91
IN DEFENSE OF HER OWN SEX
Mrs. Peattie Writes a Reply to the Communication of A. M. M.
She Maintains That Women Are Not Light Minded, but Are Frequently the Family Strength.
Some Sharp Arrows Which Are Shot Without Rancor in This Joust Over the "New Woman."
A. M. M. has a bitter and somewhat excited article in the Public Pulse columns of a recent issue of this journal concerning women's rights-as she is fair enough to term them. One does not, of course know what should have caused A. M. M. to write so earnestly upon a question which at the present time appears to be abeyance. Very likely it was some private discussion which stirred her and impelled her to give voice in public to the personal indignation which she felt. At any rate as her ideas represent those of a large class of women and as they are set forth with the most evident sincerity, they are entitled to the consideration of women who are willing to bear with some pride the epithets heaped upon them by those of shallow wit--epithels which were intended to be opprobrious. As "Yankee" was a term of contempt, yet came to be born with honest pride by those whom it was applied, so "the new woman," which was meant for a slur, has come to be a shibboleth, and the women who work in science, in art, in the professions, in the trades, in the home, the church and the school have come to accept with dignity that application and to fraternize under it.
The arguments which A. M. M. advances against the political enfranchisement of women are very old. Though really that is nothing against them. Almost all good things ate old, as well as most bad things. Nothing is older than injustice. F w things are older than sophistry. And without injustice we should not have had the heroic triumphs of justice. Without sophistry we could not have had the background over against which in place the fair figure of truth. One does not mind that what A. M. M. says is very old and lacking in originality. One could hardly expect, indeed, that a member of the"light minded foolish and frivolous" sex should be anything but a plagiarist. How could a creature so abject create anything-save children like any other mammal? It is A.M.M. who after talking about all for which the Creator intended us, says that we are "light minded, frivolous and foolish." Perhaps she knows. But indeed, could she look in the hearts that however foolish we may be, however frivolous we might have been long ago, we are not light minded! Perhaps if we could be for a while the world might not seem so old. Perhaps if we could let the burdens drop, and the duties fall, and the awful of what we owe to out children and in others who live us be forgotten for a while life would seem very day and wonderful to some of us. No, really believe me A. M. M., we are not light minded. We cannot conduct homes with all the fine economies necessary, we cannot [trust?] our children with all the hopes and prayers and fear attendant upon that sacred task, we cannot mix in a world so filled with injustice and sorrow and be light minded. Perhaps you are, dear A. M. M. But there are many, many of us who are not, and who never can be again, though we may have been so once when we were little girls and ran over the meadows of our youth, where the butterflies were. But that was such a very long time ago!
We cannot even retain out "light mindedness, A. M. M., and contemplate the awful errors made by "our wisest men," of whom you speak with such abject reverence that it reminds me of the "Japanese grovel" with which good Mr. Gilbert had the subjects of the mikado approach his most illuminated majesty. You are indeed under the thrall of sex. I congratulate you upon your masculine acquaintance. I have known many fairly good men and two remarkably good ones: I have enjoyed the acquaintance of hundreds of interesting men, and thousands of comparatively inoffensive ones. But the wisdom of which I speak I have not seen, neither in the men whom I have been permitted to shake the hands at public levees-such as Mr. Cleveland, for instance. I have often perceived that men became famous by a mere trick of fate, over which they had no control. I have seen men as heroic as the most successful fall because of another trick of fate. And as for wisdom-merciful heavens: is not this country bewildered by the errors of men? Is not this state in abject trepidation- are not men regarding one another with pitiable eyes, conscious past words of their own fallibility and of the wreck in which they have precipitated themselves? Have you not seen many and many a time, families dragged to ruin by the mistaken judgment of good men, and the selfish vices of bad ones? Have you not observed pretenders everywhere? Have you not learned it is often greed which triumphs coarseness which succeeds, tyranny which wins respect, and does not the whole world bow before a shining yellow metal, which will make the possessor of snowwhite swan in the eyes of those who erstwhile, before they came into possession of that metal, though him or her a goose? The "wisdom" of men! Truely they are as wise as women-but what a little thing is that. And do not women know how weak these men are-how the beat of them must be cared for, petted, cajoled, encouraged! The world is a very cruel place, and there never was a man yet who did not now and then falter before the strife of it, and shrink from it, hurt and afraid. It is easy to believe that Josephine may have seen Napoleon weep; quite easy to think that Martha may have kissed courage into the lops of Washington-lips which men thought so implacable.
You think, do you madam, that a wrangle over "rights" is unseemly? Why, then, so was the American revolution unseemly; so was the wrangle which secured the manumission of slaves, so has been every struggle of liberty! Unseemly! All vial things are unseemly. Do you think that superstitions-such for instance, as the unquestioning respect for all things masculine which you entertain--are to be crushed with a cambric needle? Seemly? Is it seemly for the man in the factory to cry out with oaths, that for the pittance for which he works he has sold his life, his vote, his freedom of thought? Is it seemly for Debs to shout out his words of protest against a new tyranny? Is it seemly for women to starve on even less than men, because, forsooth, they have not a vote with which to argue! Seemly, madam. There is nothing seemly-unless it be a 5 o'clock tea or a bread mixing. The women who argued and bore calumny for the liberties which you now enjoy, who secred for women the right to the education of which you have probably availed yourself, were not "seemly." They were merely heroic. Probably you would therefore not have associated with them. The standard of seemliness which some women entertain is that of profound nullity. To be perfectly respectable one must needs have done nothing at all. A sawdust doll, dear madam is always seemly.
