attractive. Girls who do not know anything and who never study are
always pretty. It is only the plain girl who is obliged to be clever.
The first time she sees the lover of her dear friend she begins to
laud her to the sky. She herself is looking so pretty, and she shows
off in the most favorable light, while all the time singing her dear
friend's praise with such fatal persistency that she fairly makes him
sick of the sound of her name and of her namby-pamby virtues. Now the
man would hardly be human if he did not tell this artless little
creature that he had had enough of her dear friend, and that he would
much prefer to talk about herself. Pouts of hurt surprise. She
"thought you were such a friend of hers!" She "only wanted to
entertain you by the only subject" she "thought would interest you."
Presto! The entering wedge! She knows it, but the man does not. He has
no idea of being disloyal to his sweetheart, but he is a lost man
nevertheless--lost to the first girl and won by the second. Won in a
perfectly harmless and legitimate way too. Won while doing her duty,
keeping her promise, helping her friend. Her conscience acquits her.
She has only observed and made use of her cleverness to know that too
smooth and easy a course to true love generally gives him to the other
girl.
But in reality she has stolen him--she has committed a real theft.
And, personally, I should prefer to know her had she stolen money. You
can jail a man who steals your watch, but the girl who steals a man's
heart away from his sweetheart walks free, and uncondemned even--to
their shame be it spoken--by those who know what she has done.
Nobody dares condemn her--even the friends of the robbed girl, for
that presupposes some lack in her charm, and gives publicity to her
loss. The wronged girl, because of her pride and conventionality and
civilization, makes no outcry. A barbarian in her place would have
fallen on the robber girl in a fury and scratched her eyes out.
Sometimes I am sorry that our barbaric days are over.
Some of the greatest tragedies in life have come from this disloyalty
among girls in their relations with each other.
I have no patience with those people who fall in love with forbidden
property and give as their excuse, "I couldn't help it." Such culpable
weakness is more dangerous to society than real wickedness.
Love is not a matter of infatuation. It is not the temptation which is
wrong. It is the deliberate following it up, simply because the
temptation is agreeable. Of course, it is agreeable! You are not often
irresistibly tempted to go and have your teeth filled!
Men never will have done with their strictures on girls until girls
achieve two things. One is to observe more honor in their relations
with each other, and the other is to learn to think.
ON THE SUBJECT OF HUSBANDS
"All that I am, my mother made me"
Perhaps you think that girls do not know enough about other girls'
husbands to discuss them with any profit. But if there has been a
dinner or theatre party within our memory where the married girls did
not take the bachelors and leave their husbands for us, we would just
like to know when it was, that's all.
I dare say it never occurred to these wives what an opportunity this
custom gives us to study social problems at close range. We girls are
supposed to be blind and deaf and dumb; but we are none of the three.
We try to see all there is to see, and hear all there is to hear, and
then, when we get together, we wouldn't be human if we didn't talk it
over and tell each other how infinitely better _we_ could manage
Jessie's husband than she does, and that it seems a pity that Carrie
doesn't understand George.
I suppose it would be rather handsome of us always to pretend that we
did not hear the covert rebuke or the open sarcasm bandied about
between these husbands and wives. On the whole, I think it _would_ be
chivalrous for us to be utterly oblivious, and talk about the weather,
if anybody asked us if we knew that Mary never could spend a cent
without having John ask her what she did with it.
That is the way men do when they do not wish to tell on each other. I
think men are fine in that way. We girls all think so, only we seldom
have the moral courage to emulate their admirable example. We are so
fond of "talking things over." And if the married women do not wish us
to talk their husbands over, just let them give us our own rightful
property, the bachelors, and we will never utter another cheep.
However, I would not give up my small experience with other girls'
husbands for a great deal. It has convinced me of something of which I
always have been reasonably sure, and that is that American men make
the best husbands in the world, and that women who cannot get along
with Americans, and who think men of another race, who have more
polish, more finesse, more veneer, would suit them better, could not
manage to live happily with the Angel Gabriel.
