kindly and charitable, and who makes allowances for small failings,
looking for the good in everybody and taking a lenient view of other
people's shortcomings, the effect is surprising. The little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump in time, and the "soft answer" becomes the
fashion of the household. "How very rude Edith was this morning at the
breakfast table!" says some one, feeling aggrieved by the harshness of
some rebuke administered by one who had neither right nor reason to find
fault. If the interlocutor replies, "Yes, shameful; I wouldn't stand it; I
should tell her of it, if I were you," then the flame is fanned, and may
result in a general conflagration, in which friendliness, goodwill, and
serenity are consumed to ashes. But if a discreet silence on all
aggravating circumstances is observed the affair may blow over very
quietly. Suppose that some such reply as the following is made: "Oh, well,
you know what Edith is. She is easily put out, and she had just had a very
annoying letter. You may be sure she is very sorry by this time for the
way she spoke to you." At once the calming effect of gentleness and
reticence is felt, and when the belligerents next meet it is only to find
that peace is concluded, war at an end.
Blessed are the peacemakers!
[Sidenote: Family amenities.]
A perfectly frightful amount of talking goes on in some families. Each
member is picked to pieces, as it were, motives found for her conduct that
would astonish her indeed if she heard them attributed to her, and her
kindest and most disinterested actions are distorted to suit the narrow
minds and selfish ideas of those who are discussing her. Incapable of
magnanimity themselves, such people translate kindheartedness and
single-mindedness by the dim little light that is within their own petty
minds, and the result is just what might be expected from the process.
Light becomes darkness, purity foulness, goodness evil. There are
women--not at all the worst in the world, but a silly, selfish,
empty-headed class of unconscious mischief-makers--who, when they talk
together, produce a kind of brew like that of the Witches in "Macbeth."
"Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
Adder's fork, and blindworm's sting,
For a charm of powerful trouble
Let the hell-broth boil and bubble."
[Sidenote: The confidential whisperers.]
Many a little fault, deeply repented, would pass and be forgotten, except
in the sorrowing penitence of the faulty one, if only a stream of talk had
not flowed around and about it, bitter as the waters of Marah. Often and
often when friends look coldly on each other, each wondering why the other
should seem estranged, the cause may be found to lie in a "long talk," in
which some one has indulged, with the result that actions are
misrepresented, hasty words exaggerated, and charged with meaning they
were never meant to carry, and remarks repeated in a manner that gives
them an unkind bearing they were never intended to convey. "I wonder why
Mary did not stop for a word or two, as she always does when we meet? She
looked rather stiff, I thought." "Oh, I suppose ... has been talking to
her and making mischief. You know what she is!"
Yes; that's how it's done. It is only what might be expected from poor
Judy O'Grady; but the Colonel's lady is not always above the level of the
"whisperer" who "separates chief friends."
I say again--
"Blessed are the peacemakers."
_A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE._
[Sidenote: Conscience classes.]
[Sidenote: The hat-pin terror.]
Consciences can be cultivated, like voices, and it would do the world no
harm if there were professors who would give courses of lessons on their
cultivation. The young woman whose hat-pin pierced the eye of a young man
who was unfortunate enough to sit next to her on the top of a Liverpool
omnibus stood in need of a few lessons. If hat-pins are a necessity--and I
admit that they are--it should also be necessary to exercise care in their
disposition. It is quite possible to render them effectual and yet
harmless by pushing them slightly back after having thrust them through
the crown of the hat. And any one in whom a social conscience is properly
developed will see to it that her hat-pins are not unnecessarily long. For
instance, a six-inch hat crown cannot possibly require a ten-inch pin. It
is terrible to see the armoury of sharp-pointed pins that jut out at the
sides of some women's heads.
[Sidenote: Umbrellas as weapons of offence.]
Another point in which the members of our sex show a total absence of
social conscience is the manner in which they carry a sunshade or
umbrella. The latter is often, when open, held down over the head of a
rather short woman in a way that is certainly protective of herself and
her headgear, but which is extremely inconvenient, and sometimes even
dangerous, to those who share the footpath or pavement with her. The
points of her umbrella catch in the hair or dress, and sometimes threaten
the eyes of passers-by.