A. M. M. appears to think that all women are loved and protected, and she wants to know, why they cannot be content with such felicity. She has again show herself to be fortunate in her acquaintances. I have myself had the misfortune to know many women who were never offered the love or protection of any man; I have known many who, having being offered such love and protection, could not accept it because their own hearts would not respond; I have known many how were widowed, and many others who appeared to be born without the wifely or maternal instinct, just as some men are incapable of happy domesticity. Then, too, I have seen women who could not narrow themselves to domesticity. However much they might envy those women who could be happy bu a fireside, they themselves could not, but were impelled by some great power to immolate themselves for humanity. Some of these have been in convents, some have been in hospitals, some in pulpits, and some in teachers' chairs. They felt a "call" to their wide vocation, as I suppose Whitfield felt a call to his, and John Brown a call in his. There are isolated and remarkable beings who are thus implied to the unusual, and since they are disinterested, and even suffer martyrdom for their convinctions, one cannot afford to disbelieve in the "call" though one may be commonplace one's self, and never have responded to any sort of a call unless it be the dinner bell.
Indeed, A. M. M., I would have been entirely indifferent to all you had to say with those weary old arguments, about the objections to women's rights, if it had not been that you called us light minded, frivolous and foolish. Was your mother so? Some of us have memories of silent patience, of loving forbearance, of courage in poverty, of heroism in suffering, and charity to all, of self subduing of endless sacrifices which makes us wonder and bow the head. Some of us have friends now, young women, who bear shameful burdens imposed upon them but these wise men whom you so admire, and who bear these burdens with a noble dignity, their lips sealed against complaint, their heads held high in loyalty, though their spirits cower in secret shame! With such memories of those who are gone, or past their work, with such knowledge of living friends, one cannot but protest against the accusation of "light mindedness, frivolity and foolishness." Even Mr. Pope would not have said anything so mean as that, and Walter Scott, you remember very well, though admitting that we might be somewhat uncertain and hard to please in our idle moments, was eager to pay tribute to our fidelity and courage when the occasion arose, for the exercise of those virtues. Myself, I think if homes are sustained and generations raised by creatures of so little account, it were well if humanity were at an end and "the fever called living" well over for the whole of us.
You talk about the modesty of women. My dear madame, that modesty was not protected in this or any other country till women arose and protested that they would have laws protecting women. Modestly It has been the modesty of women that has kept them from protesting with sufficient effect against the laxity of laws in certain directions and that permits a man like George Morgan to commit his brief confinement and come out to crush another innocent victim. It would well befit the modesty of any of us to work to secure in the legislature a penalty for such wretches commensurate with the trime they commit, insteady of having them confined for the same length of time they would be if they had stolen a man's fattened pig or burned his barn. Believe me, modesty is one of those things which vary in the mind of each person. There are women who have never thought it immodest to have an interest in civic affairs or to labor for the betterment of their community, I remember very well listening to a white-headed gentleman not long ago who declared with a great deal of bluster that "women never had any public spirit. They had only prejudices." A few minutes later when one was speaking of a lady in this town who certainly has a public spirit--the lady who was the second president of the Woman's club and is now the president of Woman's Christian association--he said;: "Woman were very much better attending to their own affairs. He believed in card clubs, but he didn't see why ladies should meet except to play whist or drink tea." The inconsistency of this old gentleman, which one did not mind, because he seemed to be so very ignorant of what was going on in the world, is very common among persons of this class. They complain of the women for not knowing anything and much more bitterly complain of them if they endeavor to learn. It is only when women appear to take a similar stand that one feels discouraged. It was the foes who ate at mess with him that filled the soul of Washington with the great grief that that whitened his hair. None of us are Washingtons, and we are not going to grow white-headed over your disinclination to agree with. There are many hundred thousand women in the world who will go about their tasks with as much patience and courage as if you had not thought them light-hearted, and who will perhaps make a home, keep it well and do a deal outside of home too. They will give you cards and spades and beat you then, dear madam. I hope you play cards? They are good, things to play when one has very stupid company with whom one cannot sustain a conversation.
Please let me speak of one thing more. You speak of hirelings. Hirelings is a good word to use in England, or Russia, but in America it doesn't sound well. We are all hirelings here, except a few of us, who make our bread by the sweat of some one's else brow. No doubt your husband is a hireling I hope so. He probably is if he is honest. We all serve in one way or another. Nor does the wage make us conscienceless. The hirelings who hold our little children, or who help in any other way with the domestic labors, may have hearts as tender as our own. Who has not seen their tears dropping at the illness of the little ones they have cared for, or noticed their sympathy with any other affliction of the family? There are houses where the "hirelings" are the best part of the household--the most healthy, industrious, virtuous and best looking. "Hirelings" is not a word for this nation of shop keepers and road workers and writers and scrubwomen.