Dear me! If these dissatisfied American wives could only realize that
an all-wise Providence had, in the American man, given us the best
article in the market, and that when we rebel at our lot we are simply
proving that we do not deserve our good fortune, they would never even
discuss the subject of having men of any other nationality.
Of course, in every nation there is a class of men who are as noble,
as high-minded, as chivalrous as even the most captious American girl
could wish. But I refer to the general run of men when I say that
there is something about men born outside of America, a native
selfishness or callousness, a lack of perception and appreciation of
the fineness of womanhood, amounting to a sort of mental brutality,
which wellnigh unfits them for close social contact with the
super-sensitive American woman. And just as surely as American women
persist in disregarding this subtle yet unmistakable truth, just so
surely will they lay themselves open to these soul-bruises from
foreign husbands which American men, as a race, are incapable of
inflicting. I say they are incapable of inflicting them, because
American men, in the face of everything said and written to the
contrary, are, in regard to women, the finest-grained race of men in
the world.
Now in this generalizing, I beg that you will not accuse me of
asserting that these strictures are true of every man who is not an
American, or that all American men are perfect. But I do wish to state
clearly and frankly my admiration for American men as a race. When an
American man _is_ a gentleman, he is to my mind the most perfect
gentleman that any race can produce, because _his_ good manners spring
from his heart, and there are a few of us old-fashioned enough to
plead that politeness should go deeper than the skin.
Now if the assertion is made that the American man makes the best
husband in the world, let him not think that there is no room for
improvement, for with him it is much the same as it is with the wild
strawberry. At first blush one would say that there could be no more
delicious flavor than that of the wild strawberry. Yet everybody knows
what the skilled gardeners have made of it in the form of the
cultivated fruit. Nevertheless, the crude article, found growing wild
upon its native heath, is much to be preferred to the candied ginger
of other nations.
After admitting that the wild strawberry is capable of cultivation,
and even attaining, under skilful care, the highest type of
perfection, let no one make the mistake of thinking that the time for
such improvement is after they have been grown and placed upon the
market. If they are found to be knotty, half green, or in a state of
decadence, and you are bound to buy strawberries, you can take them,
and, by your native woman's wit, you can dress them into a state of
palatableness, even if you have to reduce them to a pulp in the sacred
mysteries of a short-cake.
But in order to take all the comfort which strawberries are capable of
giving to mankind, they should be perfect in themselves when they come
from the hand of the gardener--just as it was his mother's duty to
have trained that husband of yours before he came under your
influence.
It really is asking too much of a woman to expect her to bring up a
husband and her children too. She vainly imagines, when she marries
this piece of perfection, with whom she is so blindly in love, that he
is already trained, or, rather, that he is the one human being in the
world who has been perfect from infancy, and who never needed
training. She never dreams of the curious fact that mothers always
train their daughters to make good wives, yet rarely ever think of
training their boys to make good husbands.
Therefore, unless, like Topsy, they have "just growed" good and kind
and considerate, a woman has a life-work before her in training her
own husband.
But the fact of the matter is that while we girls receive specific
training, to the express end of making good wives, the boys of the
family receive only general training of chivalry and courtesy towards
all women--not with a view of having to spend the greater part of
their lives with one woman, or the tact with which this one woman must
be treated.
I wonder what would happen if somebody should open a Select
Kindergarten for Embryo Husbands? Yet we girls have been in a similar
institution for embryo wives since childhood. We are told in our early
teens: "Well, only your mother would bear that. No husband would;" or,
"You will have to be more gentle and unselfish with your brother, if
you want to make some man a good wife."
A good wife! It has a magic sound!
Of course, every girl expects to marry, and the shadowy idea of making
a _good_ wife to this mysterious but delightfully interesting
personage, who is growing up somewhere in the world, and waiting for
her, even as she is waiting for him, makes the hard task of
self-discipline easier, for we all wish to make "a _good_ wife."
Nor are we taught alone to be gentle and sweet and faithful. We girls
have to learn that all-potent factor in a happy life--tact. We are
early taught that it is not enough to master the fundamental
principles which govern the genus man. We have to discover that each
man must be treated differently. We must cater to individual tastes.