When closed, the sunshade or umbrella often becomes equally a weapon of
offence, being carried in the arms with the knob or crook of the handle
protruding. A smart blow is often administered to the unwary passer in
this way, and among the dangers of the streets, numerous enough without,
may now be catalogued the shouldered sunshade of our sex.
[Sidenote: Male injustices.]
It is not often that we imitate the equally dangerous method in which some
men carry sticks and umbrellas, viz., under the arm, with the ferule
protruding at the back, a danger to the eyes of those behind; nor do we,
as a rule, prod the pavement with our parasols, as so many men do with
their sticks or umbrellas, letting them drag after them, so that those who
come behind are apt to fall over them. But, on the other hand, our
husbands are free from the offence of opening sunshades in a crowd, with
an upward scrape of all the points.
[Sidenote: The matinee hat.]
And then there is the matinee hat! Oh, sisters, where is the social
conscience of those among us who of malice aforethought attend the theatre
with all-impeding and obstructive headgear? A knowledge of the sentiments
we excite in the bosoms of those behind us might help some of us to be a
little unselfish in the matter. Positive, if temporary, detestation is the
principal emotion entertained towards the wearer of a matinee hat, and the
hatred is not unmingled with contempt; for who can help despising a girl
or woman who is openly and avowedly careless of the inconvenience and
disappointment she is causing? Man's ideal of woman depicts her as so
exactly the opposite of this that he cannot fail to resent the
disillusion.
[Sidenote: Calls on wrong days.]
Of all the forms of social lack of conscience, one of the most irritating
is the way some women have of making calls on the off days, other than
those on which the callee announces herself to be "at home." Especially is
this annoying if the person called on happens to be a busy woman. She has
probably arranged her "day" in self-defence from intrusion on all others,
but to do so is no safeguard against the unconscionable acquaintance who
prefers to suit her own convenience rather than that of her friends. And
if sometimes she comes in in very wet garments and flounces down on one's
velvet-covered couch, why, she may be described as adding injury to
insult.
It is really almost insulting to call on an off day, for it means either
that one's caller hopes to find one absent or else that she intends to
monopolise one's attention after having flagrantly disregarded one's
wishes.
[Sidenote: Travelling sans conscience.]
There are fine opportunities for the display of "no conscience" in
travelling. It is so pleasant, for instance, to share a railway carriage
with a person who insists on keeping the windows closed. And, without
going into detail, I may refer to travellers by sea who make an inferno of
the ladies' cabin, when the weather is rough, simply for lack of
consideration for others.
[Sidenote: Some minor failings.]
There are minor ways in which this form of thoughtlessness may be
displayed. In doing up postal packets one may consider the postman, and
refrain from tying up half a dozen newspapers in one bundle just for the
sake of saving oneself the trouble of writing the address three or four
times. In an omnibus it is unnecessary to point the stick of one's
umbrella outwards, so that every one who enters is in danger of falling
over it. Yet many women do this. There are those, too, who lounge
sideways in a crowded omnibus, while their neighbours are screwed up
uncomfortably closely for lack of the inches that should be theirs, but
which the lounger has appropriated.
[Sidenote: Those poor servants!]
[Sidenote: And tradespeople!]
[Sidenote: The unpunctual woman.]
And who shall say that conscience is perfectly developed in the woman who
keeps her coachman and footman waiting for hours in the cold of a winter's
night while she is warmly housed and indifferent? Or in her whose maid has
to sit up for her till the small hours, and yet has to fetch her her cup
of tea bright and early the next morning? And what shall be said of her
who goes to her dressmaker and orders a gown at the very last moment?
Where is her social conscience? Does she not know that weary girls who
have worked hard all day must be kept late to complete her dress? Does she
know? Does she care? And what of her who omits to pay her milliner, her
dressmaker, her florist, and all others who supply her with the luxuries
of life? Her conscience must be of the most diminutive order. In things
great and small the lack of social conscience shows itself. As compared
with a few particulars I have mentioned, the want of punctuality is a
trifle, but it is sometimes productive of the most aggravating effects.
