prerequisite to earnest living to be socially effective at all. One
can pursue one's occupation, be it house-keeping, school teaching,
scientific philanthropy, or novel writing without taking any part in
what is known as society, and still be respectable and worthy in
character. Yet if every woman were simply to eat her three meals a
day, sleep, be affectionate to her family, reasonably charitable, and
do her daily task, the world would lose much of its vivacity, color,
and aesthetic interest. As the world is at present constituted the
greater mass of human beings, both male and female, are shut off from
participation in society in its narrower sense. Their means, their
manner of living, and their tastes confine them to very simple or else
to very coarse social diversions. Hence we are accustomed to read in
the newspapers of "society people," as a term of reproach indicating
that portion of the population which cultivates the social or
aeesthetic side of nature in its leisure hours. The demagogic force of
the term is derived from the undeniable existence of a surface element
of society, which has been and is still apt to conduct itself in such
a manner as to subject itself justly to the charge of frivolity and
extravagance. But the unthinking extend its application to the
cultivated and intelligent many, who in all countries constitute the
best force of the community. Society in this better sense must always
exist, and, although the woman who holds herself aloof from it may not
be distinctly culpable, there can be no question that those who
succeed in participating in the social interests open to them, without
neglecting or allowing them to obscure sterner pursuits, live finer
and more serviceable lives than those who pass all their hours of
relaxation by the chimney-corner, either because they fancy that
essential to comfort or because they choose to despise what they call,
with a virtuous inflection, "society."
This may sound elementary, but I present it as a premise to which is
to follow. You, my correspondents, are ambitious to progress socially,
yet doubtless you are not altogether impervious to the seductive
suggestion that social interests are hollow and unprofitable. For
instance, I feel sure that you, Number 5, the radiant, able-bodied
spinster, haughtily unconcerned about love and lovers, feels the
pressure of the times, and would regard the life of a Madame de Stael
or a Madame Recamier, however brilliant or picturesque, as at variance
with modern theories of social utility. I hear you making some such
representation as this, which is merely an enlargement of the letter
you wrote me: "Here am I, a young woman of some means, without family
responsibilities or other demands upon my time. I have no prejudice
against marriage; indeed, I earnestly hope to meet some day, some man
who will love me and whom I may love, and whose wife I may become; but
as I am no longer so young as I was once, being nearly thirty, I have
no intention of bothering my head about the subject further, and so
put it aside as a contingency. I have no special talent; that is, I
never could accomplish anything unusual with my voice, my pen, or a
brush. I have taken, and I do take, a strong interest in charitable
enterprise and investigation. I belong to philanthropic societies, and
it has more than once occurred to me to join a college settlement and
live among the poor. I have friends who do that; but I do not feel a
special fitness for the work. Nor am I sure that, however valuable
that experience may be as a form of loving service to the people one
hopes to influence, it can be other than episodic and limited to the
individuals who are conscious of the need or of the inspiration. I am
painfully aware of the dissipations and vanities of fashionable
people, in many of which I have taken part myself, and have no desire
to be merely a frivolous devotee of social amusements. And yet I feel
sure that the social side is no less genuine in its claims upon us
than any other. It seems to me that I might interest myself socially,
but I am puzzled by the intricacies of the situation. It is so
difficult to be democratic in one's sympathies and yet maintain the
old standards of elegance and refinement. To be socially effective one
ought to be in touch with modern social tendencies and yet be true to
the finest instincts of aspiring womanhood. What can one do to realize
this?"
That is, I believe, a clear presentation of your state of mind and its
dilemma. Having read of the vicissitudes of Mrs. Alexander Sherman,
you have probably a more distinct idea of what you ought not to do;
but would have a right to argue that a mere warning loses half its
force unless a substitute be supplied. To begin with, you are correct
in your assumption--you see I credit you with a considerable
intelligence--that if you hope to be effective you must not be content
with mere aristocratic elegance. That is a requisite which will gain
you a standing within certain narrow limits, and if cleverly
cherished, may bring you a surface reputation which the society
newspapers will vie with each other to enhance. The acquirement of
mere fine ladyism is going on actively in our society, and though it
has not turned the heads of so many American women as its opposite,
superficial democratic smartness, it seems too apt to fill the breasts
of its votaries with a pleasing self-satisfaction, which no suggestion
that the gift is not original serves to disturb. It is a product of
and inheritance from the older civilizations, and in its most precious
but not its exaggerated form, is absolutely essential to the most
highly evolved womanhood. A fringe of our people in the North and in
the South, and latterly in the West, has always insisted on and
cultivated it, generally with much credit, and has thereby evoked the
taunt that they were out of sympathy with the institutions of the
country. That has been far less true than demagogues would have us
believe, but there has been enough truth in it, and there is still
enough truth in it to put our well-bred class--"society people," as
they are called--on their guard against themselves. There is certainly
nothing essentially American in conventional fine manners and in the
conventional social tone which people of breeding the world over
cultivate, and where these are the possessor's chief or only title to
superiority, and are worn as such, there is room for the sneer that he
or she is not an American at heart.