We must learn individual needs, and fill them. In short, we are taught
to observe men, to study them, and then to hold ourselves accordingly.
Pray do not imagine that all this is put into words, or that we have
certain hours for studying how to make good wives, or that it is as
rigid or exhausting as a broom drill. It is the intangible, esoteric
philosophy which permeates the households of thousands of American
families, where the mothers are the companions and confidantes of the
daughters. It is an understood thing. You would be surprised to know
how young some girls are when they have thoroughly mastered this
wonderful tact with men. And what is it that makes the American girl
so dangerous for all the other women in the world to compete with? It
is because she studies her man. And how did she learn it? By seeing
her mother manage her father--or, perhaps, by seeing how easily her
father could be managed, if her mother only understood him better.
There is a good deal of progressive thought among girls in this
generation.
Why in the world mothers train their girls and boys alike up to a
certain point in general courtesy and consideration for each other,
and then go on with the girls, teaching them the gentle, faithful
finesse which every wife has to understand, yet leaves her boy to
"gang his ain gait" just at the formative period of his life, I am not
able to say.
If I could only hear some mother say to her son, "Don't let your
slate-pencil squeak so! Try not to make distracting noises. You may
have a nervous wife, and you might just as well learn to be quiet.
There is no sense in thinking just because you are a boy that you can
make unnecessary and superfluous noises!" I think I should die of joy!
Or how would it sound to hear her say, "Whenever you come in and find
your sister irritable, don't simply take yourself out of her way. Look
around and do something kind for her. Make a point of knowing what she
likes and of doing it. Life is so much more monotonous for women than
for men, you should be especially generous with your sister, so that
some day you will make some sweet girl a good husband."
Can't you just _see_ what kind of a husband that boy would make?
Romance comes later to a boy than to a girl, but it hits him just as
hard when it does come, and a boy is quite as responsive as a girl to
the suggestion of a personal chivalry which shall prepare him to be a
better husband to a shadowy personality which he cannot do better than
to keep in his mind and heart.
Why does a woman, who finds it difficult, perhaps even impossible, to
persuade her husband to do certain essential things, never take pity
on the poor little girl across the street, who, in ten or fifteen
years, is going to marry her son?
Take, at random, the subject of a wife's having an allowance.
Thousands of wives have it, and therefore they are not the ones we are
to consider. But where there are thousands who possess an allowance
from their husbands, or who have money in their own right, there are
millions who never have a cent they are not obliged to ask their
husbands for.
There is no question of gift about it. At the altar he endowed her
with all his worldly goods, and he thinks he has lived up to the
letter of his vow when he tells her that all he has is as much hers as
his. But unless that oft-quoted saying is followed up by a certain
sum, no matter how small, which is in truth her very own, she feels
that that clause in the marriage service might as well be stricken
out.
When wives as universally share in adding to the general prosperity of
the home--by managing the house, keeping their husband's clothes in
order, and caring for the children--as men always admit is the case,
wives are actually adding dollars to their husband's income. Then
ought not a man to divide that same income with her in the form of an
allowance, for which, if only to add to her self-respect, he has no
more right to call her to account than she has to insist on seeing a
list of his expenditures?
I have nothing to say about extravagant or untrustworthy wives, who do
not come into the subject at all. I am only referring to the
magnificent multitude of good, careful, thrifty, typical American
wives, whose sole aim in life is to make a happy home for husband and
children. Nor am I denying that these women have all their wishes
granted, and are allowed to spend their husbands' money with
reasonable freedom, provided they account for it afterwards. I am only
asserting that every married woman, from the farmer's wife to that of
the bank president, should have some money regularly which is sacredly
her own.
Perhaps men think I am exaggerating the evil. Perhaps they do not know
that the only advice married women give to engaged girls which _never_
varies is: "Be sure you ask for an allowance from the first, because,
if you don't, you may never get it."