And there are women who almost appear to take pains to be unpunctual, so
invariably are they just too late for everything. What they cost their
housemates in time and temper can never be computed. They are themselves
serene. "I'm the most unpunctual of human beings," one such will be heard
to say. She keeps people fuming on a platform watching train after train
start for Henley, Ascot, Sandown, or Hurlingham, and comes up smiling and
saying, "I'm afraid all you dear people are very cross with me." At
mealtimes she is equally exasperating, but she never seems to be aware
that her consistent unpunctuality makes her a terrible trial to all her
acquaintances. She is destitute of social conscience. And I might cite a
hundred other instances of this destitution were it necessary!
_OUR DEBTS._
[Sidenote: "If there were no credit system!"]
It would be a lovely world if there were no credit system. Think of the
millstones some of us hang round our necks in the shape of debts, all on
account of this temptation. In one of Mr. Howell's books, he makes the
father of a family say to his children: "Don't spend money if you haven't
got any." The advice seems superfluous, and would be so if we had to pay
ready money for everything we buy. But it is, in existing circumstances,
only too easy to spend money that we have not got; from the dealings in
the Stock Exchange down to the fishmonger's round the corner.
[Sidenote: Two points of view.]
[Sidenote: "Facilis est descensus."]
There are two ways of looking at the matter--one from the purchaser's
point of view, the other from the seller's. I intend to take the
purchaser's first, having long thought the credit system highly
demoralising to many who might have thriven and prospered bravely had not
its insinuating temptations been thrown in their way. It is so fatally
easy to order a quantity of nice things, to be paid for in a nebulous
future, which always seem a long way off. And then, when the grip of it
all begins to be felt, we are afraid _not_ to go on ordering, lest our
creditor should be offended and dun us for his "little account." And so we
get deeper and deeper in debt, and soon begin to lose our footing in the
financial whirlpool. Oh, the misery of it! The long, sleepless nights of
worry and despair, the irritable frame of mind thereby engendered, the
loss of self-respect, the inability to make the most of our income while
in debt, and the consequent hopelessness of ever extricating
ourselves--all, all might be avoided if we were forced to pay on the spot
for every purchase.
[Sidenote: The young wife's initial error.]
[Sidenote: An odious characteristic.]
That the credit system has its advantages is more than possible; but I am
not looking for them just at this moment. I want to sketch a gloomy
picture, with the hope of inducing all who look upon it to abandon the
habit of running long accounts, with its often ruinous results. The
inexperienced young wife, unaccustomed to deal with large sums of money,
often cripples her hard-working husband by falling most unconsciously into
the snares of the system as it exists. In her desire to have everything
comfortable, inviting, and agreeable for him in the home in his hours of
leisure, she launches out in "ordering" all that she thinks would aid her
in this unquestionably excellent object. Money always promises to do a
great deal more than it ever actually accomplishes. It is one of its most
odious characteristics, and the novice never dreams but that the incoming
sums will cover all her outlay. Then comes the tug-of-war, and if she has
no moral courage she struggles on without laying the whole matter before
her husband, and is soon in a network of difficulties. He has to know,
soon or late, and the resultant rift within the lute is by no means
little. It is a very bad start! And when the wife would like to dress her
little ones daintily and prettily, she finds herself unable to spend upon
them anything beyond what may pay for absolute necessaries. If her
punishment had not begun before, it very certainly commences then.
[Sidenote: The poor husband.]
And is not the poor husband to be pitied? He had, no doubt, the idea that
all women, after their schooldays, are apt housewives, and entrusted to
his young wife the entire management of the household. It is hard on him
when he finds that all is chaos in the exchequer, and that he has to deny
himself for years in many ways in order to pay debts that should never
have been contracted.
[Sidenote: If "trust" were not.]