During the last twenty years our population has been passing through a
period of awakening in regard to the usages of civilized countries,
with the result that the public point of view has been astonishingly
readjusted. The people are, so to speak, tumbling over each other in
their haste to adopt Old World social customs, and the paragrapher who
tells us that the wife of the Chief Magistrate wears blue novelty silk
waists to the theatre, made by one of her familiar friends, makes a
point of assuring us that the dressmaker in question is herself "a
leading society woman." Our public press is rife with society cant and
society gossip, and justifies the practice on the plea that the plain
people are absorbed in the contemplation of the doings and the dresses
of those whom they know only by hearsay, even as an Englishwoman will
run the risk of apoplexy in order to catch a passing glimpse of her
sovereign. Of this appetite for social tittle-tattle, the wealthy
class seems disposed to take every advantage, pluming itself on its
new importance to the point where it is constantly trying to devise
some new extravagance or inanity.
But this is not the spirit of the United States, nor are these the
best Americans. Our nation is strange in this respect. We wear our
faults upon our sleeves, or rather we suffer a surface population to
belie us in various walks of life. That is the reason why the
foreigners who come over here and try to amass the materials for a
book in a few months fail to understand us as we really are. They are
led by superficially prominent indications to believe many things
which are true only of a limited portion of the population, and they
fail to perceive the sturdiness of character, the independence of
view, and the social charm which distinguishes a large and constantly
increasing portion of the American people, who are neither extravagant
plutocrats nor vulgar republican braggarts and despisers of civilized
practices.
During the early years of our history as an independent nation, the
imitators of foreign and civilized usages, the well-bred people of our
country were, as I have indicated, regarded as out of sympathy with
the population at large, and there was a certain justification in the
charge; for though there was no conscious slur on the part of these
students of manners, they were at fault in that they failed to
manifest or to take an interest in that energy, originality, and
freshness of mental vision which was known as Americanism. Blatant and
mortifying as this national tendency was in its exaggerated forms, it
was a genuine indigenous product typical of the native character.
Chastened and subdued in New England, and assuming outrageous
expression on the prairies, it was the real manifestation of our
entity as a new departure from the peoples of Europe. Hence it was
natural that those who were shocked by or felt no kinship for this
trick of the blood should be looked at askance. Among those who
claimed in their own hearts social prestige it was long the fashion to
shrug their shoulders over the raw eccentricities of their
fellow-countrymen, which, as revealed both in public affairs and
during European travel, were often startling to precise taste and
wofully suggestive of the boaster. Yet those very traits in their
truer expression have been the vital force of the people, and give us
our savor as a nation. Not to possess them is to be without the
characteristics of an American.
The experience and events of fifty years have served to soften the
eccentricities and tone down the unconventional manifestations of the
national spirit. Although the prairies and the halls of Congress still
afford occasional rampant types, the great body of the people is
eager, as I have indicated, to adopt cosmopolitan usages. But the salt
of the native character remains undiluted in the blood of the people,
and marks them as genuinely as ever, though they have learned to avoid
some of the exuberance of language and look which made foreigners
smile, and their sensitive countrymen blush when they met them in the
picture galleries of Europe.
