Pandareas.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image046"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image046.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image047a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image047a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - -<h2>III<br /> -<span class="subhed">A CENTURY’S RUN</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image047b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image047b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">We are a very young nation, yet we have a past. In popular acceptance -we have little to live down, which should be a comfort. Just at present -there is a tendency to be disrespectful toward the past, to smile at -ancestral pretension, to humanize the Fathers of the Republic, to sneer -at the straw and bones on the floor of King Arthur’s dining hall, to -uncover the littleness of the ancient giants, to question the beauty -of the ancient heroines. Probably this needed to be done, particularly -in defence of the abused Present, which always hitherto has had a hard -time of it. “Every age since the golden,” says George Eliot, “may be -made more or less prosaic by minds that attend only to the vulgar and -sordid elements, of which there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> are always an abundance, even in -Greece and Italy, the favorite realms of the respective optimists.” The -author of “Romola” was willing not to have lived sooner, and to possess -even Athenian life “solely as an inodorous fragment of antiquity.”</p> - -<p>But even the past, sinfully boastful and complacent as it appears, has -rights which we must make some show of respecting, and we need not -too effusively applaud the present. Possibly the one good excuse for -finding out and confessing the whole truth about the past, is the need -to show, at whatever cost, that neither all of our vices nor all of our -virtues are entirely new. The passion for discovery is so strong that -some one always is ready to prove that the most trite and fundamental -of traits are absolutely novel, and the same passion appears in the -unction with which the pretension is ridiculed and overthrown. I talked -one day with a distinguished American historian, who confessed that the -supreme difficulty for the commentator on human character and events -was that arising from a tendency to “think disproportionately well of -facts which he himself has discovered.” Admit this to be a human trait -and we have a sufficient explanation of the ardor of the discoverer.</p> - -<p>Now, no man can regard as insignificant any fact concerning woman, -disproportionate as the importance of the fact may be made to appear -in comparison with other facts concerning her, so that we have no -greater difficulty in appreciating the noisy announcement of the New -Woman than in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> appreciating the only less audible contention that there -is no such appearance. Happily the foolish discussion is over. Only -a few catch-words now remind us of the hopeless debate. Of course, -Eve was the only new woman. She alone was incontrovertibly new; and -to seek by trick of title to invest with newness any woman who came -after her, was a frivolous and degenerate conspiracy. Not, indeed, that -newness is intrinsically a defect, though heraldry and afternoon teas -may be arranged upon that assumption; but in effect it is belittling, -destructive of certain benefits of the doubt, insulting to the woman of -the past and skeptical as to the woman of the present.</p> - -<p>However, our national past and our national present are so full of -superficial and even of fundamental contrasts, that if ever a merciful -sentence is to be passed upon one who, peering through the “turbid -media” of sociological analysis, mistakes the <i>Zeitgeist</i> for a -new woman, it is in our own longitudes. Like a child growing up under -the eye of an arrogant and pompous parent, we have, nationally, been -made to feel from the beginning that we are new, even tentative, that -we are unclassified, all but vagrant in the ethnological sense. It is -possible that recent events will modify in certain important ways, -external contemplation of us as a nation, that, in spite of certain new -effects which we may be accused of producing, a consciousness and a -recognition of our definite maturity may have some responsive effect in -ourselves.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span></p> - -<p>Meanwhile it is pleasantly easy to detect many interesting changes in -the situation of the American girl within the span of the century. -Whether she merely illustrates the social and political changes which -have taken place, or, as we so often have been urged to believe, -actually indicates why they have taken place, she presents a spectacle -of peculiar interest, a spectacle which has so successfully piqued -the analytical spirit of the period that it would be expounding the -commonplace to do more than quickly sketch a few of the outlines.</p> - -<p>We have seen her bidding good-bye to the schoolma’am at a time when any -education was good enough for a girl,—good enough not only because -neither the kitchen nor the drawing-room exacted Greek, but because -heavier pabulum would utterly ruin her mental digestion; and we have -seen her at a later time when no education is too good for her, bidding -good-bye to an army of instructors at commencement time, radiant in her -cap and gown, the class song ringing pleasantly in her ears, the breath -of June in her life, with a crisp diploma to symbolize her triumphs. -In fact, we have seen the morality of educating her dismissed as a -settled question, and the matter of the quantity and quality left to -the perhaps not easy but at least final arbitrament of her individual -capacity.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image051"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image051.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>We have seen her yield up to strenuous and inventive man, one by one, -various and many offices once regarded as essentially domestic, and -even as bounding that debatable domain, her “sphere”; <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>we have seen -the spinning wheel go into the garret and come down again years later, -pertly polished, with pink ribbons on the distaff and spindle; we have -seen the superseded milkmaid gathering bottled cream at the basement -door, the superseded seamstress wearing a man-made jacket; and all -without audible murmur at the displacement.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image053"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image053.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>We have seen the trained nurse succeed Sairy Gamp, many nostrums -disappearing gratefully in the transformation, and have found in -the new sisterhood of bedside saints a cheering sign of a finer -civilization, a prophecy of the future of medicine. We have seen the -amanuensis penning “Paradise Lost” and law briefs and grave history and -exhausting letters—the amanuensis celebrated in sentimental fiction -and unsentimental commerce, fulfil the promise of her own invaluable -service in the modern typewriter, whose little white fingers help move -the lever of the great mercantile machine, without whom modern trade -could scarcely stir, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> whose taking away would rob all business life -of an inestimably sweetening influence.</p> - -<p>We have seen her needle placed in the jaws of a machine, and have -seen her yoked with men in service to this iron master. We have -seen her leave the fireside armchair to climb the tall stool of -the counting-room and the railway station. We have seen the bodkin -displaced by the scalpel, the lace cap by the mortar-board, the apron -by the vestment. We have seen her emerge from the shadows of the -sanctuary to speak in the councils of the elders, we have seen her -hurry the breakfast dishes to go and vote.</p> - -<p>We have seen her, once content to be the theme of art, become a master -of every medium, even of architecture, and throwing aside at last, and -without petulance, the insulting tributes that come under a sex label. -We have seen her, once forbidden to read newspapers, successful in -making them; committing errors, but under bad counsel and direction -rather than by any failure of her own taste, and winning highest honors -in journalistic art and conflict.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image056a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image056a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image056b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image056b.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center"><i>The</i> Amanuensis of the Past</p> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image057a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image057a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image057b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image057b.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center">The Amanuensis of the Present</p> - </div> - -<p>The philosophy of all these changes naturally is complex and difficult. -It is a truism to remark that the danger always is of assuming that -they mean more than they do. We perhaps instinctively measure a change -by the mere picturesqueness of the contrast. We require to be reminded -much that humanity changes very little from century to century, -that whatever the appearances, great revolutions in human sentiment -and motive probably <span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>have not happened. No student of human -nature comes oftener upon any discovery than upon that of the simple -persistence in the twilight of the century of the old human instincts -that prevailed at the dawn. So that we need not think to find in all -these new clothes any greatly different people. When the century’s -clock strikes the hundredth year, and Father Time, acting as master of -ceremonies, shouts “Masks off!” there, among all the masqueraders, are -the same faces that have grown familiar in the every-day of life.</p> - -<p>If the reader detects in this attitude any wish to escape the burdens -of an explanation, an anxiety to dodge the awful Why? in all these -outward modifications of Miss America, he, and especially she, is quite -at liberty to do so, for, as I perhaps have indicated, and must repeat -defensively from time to time, definitely to explain Miss America is -farthest from my thoughts; though I cannot deny an intention, which -doubtless appeared at an early stage, to express respectfully certain -untested, and, it may be, actually impulsive, personal opinions -regarding her. To refrain from exercising such a privilege under -circumstances which forbid interruption would be superhuman.</p> - -<p>More interesting to me at the moment are some appearances already -fairly familiar, yet new in garb and situation. The young woman in -new lights and new places has a natural fascination. I realized this -vividly one day in the hotel of a Western city, when I became conscious -that an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> unusual guest had arrived. She was a sturdy young woman, -yet delicate of feature, with a mild, undismayed blue eye. She came -swinging into the hotel, a darkey lad at her russet shoe heels with a -telescope bag. She herself carried a sleek yellow satchel which she -placed in front of the desk. She wrote her name in a firm, small hand, -took a heap of letters handed to her by the clerk, and dropped into a -near-by chair to open several of them with a quick flip of her gloved -finger. In no way was she radically dressed. Her tailor-made suit was -of a fine cloth, richly trimmed. Her clothes, like her manner, had not -an unnecessary touch. Later, I saw her interviewing the porter, who -presently was rolling three large sample trunks into one of those first -floor rooms provided by certain hotels for the use of drummers, whose -goods for display cannot well be taken upstairs. I saw her come in at -different times with three different shopkeepers, and others came, -evidently by appointment, to inspect many rolls of carpet which soon -littered the display room.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image062a1"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image062a1.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image062a2"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image062a2.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center">Thanksgiving Day: Old Style</p> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image062b1"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image062b1.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image062b2"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image062b2.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center">Thanksgiving Day: New Style</p> - </div> - -<p>“She’s a trump!” muttered the clerk, with an admiring glance across the -corridor; “the best drummer Warp & Woof ever had. She succeeded one of -their New York men, and she beat his orders by forty thousand dollars -the first year. And there’s no fooling about her either. She doesn’t -try to mesmerize the customers, though she’s pretty enough to do that -if she cared to. She simply makes them want the goods, and she sells so -square <span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>that she doesn’t have any trouble coming back to the same -people.”</p> - -<p>“Is she a single woman?” I asked. Something in this inquiry amused the -clerk. Then he said: “Well, they say she’s engaged to a drummer for -Felt, Feathers & Co., and that if they ever manage to get into Chicago -at the same time they will get married.”</p> - -<p>One day in mid-Missouri a lean, brown, bare-footed boy was driving me -across country to a railway station. Suddenly the boy said: “We ain’t -goin’ t’ have no dog show.”</p> - -<p>“No?” The boy shook his head. Presently he added: “And that girl’s dead -sore on this town.”</p> - -<p>“What girl?” I demanded.</p> - -<p>The boy turned to me with a look of incredulity. “Didn’t you see ’er?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean that girl in the blue dress that was at the hotel -breakfast this morning?”</p> - -<p>“That’s her, yes.”</p> - -<p>I remembered that she had very dark eyes, and no color; that she wore -an Alpine hat and a neat gown, that she looked straight before her with -an almost sullen expression when she spoke to the waiter.</p> - -<p>“I drove her over to Bimley’s,” the boy said, “and she sat there where -you are for two miles without saying a word. Then she turned at me -quick and says, ‘Have you got a cigarette?’ and I said yes I had, just -one. Then she said, ‘Have yer got a match?’ and I give her that, and -she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> smoked for a long time without sayin’ anything. After a while she -let out and said this was the meanest, low-down town she ever struck, -that they was meaner’n dirt here, especially the college, and that she -never wanted t’ see it n’r hear of it agin. Yer see, she goes from one -town to another and gits up dog shows for the people that have fine -dogs, and they have the town band, an’ lemonade an’ cake an’ prizes. -Anyway, she had a hard time stirrin’ them up here; but she could have -got through all right only for the president of the college. He said he -wouldn’t let the girls go, and that settled it. They gave it up after -this girl’d blown in a two days’ bill at the hotel, and she got mad and -lit out. Well, she quieted down agin before we got to Bimley’s, and -when we was in the hollow by Moresville I looked at her and she was -cryin’.”</p> - -<p>One other glimpse: Miss Linnett was the typewriter at Stoke Brothers’. -At first she had been just the typewriter, coming highly recommended -from the typewriter school. She appeared at the minute of nine and went -away at the minute of five, unless one of the Stokes stayed beyond that -hour, or late letters and the copying book delayed her. She unvaryingly -dressed in black, wore her brown hair simply in a knot, and in the -depth of winter always had a flower of some sort on her table. The -elder Stoke was feeble, and his eyesight grew to be so poor that she -read his letters to him. The junior Stoke would never let her take -formal dictation,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> preferring to give her the gist of what he wanted to -say and letting her put it in her own way. In this habit they both came -greatly to depend upon her. After a time, too, her growing knowledge of -the business induced the cashier and bookkeeper to go to her in certain -contingencies, and she acquired, without either seeking or rejecting -it, various discretionary powers in regard to the machinery of the -business. If anything went wrong they resorted to Miss Linnett. If old -Stoke forgot anything Miss Linnett was a second memory to him. If the -younger Stoke was in a hurry he would hand over the letters to Miss -Linnett to answer as she saw fit. She knew all the correspondents of -the house and their prejudices. She knew the combination of old Stoke’s -private safe after Stoke himself had forgotten it. She had a way of her -own in putting away documents, and nobody ever thought of studying the -scheme. She met all of these obligations with a dispassionate serenity, -and everything she did was done with an easy and amiable quickness. She -became the brain centre of the office. She was Stoke Brothers.</p> - -<p>Then one night she broke down, fainted, there before old Stoke, who -fell on his knees beside her and wept in real anguish while the little -white bookkeeper ran for a doctor, and the cashier tremblingly fetched -water to sprinkle her face. When she did not come the next day at nine -the situation in the office was pitiful. Old Stoke was useless, and the -younger Stoke shifted his letters from one hand to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> the other in utter -misery. The bookkeeper and cashier fumbled through their work dazed and -unstrung. In the days of doubt that followed the situation grew more -gloomy. There was great excitement when one morning she came down town -in a cab, white and fluttering, and, leaning on the bookkeeper’s arm, -made her way from the elevator to the office. She smiled at the little -group, accepted the homage quietly, insisted on showing them where -certain papers were, promised them that she should be back very soon, -and went away again, old Stoke patting her hand and telling her to be -careful. At the end of the month she died.</p> - -<p>“What did they ever do without her?” I asked when I had heard the story.</p> - -<p>“They didn’t do without her. Stoke Brothers went out of business. I -suppose they had been thinking of doing that; they were pretty well on -in years—and they couldn’t get on without Miss Linnett.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Yes, of all the changes that have marked this changeful century, of all -the transformations, social, political and economic, that have affected -the situation of women since the establishment of the Republic, that -change is most significant and potent which has placed her so widely -and so potently in business. Miss America is in business: patiently -ambitiously, grotesquely, indispensably in business. The social changes -have not been great,—indeed, one is often startled to find how slight -they have been.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> Political changes, important and prophetic as they -are, have not as yet sensibly affected the life of women in general; -while the extraordinary extent of women’s entrance into business in -co-operation with and competition with men, has had an unexampled -effect upon the American girl’s domestic, social and political -situation.</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image069"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image069.