I suppose that the majority of men do not know that their wives hate
to ask them for money. Of course it does not seem so terrible to those
of us whose fathers occasionally want to keep back enough money to buy
coal when our daughterly demands get refused. But it never occurs to
us that a girl's lover-husband, this courteous stranger whom she has
loved and married, would ever forget his theatre and American-Beauty
days sufficiently to say: "What did you do with that dollar I gave you
yesterday?"
Now, frankly speaking, it never occurs to unmarried girls that the
honeymoon can ever wear off. We look upon husbands as only married
sweethearts. We sort of halfway believe them--at least we used to,
before we observed other girls' husbands--when they tell us that they
long for the time when they can pay our bills and buy clothes for us.
We never thought, until we were told, that any little generous
arrangement, which we expected to last, must be fixed during the first
few weeks of marriage. I dare say most of us had planned to say, in
answer to the money question, "Just as you like, dear. I'd rather have
you manage such matters for me. You know so much more about them than
I do." It is a horrible shock, from a sentimental point of view, to be
told to say, "I'll take an allowance, please," and then, if two
amounts are mentioned, to grab for the biggest. Oh, it is a shame! It
is a shame to be told that we shall be sorry if we don't, and to know
that we shall have no opportunity to show how unselfish and trusting
we are.
It is all your fault, you men, that you do not think of these things
more. You might stop a moment to consider that it _is_ rather a
delicate matter for a woman to ask money of a man. If your wife is
like most wives, she is doing as much to help you make your money as
you are. She is keeping you well and happy and your home beautiful.
You could not keep your mind on business an hour if she did not.
Therefore she deserves every dollar which, after discussing your
future life together, you feel that you can afford to give her. She
ought to be made to feel that she has earned it, and that she may
spend it freely and happily, or invest it, just as she chooses. Do you
think that you would not get the whole of it back if you were ill and
needed it? It is an ungracious thing to call her to account for every
dollar. How do you know but that she wants to save a little out of the
market-money to buy you a nicer birthday present than usual?
American men are the most lavish husbands in the world. It is only
that they do not think what a joy it is to a woman to have even the
smallest amount of money of her very own, concerning which no one on
earth has a right to question her.
And yet, what is the use of trying to train a husband into a habit of
thought like this, when he has been used to hearing his mother _argue_
his father into giving her money, and yet to know that she and all the
world considered him generous, and that, in truth, he was?
A woman who suffers heartache because her husband never apologizes to
her, or who endures mortification unspeakable because she has not a
penny of her own, has no right to rebel, even in her own heart, unless
she is training her son to make the sort of husband for some little
girl, now in pinafores, which she would have wished for herself.
A FEW MEN WHO BORE US
THE SELF-MADE MAN
Somebody has cleverly defined a bore as "a man who talks so much about
himself that I never can get a chance to talk about myself." But that
is too narrow. I am broad-minded. I want somebody to find a definition
large enough (if possible) to include all the bores. I do not know,
however, but that I am asking too much.
Neither is this definition entirely true. For I have heard men talk
about themselves for hours at a time, and they talked so well and kept
their Ego so carefully hidden that I was enchanted, and never
mentioned myself, even when they paused for breath. Then, too, I have
been bored to the verge of suicide by some worthy soul who insisted
upon talking to me of (presumably) my pet subject--myself--and who was
doing his poor little best to say nice things and to be entertaining.
A bore is a man or a woman who never knows How or When. There are
times in the lives of all of us when it bores us to be talked to of
home or friends or wife or husband or mother or religion. There are
times when nothing but a large, comfortable silence can soothe the
worry and fret of a trying day. At such times let the tactless woman
and the thoughtless man beware, because everything they say will be a
bore.
It is not wilful cruelty which makes us say that (to a woman) the word
"bore" is in the masculine gender and objective case, object of our
deepest detestation. Men are oftener bores than women, for two
reasons: One is that they seldom stop to think that they could be a
bore to anybody; and the second is that we women never let them see
that we are being bored, for it is our aim in life to look pleasant
and to keep the men's vanity done up in pink cotton, no matter if we
are secretly almost dropping from our chairs with weariness--the
utter, unspeakable weariness of the soul, compared to which weariness
of the body is a luxury.