Most significant among the changes which experience and time have
brought to pass has been the development on the educational and social
side. Always alive to the importance of general education, but
unfortunately so proud of the maintenance of public schools that it
was disposed to sneer at any learning not to be acquired at them, the
American people--that portion of it which foreigners are so apt to
overlook when they attempt to characterize us--is seeking to foster in
a variety of ways the opportunities for higher learning, and wider
intellectual intelligence. Within the last twenty-five years not
merely an array of colleges and other educational institutions have
sprung into existence, but with them an army of disciples whose clubs
and classes and associations for the investigation and study of all
the forms of learning from English literature to Sanscrit have given a
new tone and stimulus to the social side of American life. An
independent, but now generally respectful eagerness to learn has taken
the place of an independent ignorance relying upon its own
infallibility, which was often worn as a chip upon the shoulder. With
it all has been manifest the same originality, independence, and
energy of spirit which has been conspicuous from the first. This still
serves to handicap as well as to promote progress, for it is apt to
beget undue self-confidence and lead our new women and eager youth of
both sexes to ignore the accumulated wisdom of older civilizations,
and claim a special clearness of vision, the only basis for which is
often half-digested superficial knowledge. But educational and
professional life all over the country is being constantly enriched by
more and more competent students and practitioners who stand not
merely for what is best and most earnest in American life, but who
typify the true American spirit. While the omniscient class in the
population has become less assertive and more humble-minded, the class
which was once politically proscribed in some sections of the country
because it was cultivated and because it shrugged its shoulders in
spite of its breeding, has undergone a transformation also. A large
portion of it, always patriotic at heart so far as dying was
concerned, has learned to recognize that it must live in sympathy with
our republican institutions if it would not be regarded as an exotic,
and that aloofness is akin to lack of patriotism. A fringe of vain and
more and more extravagant and self-indulgent society exists in our
large cities, especially in New York, which affects to claim social
superiority to the rest of the population, and is indifferent to
national progress and to the best public interests; but it is
numerically small, and, except in the newspapers, a very unimportant
factor of influence as compared with the already large and growing
body of citizens over the country which is eager to live nobly and
wisely. This right-minded and aspiring class represents the drawing
together and amalgamation of the once seemingly hostile poles of
opinion typified by the conservative, civilized, sedate, social
aristocrats of the nation, and the independent, assertive, ignorant
but truth-seeking sons and daughters of the soil. Each has recognized
the justice of the other's criticisms, and as the outcome of a
mutually amended point of view we have an earnest, intelligent, and
interesting alliance, which insists on both fineness and strength of
fibre as essential to progressive national character. The confines of
this belt of good citizenship shade away into stiff or heartless
conventionalism on the one side, and smart, obtuse, social perceptions
on the other, but it is constantly widening and undergoing the
refining process which results from the increasing intelligence of the
contracting parties. By way of exemplification in matters feminine may
be instanced the more and more frequent requirement by those in
authority in women's colleges that applicants for the position of
teacher should possess those evidences of gentle nurture which the
world is accustomed to associate with the word "lady." Conversely one
may point to the fact that originality, independence, and
suggestiveness are no longer repulsed by the conservative, but
welcomed as a leavening grace necessary to the development of a finer
womanhood.
To the existence of this alliance I would call the attention of the
modern woman with social ambitions--you, in particular, Numbers 4 and
5. For it seems to me that in its perpetuation and extension lies the
best hope of society. It represents, of course, an involuntary
approximation of contrary opinions, and has no definite corporate
existence, like a woman's club, for instance. But the alliance is
real, nevertheless, whether it be deliberate or not. Certainly the
American woman who wishes to lead effectively and aspiringly can no
longer be either of the insipidly fashionable or the smart, assertive,
schoolma'am type. In her composition that eager, star-investigating
spirit, which through all the phases of her brilliant but often
nerve-harrowing evolution has distinguished her, must curb itself to
the yoke of social refinement. On the other hand, the day has passed
when the charms of mere convention, of graceful elegance fortified by
nothing deeper than wit, or suppleness of mind, would rank the
possessor among the leaders of society.
Imitation, therefore, of the witchery worn by the women of the French
salons will, however successful, if it be limited to mere manners and
mental accomplishments--the pyrotechnics of social adroitness--gain
for the modern woman of ambition, be she discerning and honest with
herself, only a sore conscience. First of all, let her be a
lady--elegant, gracious, pure, and tender; but, last of all, let her
be merely that and stop there, looking down with amiable
superciliousness on the world outside the narrow limit hedged by the
conventions of those who play at living, and fancy themselves the real
world. It is becoming more and more easy in this country to be a
fashionable fine lady, without audible reproach, for the class of mere
society people is a growing one. Yet to those who are content thus to
waste their lives, the difficulty of being recognized as anything but
society persons is just as great as ever, for though the ranks of the
alliance may seem to terminate on one side in their direction, there
is a dividing chasm between them broad as is the difference between
careless aristocracy and sympathizing humanity. On one side of this
chasm live those whose vital interest is to be exquisite and to be
entertained; on the other, those whose souls are bent upon the finest
aspirations and hopes of the race. In the heart of this alliance
between conventional culture and humanity the reforms, the
enterprises, and the safeguards projected for the advancement of
modern society are born, and here they find their truest champions.
It is not easy, however, my correspondents, to decide whether there
lies greater danger for the modern woman with social ambitions in the
allurements of mere fashionable society, or in the temptations to be
smart, superficial, and common, which confront her at the point where
the alliance shades toward the camp of democratic individuality. Here
there is a second chasm; yet, like the sunken road into which the
cuirassiers of Napoleon fell at Waterloo, it is not evident at first
glance to those who, fired by the ardor of youth, but socially
unenlightened, tilt at fame and world progress. The evolution of
democracy having in the case of woman been supplemented by the
enfranchisement of her sex, present conditions afford extraordinary
opportunities for the exercise of her new-found liberty. So secure is
her position, so welcome is her announced determination to readjust
and regenerate the world, that humanity is prepared to give her her
head and to applaud every sign of advancement.