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>The American girl is not, as yet, very definitely conscious of this -effect, although she has been told about it often and vehemently in one -way or another. Unless she is writing a paper for her club she hasn’t -time to think much about it. She enjoys business as distinguished from -plain work. The idea of a business training rather piques the fancy -of an era that has laughed away the tradition of a “sphere,” and the -sort of young lady who in a past era would have no obligations beyond -needlework, is found dabbling in shorthand and bookkeeping, as the -princes learn a trade.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image070"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image070.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>And so the scientific observer is greatly distressed at times by the -thought that there must be a mighty readjustment before things can -come out smooth again. You might think that the whole thing had come -upon science unawares, that it was, in the phrase of a young woman who -was not new, all “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.” But no sound -authority exhibits real worriment on this point. If it is man who -complains, it is man who refuses to get along without <span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>her. From this -time forth business is going to be a co-educational affair. We shall be -told many times again that somehow all this will detract from woman’s -charm, and whether we believe or mistrust so much, we shall, I suspect, -go on taking the interesting risk.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image071"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image071.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center">The Editor’s Busy Day</p> - </div> - -<p>By the natural processes of time, women, young and old, will, I -suppose, like the rest of creation, continue to become better off. -Doubtless this is optimism. Pessimism says that two and two make three. -Sentimentalism says that two and two make five. It is optimism that is -content, and with good reason, to say that two and two make four.</p> - -<p>The traveller in a scurrying railroad train becomes familiar with few -more thought-suggesting sights than the farm woman in the cottage -door. She comes forward with her hands in her apron, if not with a -baby on her arm. Sometimes she waves her hand to the unanswering -train. Sometimes she leans against the door-post and looks, one -might fancy wistfully, at the clattering cars, at the people who are -going somewhere. Sometimes the doorway is in a cabin with one room. -Sometimes the woman is slatternly, drooping; sometimes she has the -glow of content. The spectator in the car cannot but wonder what are -the emotions of the spectator in the doorway. Doubtless there is both -envy and commiseration on each side. If the spectator in the cars -sometimes pities the woman in the cabin door as one who is left out -and left behind, the spectator in the cabin door<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> sometimes pities the -haste-hunted spectator who is being noisily flung about in the great -loom of life.</p> - -<p>To glance backward over a century is to feel that life constantly -reiterates this situation. We all of us are roughly divided—very -roughly, sometimes—into the two groups: the people in the cars and -the people in the doorways. The look of things must go on being -affected by the point of view. There is a view-point aloof from either -situation, but it is not one which the merely human sojourner ever can -be privileged to occupy.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image074"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image074.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image075a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image075a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div></div> - -<h2>IV<br /> -<span class="subhed">STITCHES AND LINKS</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image075b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image075b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">“Did it ever occur to you,” demanded the Professor, “how few people -actually do fashionable things?—that we probably are just as -hyperbolical in assuming that young women once amused themselves with -embroidery as that they now amuse themselves with golf?”</p> - -<p>“Stitches and links,” I pondered, knowing that the Professor did not -expect an answer.</p> - -<p>“What proportion of folks should you say actually do concentrate their -functions in the ‘barbaric swat’?”</p> - -<p>I lifted my head; and she went on:</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know that there always must be a fashionable, a dominating -pastime, and I have no disparagement of golf as golf. It is a good -enough game in its way. I am bound to admit this after having made a -very good score myself. Moreover,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> it is Scottish, which is a guarantee -of a latent profundity. It is a large game, and, as Sir Walter said of -eating tarts, is ‘no inelegant pleasure.’ I have been told by those -who have had an opportunity to know, that it calls out a great variety -of qualities. That may be said of many other things; but no matter. -My suggestion is that the assumption of prevalence in a so-called -fashionable thing leaves something unexplained, something that may be -very important, a philosophical hiatus—”</p> - -<p>“Professor,” I said, “have you never stopped to think that fashionable -fads and fads that are not fashionable are potent in two ways, that -is to say, first and primarily, in participation, and second, in -contemplation? There is less golf than talk about golf. One game of -golf may be repeated any day, for example, one hundred million times in -print. As the newspapers play golf with type, so the physically present -spectators on the links are repeated many-fold in those who not less -are participants and spectators, who wear ostentatious golf stockings -without ever having seen a teeing ground. This secondary participation -and appreciation is the breath of life to social fads. Probably this -may be said of all not absolutely primary pleasures. And so society -says, ‘We are all playing golf,’ which is not true at all, but which -instantly produces a situation that amounts to the same thing. We shall -say that one woman in ten thousand who may be in a situation, so far as -opportunity is concerned, to play anything, is playing golf, but this -shall not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> make it possible for the other nine thousand nine hundred -and ninety-nine who are not playing golf, to play anything else and -make it fashionable at the same time. This could not be, any more than -that we could have more than one Napoleon, more than one most-talked-of -book, more than one absorbing scandal, at a time. All epidemics present -this feature of concentration. Napoleon was just as much an epidemic -as crinoline or ‘Robert Elsmere.’ The hypnotists have a word for this -which has escaped me at the moment—”</p> - -<p>“Multo-suggestion,” contributed the Professor, patiently.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image077"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image077.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“Something to that effect, in which we have a scientific explanation of -the exclusiveness of fashion, an explanation of fashion itself. And the -thing could not be different. That susceptibility to the contagion of -enthusiasm which inspires the American with so passionate an interest -in all of his hobbies, is a susceptibility which explains his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> keener -interest in life, his democracy of sentiment, his ardent yet generally -cautious and sane pursuit of entertainment.”</p> - -<p>“Much of this,” interposed the Professor, in her ruthless way, “might, -it seems to me, be said with equal propriety of any civilized people.”</p> - -<p>“I think, Professor, that there are some significant points of -difference—points of difference associated very largely, I think, with -the American sense of humor, which we are in the habit of complacently -arrogating. I think, Professor, that your philosophical hiatus is -occupied very largely by a sense of humor.”</p> - -<p>“That,” laughed the Professor, “reminds me of that story of the boy -who was seeking to explain to his companion the characteristics of -spaghetti. ‘You know maccaroni?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you know the hole through -it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, spaghetti’s the hole.’ I do wish I could believe -more completely in your sense of humor theory. In the first place it -is hard to explain some of the things the young people do by their -possession of a sense of humor.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image079"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image079.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“On the contrary, Professor, I think American young folks develop a -sense of humor earlier than any other in the world, which is a Yankee -enough thing to say. This may be an odd contention from me, but to me -one of the most distinctive traits of the American girl is her gift for -being unserious. It is not always a sense of humor, either; if it is, -it is a sense entirely her own, for it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>certainly is not associated -with traits which we ascribe to a sense of humor in men. In any case -it is a saving sense, a sense that keeps her from taking things so -tragically as the unknowing or unsympathetic spectator might expect. -The American has a genius for radicalism, a creative defiance of logic -and tradition. Once in a while some philosopher discovers that the -frivolities of life have an immense importance. Scientifically the -physical distortions of a laugh are ridiculous. Yet we almost have -ceased to defend it, even in young ladies.”</p> - -<p>“A ready laugh,” the Professor said, “is no indication of a sense of -humor. The comic and the humorous are sometimes even antagonistic. You -have heard me defend irreverence in girls, but a want of seriousness -often indicates a want of humor, for a sense of humor, my friend, -is essentially a sense of proportion. Now, to my mind, the American -girl does not indicate so keen a sense of proportion in her golf, for -instance, as in her clubs.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” I ventured, “she is serious enough in them, surely.”</p> - -<p>“Only to those who do not understand her,” returned the Professor -severely. “That women take their clubs too seriously, too improvingly, -has been a matter of complaint for a long time. There has been almost -a missionary spirit among those who have sought to save our girls from -clubs. Some of the missionaries have preached total abstinence among -the girls. ‘If you take one club,’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> they have said, ‘you will take -another. The appetite will grow on you. You pride yourself on your -power of resistance now; but after you have taken a club, a dreadful, -unappeasable craving will spring up within you, and you will want more. -You will not be able to pass a club without wanting it. Even after you -have yielded to a morning, afternoon, and evening indulgence, you will -find a temptation to take a luncheon club too,—and when you take them -with your meals they have a particularly insidious effect. From this -it is but a step to a Browning bracer at nine A. M. and a Schopenhauer -cocktail just before dinner. Take no clubs at all—especially the -subtle, supposed-to-be-innocuous reading club—’”</p> - -<p>“Look not upon the club when it is read,” I murmured.</p> - -<p>“‘—for these,’” the Professor continued, with her inimitable chuckle, -“‘for these lead surely to more deadly stimulants. Indeed, these are, -to those who truly know them, more deadly than many another sort.’ -Then there is the more moderate school of missionaries which is for -limiting the number of clubs to so many a week, or to cutting them -down gradually on the theory that a girl who has been taking clubs -right along cannot stop short without peril to her health. By dropping, -say, one club a week for a whole season, a girl may, from a repulsive -intellectual sot be brought back, by patient nursing, and in due time, -to decency and three clubs a week.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span></p> - -<p>“But, Professor,” I said, “they must believe in clubs as a medicine, as -a stimulant in the case of a threatening mental chill—”</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image083"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image083.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“Don’t be frivolous,” commanded the Professor; “my irony was incidental -to the statement that all of this talk about the seriousness of women’s -clubs is based on a misapprehension. In outward form the clubs are -serious, and the theme, their ostensible <i>raison d’être</i>, almost -justifies the misapprehension. When you see a batch of women setting -in upon civil government, or mediæval pottery, or Sanskrit, or Homer’s -hymn to the Dioscuri, or the Heftkhan of Isfendiyar, it is, perhaps, -instinctive that the uninformed should jump to the conclusion that -these women are serious, though a moment’s thought might suggest a -wiser view. If women really took these things seriously they would not -survive. The truth is that the French Revolution, and the Rig-Veda, -and the Ramayana are all very amusing if you know how to go at them. -If the physical culture classes took the exercises as seriously as the -teachers I am sure the members would all break down. And it is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> the -same way with the study of cathedrals or street-cleaning.”</p> - -<p>I reminded the Professor of the lady I had heard of, who wanted to -know at the club whether the Parliamentary drill then organizing was -anything like the Delsarte movements, and of the other, who, at her -first meeting, being appointed a teller, wanted to know what she was to -tell. “I trust, Professor, that you will not take from me my simple, -unquestioning faith in the earnestness of these light-seeking ladies.”</p> - -<p>“Those instances,” smiled the Professor, “illustrate the first phase. -You must not be misled by them, for they actually are confirmatory. -You may discern in them the attitude of mind favorable to the feminine -way of taking things lightly. A woman who asks why, never gets nervous -prostration. It is when she gets above asking why that you may watch -for shipwreck.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Professor, all I can say is that you have left me in a state -of miserable darkness as to women’s clubs. Surely there are vast -misapprehensions somewhere.”</p> - -<p>“There surely are,” admitted the Professor.</p> - -<p>“But how do you explain them?”</p> - -<p>“The women?”</p> - -<p>“The clubs.”</p> - -<p>“By woman’s revolt against her segregation. Not, in my opinion, that -she is protesting against the gregarious advantages of man, but because -she is beginning to discover that her sisters are worth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> knowing. She -has begun to be impersonally interested in, as well as interesting to, -the other woman. The woman’s desire is not improvement; it is, whether -she knows it or not, the other woman, precisely as a man’s interest -in his club is the other man. It has been said that a man often goes -to his club to be alone, and that there is this advantage in a club -that is a place, over a club that is a state of mind. But a woman goes -to a club <i>not</i> to be alone. I suppose there are times when it -would do a woman good to get away from her family, not into company, -but into lonesome quiet. Mrs. Moody, who has said so many wise things, -declares in her ‘Unquiet Sex’ that college girls are too little alone -for the health of their nerves. This may be so, yet women’s clubs are -contemporaneous with girls’ colleges. It begins to look as if it was at -college that the American girl learned that it is not good for woman to -be alone—even with her family. At any rate, that independence which -is so characteristic of the American girl, which is, as I have been -informed and believe, somewhat disconcerting to men, is, undoubtedly, -largely the result of the American girl’s improved relations with her -sister women. When she is as successfully gregarious with regard to -women as men are with regard to men, her sex maturity will be complete. -I know that you are wondering what sort of a woman she is going to be -in that matured state. Have no anxiety. She will not be less agreeable, -but more so. She will overdo the clubs, but she will recover<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> from -that; she will shed them the moment they cease to serve her purpose. -I am going to a club now. I am going to talk to it about Savonarola. -The club will be very well dressed, and so shall I, if I know myself, -and we neither of us shall let smoke from the fateful fires of the -fifteenth century blind us to the fact that we are living in the -nineteenth.”</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image086"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image086.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“All of which,” I said, in a severe tone, “is illustrative of the fact -that woman is a sophist—though perhaps I should say an artist, for she -uses life as so much material with which to construct an effect.”</p> - -<p>“Life <i>is</i> an art,” remarked the Professor at the mirror.</p> - -<p>“And you, Professor—”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image087"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image087.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>But she was gone. I understood well enough that the Professor had just -given an exhibition of her dexterity in taking the other side, taking -it in a feminine rather than in a pugnacious spirit. The Professor’s -negatives always remind me of how<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> affirmative the American girl is. -There is an English painting called “Summer,” in which the artist (Mr. -Stephens) gracefully symbolizes the drowsy indolence of June. This -classic allegory may not have the English girl specifically in mind, -but I am quite certain that we should not be satisfied with an American -symbol for the same idea which did not in some way indicate that Miss -America, even in summer, is likely to be representing some enthusiasm, -Pickwickian or not as you may choose to make it out. The spirit of -fantasy, sitting in the midst of our variegated life, who should call -up the American Summer Girl, must summon a different company. The -spirit of fantasy would know that the American summer girl, though -she can be a sophist, and agree that this or that is the fashion -this summer, is nevertheless not to be painted as a reiteration. It -frequently was remarked of the Americans at Santiago that they had -great individual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> force as fighters. There always will be critics to -remark upon the hazard of this trait in war. At all events it was and -is an American trait. And in conducting her summer campaign against an -elusive if not altogether a smokeless enemy, Miss America is displaying -the same trait. She can accept a social sophistry, but you must leave -her individuality. She will not have tennis wholly put aside if she -does not choose. She will not give up her horse because a little steed -of steel has entered the lists, nor give up her bicycle because it has -become profanely popular. She may choose to arm herself solely with a -parasol, to detach herself from even the suggestion of a hobby, which, -to one who has the individual skill, is a notoriously potent way in -which to establish one of those absolute despotisms so familiar and so -fatal in society. There is the girl with a butterfly net, the girl who -goes a-fishing, the girl who swims, the girl who wears bathing suits, -the girl who gives a sparkle to the Chautauqua meetings in the summer, -the girl who gets up camping parties, the girl who gets up the dances, -the girl who plots theatricals, the girl with the camera, the girl who -can shoot like a cowboy,—where should we end that remarkable list? How -impossible to express the summer girl in any single type?