were always at hand for refreshment, and any caller was welcomed to
lunch or dinner if he happened to be at the house when the bell rang.
The dinners were always good, but no change was made for a visitor. She
always refused to go to parties or receptions, which she thought
insufferable except when there was dancing. But she could not escape the
burden of party calls. The difficulty in carrying out her plans was that
there was no definite line between her sheep and goats. There were some
with whom she had to be both formal and informal, and she knew it could
not be right for her to drop totally everybody whom she did not fancy.
Many other women had felt the same burdens too heavy to be borne, but
had seen no escape. She suggested a club-house for ladies in some
central part of the city which they all often passed in shopping. It
should be a comfortable resting-place, with restaurant, reading-room,
etc. It should always be open, but one afternoon in the week should be
considered a special reception day. That would give ladies a chance to
see each other with very little trouble. When a stranger came into town,
if it was thought she would be a congenial acquaintance, two members
were to call upon her and invite her to the club, and see that she was
properly introduced. Then she was considered one of their number, and
was free from the bondage of calls ever after. There were many other
regulations emancipating the members from the tyranny of unsocial
society. Of course many ladies objected to all this. Their idea of
society was the conventional one, and they continued to live on that
basis. Most of them were welcomed at the club, but its members did not
call upon them, or go to their parties, or give them parties in return,
always excepting parties with an object like music and dancing. Parties
had given place to informal gatherings like my friend's _salon_, where
something real could be said.
Now in an old city such a change could not be brought about so quickly.
It could only be made by a large number of leaders of society joining to
make it. No stranger nor young person could do much except to make her
own part of any conversation as worthy as possible. But the mothers can
lead the daughters, and the daughters, starting from a higher point, can
go on in the same way.
These are some of the many unproductive occupations in which rich women
may use their time well, without finding it necessary to compete with
their poorer sisters in earning money.
VII.
CULTURE.
"Culture comes from the constant choice of the best within our reach. It
belongs to character more than to acquirements, though a person of
culture usually has certain acquirements, for these are generally within
the reach of all those who earnestly wish for the best things."
A woman, for instance, may be a cultivated musician, and have a weak
character in some directions; but just so far as her music is of high
quality she must have chosen the best. She must have been patient and
energetic, and she must have been willing to practice fine music. I knew
a girl so brilliant that she was able to play a Beethoven sonata almost
at sight when she had studied music less than a year. But she did not
care for Beethoven. She preferred Offenbach, and she never became a
cultivated musician.
But though girls are apt to think of culture as something distinct from
character, they do after all acknowledge its moral side, for beautiful
manners are its first test. I see every day a young girl who seems to
have no special gift. Her delicate health has prevented her from
studying much, so although the wealth and position of her family have
made it possible for her to have the best teachers all her life, her
education is not far advanced. With all her piano lessons she will
stumble over the simplest march if any one is listening to her; she
replies to her French teacher in monosyllables; she has read few books:
and as for her arithmetic, children in the primary schools could put her
to shame. Nevertheless, she would everywhere be recognized at once as a
cultivated young lady. The simplicity, gentleness, and sweetness of her
manners, her truthfulness, modesty, and dignity count for far more than
French or music or literature even with those who lay most stress on
accomplishments. Such manners as hers are rare, and yet they are likely
to be found running through whole families. Her mother and her sister,
both of whom are cleverer than she, have almost equally fine manners,
though they miss the last touch of grace. Such manners come from the
choice of generation after generation. One woman after another has
chosen to be sincere, good-tempered, kind, and noble. The women who so
choose also choose the best in other ways. They read good books instead
of bad ones, they prefer a beautiful picture to a showy one, and
Beethoven to Offenbach. You may say that a girl of such a family cannot
help being cultivated: culture is inborn. So it is, because generation
after generation has chosen aright. Her own positive contribution to
the family is that last touch of grace. I think that comes from the fact
that she could not succeed in other directions as her mother and sister
did. The best within _her_ reach was in the direction of manners, though
I think she did not decide that consciously. It was the determination to
meet mortification with heroism, to turn aside from feelings of envy and
wounded vanity, which added the last exquisite charm to her manners.