Think of the delightful difference there might have been in the little
family were there no such thing as "trust" in trade, the children
beautifully dressed and the pride of a happy mother; the father in good
humour and gaiety of heart, enjoying his home as a man ought, who works to
maintain it; and the sunshine of prosperity pervading every room of it!
Thousands and thousands of homes have been ruined by the credit system.
The only means of averting such disaster is the exercise of strength of
mind in resisting the temptation. This involves a splendid, but extremely
costly, education in moral fortitude, to those who possess but little of
such strength and have to acquire it by long and sad experience.
[Sidenote: The meanness of it.]
It might help some to resist running long accounts if they were to realise
that doing so is really borrowing money from their tradespeople. Yes,
madam! That L5 you owe your laundress is just so much borrowed of the poor
woman, and without interest, too. And can you bear to think of the anxiety
of mind it costs her, poor, hard-working creature; for how can she tell
that you will ever pay her? There is your dressmaker, too. How much have
you compulsorily borrowed of her? You owe her L100, perhaps. And for how
long has it been owing? You pay L10 or so off it, and order another gown;
and so it has been going on for years and years. You don't see why you
should have to pay your dressmaker money down when your husband never
thinks of paying his tailor under three or four years.
[Sidenote: "Two wrongs."]
Well, two wrongs never yet made a right, and the fact that men of fashion
never pay their tailors until they have been dunned over and over again
for the money is only another item in the indictment against the credit
system.
It is undignified to owe money to any one, and more particularly to one's
social inferiors, but this view of the subject is too seldom taken. Can
any one dispute it, however? We badly want it to be made plain to the eyes
of the whole community.
[Sidenote: Increased prices.]
One disagreeable result of the credit system is the raising of the market
price of commodities in order to cover the losses resultant to the trader.
Not only do bad debts occur, which have to be written off the books, but
being "out of one's money" for years means loss of interest. Those who pay
ready money are sometimes, and should always be, allowed discount off all
payments, but even when this is done it does not suffice to meet the
claims of absolute justice in the matter, the scales of prices having been
adjusted to cover losses owing to the credit system.
[Sidenote: The sufferers.]
Tradesmen have to charge high rates or they could not keep on their
business, and the hard part of it is that the very persons who enable them
to keep going by paying their accounts weekly are those who suffer most
from the system, paying a fifth or so more than they need were all
transactions "money down."
[Sidenote: The other side.]
And now for the other side of the question. It has often been said that
tradesmen like customers to run long accounts. Let any one who believes
this buy a few of the trade papers, and see what they have to say on the
subject. Let them visit a few of the West End Court milliners and ask them
what their opinion of the matter is. Let them interview the managers of
large drapery houses. They will soon find that the tradesman has a
distinct grievance in the credit system. Here is what one dressmaker says,
and she is only one of a very numerous class, every member of which is in
exactly similar circumstances.
[Sidenote: A dressmaker's opinion.]
[Sidenote: A case in point.]
She is a clever and enterprising woman who had opened an establishment for
the sale of all kinds of articles for ladies' wear, and complains bitterly
that, though she is doing a good trade, all her money has become "buried
in her books." She is making money with her extending business, "but," she
says, "I really have less command of cash than at any time in my life. The
fact is my savings are all lent to rich people." Asked for an example,
she said: "The last bill I receipted this morning will do. Ten months ago
a lady came into the shop, talked pleasantly on Church matters, in which I
am interested, bought nearly L30 worth of goods, after very sharp
bargaining, that reduced my profits to the narrowest margin, and went
away. To have suggested payment during these ten months would have been
regarded as an insult, and I should have lost her custom for ever. I have
often been in need of the money. She is the wife of a very high
ecclesiastical dignitary, is regarded as philanthropic, talks about
self-help among women, and very likely visited my shop in that spirit; yet
though she is undoubtedly rich she borrowed L30 of my capital for ten
months without paying any interest."
[Sidenote: A second opinion.]