</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image089"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image089.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Indeed, the American girl’s methods of amusing herself are so various -as to make it increasingly difficult to typify her at all, except as -a goddess who, like Minerva (though <i>she</i> did not go in much -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>for amusing herself), shall illustrate a wide range of activities -serenely and successfully undertaken. There is a triteness in the -accomplishments of any period, yet the spirit of individualism in the -American girl introduces here, as elsewhere, a diversifying element. -I was reading the other day that Miss Mitford had that “faculty for -reciting verses which is among the most graceful of accomplishments.” -Where have all the verse reciters gone? Why did this elegant -accomplishment perish? Are we all less poetical? Are our girls losing -that sense of sentiment to which we used to look for so many of their -quieter charms? Has this change anything to do with another change, -surely not to be lightly accepted, which has of late years taken poetry -from the top of the page, where we once thought it belonged of natural -right, and placed it at the bottom? Is it finally to be crowded off -the page altogether? Has the fact that women no longer consider verse -an accomplishment anything to do with this subtle but revolutionary -change? And what shall poetry say? Will poetry go on as it has from the -beginning of time arming us with epithets of praise?</p> - - <div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div>If she be not so to me,</div> - <div>What care I how fair she be?</div> - </div> - </div> - </div> - -<p>I must ask the Professor some day what she thinks of the disappearance -of poetry—she would tell me to say verse—as an accomplishment. -For of course we cannot afford to ignore the significance of -accomplishments, their influence either upon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> those who display or -upon those who observe them. Accomplishments are more than an armor, -a decoration,—they are a vent. A boy has his fling; a girl must have -her accomplishments. It is long since hobbies were fitted with a -side-saddle, and we have had no occasion to resent the general results. -The concrete effect upon individual men is sometimes disquieting, -but that is another matter. Miss America is, after all, especially -accomplished in what she knows. The product of a system by which the -limits of her information are the limits of her curiosity,—for, in -general, she is not prohibited from reading the newspapers,—she has -acquired a faculty which may, for aught I know, have superseded her -quotation of verse,—the faculty for quoting facts. Yes, she still -quotes, and the newer accomplishment, if less elegant, is not one -which we may scorn or overlook. If in Tennyson’s phrase, she is part -of all that she has seen, we might add “in print,” as a supplemental -explanation of her attitude of mind.</p> - -<p>Perhaps if the author of “Les Misérables” saw her at certain times he -might use the qualified praise he applied to the Parisians when he -called them “frivolous but intelligent.” Yet if St. Jerome had seen -her on the beach I hardly think he could have had the heart to say, “I -entirely forbid a young lady to bathe.” Her whole effect is qualifying. -She carries into all her enthusiasms a modifying reservation. The -trait is typified and illustrated for us when we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> see her coming home -from the reading club on a wheel, or carrying her novel to breakfast. -The social hysteric always is sure that something dreadful is going -to happen, and then, in one of those sensational hairbreadth escapes -in which nature delights, the thing does not happen. The hysteric has -overlooked the reservation by which the fad escapes monomania, by which -the enthusiasm is subordinated to its owner.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image093"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image093.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Intermittently her enthusiasms bring up the venerable charge of -mannishness. A hundred years ago the editor of the London “Times” -complained savagely that women were becoming wickedly masculine. “Their -hunting, shooting, driving, cricketing, fencing, faroing and skating,” -he cried,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> “present a monstrous chaos of absurdity not only making day -and night hideous but the sex itself equivocal. Lady-men or men-ladies, -‘you’ll say it’s Persian, but let it be changed.’” Ptahhotpou the -ancient Egyptian has something to the same effect, but I have forgotten -his phrase.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image094"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image094.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image095a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image095a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div></div> - -<h2>V<br /> -<span class="subhed">“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOCIETY”</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image095b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image095b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">One day it happened with me, as with many another impatient traveler, -that I had to spend two hours between trains in a certain obscure town. -Perhaps I should say, in a certain obscure railway station, for the -town was singularly vague, uninviting and irresponsive, not at all the -sort of place that one would expect to know what to do with. It was, -indeed, the fragment of a town, as if, in the sprinkling of villages -along the railway, the material at this point ran short, leaving barely -a sufficient supply of elemental features. And being confronted by the -unprofitableness of the prospect,—by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> the drowsy, straggling street, -running (the word sounds ironical) from the station, the unfriendly -stare of the town hall, plastered over with play bills; the sunburned -whiteness of the little church; the obvious taciturnity of the man -smoking in front of the general merchandise store,—I bought the local -paper, for there was a local paper, with a “patent outside,” that -occurred every Friday morning. And the first thing that struck my eye -in the local paper was a conspicuous headline: “What is Going on in -Society.”</p> - -<p>I had seen the thing before in other papers, in Chicago, in Boston, in -Washington, in Atlanta, and in the provincial habit that falls to a man -who thinks of life from the view-point of a big city, I had associated -the line with something very different from any conditions that seemed -likely to be present here. I looked out of the station window at -the little white church, at the chromatic town hall, at the general -merchandise store, at a neat girl with a tan cape who was coming down -the main street,—and turned with curiosity to the society column.</p> - -<p>It was just the same as any other. It had all the adjectives of New -York, or Richmond, or St. Louis, and if Voltaire had been reading it -he might have hesitated to say that the adjective is the enemy of -the noun. Evidently, too, the same things were going on that were -going on elsewhere in society. It appeared especially that Miss Effie -So-and-So had just “come out,” and that the event was signalized on -Monday evening by a dance which was described<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> at length as to the -spacious drawing-rooms, the floral devices, the orchestra behind the -fringe of palms, the cotillion, the favors, the elegant gown of Miss -So-and-So’s mother, the gowns and ornaments of the other feminine -guests, in detail, with a cordial closing word for the refreshments, -which had been served at eleven o’clock. On Tuesday night there had -been a birthday dance at the Sheriff’s, at which “society was largely -represented”; at a pink tea on Wednesday afternoon there had been -some novel decorations at small tables; and on Thursday evening the -young ladies of the Polaris Club had gone over to Sudley’s with Mrs. -So-and-So as chaperon. There was more as to a festival in preparation -by the ladies of the First Church, as to a euchre party for the -following Thursday, and as to a little surprise which it was whispered -that “some society men” were arranging for the close of the season.</p> - -<p>Here, certainly, was food for thought. Could anything more piquantly -have illustrated the relativity of the term Society, more brilliantly -have demolished the pretension that Society has any geography? We have -our book definitions, by which we agree glibly to say that society -is the cultured, the fashionable, the favored class (or elsewise, -according to your dictionary) of “any community”; but how easy it is -for city pretence (and provincialism is never so arrogant as in big -cities) to see in its own set the true title to social eminence. It is -indicative of that interesting individualism which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> prevails in the -United States, and which perhaps we may learn to prize as one of the -precious products of democracy, that no town regards itself as small in -any sense that shall restrict or disqualify its individuals. This is -particularly true of towns in their feminine population. You may find a -community without gas, electric light, telephones or a board of trade, -but you shall not on that account decide that it is too small to have -a woman’s club and a social calendar. We are accustomed to say that it -all is a question of degree.</p> - - <div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div>When Adam delved and Eve span</div> - <div>Who was then the gentleman?</div> - </div> - </div> - </div> - - <div class="figleft" id="image098"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image098.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>We are accustomed to admit that in the senate of society -even the small states shall say their say. But scarcely can we realize -without much travel how far the fact that this country is too big for -the focussing of society in any one, two, or dozen places, affects -the demeanor and development of the social units. The fact that there -are widely prevalent formulæ, helps us first to the assumption, safe -enough, that these are applied,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> that there is a wish and an occasion -to use them in some way. They help us further to an estimate of the -relative activity of social forces, to the points of emphasis. But -there is one thing the wide use of formulæ never will help you to find -out, and that is the most interesting fact of all—the local flavor -of the conformity. Society is an Established Church in whose pews the -dissenters form a majority; and if I could, by some chance, have let -my train go by and have been admitted into the circle of that village -society, I certainly should have found that while it gave a sort of -lip-service to the social creeds, this society had its own way of doing -so, and that it adopted lightheartedly, like its new byword or improved -flounce, certain phrases, certain dicta of the world’s larger social -groups, for its own purposes, with its own reservations. I do not deny -that I have seen social formulæ grimly and mechanically used in certain -quarters, but the whimsical reservation is more characteristic.</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image099"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image099.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span></p> - -<p>The American girl is so definitely a social creature, and her social -attributes are so personal, that she never appears to be dependent upon -social machinery. She brings into society the invaluable force of her -individual availability. That our social groups seem to cohere proves -that she must possess in some degree that deference to form which -begins in the acceptance of terms. Humanity can never pair well until -it has grouped well. Grouping is the beginning of that compromise which -reaches its crisis in pairing. Even the goddess of democracy, who is -presumed to dote upon calling a spade a spade, who hates the euphemisms -of effete monarchical society, may not despise the butler’s baritone or -the futility of attempting on one occasion six hundred different forms -of adieu. Even George Eliot admitted that “a little unpremeditated -insincerity must be indulged in under the stress of social -intercourse.” The trouble with unpremeditated insincerities, however, -is that you often wish you hadn’t said them, not (unfortunately for -the symmetry of the retribution) because they were insincere, but -because they were unpremeditated and inferior. It is much safer to -be unpremeditated with sincerities than with insincerities, and, as -the literature of social satire may help us to see, there is great -hazard in any case. It is a pity, perhaps, that the great advantages -of meeting your kind in your and their best clothes, must be bought so -dearly, yet, as Thackeray has observed, “if we may not speak of the -lady who <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>has just left the room, what is to become of conversation -and society?”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image101"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image101.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Social custom is so arbitrary that it might be, and doubtless would -be, a reckless and inconclusive thing for any one to assume that the -American girl in society is actually so radical as her reputation -in other avenues might suggest. I believe that it is quite commonly -agreed that while the French girl in society is, perforce, much more -reserved than the American, the English girl at a ball or an “evening” -exhibits a freedom from restraint not commonly seen in America. These -things, however, count for little except as showing the domination -of mere form, for there can be no doubt that in social life, using -the term broadly, the American girl has more liberty, and uses more -liberty than the English girl. If the privileges of a host’s roof are -liberally construed by the English girl, the American girl takes a -candid and undaunted view of a hotel and a public ballroom; and under -conditions which in any manner detach her from the immediate presence -of formality, she falls back upon her individual preferences, her -personally developed methods of meeting situations, with a readiness -and sureness that carry their own vindication. Because she can have -a developed individuality yet be no rebel, the American girl can -grasp and enjoy liberty without despising authority. Indeed, her very -possession of liberty must develop a certain personal conservatism -which as a mere subject of authority she might never acquire. A great -many fantastic things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> which at various times have been said about the -American girl might appear to have been uttered in ignorance of the -fact that there is an American mother.</p> - -<p>I have in mind a family living in Washington city, where there is, as -everyone knows, a highly seasoned and heterogeneous society, a society -utterly different from any that is to be met with elsewhere in this -country, and one which on that account offers peculiarly excellent -opportunities for study on the part of those foreign observers who -enjoy being misled about us. If there is any place in the United States -where the American mother has opportunity for her administrative -genius, it is at the national capital. The peculiar conditions created -by political, diplomatic and administrative forces in the capital -of a republic, the prevalence of the open door, and the presence of -both domestic and foreign transients who do not always appreciate -the limitations of liberal custom, make Washington a place apart. A -single instance may serve to illustrate the firmness of the women who -actually control social destiny. Under circumstances which it is not -necessary to detail, a certain elegant attaché of one of the legations -began calling upon the young lady of the family I have named. He was a -handsome and entertaining young man, easy with women and cordial with -men, glib in the arts, himself a good singer, and speaking English with -a fascinating inflection. One evening the mother said quietly to the -daughter: “Grace, the next time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> the Count calls I wish that you would -ask to be excused.” The daughter looked her astonishment. She was not -greatly interested in the count, yet he was very agreeable, and she -said so. But her mother said, “Grace, you must trust me.” And when the -count came again he was made to understand.</p> - -<p>It was a simple, unsensational incident, but because I knew the liberal -ethics of the mother and the apparently complete independence of the -daughter (she was twenty-three) the incident the more effectively -reminded me that though the American mother does not feel it incumbent -upon her to closely hover over her offspring with a solicitous wing, -she not the less observes and governs. It so happened that the gilded -count a few months later became involved in so gross a scandal that -his withdrawal from Washington became imperative. Influence in his -government saved him from worse annoyance than transfer to another -court. The mother’s instinct had been true. And who can doubt that a -liberally reared girl, when she herself assumes the office of mother, -will, without having to make sinister payment for her knowledge, be the -better equipped for a judgment of the world in the interest of those -who may be dependent upon her authority?</p> - -<p>That the American mother cares more for real than for apparent -authority, explains, to those who know, the visible and so often -misleading detachment of the daughter; and the daughter’s sense of a -dependence that is not irksome, a suzerainty that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> is not intrusive, -a mother care that has no vanity of assertion, appears in her freer -bearing, her finer self-reliance. Whatever her special gifts, meeting -her socially always is likely to have the charm associated with the -fact that she never is afraid either that she will not rise to the -occasion or that she will offend authority. She has not the first fear -because she is playing her own game. She has not the second because she -does not live in a threatening or too admonitory shadow.</p> - -<p>You think of these things sometimes when you sit opposite a fan. Her -fan! Have you not seen it blot out at the critical moment all that was -worth looking at in the world? Have you not realized that it is part -of her panoply? Have you not witnessed over and over again the genius -which she exhibits in the management of accessories? Have you not heard -in the flutter of her fan a note from that orchestra of sounds in which -she makes even her silk petticoat play a witching part?</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image107"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image107.