That such manners are often found among people of some wealth may, I
think, be accounted for by choice. Though many poor people are not at
all responsible for their poverty, yet when generation after generation
choose the best things, including the best husbands and wives, some of
the sources of poverty are removed, and although such families are
seldom very rich, they are often in comfortable circumstances, and as
they use money as well as other things in the best way, and do not live
for show, they are really richer than others with the same means.
I think, on the whole, good breeding is found oftenest in families where
the fathers have been professional men for generations. A line of
ministers where each has chosen to do the highest work he knew, careless
of money, or a line of physicians where each has chosen to help his
fellow-men, leads down to a beautiful blossoming time.
But no class monopolizes fine manners. Sometimes they seem to belong
entirely to the woman herself, and no trace of them can be found in an
earlier generation. She chooses alone, and she accomplishes all that has
been accomplished for others by cultivated ancestors.
Truthfulness is essential to culture, which, without it, will be only a
veneer. I have had an opportunity to know well a large class of girls
selected from the most highly cultivated families in one of our cities.
Comparing them with other sets of less highly cultivated girls, I think,
on the whole, the standard of truth is higher among the first, though it
has never been my misfortune to find a low standard among girls.
Unhappily, however, these girls have been so encouraged to shirk
mathematics that they have little power to think justly and accurately
on many questions. Mathematics may be called narrow, but no one can have
sound intellectual culture without these mental gymnastics.
I believe, too, that science must have a larger place in the education
of girls if they are to be able to look at things in a broad way, and if
I am right in calling culture the result of choice, the fairness of
judgment which comes from broad views is more essential to it than any
special accomplishment.
A specialist is seldom really cultivated, just because he is a
specialist. Darwin when young was an enthusiast in music and poetry. But
after a life given exclusively to science, he was amazed to find that
Shakespeare was tedious to him. His services to the world were so great,
and the spirit in which he worked was so noble, that we can hardly
regret his course; but he said himself that if he could begin life again
he would read some poetry and hear some music every day, so that he
might not lose the power of appreciating these things. Goethe, who
stands at the opposite extreme, as the "many-sided," adds that one must
see something beautiful every day.
Women are seldom specialists however. Their danger is superficiality
through trying to do too many things. How can we be broad without being
superficial? I have elsewhere said that I believe the school education
should include the rudiments of many branches, and that these rudiments
should be so thoroughly mastered that the girl should be able to go on
with any study by herself. I think the education should be continued
along several lines, if possible. These will differ with different
women; but whatever they are, it is essential that a balance should be
kept between beauty and truth. Music, art, or poetry on the one hand,
and science or history on the other, seem to me to give what is most
needed. In Elizabeth Shepherd's books the formula _Tonkunst und
Arznei_--music and medicine--is often quoted, and so we should get the
proper balance. I do not think that an ardent girl who loves music art,
and poetry, and who hates history and science and mathematics, will ever
quite do herself justice if she carries on all three of her favorite
studies and ignores the others, even though her favorites are most
essential to culture. I think, however, that though mathematics cannot
be spared from the foundation of an education, it yields less culture on
the whole to students who have no taste for it than any other study, so
I do not advocate carrying it far, but history or some science would be
a good counterpoise for a mind given to the study of beauty alone.
A friend says we must all be one-sided, so that perhaps our best chance
is to have one hobby at a time and ride that to death, and then try
another, becoming at last two, three, or four-sided, though never
completely rounded. If that be the case, it seems to me a good thing to
choose some of our hobbies at least from among the subjects for which we
have most taste and talent. Now where the opportunities for culture have
been great, it often happens that girls grow discouraged. They see how
far away they are from perfection, and they conclude they are good for
nothing. Do not yield to such morbid feelings. Make your own estimate of
yourself, without regard to your wishes. You do in your heart know what
you can do well if you are willing to work.