But man, though thus encouraging and at heart keenly appreciative, is
watching her closely, and there can be no question that if he has to
choose between the old-time woman of convention--the exquisite,
picturesque doll of society--and a monster who revolts at sex, sneers
at sentiment, and administers the affairs of life on a dull,
utilitarian basis enlivened only by knowing, mundane humor, he will
prefer the doll, or, if she be out of the question, he will fight the
monster. It would be St. George and the dragon again! Long has the
idea which the poet put into words,
_Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence,_
been uttered with a sigh by our wives and mothers; yet with pride,
too, and a secret joy in spite of the melancholy inflection. There
are some women to-day who would throw off the yoke of this adage and
enter the lists of life on the footing of a second-class man, proud
of their swagger, and with the instincts of the wife and mother
sternly repressed. Fortunately, to the woman of the alliance this new
woman of democratic individuality is as abhorrent as she is to men.
But it is not in her extreme type that she is as yet most dangerous,
for admiration comes only by degrees. The danger lies in the failure
to recognize the species in the bustling, chirping, metallic,
superficial class of women which in some numbers, and with the wiry
whirr of grasshoppers, infests the cities and towns of the republic
to-day--women who have no reverence and no sentiment, no desire to
learn for the sake of knowledge, but merely for ostentation--women
who have not progressed as souls, but who have substituted coarseness
for aspiration, and material "cuteness" for unsophisticated purity of
thought and sentiment.
The modern woman with social ambitions must be essentially a modern
woman. That is, she must recognize the justice of and sympathize with
the aspirations of society for a broader humanity, and she must
recognize and be a party to the responsibilities placed upon her own
sex by the process of emancipation. Now, if ever, is the opportunity
for woman to show what she is made of. If she is made simply of sugar
and spice and all that is nice, as we are informed in the nursery
rhyme, we shall have to accept her as she is, and put up with her
delightful volatility and tender but unintellectual limitations. If,
on the other hand, as the world is ready to believe, she is a
star-seeking creature, who has been kept down, she will soon be able
to give manifest signs of her ability to soar; and it is equitable to
remind her that the burden of proof is on her. She cannot afford,
distinctly, to be superficial. She must be thorough both in her
investigations and her intuitions or she will amount to nothing, for
it must be remembered that though man may be slow at intuition, he is
capable in investigation. Every woman of the present day who becomes
either an elegant voluptuary or an egotistical, metallic
flibbertigibbet, furnishes one more piece of evidence for the
edification of those who maintain that the mental constitution of her
sex, save in its capacity for affection, is shallow. That is probably
not the truth, but she should make the demonstration of the calumny
more complete. Woman's authority over matters social is far greater
than it has ever been. Not only as regards the social manifestations
of society, but in the matter of the deeper problems of social living
upon which the progress of society depends, her influence is becoming
more and more a vital factor and force. If she is sincere, society
will become both more earnest and more attractive; if she is simply
seeking liberty at the expense of religion, purity, sentiment, and the
fine things of the spirit, it were almost better she were again a
credulous, beautiful doll, and remained so to the end of time.
Clearly, the modern woman with social ambitions must not neglect to
hold fast to the old and everlasting truths of life in her struggle
toward the stars. Sympathy with and capacity to promote new ideas are
essential to her progress, but only by allegiance to the eternal
feminine, to the behests of love and motherhood and beauty of
imagination, can the development of society on the lines of a broader
and wiser humanity be effectually established.
To _A Young Man_ wishing to be an American. I.
I wrote this once as a definition of Americanism: "It seems to me to
be, first of all, a consciousness of unfettered individuality coupled
with a determination to make the most of self." In short, a compound
of independence and energy. To you, in the earnest temper of mind
which your letter of inquiry suggests, this definition may seem a
generality of not much practical value; declarative of essential
truth, yet only vaguely helpful to the individual. Yet I offer it as a
starting-point of doctrine, for to my thinking the people of the
United States who have impressed themselves most notably on the world
have possessed these two traits, independence and energy, in marked
degree. And to you, whatever your condition in life, if you consider,
it must be apparent that manly self-respect and enterprising force are
essential to character and good citizenship, and that the prominence
accorded to these qualities by those who have analyzed the component
parts of our nationality is a distinction which should be perpetuated
and reinforced by succeeding generations.