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>With her fan you quite naturally associate those two absolutely -unanswerable arguments—an American girl’s eyes. They are different, -believe me, these American eyes, from any other sort. The women of no -other country can look at you that way. You must admit, and in some -degree understand this, or you cannot hope to understand Miss America -in society or anywhere else. You may say of her eyes what Darwin -hinted of eyes in general, that they are the supreme physical paradox. -They do not peer like the virgin eyes of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>poetical tradition. It -has been complained that they have not at all the inquiring look once -thought to be so winsome in the young. They seem to <i>know</i>, yet -they are too feminine to assert. We say hard things about the poets -nowadays, but who can blame the poets for becoming emotional over her -eyes? Are eyes ever more a mystery, a contradiction, an uncombattable -force than when Miss America turns upon us her gentle yet fearless, -her wise yet maidenly orbs? We may have planned a battle. We may have -girded ourselves for a glance toward these twin guns in that implacable -turret, but at the first encounter our bravado withers. When she uses -these weapons as she pre-eminently knows how, we declare the motion -carried—the eyes have it.</p> - -<p>So soon as we grasp the fact that Miss America can look <i>and</i> -talk, we are in a fair way to understand some of the secrets of her -power. It is quite generally admitted that she talks well, and very -seldom, I think, with any disparaging reservation. She is a good -talker. She is more; she is a good conversationalist, for she can -listen. If speech is silver and silence is golden, I am free to admit -that Miss America does not seem to believe altogether in the gold -standard. She appears to be somewhat of a bi-metallist. I don’t blame -her; and I always admire her method of dealing with men who believe in -the free silver of continuous talk.</p> - -<p>Her reserve here is characteristic of her agreeable poise in society -whenever and wherever she is called<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> upon to say the right thing at the -right time. She never exhibits stage fright, though she has confessed -(afterward) to the symptoms. If, like Isabella, she is “loth to speak -so indirectly,” she doesn’t show it. She may, indeed, like the Venus -of Melos, be disarmed, but she never will be found, like the Winged -Victory, to have lost her head. Foreigners sometimes have said that -Miss America talks too loudly, but I am sure that this effect arises -from her vivacity, and one might retort that if her enunciation ever -is more than necessarily audible the chances are all in favor of your -being glad that you did not miss a word.</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image110"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image110.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Sometimes she has a way of talking to you at an oblique angle. She -likes to banter while she pours tea, for example, parrying and -thrusting with the agility of one of those Viennese girls who know -how to fence with a blade in each hand. When Mme. De Staël declared -that conversation, “like talent, exists only in France,” Miss America -had not grown up. It still is true, probably, as Mrs. Poyser pointed -out, that a woman “can count a stocking top while a man’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> gitting his -tongue ready.” Man’s development has been distressingly slow. He never -has met but indifferently the supreme test of the <i>tête-à-tête</i>. -It may be that his habits of life dispose him to take an exaggerated, -sometimes even a morbid, view of the hazard of words. Regarding the -situation solemnly is fatal to facility. The situation is not, and -cannot be, intrinsically solemn, being devised to get away from -solemnity. The talk is no more momentous than the tea. Neither is an -end, but only a means. “It grieves my heart,” cried Addison, “to see a -couple of proud, idle flirts sipping their tea for a whole afternoon -in a room hung round with the industry of their great-grandmothers.” -Now this comment, surely, represents a most unwholesome frame of mind, -subversive of that relaxation which Delsarte and many charming women -disciples have bidden us cultivate.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image111"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image111.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span></p> - -<p>Alas! it would be a good thing if sipping tea for a whole afternoon in -one room were the worst sin practised by our young women. Sipping tea -in a dozen rooms on the same afternoon is surely a worse matter. In the -days when people gave up a whole afternoon to a call, conversational -stitching and tea drinking were reduced to a science, and gossip to a -fine art. In a later day, when the author of the Synthetic Philosophy -found occasion to marvel over and to lament the velocity with which -men and women were going about their affairs in this country, calling -customs had utterly changed. If our women had undertaken to perpetuate -throughout the year the New Year’s Day habits of the sociable Dutch of -Manhattan, they could not have been more successful. The potency of -pasteboard and the human imagination have not greatly diminished the -pressure, and will not so long as the intoxication of mere rapidity -continues to preserve its power. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table -has colloquially expressed the distressing celerity with which certain -classes of fashionable women rush in, laugh, talk, eat and disappear, -in the tersely alliterative “giggle, gabble, gobble, git.”</p> - -<p>These habits are, of course, utterly destructive of good talk. Modern -society talk under the pressure of numbers and a consent to oscillate -violently, is like the scattered fragments of a word game. A man—I -cannot speak for a woman—emerges from a “crush” with fresh emotions -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>toward the grotesquely ironical definition of words as the vehicle of -thought.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image113"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image113.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center">Gossip</p> - </div> - -<p>However, I am glad to think that Miss America does not seek to revive -the spectacular talking such as women did in the days of the old -French salons. A woman talking to a dozen men at the same time may -have been a charming affair. Mme. Récamier is credited with having -done it very well. But no sane and truthful man ever will admit his -contentment with the microscopic fragment of a woman’s attention. -Exclusive interest in a woman is undoubtedly a primitive instinct, yet -the great deference paid to success in the <i>tête-à-tête</i> well -may justify this instinctive preference, and those hostesses surely -will be most successful who devise some liberty for this instinct. The -tendency of our social life is doubtless against centralization. There -can be no more monologists, it seems. “The worst of hearing Carlyle,” -said Margaret Fuller, “is that you cannot interrupt him.” The modern -social gathering, whatever its aims or variations, is quite sure at -least of this quality,—that it will interrupt. We cannot deny that -even “One-Minute Conversations with Nice Girls” is an experience having -its compensations as well as its drawbacks, for while a few eloquent -seconds with many women may not be so desirable in some ways as many -eloquent seconds with one woman, it always must be difficult to know -beforehand just when this will be the case. Mr. Warner has shrewdly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -pointed out that some women are interesting for five minutes, some -for ten, some for an hour; “some,” he adds, “are not exhausted in a -whole day; and some (and this shows the signal leniency of Providence) -are perennially entertaining, even in the presence of masculine -stupidity.” The trouble is (as you might guess) that the interruption -always cuts you off at the end of three minutes with the girl who -would be interesting for a whole day. For aught I know, society may -have averaged this thing, and have discovered that the low limit is -safest, that it leaves both parties most completely in possession of -the benefit of the doubt. But how few men can start a new conversation -every ninety seconds with anything like the success that attends a -woman’s efforts to do the same thing?</p> - -<p>No, woman, who created Society with its capital letter, has succeeded, -whether by design or accident, in producing a situation in which she is -placed at a very definite advantage. She can riddle a man with deadly -small shot before he can roll up his heavy guns. Yet she never will -like the man who either refuses the close order or surrenders. She will -like him best if he “puts up a good fight.” If he stammers, she knows -just how to deal with his broken English and keep him going. <i>Quot -linguae, tot homines.</i> But you cannot multiply a woman that way. -One language is all that she needs. Small talk is a large question. -As the loose change of vocal currency, it is an indispensable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -commodity. The larger denominations are not available. As for cashing -an intellectual check, good as your credit may be, it is out of the -question altogether; and a wise man recognizes the fact that in the -matter of this commodity woman is a banker who must always pocket a -margin.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image117"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image117.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>One day in a far Southwestern city the belle of the place drove me in -a dogcart for a memorable half hour. She was no taller than I, but she -wore a magnificent hat, one of those hats which even the girl could not -make you forget, and as she sat on the “dinky,” she arose beside me -in a quelling contrast. The horse was a smart stepper (at least that -is my confused impression), the road demanded a discriminating rein; -but though we drove past the leading hotel in the crisis of the event, -and drew the fire of a hundred eyes, that girl’s delightful wit never -faltered nor forsook her, that is to say, never forsook <i>me</i>; for, -of course, I needed a helping hand. No man not specifically trained -to it could gracefully maintain himself at such an altitude with any -credit to his power of speech. When I recall that dashing day, the -roll of the cart, the flutter of those lofty feathers, the firm grace -of those little gloved hands, the healthy glow of the face I looked -up to, I feel an accentuated humility, a deep conviction of my oral -inferiority.</p> - -<p>In society, as elsewhere, woman often reminds us of her superiority -to the algebraic axiom that things which are equal to the same thing -are equal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> to each other. There are qualified ways in which a man may -be equal to society. But to say that he is equal to a woman—that is -another matter.</p> - -<p>You will remind me that society is not wholly a matter of talk, large -or small. This is very true. Among other things, it is a matter of -clothes.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image120"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image120.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image121a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image121a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - -<h2>VI<br /> -<span class="subhed">LACE AND DESTINY</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image121b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image121b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - - -<p class="p-left">Victor Hugo thought that “a book might be written with regard to the -influence of gold lace on the destiny of nations.” Carlyle wrote the -book, extending his discussion to the influence of lace that is not -golden on the destiny of society; and one may scarcely venture a few -tentative words upon the subject of clothes without the feeling that he -should, properly, apologize to “Sartor Resartus.” And yet, as we have -many reasons for remembering, there are new clothes, and if there is no -new philosophy, it is not impossible that the old philosophy may have -some new bearings, and that the new conditions, as sometimes happens, -modify the application of the eternal verities.</p> - -<p>Naturally one cannot throw out even a casual suggestion in such a -matter without realizing that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> we have gone very far from the primitive -standpoint. When Adam told Eve that she looked lovely in green, the -situation was strikingly different from any that we now can fancy, -not only with regard to the lady, but with regard to the situation -in general, for, as there could be no relativity in the sincerity -of the compliment, there could have been no diffidence in receiving -it. It is clear that either paying or receiving a compliment under -such circumstances must of necessity have had an inferior excitement; -yet we can have no difficulty in grasping the fact that between the -primitive dress reform situation presented in the wilds of Paradise, -and the highly evolved subtleties of modern dress, lie infinite ethical -complexities, a pyramid of riddles, a Mammoth Cave of doubt. It having -been established by centuries of habit that civilized men and women -shall always wear some clothes, and most of the time a great deal of -them, the question has not the simplicity which it might have had at -an earlier time. Clothes principles are now as intricate as apparel -itself. They are associated with ages of prejudice, libraries of -history, acres of painted art, mountains of dry goods. On the other -hand, certain notions now are entirely accepted, and the field for -debate, after all, is much narrower than might at first appear.</p> - -<p>It may not be amiss to remember the fact, flatly expressed by Carlyle, -that “the first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration, -as, indeed, we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> -countries.” In women, dress is this “spiritual want” touched by -artistic sentiment, I had almost said religion; and whatever we may -say of the essential barbarism of the sentiment, it seems quite likely -to prove one of those barbarisms that are fundamental and permanent. -If we might remember that it is fundamental much of modern discussion -would be simplified. I find Mr. Finck giving the following elements as -explaining the Fashion Fetish: the vulgar display of wealth, milliners’ -cunning, the tyranny of the ugly majority, cowardice and sheepishness. -These are all good explanations, but the list seems sadly deficient -without an allusion to this instinctive and ineradicable desire for -decoration. Mr. Theodore Child seems to have in mind the instinctive -and final phase of the situation when he bids us “enjoy in imagination -what the meanness of the age refuses to the desire of the eyes.”</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image124"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image124.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Woman herself seems to have adopted the view of Epictetus that “we -ought not, even by the aspect of the body to scare away the multitude -from philosophy.” Socrates meant the same thing when he said to one of -his too-ragged followers, “I see thy vanity shining through the holes -in thy coat.” Clothes, then, are not merely to warm or to conceal, but -also to decorate. Wherein they warm or conceal, they are a science. -Wherein they decorate, they are an art. The science is exact; the art -is rich in variety and change, making every other art its handmaiden, -every season its holiday, every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> sentiment its theme. It is an art -redolent of the years, tingling with the daring of youth. Above all, -it is an art in which woman chooses to express herself in a language -free from the inhibitions placed upon other arts, in which, ignoring -when she chooses, the primary excuses and incentives, she takes an -art-for-art’s-sake justification for showing us the separate and -independent fascination, in themselves, of sublimated clothes. No -one who cannot perceive the inherent interest, if not the inherent -justification, of clothes as clothes, ever can see deeply into the -philosophy of dress, or ever can see deeply into the philosophy of -women.</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image125"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image125.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>The wide contrast, and one growing continually wider, in the -characteristics of masculine and feminine dress, on those occasions -when it most definitely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> expresses itself as dress, might suggest that -some variation in the governing philosophy of each had taken place, -perhaps at some definite time; for there was no such contrast in an -earlier day. It may be that at the time—and we may set this early -in the present century, easily within the period of our own national -history—when man began to simplify his attire, to put aside all -but the rudest decorative elements, woman definitely formulated her -justifications for perpetuating the idea of clothes for clothes’ sake. -We are bound to remember what she has had to live down. She has had to -live down Queen Elizabeth, and all the hyperbole of Continental fashion -when Continental fashion was in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> its most imaginative mood. Political -traditions were not the only burdens of our ambitious young republic. -Think of the gorgeous head-dresses, half as tall as the women who wore -them, and which afforded such delight to the caricaturist! Have you -ever stopped to think how few opportunities woman gives the cartoonist -nowadays, how severe a strain she places upon his ingenuity? There may -be an occasional note of excess. A recent foreign investigator found -the clothes of our women too much so, too perfect for repose. This -note of excess is the characteristic of genius. I myself have seen -American women who, to a merely masculine prejudice, seem to be wearing -too many rings. But we must make reasonable allowance for the natural -accumulations of time. It has occurred to me that I might do as we may -with a tree,—tell a woman’s age by her rings.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image127"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image127.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>So that in looking about and finding the whole of human society -“hooked, and buttoned up and held together by clothes,” we cannot hope -in any successful way to investigate the matter, if we forget for a -moment that the dress of women is to be looked at as a subjective -element. Going a little way with logical analysis, and agreeing, -for example, that “if the cut betoken intellect and talent, so -does color betoken temper and heart,” we soon meet with a mountain -height of contradictions introduced by the purely personal effect of -woman herself, and we find, long before attaining any symmetry of -information, that woman has invested certain material<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> elements -of life, as she has invested so many elements of life that are not -material, with the interest she herself has for us. A little lace, a -ribbon she has worn in her hair, a glove, a satin slipper, a fan, a -shred of trimming, have an eloquence in their revelation of her, a -fragrance in their transmission of her touch, which eludes logic and -confounds investigation. By a faculty and privilege of making things -seem reasonable that are not at all reasonable, by a witchcraft, a -sophistry of fashion, a trick of illusion, in the presence of which -we forget every rule of art, every principle of proportion, every -prejudice of habit, she can utterly bewilder us in a master stroke -of invincible instinct. She takes, deliberately and with exquisite -selective tact, certain entirely simple, inoffensive elements,—things -which in themselves you must acknowledge to be harmless and almost -rational; she takes these simple elements and she puts them together -by a method, and in a manner, of which no man, if he lived to be one -hundred and eighty-six, ever would discover the secret, and, waving her -wizard wand over the entire mess, she calls it a hat!