Make your estimate silently. It will probably be too high, but you will
work in the right line. Then let half your work be in the direction in
which you think you may make your life outwardly effective; for
instance, if you are a Darwin let it be in the line of natural science.
Let the other half of your work be constantly varied. Suppose you have
chosen history as the study for a life-time, take as a companion study
something new every year,--first a science, then art, then literature,
then mathematics, then a language, etc., etc. For the fruit of culture
is to be and not to do; and what we are, intellectually at least,
depends even more on the breadth of knowledge which helps us to balance
conflicting judgments than on special knowledge which gives us accurate
judgment in details. Even in the moral world, are not the finest
characters those in whom many virtues are balanced rather than those in
which one virtue is distorted by being allowed exclusive sway? It is a
great thing to be generous, but not to be wasteful; it is great to be
gentle, but not to be weak.
The philosophers tell us, however, that all things move in an ascending
spiral. We do in order to be. What we are bears unconscious fruit in
what we do. A woman who is cultivated in the true sense exerts a
constant influence for good. One rich woman says, "I will not live to
myself," and gives clothing to ragged children. Another rich woman says
the same thing, and studies history and poetry and comes silently to
just conclusions about the relative value of clothes and thought. She
cannot be unjust to her smartly dressed maid, and her daily life lifts
her maid into a new moral atmosphere; or her gently expressed judgments
on all things are so unswervingly on the side of truth and love that her
father and brother become ashamed of their little tricks in business or
politics which they had once thought trifles. True culture does always
react on life.
And yet in one direction culture seems to weaken the moral fibre. The
kind of courage which leads to quick heroic action in great emergencies
is apt to be lost by the habit of balancing arguments for and against
action. The gentleness which comes from quiet study often makes one
incapable of decision when severity is necessary. I was shocked not long
ago by hearing a group of sweet, high-bred girls discussing the scene in
"William Tell" where the wife of the hero tries to prevent him from
going out with his bow and arrow while Gessler is in the neighborhood.
With one accord the girls thought Tell should have yielded to his wife's
wish. It is true she was right in regard to the danger, but Tell's
carelessness about it was so clearly the result of his high-minded
freedom from suspicion that it seemed as though every heart should beat
quicker at his nobleness. These girls have moral courage. I dare say
some of them would die at the stake rather than tell a lie. But it would
take a sharply defined test like that to rouse them. Too much thought
has made it difficult for them to take any risk through unconsciousness
of danger. They could not act freely and spontaneously, and they could
not even admire such action in others.
How shall we train our girls so that they may have just judgments and
yet not make them so introspective that the bloom shall be brushed off
the beauty of every action? Perhaps Emerson's suggestion, that every
young person should be encouraged to do what he is afraid to do, would
meet the case.
In a city like Boston there is a great temptation to undertake too many
lines of study at once. There are free lectures every day in the week
from men who have mastered their subjects, and it seems as if one might
lie still and drink in all knowledge without effort. There are lectures
in private parlors for those who are too delicate to go to a public
hall--elementary lectures, and advanced lectures and readings. But no
one ever became cultivated by going to lectures. If a girl would choose
a single course and study the subject between times by herself, then she
would really be the better for the instruction. I think the difficulty
of choice among many good things in the city is the reason that so many
earnest girls have dissipated minds. A woman in the city must be
constantly on her guard against this peculiar temptation.
Perhaps at this point it will do no harm to insert a few commonplace
rules for study.
Do not try to study too many things at once.
Try to do all your work thoroughly, even if you do not get beyond the
rudiments in anything.
Do not be in a hurry.
It is said that eagerness to finish things shows weakness. It certainly
leads to shallowness, "Without haste, without rest" was Goethe's motto.