"If I could only get a little money in from my customers," said a
hard-worked West End milliner to me one day during a very hot and
exhausting May, "I could run off to the seaside or to Scotland for a week,
and take my poor old mother, who needs a change even more than I do. But I
can't get any of my ladies to pay." "Write and tell them how it is," I
suggested. "Oh, no! That would never do," was the reply. "I should offend
them terribly, and they would not only never come back themselves, but
would pass the word round among their friends that I am given to
dunning."
[Sidenote: One result of the system.]
One of these ladies owed her L800, and probably still owes some of it,
though that was three or four seasons since; for her way of paying off is
to order a thirty-guinea gown or two, and pay in L50 or L100 to her
credit. The truth is that the system is chiefly responsible for the
enormous cost of fashionable dress nowadays, since the only means the
purveyors can adopt to secure themselves against loss is to charge
exorbitant prices. When their customers practically borrow all their money
of them, they are well justified in charging interest on it in some form
or other. This naturally results in raising the market value of well-cut
and skilfully-constructed dresses, &c., and bears very hardly on those who
pay their way with ready-money.
[Sidenote: A "ready-money" association.]
Would it not be an excellent idea to form a society of women in
aristocratic circles who would bind themselves to pay ready-money for all
articles purchased? They could demand, and would certainly obtain, a
substantial discount on all such payments, and with the thin edge of the
wedge thus inserted the reform would soon be well on its way to permanent
establishment.
_THE DOMESTIC GIRL._
[Sidenote: Not necessarily a dowdy.]
Do not for a moment imagine that the domestic girl cannot be smart. She
can turn herself out as bewitchingly as anybody, and the same cleverness
that goes into her delicious _entrees_, capital sauces, and truly lovely
afternoon tea-cakes concerns itself with the ripples of her coiffure, the
correct tilt of her hat, and the deft fall of her skirt. The domestic girl
need be neither plain nor dowdy. Plenty of exercise and the feeling that
she is of use in the world brighten her eyes, keep her complexion clear,
and give her that air of lightheartedness that should, but does not
always, characterise a girl. How middle-aged is the expression that some
of them wear! Both boys and girls in their early twenties have
occasionally this elderly look.
[Sidenote: Very much domesticated.]
Of course there is always the extreme domestic girl, who has not a soul
above puddings, whose fingers show generally a trace of flour, and whose
favourite light reading is recipes. She has been sketched for us
pleasantly:--
"She isn't versed in Latin, she doesn't paint on satin,
She doesn't understand the artful witchery of eyes;
But, oh! sure, 'tis true and certain she is very pat and pert in
Arranging the component parts of luscious pumpkin pies.
She cannot solve or twist 'em, viz., the planetary system;
She cannot tell a Venus from a Saturn in the skies;
But you ought to see her grapple with the fruit that's known as apple,
And arrive at quick conclusions when she tackles toothsome pies.
She could not write a sonnet, and she couldn't trim a bonnet,
She isn't very bookish in her letter of replies;
But she's much at home--oh, very--when she takes the juicy berry
And manipulates quite skilfully symposia in pies."
She is well appreciated at meal-times, that girl, but she is not the
liveliest of companions. Like the German girl, who is trained to
housewifery and little else from her earliest years, she has a dough-like
heaviness about her when other topics are started. But why should she ever
be domestic only?--and with all the world before her whence to choose
delightsome studies and pursuits.
[Sidenote: The Blue Stocking.]
Then there is the girl at the other end of the scale. Here is her
portrait:--
"She can talk on evolution;
She can proffer a solution
For each problem that besets the modern brain.
She can punish old Beethoven,
Or she dallies with De Koven,
Till the neighbours file petitions and complain.
She can paint a crimson cowboy,
Or a purple madder ploughboy
That you do not comprehend, but must admire.
And in exercise athletic
It is really quite pathetic
To behold the young men round her droop and tire.
She is up in mathematics,
Engineering, hydrostatics,
In debate with her for quarter you will beg.
She has every trait that's charming,
With an intellect alarming;
Yet she cannot, oh, she cannot, fry an egg!"
[Sidenote: Royal cooks and millinors.]