</p> - -<p>Nothing could be more preposterous, of course. When we study the thing -as an object separated from her, it might, even though we knew that she -had created it, excite our derision. But when we see this masterpiece -of absurdity upon her head, that which had seemed at once an offence to -nature and to art, the acme of decorative nonsense, immediately becomes -forgivable—immediately becomes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> right. It is not that we excuse it for -her sake. It is not that the apposition dismays our reason. We bow to -it, accept it, and end by perceiving that, whether it be taken as an -old fact of nature or a new fact of genius, it is unanswerable.</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image130"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image130.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>No woman could be more completely, undebatably sane than the Professor. -I know what I am talking about. And yet the Professor wears a hat. I -had occasion, one day, when she had left it for a moment on a table, -to study it analytically as a creation. It was a fearful and wonderful -thing. No man ever can forget the moment when first, with mature -deliberation, and in a consciousness of the vast significance of life, -he takes up a woman’s hat, timorously, as if it were a ten-inch shell -or Minerva’s helmet, and gazes into its fragile fastness. When I -mentally grasped, as a man may in the absence of the wearer, the many -and extraordinary elements of the Professor’s hat; when I sought to -associate its multi-colored grotesqueness with the classic simplicity -of the Professor’s profile;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> when I figured its heterogeneous elements -as an object of decoration for the Professor’s outward and visible -effect; when I fancied the Professor’s brain flashing and glowing under -this riotous symbolism, I was filled with a new sense of the futility -of reason, a new awe for the wonder of woman.</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image131"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image131.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Dr. Holmes has spoken of the hat as “the vulnerable point of the -artificial integument”; but plainly he was speaking of the masculine -hat, for woman’s hat is no vulnerable point with her. It is her strong -point, her point of vantage, the citadel of her sophistries. You can -reason with her about other things, but you cannot reason with her -about her hats; not, mind you, because she will not listen, but because -she, or the hat, makes you not want to. This is not to say that it -makes no difference who wears the hat. It does make a difference. Take -a device like the calash, such as our great-grandmothers wore. There -were faces that did not look well in it, faces which quite naturally -might have made us think less well of the calash for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> moment. Under -certain other circumstances—that is to say, over a certain other head, -its quaintness begins to have a meaning, and it seems as natural and -acceptable as anything else which the right face and the right person -choose to display for us. Thackeray contended that sauer-kraut tastes -good in Germany, and it is notorious that the bagpipes sound quite -reasonable in Scotland. In the same way, there is no form of hat yet -devised by human ingenuity that will not tempt forgiveness when it is -on the right woman.</p> - -<p>And woman herself quite clearly perceives the force of association, -the importance, if the significance of the hat is to be preserved -and understood, of keeping it on her head. If this were not so why -should we be confronted with the monumental paradox that our womankind -are keeping their hats on in church and taking them off in places of -amusement? At the theatre woman consents to be separated from her hat, -and to have her hat separated from her. At her devotions she is not -yet willing to commit this discord, and in the dim religious light it -twinkles and shimmers its owner’s insistent dictum: The hat is the -woman. In a thousand ways the hat declares the existence of occult -meanings. A woman who would cut a man who wore a made tie, who would -not buy a reproduced antique or pirated print, who knows Sèvres at -a hundred yards and a real Bokhara in the dark, will cover her head -with linen lilies and cotton-bloated roses. A woman who would hesitate -to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> put a jewel in her hair, will heap upon the dyed straw of her hat -festoons of glass and steel and wax, with the fretted carcass of a bird.</p> - -<p>After all, there is no occasion to take hats seriously, unless you -happen to sit behind one, which, of course, cannot always be happening. -They are a wonderful study; there are so many different kinds; they -have been talked about so much, and have filled so large a place in -our lives, especially in public audiences. They have been discussed as -widely and as fervidly as the Federal Constitution. Because of them, -men have passed laws and sleepless nights. Because of them men fought -duels in the last century and lawsuits in this. To make it possible -to have them more refulgent and fetching, husbands and fathers have -worked on Sundays and stopped smoking. Though it has been assailed -with fanatical bitterness, buffeted by satire, stripped by statute, -stoned by envy, disciplined by reform, the hat serenely survives, a -defiant catalogue of every trait for which it ever has been either -praised or condemned. From out the din of conflict and discussion it -rises unscathed and unashamed the proud emblem of woman’s pictorial -supremacy, which all nature has said must and shall be preserved.</p> - -<p>And you know what she can do with a veil; she can make you forget that -a veil is barbarous; she can make you forget that you shouldn’t like -veils,—she can make you like her in one. She can make it increase her -effect of preciousness, if that effect is in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> her line; or make it -increase her sphinx-like effect, if that happens to be in her line. -She no longer is extravagant in contriving them. Sarah’s was to cost a -thousand pieces of silver. She now is content to make it a direct and -specific instrument of illusion.</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image134"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image134.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>If the late Mr. Darwin had given serious attention to veils he would -have remarked that the wearing of them has developed new expressions -of countenance among women. When they wrinkle,—I mean the veils,—the -wearer has a way of pursing her lips to push the silken gauze free from -the end of her nose, having accomplished which, her fingers gently -pull the thing into subjection from the lower hem. At certain seasons -and under certain conditions the habit is strangely general, until -you might think that woman, like the novelist in his last chapter, is -always drawing a veil. The more expert can pull out the wrinkles by -supplementing the pout of the lips with an indescribable wrinkling -of the nose, and without calling assistance from the hand. I do not -suppose that girls are educated to do this in any particular way, yet -the uniformity of the habit is little less than astonishing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span></p> - -<p>Speaking of uniformity of habit, I have observed the same thing about -her back hair. The gesture of the fingers with which a woman readjusts -a hairpin, or, perhaps, simply ascertains that it is doing its duty, is -wonderfully similar among all women. Yet the gesture may to a singular -degree be a reflection of her personal style, and in that latitude for -purely personal grace you sometimes are brought to the compensatory -fact that in sitting behind the hat you also are sitting behind the -hairpins.</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image135"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image135.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>This crowning glory of her hair! How it has fluttered in song and -story! How it has shimmered here in comedy and there in tragedy! -How it has dowered and decked and framed her, and puzzled us by its -mysterious fickleness of color, now this shade, now that, on the same -saucy, shapely head! How quaint a picture she can make for us when -she masks it in powder and carries us back to the days of Copley or -Watteau! How it has served to remind us, in some forbidden discovery<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -of the crimping pin or the curl-paper, that from the beginning woman’s -pleasures and her conquests have not been unmixed with pain!</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image136"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image136.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>How much fashion owes to hair and hair to fashion! How inexhaustible -are the harmonies of line of which it is capable! How fascinating, by -association, are the combs, and patillas and wimples and ferronières -which have caressed and curbed it! We no longer dye it blue as the -Greeks did, though we still, as the Greeks did also, produce blondes -at pleasure. Far be it from this page to express any preference as -between blonde and brunette. If, as we have been told, all of the poets -from Homer to Apuleius doted on blonde hair; if Aphrodite was blonde, -and Milton’s Eve; if Petrarch loved his blonde Laura (with crimps) -and Boccaccio delighted in tresses of gold, who shall attach any more -final significance to this than to the fact that woman at his moment is -whimsically dressing her hair like Botticelli’s Grace?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span></p> - -<p>Reason does not meet these matters. “I am highly pleased,” wrote -Addison, “with the coiffure now in fashion.” That is the ideal attitude -of mind, a point of view above reproach. No man really is normal who -does not think that “the coiffure now in fashion,” yes, and all else in -fashion that expresses the invincible instinct of woman, is peculiarly -and especially likable.</p> - -<p>“Professor!” I cried, in a moment of fresh and profound conviction, -“I am assured that it is a measure of sanity in a man that he shall -like woman in whatever she wears. She can confound our most precious -theories by doing as she pleases in the matter of dress, for the effect -is always right because she has produced it. It all is <i>her</i>. You -might as well find fault with the shade of crimson in the feathers on -the bosom of a robin as to find fault with the color of her hat or -gloves. Some combinations make us wince when we first see them, and in -the weakness of that moment we even may entertain a doubt as to the -safety of the proprieties; but we come to excuse the doubted effects, -and end by putting them into the very grammar of color. I have detected -a score of instances in which woman, or fashion speaking for her, -has met and turned the judgment of art. I have a theory that certain -painter prejudices have simply been demolished by the instinct of -woman.”</p> - -<p>The Professor was reading an exciting book on “The Evolution of the -Vertebrata,” and I knew it, but she was quite patient, and said -quietly, “Those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> are not the only prejudices that have been demolished -by the instinct of woman.”</p> - -<p>“True,” I admitted, curious, yet not disposed to challenge enumeration. -“Do you know,” I went on, “that your comment brings up an interesting -question as to the effect upon woman herself of a pampered instinct. -Will not the reckless gratification of instinct, charming as its -effects may be, tend in time to differentiate her unfavorably? Though -you meet vertebrata with your reason, when you turn your instincts -loose upon millinery are you not vitiating—”</p> - -<p>“<i>Will</i> you stop!” expostulated the Professor, “before both -instinct and reason co-operate in boxing your ears? Prattle about a -woman’s instinct is a man’s way of dodging admission of woman’s subtler -sense. If I actually had the time I should like to impress upon you the -fact that dress is a department of the fine arts; that it has a logic -and a language, principles, rules, functions, and a future. But that -is another matter. Man is hampered by absurd prejudices as to clothes, -especially as to the clothes of women. Our Concord philosopher remarked -that the consciousness of being well dressed imparts a peace and -confidence which even religion scarcely can bestow. Beneath the fact of -this dependence lie emotions and impulses to which women yield frankly, -but to which men turn a hypocritical squint. The candor of woman toward -her clothes instincts does her good. A free, natural love of clothes as -clothes is a sign of health in a woman.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image139"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image139.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span></p> - -<p>“Professor, if I did not know how fearfully and wonderfully it was -made, and how unpromising for the purpose, I should say that you were -talking through your hat.”</p> - -<p>The Professor rewarded me with her choicest twinkle. “Well,” she said, -“I sha’n’t be able to laugh in my sleeve much longer; fashion is making -it tighter every day!”</p> - -<p>“Can you not see,” I went on, “that the tightness or looseness of a -sleeve, for example, must have some direct effect upon the mental -attitude of a woman? Are not these constant changes destructive of -intellectual repose and progress? If dress is a language, how can you -escape a resulting confusion in this instability?”</p> - -<p>“My dear sir, that constant change of which you speak is not an -instability, but a consistent and symmetrical ebb and flow.”</p> - -<p>“It may be pure curiosity, Professor, but even if Rosalind did not have -‘a doublet and hose in her disposition,’ it seems to me that we well -may wonder how far the current bloomer affects the mind of the current -young woman. It cannot be possible that so momentous and revolutionary -a condition as the bloomer shall be without effect upon the mind of -woman—and not merely upon the women who wear them, but upon the whole -sex. It has been said that not only the physical structure but the -character of men have been modified by the fact that men persistently -avoid bagging their trousers at the knees. Will not the divided skirt -divide woman’s attention—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span></p> - -<p>“As for bloomers,” said the Professor, “and all related forms of dual -garmentature, I am going to lecture about them before the Zenith -Club, and, if you are very good, when my paper is quite completed I -shall read it to you. Meanwhile, I may remark that the bloomer is not -‘current’ at all, save, perhaps, in a modified and semi-visible way in -partnership with an abbreviated skirt,—but this is anticipating.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image142"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image142.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image143a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image143a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - -<h2>VII<br /> -<span class="subhed">CHANCE AND CHOICE</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image143b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image143b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">A distinguished general and admirable gentleman once was said to have -lost the Presidency because he called the tariff a “local issue.” It -might be difficult for us to discipline Coleridge for calling love -a “local anguish.” Yet the plausibility of the statement should not -defend the culprit. Love is, actually, not at all local, particularly -when it is an anguish. It is immensely pervasive, an international -issue, an inter-planetary, a universal issue. The light of love may -be hidden under the bushel of modesty, yet its undaunted X-rays will -penetrate the farthermost spaces.</p> - -<p>But it is too late, or too early, in other words wholly unfashionable, -to write about love, and I certainly should not have committed the -offence of the foregoing paragraph had it not been for an entirely -orderly and even timely thought as to the possibility that love, like -any other malady or manifestation, might have a purely national flavor, -not merely in its outward symptoms, but in its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> inherent quality. That -is to say, I had wondered in what way, if in any way, the American -girl’s definition of love would be distinctive. If I had asked the -Professor, she would, had she consented to take me seriously, have -described love as “the sum and sublimation of all possible inter-human -attachments,” or something of that sort. She would have been abstract, -for woman, however personal she may incline to be by virtue of her sex -and method, loves the abstract in definition for so much of reservation -as it may leave to her. There is safety and breathing room in a large -definition. Doubtless we never shall be able to get at Miss America’s -sentiments except in a purely empirical way, and if I were writing -a treatise instead of setting down a few notes, I should have felt -an obligation to study out the question by observing critically the -conduct of the American girl in the processes of courtship.</p> - -<p>The difficulty of such observation always must lie in the fact that -the most interested man in any specific instance himself is wholly -incapable of making report if he would. A man who could be analytical -in any circumstances which included a settlement of his own fate, would -be fit for every treason. He might go through a variety of mental -motions which to him, at the time, passed for the convolutions of pure -reason. He might, and doubtless often has, fancied himself as studying -her, as penetrating the mask of her femininity, as dispassionately -dissecting her sentiments. Indeed, every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> prudent man must at some -stage weigh, with whatever sobriety may be possible to him, the chances -of what she will say; and this must always include some estimate of -what she is thinking.</p> - -<p>The relationship between what she is thinking and what she will say -is one of the most complex in nature, and I fancy that in our climate -and environment its fundamental complexity has been increased. I know -that it is the habit of science to assume that the reason woman seems -more contradictory than man is not that she is dishonest, but that she -is impulsive. Impulse naturally is far less uniform than reason. “They -change their opinions,” complains Heine, “as often as they change their -dress,” a sentiment which proves conclusively that Heine had credulous -intervals. A woman who always had the same opinion would instinctively -realize the stupidity of that condition, as she would the condition -of always being seen in the same dress; and if she didn’t have a new -opinion she might do with the old opinion as with the old dress, turn -or cut it over. You cannot say from the notorious inaccuracy of a -woman’s gesture when she presumes to place her hand on her heart, that -she has not a heart, that she is unaware of its precise location, or -that it is not in the right place.</p> - -<p>If a man means less than he says, and a woman always means more, we may -see at a glance that it is easier to subtract than to add. But this is -not the chief difficulty. A man, if I may be pardoned the dogmatism, -always speaks in the original, while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> woman must be translated, and -it is vastly easier in any case, to translate his hyperbole than -her meiosis. When woman was simpler, she had less of this quality. -When she said no, and simply meant yes, man learned to translate and -understand her. Even a man could work out by the least subtle of -reasoning that when she said “No!” most fiercely she really was saying, -“<i>Idiot!