I have heard of a woman who began to study botany at ninety. That shows
a mind so trained and cultivated that the soil could not be exhausted
with age. How good it was that she was still fresh enough to respond to
new thoughts! She might have learned as much botany in a course of
lectures when she was twenty, and have listened to a dozen other courses
at the same time, without half the delight and inspiration she had at
ninety; that is, receiving so many new ideas at once at twenty might
have made her mind more jaded than the gradual, steady unfolding of many
more ideas during a lifetime.
I know a lady of forty-five who within the last month has taken her
first piano lesson. She did not even know the meaning of the letters,
and yet she has already made wonderful progress. She will probably never
become a great player, though her fingers are unusually supple and she
has some musical ability. But even if she does not, a new world of
thought and beauty is opening to her.
I have just heard of another lady of seventy who went abroad for the
sake of learning the French language.
It is a great mistake to think that all we are to learn must be begun
before we are thirty lest we may not have a chance to make a practical
use of it. Culture is within and not without.
I hope that I shall have as many readers in the country as in the city,
and country people are not distracted with opportunities for culture.
Indeed, they often think they have none. I will tell you the stories of
three cultivated country women.
One lived on a farm a mile from the post-office, and there was not much
money for her to spend. There were half a dozen cultivated families in
the village including that of the minister, and among them were to be
found most of the books which make the best literature. She knew how to
use both these friends and these books, and at twenty she was better
read than her Boston cousins. As she did not see her friends often, she
was more careful to make every call tell, and her visitors said it was
delightful to go to see her, she had such fresh things to say to them
and such interesting questions to ask. She studied botany by herself and
became expert. She learned mathematics so well in the public school that
when she began to think she would like to see something of the world
outside her corner, she was able to get good places to teach. First,
she went to a seaside village and there she learned a thousand new
things. Then she spent a few years at the West, varying her route in
going and coming till she had seen a large part of her own country. By
this time she had saved enough money to go abroad and study quietly for
a year. Now, she had her French and German, and she saw pictures and
heard music and visited cathedrals and discovered how other people
lived. But by and by her sisters died, and she was needed at home. Of
course she was a great acquisition in the village, and she had many
sources of enjoyment in pursuing the studies she had begun. But she
wanted new thoughts too. She invited a friend to spend a month with her,
and when she found that her friend had made a study of chemistry she
sent for a few dollars' worth of chemicals and set up a satisfactory
laboratory in the barn. Naturally she made the acquaintance of every
desirable person who visited the village, and moreover her Boston
relatives were always eager to have her for a guest, as she was
interested in all their favorite pursuits in an entirely original way.
Another girl lived in one little town till she was thirty, and then
married a man of culture whose home was in the city. His sisters said
she was a beauty and had good taste in dress; and they thought these
things had captivated their brother. But first they had to own that she
was a woman of fine character, good-tempered, dignified, truthful and
modest, for these virtues flourish in the country quite as often as in
the city. But still, they knew that she had had no education, and they
expected no intellectual companionship. Then it proved that she had read
more thoughtfully than they had. They belonged to a dozen literary
societies, but the one little village Shakespeare Club had done good
work. The sisters always went to the theatre every week in the winter,
but the bride who could count on her fingers the plays she had heard,
had selected these so carefully that her taste was already well formed.
Then she proved to be musical. Small as the village was, there had been
one young lady in it who had had the best musical advantages. Our
heroine had not let this opportunity slip. She had not heard many
concerts, but she had practiced the best music. She had studied Latin,
of course, in the village high school, and French with a French lady who
spent her summers in the neighborhood. She had treated herself every
year to five dollars' worth of Soule's photographs, and she had studied
these so carefully that she really knew something of the great artists.
Then she had traveled! She had begun to teach in her own village when
she was eighteen, and every summer she had spent a little of her salary
in some interesting trip. As a teacher, she had taken advantage of
excursion rates to the great National Teachers' Institutes. In this way
she had visited most sections of the United States. And she had planned
her trips so thoughtfully that she had been alive to everything which
was to be seen. Once she had even taken the accumulations of several
years and spent her summer abroad. The sisters looked scornful at this.