Women are too tender-hearted. A woman cannot bear to hurt a man's
feelings by letting him know that he is killing her by his stupidity.
And even if she did, in the noble spirit of altruism, rather than
selfishness, the next woman, with one reproachful glance at her, would
pick up the mutilated remains of the man's vanity and apply the
splints of her respectful attention and the balm of her admiration,
partly to add a new scalp to her belt, and partly to show off the
unamiability of her sister woman.
So it is of no use to kick against the pricks. Bores are in this world
for a purpose--to chasten the proud spirit of women, who otherwise
might become too indolent and ease-loving to be of any use--and they
are here to stay. We have no conscience concerning women bores. We
escape from them ruthlessly. And, perhaps, because women are quicker
to take a hint is the reason there are fewer of them. It is only the
men who are left helpless in their ignorance, because no woman has the
courage to tell them.
Our only defence is in telling the men in bulk what we have not the
courage nor the wish to tell the individual, and letting them sit down
and think hard, applying the relentless microscope of self-analysis to
their carefully tended Ego, to see if, haply, any of these things we
say apply to themselves.
Of course, this is hard on men, because very likely some of those who
have been led by women to believe that they are entertaining, even to
the verge of fascination, are the very ones who are the greatest
bores. But we women do our best. We are hampered by our supposed
amiability, and bound up by a thousand invisible cords of tact and
policy to a line of action which dupes the cleverest of men. And we
are shrewd enough to know that if we should become what they now, in
the smart of their wounded vanity, would call honest, they would
simply turn their broadcloth backs upon our uncalled-for frankness and
seek the honeyed society of some sweet woman who flattered them
exactly as we used to flatter them before we became so "honest."
Ah, well-a-day! Enter the self-made man. And with him the commercial
spirit of the age. Enter the clink of coin and the unctuous corpulence
of a roll of bills. Enter the essence of self-satisfaction, the
glorious spectacle of a man who spells "myself" with a capital M.
Have you never noticed the change in conversation with the entrance of
a new person? How, when a lovely girl enters, the men all straighten
their ties and the women moisten their lips? How, when the new person
is a self-made man, with his newness so apparent that he seems to
exhale the odor of varnish and gilt--how all repose vanishes, and
whatever of crudity there is anywhere suddenly makes itself known, and
rushes forth to meet the wave of self-boasting which sweeps all before
it when the self-made man speaks?
And yet I approve of the self-made man in the abstract. It is the true
spirit of Americanism which caused him to raise himself from the ranks
of the poor and obscure, and educate himself, or, more likely still,
grow rich without education. But is it necessary for him to have the
bad taste to boast of it, and never let you forget for one moment that
he is the product of man's hand and that the Creator only acted in the
capacity of sponsor?
I admire the pluck, the perseverance, the indomitable energy, the
ambition which produced the man of prominence from the raw boy; but,
kind Heaven, let us forget for one brief moment, if we can, that he
did this thing.
It is not the fact that he is a self-made man that bores us--we honor
him for that. But it is his vain boasting--the tactless forcing of his
unwelcome personality into general conversation, his weak vanity,
which demands our admiration for the toil and hardships he has
undergone, which, if they had served the purpose they should have
done, would have made him too strong a man, and too much of a man, to
force either pity or admiration from people when it was not freely
offered.
The favorite gibe of the self-made man is directed against the college
graduate. Let there be a young fellow present who is fresh from
college, and let him mention any subject connected with college life,
from honors to athletics, and then, if you are hostess, sit still and
let the icy waves of misery creep over your sensitive soul, for this
is the opportunity of his life to the self-made man. Hear him tear
colleges limb from limb, and cite all the failures of which he ever
has known to be those of college men. Hear him tell of the futile
efforts of college boys to get into business. Hear him drag in all the
evidences of shattered constitutions, ruined by study, and then hold
your breath; for all this is but preliminary to the telling of the
story of a colossal success--the history of the self-made man. You
might as well lean back and let him have his say, for he has only been
waiting all this time for an opening in the conversation to insert the
wedge of his Ego.