</i> why don’t you <i>make</i> me say yes!” But after a time, -perhaps because she suspected, for good reason, man’s discovery of the -cypher, because she saw that it was not enough to turn the alphabet -upside down, woman began to qualify rather than to invert, and man -was no longer in possession of the key. The whole arithmetic of the -calculation was infinitely lifted, and rose from the rule of three into -the higher realms of pure mathematics. If she <i>always</i> called him -back he would know just what to do. If a little absence <i>always</i> -made her heart grow fonder, the process was capable of exact and -circumstantial procedure. But no longer is it so. She may, indeed, -still mean yes when she says no. She reserves her constitutional -rights. But to read her language now, to filch from her swift talk the -true meaning, to trace in the deceptively deep stream of her feminine -philosophy the faintly shining pebbles of pure fact, is a function -calling out the highest that is in man.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image147"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image147.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>In Miss America, then, we have this quality at its best, or its worst, -as you may view the matter; and the quality in her is coupled with -others that belong to her, and perhaps to her only. The degree of -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>independence which she has achieved has had a natural effect upon her -relations to courtship. This independence has not merely accentuated -the elusiveness which belongs to her as a woman. The quality of being -hard to get is not new in woman, or in any degree original in any -race. Ranging from the conditions in which barbaric woman is knocked -down by the strongest bidder, to those in which she is knocked down -to the highest, there is a uniform, because instinctive, outward -habit of indifference or aloofness in the sex. But Miss America’s -independence affects the whole question of her choice and the method -of her choice. And, committed as she is, by virtue of being a woman, -to a vast and fateful chance, she has, more certainly than any other -woman in the world, a choice. For good or ill, and in whatever degree -social station and social habit may modify the practice, she has an -actual participation in the forming of the matrimonial partnership. The -world has seen marriage by capture, by service, by purchase, by social -convenience, by free and natural choice. The experiment of marriage by -free choice has received in our own country its fullest trial. Marriage -by social convenience and by purchase still survive, even with us, and -there are many among us who think that marriage for love may not be -final as a national trait, and that we will discover that the compact -of marriage, being in the interest of society and actually under the -government of society should be made directly in conformity with the -convenience of society.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> Meanwhile, the trait is under scrutiny, the -practice is under trial.</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image150"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image150.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Marriage for love, is marriage in which woman is the arbiter, so -that Miss America is carrying out, side by side with her brother’s -experiment in democracy, an extraordinary and unprecedented experiment -in social practice. She believes, and reasonably, that Plato prophesied -this system in his conservatively worded remark that “people must be -acquainted with those into whose families and with whom they marry -and are given in marriage.” She believes that if marriage is to be -“chiefly by accident and the grace of nature,” it shall be left to her -to illustrate the grace of nature. And most men who are candid with -themselves know that while man may have the nominal initiative, she is -in charge of the situation. There is a German saying that a man cannot -be too careful in choosing his parents. It is equally true that a man -cannot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> be too careful in letting the right woman pick him out.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image151"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image151.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>If I have been able to grasp it, the American girl’s idea is that -marriage is best when it is a culminated friendship, that is to -say, when it includes friendship. This is a new idea, of course, -revolutionary in more than may at first appear. Indeed, we might more -correctly call the American idea, marriage for friendship. Balzac -has said a very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> severe thing of love that does not include “an -indissoluble friendship”; but it cannot be denied that we often are -perplexed to see that in this business the greater does not always -seem to be including the less. If the American girl shall succeed in -definitely incorporating friendship into the essentials of marriage -she will have accomplished a great triumph. “As to the value of other -things,” says Cicero, “most men differ; concerning friendship all have -the same opinion.”</p> - -<p>If she shall succeed in making friendship an essential of marriage, -Miss America will, indisputably, have founded the American practice of -a pre-matrimonial acquaintance. We shall go on believing that when we -meet her with a “Fate-can-not-harm-me-I-am-engaged” look, she cannot, -as often happens in other civilizations, be in ignorance of his name. -And we can see at a glance that by insisting that she shall <i>know</i> -the man she is to marry, Miss America is assuming an intimate and -personal dominion over courtship. She not only is assuming a power and -a responsibility, but confessing the delicate truth of her individual -jurisdiction. It will make no difference what formula she uses for “You -may speak to father.” The euphemisms behind which she now can hide -herself are as diaphanous as her finest veil.</p> - -<p>Yet, is there any to doubt her mastery of the situation she has -invented? Is there any to doubt that in her new situation she has -a new power? I know what has been said of the women who have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> gone -before. “And this I set down as an absolute truth,” said Thackeray, -“that a woman with fair opportunities and without an absolute hump may -marry <i>whom she likes</i>.” And I do not mean, and perhaps should -specifically protest that I do not mean, that Miss America is a whit -more assertive in her selection than the women of whom Thackeray has -chosen to say this much. But there is a sense in which Miss America, by -virtue not only of peculiar privileges, but of peculiar endowments, is -giving a new significance to courtship. Her attitude of mind is not to -be confused with mere independence. We have many antecedent examples -of independence. “At all events,” wrote Mrs. Carlyle to her insistent -suitor, “I will marry no one else. That is all the promise I can and -will make.” She thought that an agreement to marry a certain person at -a certain time was simply absurd. Miss America’s independence is the -product of conditions which have produced a sex attitude of mind as -well as an individual attitude of mind.</p> - -<p>It has seemed as if the development of this sentiment, and the -realization of responsibility, were making the American girl more -conservative in certain ways, and that she was, in the matter of -early marriages for example, drawing nearer to the older systems. -Sentimentally, early marriages are a good thing. Perhaps they are -practically also. Martin Luther and other wise commentators have -pointedly advised them. But the century has scarcely offered approval. -Stubbs, in his “Anatomy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> of Abuses,” complained bitterly that it -should be possible for “every sawcy boy of xiiij., xvi., or xx yeres -of age to catch a woman and marie her without any fear of God at all.” -Early marriages were a source of great complaint in our colonial days. -Probably the caution of our young women is responsible for the fact, -now frequently quoted, that early marriages are less frequent. At the -first sign of a new caution there is always the alarmist who jumps to -the conclusion that he is to be put off until the time De Quincey set -for the amusement of taking home a printing press,—“the twilight of -his dotage”; and it will be said of this or that section when some one -is in the mood to say it, as Heine said of France in 1837, that “girls -do not fall in love in this country.”</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image154"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image154.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Some characteristics of the era may not be attributed to anything that -is new in our system. Flirtation, for example, is a very old vice. -Yet, as every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> calling has a conscience of its own, I like to think -that flirtation has been harshly painted in some respects. If it does -not show specific modifications in our longitudes, we must conclude -that it is a necessary evil. At any rate we know from more than one -biologist that flirting is not solely a human trait. This in a measure -disperses and softens the responsibility. And one must not be hasty in -marking flirtation. There is the seeming and the real, like true and -false croup. Many women have been accused of flirting who were never -more serious in their lives, just as we have known them to be cruelly -accused of sincerity at a time when their whimsicality should have been -patent to the least intelligent of observers.</p> - -<p>In an era when letter-writing is said to be dying out, it is not -surprising that love-letters should come under suspicion. Indeed, -there have been many temptations to cynicism. The law courts have been -invoked to decide whether love-letters belong to the sender or to the -receiver; nice questions have grown out of misunderstandings as to -proposals of marriage. It is hinted that men are to become revoltingly -crafty as to things put upon paper, and that the young lady of a not -remote future will receive her lover’s notes moist and blurred from the -embrace of a copying book.</p> - -<p>The general decrease in the quantity of letter-writing due, among -other reasons, to the telephone, the trolley and railroads, and the -increased rapidity of life in general, undoubtedly has influenced the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -mere bulk of sentimental correspondence, though concrete instances are -conflicting. One young man of my acquaintance writes to his sweetheart -every day. Another, who has been engaged for some months, confessed to -writing to the young woman (she lives in another city) once a week; -“and do you know,” he said, “I have a deuce of a time to find anything -to say!”</p> - -<p>Whatever tendency the American girl herself may be willing to foster -or accept, it always will be true that the gift for writing the -right letter to the right person is one of the most potent known to -civilization. There are genuine, warm-hearted charming-mannered men who -can write only a brutally dull letter, and there are reprobates who -can fill a letter with the aroma of paradise. In an affair beginning -with letters the reprobate must have the advantage. Indeed, I knew a -girl who went on believing in the author of certain letters after the -most disenchanting honeymoon that ever woman endured, after society had -looked askance at her, after the towering lie of those letters had cast -a blighting shadow across her life.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image157"> - <img - class="p2" - src="images/image157.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center">Thoughts</p> - </div> - -<p>One pretty and pleasant little woman in Kentucky told me that when she -was engaged she sometimes got two letters a day. “And when we were -married I missed those letters so!” And this was indubitably a happy -marriage. I knew in just what sort of place those letters would be -kept, and just how they would be tied up, and could fancy just how she -would look in the dim of a rainy <span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>day when she brought them forth and -spread them out—by the cradle.</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image160"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image160.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Who can tell what passes in the heart of a woman? Who can read her as -she reads her letters over there in the corner of the summer hotel -verandah? Who can say what she is thinking there in the shadow of the -birch-tree picking off the petals? “He loves me—he loves me not”—no, -surely something more modern. What could be more piquing than that -partnership—nature and a woman? If she chooses to take another member -into the firm, that is her affair. If she has a tryst, who shall have -the meanness to wish any more or less than that he may not keep her -waiting an unseemly time—or that she may not have followed a habit she -has, and have gone absently to the wrong place? Yet she may have chosen -to walk alone and to let the summer pass and the hectic colors of the -dying season flaunt themselves in her face without giving a sign. Who -can say what passes in the mind of a woman? When she opens the book of -her own heart, and turns to the last page first to see how the thing -comes out, is she not puzzled sometimes to find all the print running -backward? Who can say, if a fairy came out of the wood, what manner of -choice she would ask of that fairy, what fortune she would consider -sweetest, what form of man she would ask for her Prince Charming? How -small the chance that she knows what she wants, or that if she did -know she would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> regard it as safe and symmetrical not to ask for the -opposite?</p> - -<p>In the old romances the dead leaves crackled, and the cavalier of her -dreams whispered the soft right word in her ear, and she murmured -“Yes!” spelling it with two letters and a capital N as in the present -hour. Would the gallant of the past be to her liking to-day? Would she -receive him civilly, or would she tease and taunt him in her provoking -modern way, abusing the qualities she liked in him, sending him away -because she didn’t want him to go, telling him that he should never win -her because she had begun to fear that he would?</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image161"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image161.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Neither the brusqueness nor the diffidence of the Puritan lover would -be likely to please her. The Puritan lover would lack a great many -of the qualities she now admires in men, chief among these, mayhap, -the quality of not being too solemn. She is far from Puritan severity -herself, and she would, I fear, see him go with a sigh of relief. In -the quality of not being too solemn, she might find the beau of Louis -XVI.’s time more to her liking, though his eagerness to draw his sword -for her would certainly make her laugh. She never would appreciate the -romance of his dainty duels.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span></p> - -<p>His pretty speeches would amuse her for a little while, but the man -who flatters her nowadays must be a more expert artist to escape the -mortal wound of her ridicule. In a later day compliment undoubtedly -became more of an art, and the dude of the Directoire, whom you might -have found in the quaint drawing-rooms of old Boston, or Philadelphia, -or Georgetown, as well as upon his native soil, was an ingratiating -gallant in many ways. He posed, because Napoleon was making it the -fashion to pose, but he posed well, and he studied the best methods -of saying caressing things without making them nauseatingly sweet. -This art of compliment, of not saying the right thing to the wrong -woman, nor the wrong thing to any woman, reached an interesting -point of development in the contemporaries of Beau Brummel. Possibly -Miss America would have liked a Beau Brummel in an artistic spirit, -and Brummel had, as a spectacle, many traits of gracefulness and -fascination. Her elusiveness would have piqued him and his not too -grovelling deference would have made her think him an entertaining -fellow. His dress was elegant without effeminacy, his hat was the most -extraordinary yet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> devised by the ingenuity of man—which itself should -be a bond of sympathy. But hats pass away, and beaux melt among the -hazy images in the tapestry of time.</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image162"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image162.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Yet they are always with us. Every age has blamed its beaux for wanting -the true gallantry of beaux in the past. We all have heard Miss America -say, rather petulantly, that the days of chivalry are gone. Perhaps -they are; perhaps our men give too little attention to the graces of -life. But let us hope that the modern man is not always as satire -paints him, that for the little shams of chivalry he has substituted -some real essence of an even deeper homage.</p> - -<p>And we must not forget, in considering courtship, that she, too, though -she may not have greatly changed in fact, has produced an effect quite -as puzzling as the change in man. One of the German painters, possibly -under the influence of Sudermann, has shown the modern girl, assisted, -and possibly instigated by Cupid, paring hearts with a knife. But this -is an old partnership—Cupid & Co., Limited. I cannot say what sign the -firm<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> puts up over the door in Germany. In this country it certainly -should read: “Hearts extracted without pain.”</p> - - <div class="figright" id="image163"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image163.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Yes, she is cool. The caterer’s sign “Weddings Furnished,” does not, -I fear, ever give her a thrill. She asks no one to furnish a wedding -for her. She seldom appears to be in the mental situation described -by the thought-curers as one of “intense expectancy.” And she is, -it must be frankly admitted, developing a keen, a disconcerting, -critical sense, an inevitable result to be sure, yet carrying its own -bewildering effects. This is the American spirit, the inquiring spirit, -the tendency to insist upon the re-establishment of standards. The -American girl always is in the attitude of being willing to admit the -superiority of man—if he can prove it. Here enters her Americanism. -Her contention is that you cannot transmit relativity. She summons -science to show that new criteria are necessary, and she continually -is calling man into the lists to defend his titles, to repeat his -victories, or surrender the trophies.</p> - - <div class="figleft" id="image164a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image164a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - - -<p>If you look at it squarely it simply is iconoclasm, a social form -of image-breaking, the image in this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> case being traditional man. -Observe, however, that woman does not actually destroy the image. -She tentatively takes it down from the pedestal. Who knows but that, -having dusted it off, she may, after all, decide to put it back on -the pedestal again? Meanwhile, man is under scrutiny. It is a trying -moment. It is like an examination in a postgraduate course. The -American girl is examining man for a new degree. And man has no choice -but to struggle for it. He absolutely is without an alternative. He -must face the most exacting social service examination ever imposed by -human caution or sociological skepticism. To meet the test will be to -wear a proud title.