How could anybody see anything worth seeing with an excursion party? Yet
they had to own that what we see depends on the eyes we have as much as
on our surroundings. She could not see everything in three months, but
she knew what she wanted to see, and she had thoroughly assimilated that
by much thought about it before and after the journey.
She had once spent six weeks at a summer school of languages, and had
devoted herself so energetically to German that she had been able to go
on reading it by herself, and thus in a few years she had become
familiar with some of the masterpieces of its literature. But the
sisters were most astonished when they found her reading Italian one
day--Dante, too, which was too hard for them. The explanation of this
was that for some years the Catholic priest in her native village had
been a good-natured Tuscan who had been glad to exchange Italian for
English with her.
You see, she had had no regular education and no money but what she
earned, yet by choosing the best within reach at all times she had
become as cultivated as her sisters-in-law who had had every
opportunity.
All women are not so fond of study; but they may be cultivated,
nevertheless. The finest manners I have ever seen belong to a woman who
has lived all her life in the house where she was born in a little town
in New England. She never went away to school, and has not the student
temperament, though she is gifted in every direction. She has a love of
beauty which has led her to make everything beautiful around her. She
has had little musical training, yet her playing and singing have always
had the indefinable musical quality. She has read a good deal,
especially of the best novels and poetry, but "All for love and nothing
for reward." She has traveled from time to time a little when she could
spare the money, but always for pleasure and not to improve her mind.
She has had no artistic training, but with meagre materials she arranges
tableaux which are famed throughout the county, and on every public
occasion in the village she decorates the Town Hall exquisitely. She has
added wonderfully to the happiness of the place by always following her
love of beauty, making everything she touches beautiful without any
pretense or even any consciousness of having a mission.
So women may be cultivated in the country as well as in the city. But
some one may say that the hard workers have no time for culture. It
does seem to be true that hard workers need to use more sagacity than
others not to let their work crowd out everything else. They have one
advantage. Nobody can be really cultivated without learning some one
thing thoroughly. This their work compels workers to do. And the
building is more important than its decoration, though without the
decoration it may be a sombre structure.
Now, hard workers obviously cannot study French and German and Italian
and music and art, at least all at once, and if they try and so crowd
out all their little leisure, they miss the better culture which is
within their reach. What must you who are hard workers take time to do?
1. Take a little time to think. Especially try to judge fairly in
every-day matters. Culture, demands balance of mind; but is not that as
good when it comes from thought as from study? If the subject in hand is
one of which you do not know enough to judge, study it, if you have
time. If not, suspend your judgment. That will show true culture. For
instance, do not be a violent partisan either for or against the tariff
unless you have carefully examined the arguments on both sides. Few
perhaps have time to do that. You will still have an opinion. The few
arguments you have studied all point in one direction. The people you
trust most believe in one measure. Very well, keep your opinion. If you
were a voter you might even vote in the way you believe to be best; but
do not allow yourself to be violent or to denounce everybody whose
judgment differs from yours.
2. Try to be enough at leisure to observe little courtesies. Hard
workers are in danger of being irritable and hurried and careless of the
trifles which add so much to the beauty and dignity of life. Of course
my injunction includes some social life. We get much of our best
intellectual as well as moral life from contact with others.
3. Keep open every avenue to beauty. You have no time to study, but read
a few beautiful and noble sentences every day. You have no time to
practice music; then it is doubly necessary to hear all you can and the
best that you can. And you can always look at beauty. There is always a
strip of blue sky with its stars at night. And there are few who could
not see a beautiful sunset almost every day in the year if they made it
a happy duty to look at it. I have often thought that any one who would
persist in seeing this one vision every day would be lifted up above
most of the turmoil of life.
VIII.
THE ESSENTIALS OF A LADY.