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image164b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image164b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image165a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image165a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - -<h2>VIII<br /> -<span class="subhed">THE NEW OLD MAID</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image165b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image165b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">The complacence of the unmarried is regarded by many as one of the most -distressing spectacles in modern life. Perhaps there is some resentment -of this as an apparent lack of faith, or at least of hope; others may -be inclined to add, of charity. Eliminate these from woman and it -may be difficult to mend the situation by making her president of a -kindergarten society.</p> - -<p>It is natural enough that the unmarried woman rather than the unmarried -man should be the particular mark for attack. There are obvious reasons -why woman’s resentment of the unmarried man should be concealed or -disguised. Woman, outside the resolution committee at a suffrage -convention, cannot gracefully seem to resent an impairment of the -selecting instinct in man. Even though she were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> quite securely removed -from the possibility of social commiseration she always would be in -danger of appearing to speak with something less than strictly abstract -feeling. She knows her fundamental limitations in the casting of -missiles, and the boomerang of personalities is least to her liking. To -her, natural selection may begin to wear the appearance of a huge joke, -an immense, fantastic contradiction. “This,” she may say, “is natural, -but it is not selection.” Under the circumstances who can blame her -if she resort to a paraphrase of evolution and bewilder man by an -unnatural rejection?</p> - -<p>Man’s resentment is more vocal, and so often does it seem to be -touched with real asperity that we well may feel that he has begun to -contemplate the situation with more than a languid interest. I suppose -there is a fair question as to who began it. Gallantry dictates that a -man should neither admit nor declare that he did. The excitements of -scientific controversy doubtless often cause the masculine debater to -overlook this obligation. Certainly it often is beyond all dispute that -the American girl has succeeded, with or without design, in affecting -man with a definite awe, and it is claimed that, in certain quarters -at least, this awe has resulted in making him afraid to marry her, -which, if it were true, would have to be regarded as a calamity of the -profoundest moment. To admit the existence of such a condition would be -deeply humiliating, since it must belittle both man and woman, though -it should be admitted that woman would appear to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> better advantage as a -creature that had frightened man than as one that had ceased to attract -him.</p> - -<p>As I said one day to the Professor, science is not treating us quite -fairly in this emergency. “As a scientific person,” I said to the -Professor, “you will remember the things science once undertook to -tell us about the great dualities. ‘Witness,’ said science, with not a -glimmer of insincerity, ‘the beautiful interdependence of the two lobes -of the cerebrum! How marvellous is their union! Each individual in form -and function, yet working in an eternal harmony. One cannot get along -without the other. Let one side of the brain be hurt and the other -droops in sympathetic inactivity.’ This was lovely. It fortified every -advocate of the fitness of marriage. ‘Observe,’ we could say to the -skeptic, ‘that this duality proceeds throughout nature. Interdependence -is universal,’ and so on. But what happens? Just as we have this -impressive object lesson in good working order, along comes science, -with a frown and a cough, to remark that it was mistaken in the matter -of that absolute interdependence theory, that the brain lobes can, -after all, each get along quite well at times without the other; that -the injury or decay of one is, indeed, sometimes followed by a steady -increase in the powers of the other, one taking up the functions lost -or dropped by the other. Nor was this the worst thing that happened. -You know well enough what they used to say about the marriage of the -two lobes of the cerebrum by the <i>corpus callosum</i>.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> The <i>corpus -callosum</i> at least seemed secure. We could have worried along with -the <i>corpus callosum</i>. We always could say: the lobes are highly -independent in action, but they are firmly married by this wonderful -ligament—if it is a ligament. Even this comfort is now taken from -us. Science has just rudely snatched away the <i>corpus callosum</i>. -‘The two lobes can get along without it,’ grunts science. ‘People have -lived for years with no impairment of their brain power with a totally -shrivelled <i>corpus callosum</i>.’ It is hard to keep pace with these -cynicisms of science.”</p> - -<p>“You simply have been punishing yourself for whimsical analogies,” -remarked the Professor dryly. “Moreover, you are quoting abnormalities.”</p> - -<p>“Alas, Professor!” I cried, “it makes little difference about the -abnormality. Admit an exception and the law is dead. We could conjure -with the law. What can we hope to do now? The American girl dotes on -exceptions—especially on illustrating them.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image169"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image169.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“You must remember,” said the Professor, her eyes glowing solemnly, -and with the tone of being consciously judicial and at a great -altitude, “you must remember certain facts about the selecting—the -pairing—instinct. Now, in the case of man it is necessary that the -selecting instinct be special and not general. So long as a man permits -himself to think of woman as an abstraction, continues to admire -ideals of womanhood and does not seek or is not drawn to seek charms -in a particular woman, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>he is likely to remain a bachelor. His -instinct must be, and has become by centuries of custom, an instinct -for specific selection. On the other hand, the instinct of specific -selection so favorable to the man, is distinctly unfavorable to the -woman—that is to say, unfavorable to the woman if we accept marriage -as her natural destination. A woman who grows up with the habit of -mind which predisposes her to search for a particular man, is likely -to remain unmarried. To favor pairing in her case, the instinct toward -marriage must be general rather than specific. A woman does not select -a mate from all the men in the world, as a man is supposed to select a -mate from all the women in the world. She selects from among those who -ask her, or, at most, from the group which she may have attracted into -debatable ground.”</p> - -<p>“But—” I interposed.</p> - -<p>“Wait a moment,” pursued the Professor firmly. “This is not to say -that a woman has no actual right to a privilege of selecting quite -as definite as that permitted to man. It simply is saying that under -present customs an effort toward specific selection on her part is not -favorable to marriage. There may, and probably will, come a time when -custom will permit to woman a more specific selection, without hazard -as to the chance of marriage, and without loss of status on her part in -any resulting marriage.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad,” I said, “that you have touched that point, for of course -woman could not afford to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> be specific at the loss of prestige. It -seems to me that the present system gives an immense advantage to -women, since, in any matrimonial emergency she may always retort, -‘Nobody asked you, sir.’ Man’s initiative gives her the benefit of -the doubt in all after judgments from the world; for if man selects -her, and she accepts him or yields to his selection, and there should -possibly be error, plainly, as with Mark Twain’s mistaken lynchers, -the joke is on him. She cannot escape responsibility, but her -responsibility always is lesser, and all the privileges of reservation -are on her side.”</p> - -<p>“My personal opinion,” observed the Professor (I always accept this -form of approach as a great concession), “is that she loses more than -she gains by these conditions. It is generally believed that during the -past century, particularly during the past half-century, woman, and -especially the American woman, has been selecting more definitely than -at any previous time in the history of civilized society. One result -of the habit of a more specific selection on the part of woman is a -decrease in the number of early marriages among women in circles or -classes where these ideas prevail, and a general increase in the whole -number of unmarried women. It may be that a further development of this -instinct will still further increase the proportion of the unmarried, -unless custom shall so far modify the arrangement of marriages that -women may more equally participate in the selection without, as at -present, exciting the antipathy of society, or, as you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> have suggested, -destroying her prestige under the partnership. There is, of course, no -final reason why matrimonial partnerships should not be arranged upon a -basis of as perfect equality as any other partnership. It simply is a -question of instinct on the one hand and expediency on the other.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image173"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image173.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>I quote the Professor’s opinions here with especial gratification, -since in this instance they seem<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> triumphantly free from sex bias,—a -freedom which, indeed, is a growing trait with women. And there is -something not always comfortable in the sign. Is the time coming when -we no longer can say, “Just like a woman”?</p> - -<p>Perhaps we may discover that sentiment has more to do with the case -than has been supposed. If the progress of education has menaced -sentiment, who shall say that the greatest of sentiments may not be the -first to suffer? Nothing is truer than that all women are not equally -capable of sentiment. Some women seem to like the symbol of an emotion -quite as well as if it were the genuine article. To them the innocuous -make-believe of love is quite as satisfactory as the real thing. They -play with a great sentiment as they used to play with their dolls, -which gave much less trouble than real children and furnished just -as much sentimental excitement as if they actually had been alive. I -suppose this is particularly true of imaginative women, who know how -to drape their souls in nun’s garb and let their fancy play the devil. -Their character is illustrated by the modern fashion which permits them -to wear gowns sombre to superficial observation, but which, you may -have the opportunity to discover, possess a riotously crimson lining.</p> - -<p>What is to happen to the world if women are to acquire a fondness for -the mere symbols of sex, if femininity is to become disembodied, is -a vast and vital question which prudence well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> might refer to one of -their own eager and tireless committees.</p> - -<p>The other day I boldly put the thing to the Professor. “What,” I asked, -“is going to happen to the world if the number of old maids keeps on -increasing?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” mused rather than replied the Professor, “the present rate of -increase in the number of old maids—”</p> - -<p>“By which,” I said, “I assume that you mean hopelessly unmarried women.”</p> - -<p>“I do not like that word,” retorted the Professor, a little sharply, -“it makes me think of hopelessly insane. I should prefer to say -affirmatively unmarried—the present rate of increase in the number -of affirmatively unmarried American women might suggest at the -first glance that something very annoying to evolution was going to -happen by-and-by. Indeed the conditions might seem to be positively -detrimental to the Darwinian hypothesis.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” I protested, “if you remember the married old maids. -Their transmitted instinct is bound to count sooner or later.”</p> - -<p>“But I have no fear that anything absurd is going to happen.” (I adored -the smile of which the Professor was guilty at this point.) “Nature -will work out the scheme. I mean supply and demand.”</p> - -<p>“I hope you cannot mean,” I protested, “that the American girl has -deliberately set about creating<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> a corner in wives for the sake of -raising the market—”</p> - -<p>“Not precisely that,” returned the Professor; “though in the evolution -of altruism that might not be so absurd. But you must see that -old-maidism will not flourish unless it advantages the race somehow. -You cannot think that a girl would set about being an old maid for any -other reason than to please or profit herself—”</p> - -<p>“Unless,” I said, “it were to get even.”</p> - -<p>“Get even!” laughed the Professor, “think of getting even by being odd! -No. The American girl simply is experimenting in independence. If it -pays, she will keep it up. If it does not pay, she will revert to the -alternative.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I admitted, “she always can do that.”</p> - -<p>“And meanwhile,” pursued the Professor, “I insist that girl-bachelorism -must not be considered as in any sense final. The suggestion that woman -can get along without man is an impeachment of his charm and of her -wisdom. One thing is always to be remembered: a man cannot reasonably -expect to conquer a woman by not marrying her. If the girl bachelor -does not know what is good for her, if her position is untenable, if -she is losing precious time, a cynical attitude in the man bachelor -does not seem at all likely to help the matter. The presumption that -the American girl knows what she is about may be erroneous, but ill -temper in the opposition will simply fortify her. She will smile and -smile and be a spinster still.”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image177"> - <img - class="p2" - src="images/image177.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center smcap">A Spinster</p> - </div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span></p> - -<p>A spinster! How oddly the word sounded! How grotesque the contrast -between the image called up by the name and the image that fills the -eye of modern contemplation! The old maid of tradition has become a -fantastic figure, as fantastic as if she had no actual successor—which -possibly is the real fact, for old-maidism is not strictly a social -condition but a state of mind. Nothing could better demonstrate this -than the prominence and multiplicity of married old maids. It is a mere -truism to say that old-maidism is not even restricted by gender. Who -does not know the masculine old maid! He is an altogether different -creature from the normal bachelor. Indeed, <i>he</i> sometimes is -married. In this instance contemporary satire is entirely within facts; -he alone is the new woman.</p> - -<p>It is not always an easy matter to estimate or to define the effect -of the new-spinsterism upon the mind of the opposition. If we were -to judge from certain acrid comments, the new state of mind not only -is more affirmative, but is vastly more aggressive than the old. A -shrill tenor note here and there complains that the sopranos are -sounding with an inelegant and disproportionate vigor. There is an -ill-concealed admission that man in general is still wholly unadjusted -to the affirmative attitude on the part of woman. Man cannot open the -door for her or help her out of the coach unless she lets him precede -her. The whole structure of gallantry is built upon her acquiescence in -his leadership,—his giving upon her taking. If she is to ignore the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> -tradition of his leadership and goes forth upon her own account, what -is to prevent the occasional, perhaps even the frequent, awkwardness of -her actual leadership? And when she ceases to follow she already has -begun to restrain. So runs the charge. You would think, to hear some -people talk, that the modern woman should be indicted for delaying the -males.</p> - -<p>It is hard to live down a tradition. Take the tradition about the -college girl, for example, the tradition that she is a sombre person, -strenuous, unlovely, dominated by an ambition to subdue man and -emancipate her sex by sheer force of learning. You can call up a -picture of her at work, her brain throbbing with great thoughts, her -face seared by study, greeting you with a smileless challenge to -talk to the point, mostly in Latin, and with a decent frequency in -quotations from Plato and Epictetus. This gruesome tradition makes her -the pallid, gloomy, absorbed, spectacled member of the household, with -a soul above clothes, glorying in unfeminine incapacities, shuddering -at fashion magazines and peevishly rebuking the frivolities of -girlhood. She uses vast words, communes with literary gods, and stands -forth as a sort of Book in Bloomers.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image182"> - <img - class="p2" - src="images/image182.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center smcap">The College Girl of Satire</p> - </div> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image183"> - <img - class="p2" - src="images/image183.jpg" - alt="" /> - <p class="p0 sm center smcap">The College Girl of Fact</p> - </div> - -<p>This, I say, is the college girl of tradition, of the older comic -papers. But what is the simple fact?—no, I cannot say the simple -fact, for she is a fact of the most complex variety; what, rather is -the literal, photographable truth? Very different, surely from the -absurdities of satire; in fact, simply <span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>the American girl, alive to -all of life, woman first and student afterward, continually up to the -mischief of teasing the social scientist by being lovely and actually -marrying, college education and all!</p> - -<p>Yes, we are making some new traditions. The new old maid is a charming -perplexity. The old maids of the past read Plato together and -established Boston marriages. They read in Cicero and elsewhere that -friendship is less undebatable than love. The traditional old maid -talked about “the faded fire of chivalry.” Like Walpole on his Paris -journey, she “fell in love with twenty things and in hate with forty,” -which fully restored her equilibrium. Yet she did not “vow an eternal -misery,” nor grow combative at the thought that St. Chrysostom found -woman to be a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic -peril, a deadly fascination and a painted ill. She acquired a beautiful -serenity. She could read Schopenhauer’s proposition to rid the world of -old maids by establishing polygamy, without even an audible snort of -contempt. She filled her leisure by admonitions to younger girls as to -the fathomless hazards of credulity. She was securely and splendidly -detached.</p> - -<p>Of the new old maid, variously titled, it is, of course, too early to -write. Whether she is sweeter or the world less sour, there certainly -is less antipathy between her and the world. Society certainly likes -her. She has been discovered to be immensely convenient. She has no -asperity. “It is not,” she murmurs to man, “that I love you less, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -that I love my freedom more,” for answer to which, man is sitting up o’ -nights in profound thought. She does not even claim that her mood is -permanent. At the first feeling of heart failure she knows just when to -appoint a receiver.</p> - -<p>All women can fool us some of the time, and some women can fool us all -of the time.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image186"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image186.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image187a"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image187a.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> -</div> - -<h2>IX<br /> -<span class="subhed">“AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED”</span></h2> - - <div class="figleft" id="image187b"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image187b.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p class="p-left">One day when the Professor had called a bachelor a bird without feet, -and I had retorted that an old maid was a bird without wings, the -Professor remarked significantly: “the old maid at least settles -better,” and we fell to talking of settling as a proposition. Between -the predicament of a bird who cannot fly and that of a bird who cannot -alight, there might not be much of a choice, though the Professor did -her utmost to prove that the bird condemned to perpetual flitting was -in the more pitiful situation. But it occurred to me as significant -that the man should dread to lose the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> privilege of flight, and the -woman the privilege of settling. I wondered if there was anything more -in it than the accident of contention.</p> - -<p>We had agreed with Tolstoi, that “nothing complicates the difficulties -of life so much as a lack of harmony between married people”; we had -agreed that much of complication arose from a lack of antecedent -harmony as to the matrimonial proposition.</p> - -<p>“Do you not think, Professor,” I asked, “that much of the trouble -comes—that most of the trouble comes—from the simple error of -forgetting that an institution cannot be better than those who -represent or expound it? Is there not a tendency, a very old one, -doubtless, to expect that marriage, in itself, will somehow, transmute -the participants? Can marriage be more of a success than people, or -less of a failure than people? Marriage is a bond, with a benediction, -if you like; but it is not a translation. Surely we cannot take from -marriage more than we carry to it—unless it might be the reasonable -and natural interest on the combined capital.”</p> - -<p>Seeing that I was entirely serious, the Professor said: “My feeling -always has been that the chief reason for the want of success in -marriage and the deterrent spectacle it so often has presented, is the -tradition that any legerdemain of sentiment or ritual can make two -people one. Understand me, I believe wholly in the ideal of a spiritual -oneness. I have no quarrel with the Scriptures on that score. But we -cannot walk the path toward a spiritual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> oneness with our eyes shut, -by lying to ourselves. The interests of two people may be one in the -highest sense, they may have one aim, if they are absolutely congenial -they may have one wish; but nothing conceivable under the sky ever can -make them more or less than two people. The other day some of us were -debating whether we should say ‘seven-and-five <i>is</i> twelve’ or -‘seven and five <i>are</i> twelve.’ They called seven and five here -a ‘singular concept’ and some were for <i>is</i> in consequence. But -at least man and woman <i>are</i>. One and one do not make one, they -make two. Indeed, after marriage, the two are more definitely two -than they were before. Personal sacrifice proceeds in the order of -intimacy. Society is built upon individual sacrifice. Friendship lives -by concession, and the intimacy of marriage carries to the extreme -point the idea of inter-personal compromise, the recognition of the -personality of another. To expect two people to lose, without effort, -by the mere fact of marriage, the individuality which they had before -the compact, is as absurd as it would be to take two clocks and tie -them together with a piece of pink string and expect them instantly -to begin keeping absolutely the same time. What would you find in the -case of the clocks? They might be mated clocks, and on opposite sides -of the room might pass for two clocks keeping precisely the same time. -But when you put them side by side you would discover, unless they -were supernatural clocks, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> they were running some seconds apart, -and those few seconds would be as potent in visibly differentiating -the clocks thus married as a full minute or more would be on opposite -sides of the room. So that when two lovers, who have made elaborate -concession to each other before marriage, anticipating each other’s -desires, yielding to each other’s prejudices, proceed after marriage to -throw the whole burden of preserving harmony upon some vaguely defined -potentiality in the marriage relation itself, they certainly are -tempting Providence into impatience. It is the lesson of sociology that -man must pay something—yield something—for the companionship of the -other man, and the closer you wish to be to the other man the more you -must pay, the more you must yield. When it comes to the companionship -of the man and the woman, and when the woman receives or demands equal -rights and privileges, the need of concession is vastly complicated, -for now the association is not only between two persons but between two -sexes; there is both the individual equation and the sex equation.”</p> - -<p>“Should you not be afraid, Professor, to take away this illusion? -Should we not be striking a further blow at marriage if we withheld -from those about to marry the hope, false though it be, that something -beyond themselves is going to bestow its benediction upon marriage?”</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image191"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image191.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>“I cannot agree,” protested the Professor, “that any kind of ignorance -can be a good thing in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>the end. Moreover, I think this false hope, -after doing little good, does a vast deal of harm. The trouble comes -when the two who are married, and who have looked for this magic, find -it not, find that they still are two; and when they are three, the -momentous equation must be carried forward.”</p> - -<p>I suggested that probably there was no sex in the illusion, that the -man and the woman were alike sentimental in the matter.</p> - -<p>“Probably,” admitted the Professor; “but as woman suffers the more by -it we are likely at times to think that her illusions must have been -deeper. I think the American girl has fewer illusions than some others, -and I think that somehow she is going to work out a higher plan than -the world has had the luck to exploit hitherto.”</p> - -<p>“Let us hope so,” I said fervently.</p> - -<p>The Professor turned quickly toward me. “Not,” she said, “that I think -that marriage has been, relatively, unsuccessful with us. The American -marriage has come nearer, in my opinion, to being a happy marriage than -any yet invented. The very development of the divorce system, monstrous -as that is, shows that nowadays and hereabouts people are beginning to -insist that marriages must be happy. Both before and after marriage the -American girl is asking fair play.”</p> - -<p>“Fair play!” It was like the Professor. It was the Anglo-Saxon of -her. Fair play—even in marriage. Applause to the sentiment! If Miss<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -America stands for anything, if she personifies anything, I suppose -it is social fair play. Sometimes woman seems to be asking a great -deal, like the politicians, on the theory that nature is a reform -administration and will cut down the appropriation. But whatever we may -think of this, Miss America certainly is showing the influence of large -concessions. I scarcely think that investigation will indicate that she -is at all sordid. If her personal jurisdiction has thrown upon her the -need to know about a man’s income, we must not despise the candor of -her investigation. She may not agree with Perdita that “prosperity’s -the very bond of love,” but she has seen the miseries engendered in -marriages for money by lack of love, and in marriages for love by lack -of money, and she perceives that money has caused the trouble in either -case.</p> - -<p>If marriage is a lottery, we may note that this is one of the reasons -for its popularity. The gambling instinct is strong in the human -family, and I suppose that if marriage were a sure thing it would -appeal to many with inferior force. It was a pretty Texas girl who -said: “This lottery suggestion introduces a sort of sporting element -into marriage that makes it fascinating. Marriage is the greatest game -of all.” And quite plainly she was no cynic.</p> - -<p>But women are not such good gamblers as men. I fancy that is one of -the reasons why they turn to the last page first. They do not like -uncertainties, though they can create them. They will even marry to get -at the end of the story.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image195"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image195.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span></p> - -<p>It is plain enough that Miss America is not losing her sentiment. She -can never lose her sentiment while she retains her superstitions. I do -not mean to say that she countenances the cheaper superstitions. When -I see a woman get off a street car because it is numbered thirteen, -or witness the spectacle of a hundred busy shoppers, eager to get -somewhere, held at a corner by an interminable funeral, because they -dare not cross between the carriages, I accept that safe inference, -dear to all patriots, that the victims are foreign. In what we might -call the higher superstitions she is versed and even proficient.</p> - -<p>Speaking of superstitions, no better name belongs to that prejudice by -which it sometimes is held that Miss America is often too tall to pair -well, that the bride is not exemplifying a proper proportion. Who shall -challenge the processes of evolution? Who shall say that in a wiser era -folks may not like the new proportions better? Probably there is no -occasion to worry. In this Darwinized era we cannot be persuaded that -she very well can get to be taller unless she wants to be, or unless -she is preferred that way. If gallantry lags, patriotism will insist -that the more we see of her the better we like her.</p> - -<p>Did you ever see a bridal scrap-book? A Tennessee girl, wedded a year, -unfolded one for me, and it proved to be a wonderful affair. In the -early pages were pasted invitations, dancing cards, concert and theatre -programs, tinfoil from bouquets,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> ribbons from gifts, valentines and -a curious miscellany of souvenirs. Then came the cover from the box -that had held the engagement-ring, a copy of the wedding invitation, -newspaper comments on the engagement and the wedding. Later pages held -a railroad map showing the wedding journey, Pullman car vouchers, -express labels, hotel menus, miniature camera “views,” with much more -that I cannot remember. And on a certain page of this scrap book, -reserved somehow, for the purpose, all of the guests at the wedding -had written their names. A few months after the wedding the husband -fell ill, and at the crisis his young wife chanced to find that the -list of names in the book omitted, among all of those who were at the -wedding, his alone. She was not superstitious, but the absence of that -name filled her with a new terror. The thing preyed upon her, and in -the still of night she slipped into the sick-room with book and pen, -and taking her husband’s unconscious hand, she traced his name there -upon the right page. He did not die, and when, one day, he came upon -the tremulous lines of that grotesque autograph, he did not chide the -forger.</p> - -<p>We may have changed the names of some things, the cool breath of -realism may have touched the habits of our modern life, but probably -the heartbeat of sentiment to-day is not greatly faster or slower -than in the long ago. There was a noble tenderness and dignity in -some of the formalities of the past, as when John Winthrop began his -letter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span> with: “Most kinde Ladie, Your sweete lettres coming from the -abundance of your love were joyefully received into the closet of my -best affections.” We do not say, “My only beloved Spouse, my most sweet -friend & faithful companion of my pilgrimage,” but let us hope that -nothing of the intrinsic beauty of love and marriage has suffered any -real loss.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image199"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image199.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span></p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image201"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image201.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>Distrust those who seek to show that there is a discordant note in -the old tune of love. Distrust those who claim that the old harmonies -have been superseded, that the new chords are less sweet than the old, -that the eternal duet which has tinkled and murmured down the ages -ever will be ended. The strings and the keys are new, but the tune -is the old tune. All the new notes and the new titles, and the new -words are but an obbligato, an ornament to the love-motive glowing -like a golden strain in the majestic symphony of life—the recurring -melody always new, always old; always a surprise, always as certain -as spring; so conquering in its power that Miss America, with all of -her self-reliance, with all of her assumed superiority to wizard wiles -and incantations, falls under the spell and has no regret. She is as -willing as ever she was to sit at the feet of the right man. She knows -her woman’s power. She is as willing as ever to follow a leader. She -only asks that she may elect her leader, not with a ballot, but with -the benediction of her love. She knows, with her truest insight, that -there is no device of science, nor ideal of sentiment that ever has -been or ever can be a substitute in this world for the love of one man -for one woman and of that one woman for that man. She sees down the -long road of life, alternating patches of sunlight and shadow, chances -of trial, certainties of pain, but she sees no cowardly doubt of the -nobility and the triumph of her free choice. The snows of time will -whiten her hair, and what better fate <span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>can she ask from the giver of -gifts than that she may sit there, as in the other years, beside her -re-elected leader in some hour of peaceful communion; to look back on -the paths of their journey, and forward over the long road, recalling -the joys and sorrows of the pilgrimage, and realizing here as at the -beginning that the stoutest defence against the shafts of fate is the -divine ægis of love....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image205"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image205.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<p>The Professor had come into the room girded for one of her intermittent -departures into the outer world. I thought then, and it has seemed to -me since, that she never presented a more agreeable spectacle than at -that moment. She dawned so radiantly there that I never could remember -what she wore, save that it was a new gown with a pale becoming pink -somewhere.</p> - -<p>“Professor,” I said, helpless before her discovery of my glance, “woman -is the only product of civilization which we might praise to excess, if -we ever found the words, without critical resentment.”</p> - -<p>“You always are either rampantly sentimental,” she said over the last -button of her glove, “or remorsefully satirical.”</p> - -<p>“I protest, Professor, that now I am neither. At this instant, -Professor, you are reminding me anew of the infinite variety of woman. -It may be that there is something in the raiment, but you, quite -typically, I fancy, burst upon me in fresh phases, fresh flavors. A man -is a mixture<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> to be sure, a medicine, if you like, or a mixed drink. -But a woman is a <i>pousse café</i>, never twice the same nectar, and -one drains the glass delighted and confused.”</p> - -<p>“I have no means of estimating your comparison,” returned the -Professor, “for I never tasted a <i>pousse café</i>. I fancy it is -degenerate.”</p> - -<p>“Should you ever test my symbolism, Professor, you will, I think, admit -that it is more accurate than Thackeray’s comparison of a woman’s -heart with a lithographer’s stone. ‘What is once written there,’ he -says, ‘never can be rubbed out.’ Now if Thackeray had known anything -at all about lithographers’ stones, he would have known that they are -used continuously for new writings until they have become too thin for -service. Thackeray would have given woman more of the benefit of the -doubt if he had called her heart a palimpsest. You sometimes can make -out something more than the very last writing on a palimpsest.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid,” murmured the Professor, with a glance that puzzled me, -“that you would not be able to read even that last writing.”</p> - -<p>“Alas! Professor, I never have boasted any dexterity as an expert in -love’s handwriting.”</p> - -<p>“You are a man,” she said briefly.</p> - -<p>“Is there a last writing on your heart, Professor?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, a little startled, yet speaking quietly, “there is -a first and a last in one, and the ink isn’t dry, either.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span></p> - -<p>“You don’t mean—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do,” she added firmly; “I have been intending to tell you about -it.”</p> - -<p>“You are—not going to be—married?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Professor!” I had breath but for that one gasp. “And you never said a -word!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I did—to him.” Then, seeing my look, “I wanted to tease you a -little; but I am going to tell you all about it—very soon.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” I said, after a pause, “it is that fellow who was hurt at -Santiago?”</p> - -<p>“The very same.”</p> - -<p>There was a little awkward silence. Then I arose and stood near her, -and she glanced up at me with a droll, fluttering smile. “Does he -understand women?”</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied softly, yet with some of her old spirit, “he isn’t so -foolish as to try. He only understands—me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” I said.</p> - -<p>It was dusk. Somehow the moment was like the end of a chapter. A -strange thing had happened, and the Professor—— Who can describe that -change which follows the oldest and newest of miracles? It was not the -same Professor who shimmered there in the twilight.... No, not the -same. Something had gone. And there was a new light in those dauntless -eyes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span></p> - -<p>A little later I saw her at the door, her little gloved hand cajoling -for a moment the rebellious bronze of her back hair. I saw her through -the window as on the steps she gathered the loose of her gown, flashing -the fire of her flounce lining. I saw her flicker for a moment in the -windy street. And she was gone.</p> - - <div class="figcenter" id="image208"> - <img - class="p0" - src="images/image208.jpg" - alt="" /> - </div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS AMERICA; PEN AND CAMERA SKETCHES OF THE AMERICAN GIRL ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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