It does seem as if they were two or three other things I wanted to say to you, but I have forgotten them.
Oh, yes, I remember you repeated parrot-like that old objection that many respectable women would not. want to vote and that the disreputable would. I don't how you know. But what if they did? What has that to do with the abstract justice of the thing? When we freed the negroes--I say we, though no doubt you and I were born long after our fathers had got through with all inconvenience of the glorious action--were we worrying about the attitude of the negro toward enfranchisement? Or about the morals of the negro? Not at all. It is a question of justice, of "right" as you were kind enough to say yourself, though I think you said it inadvertently.
You say women are clinging by nature. I have sometimes amused myself when I have been our at some pleasant social affair in reflecting upon the histories of the women around me, and I have often noticed that a large proportion of the company present was composed of women who had held up, in one way or another, some weak or worthless man. Some of them had cared for their families after being deserted. Some had great terrible histories of betrayal, and suicide and shame and -ah! it is all too dismal to think of! many of them were simply energetic and sensible women who had kept the household together in spite of prodigality, bad judgment and a large array of small vices on the part of "the head of the family." some had brought to the family name all the credit that ever attached to it. Do not think I belittle the men, I think them no worse than ourselves. But indeed, dear A. M. M. I can think them no better.
I think you said some dreadful fate might be in store for you. If nothing worse befalls you for your utterances than this casual protest of mine, your apprehensions will not be realized. I would not have had said a word--for your arguments were not worth bothering with--if you had not called us light minded, frivolous and foolish. Come and see me some time, and we will shake hands over this disagreement while I give you a list of several hundred women who are nothing of the sort. I would let the list reach into the thousands, the millions, if I only knew the names. It is not the women who are lacking to disprove your statement, but my acquaintance with them.
No rancor. A. M. M. One likes a joust-and you began! Elia W. Peattie
Chats of Books and Bookmen.
In view of the early coming of a short season of grand opera in Omaha the "Stories of the Wagner Operas," by H. A. Guerber, will prove of more than usual interest to lovers of books and music. The handsome little volume, containing short sketches, which may be read in a few moments' time, affordes the reader a very clear outline of the great dramatist-composer's work, and is arranged in a manner at once interesting and instructive. There is not a dull line in the book, and it is really one which should be in the hands of every reading and thinking person who desires to familiarize himself with the stories upon which the operas of Richard Wagner are founded. For those who have a knowledge of the great master's work this little tome will prove helpful as a refresher of the memory, while to those who are yet unacquainted with his creations it will be immensely serviceable, giving a clear, concise description of his writings and perhaps be an incentive to further reading on the subject. The volume comprehends eleven operas, is handsomely illustrated and neatly bound. Dodd, Mead & Co. (New York) are the publishers, and the book is on sale at the store of the Megeath Stationery company in this city.
Perhaps no book of the year has caused more comment or been give a wider publicity in both the literary publications and the daily newspapers than those rather resentful reminiscences of Senator John Sherman, which have been read with intense interest and have made everybody mad. This two volume autobiography from the pen of the senior senator from Ohio covers his recollections of forty years in the house, senate and cabinet, and fairly bristles with interest. The work is published by the Werner company of Chicago, and is having an immense sale. A casual notice of this contribution to historical literature would be farcical and will not be attempted here, but I am glad to be able to state to the readers of the World-Herald that it will be reviewed for this paper by a gentleman of national reputation, a student and active participant in national politics, who will consider the work at length and present his views on the subject in the columns of this paper in the near future.
Boys, old and young, will be interested to know that one of those famous tales of Captain Mariyat, "Mr. Midship-
92
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
Elia W. Peattie Writes of This Famous Woman and Author.
How the Quiet New England Wife and Mother Write "Uncle Ton's Cabin."
Some of the Characteristics of the Enthusiasitc Friend of the Slave Whose Book Stirred the World.
"There is a ladder to heaven," once write Harriet Beecher Stoww, "whose base God has placed in human affections, tender instincts, symbolic feelings, sacraments of love, through which the soul rises highe and higher, refining as she goes, till she outgrows the human and changes, as she rises, into the image of the divine. At the very top of this ladder, at the threshold of parndisc, balzes dazzling and crystaline that celestial grade where the sould knows self no more, having learned, through a long experience of devotion, how blest it is lose herself in the eternal Love and Beauty, of which all earthly fairness and gradure are but the dim type, the distant shadow."
Mrs. Stowe, by the exercise of the affections and instincts, by the use of the sacraments and symbols, has attained to the Love and Beauty of which she wrote, and has found agian, let us hope, the old sweet sanity of mind, the old serene peace of spirit.
She lived till she was 85, and from early youth to old age she was busied with many things. She was not a genius exactly. At least it is safe to infer that she would not have lived to be so spoken of in "Queer Little People," she made Mrs. Nutcracker says:
"Depend upon it my dear, that fellow must be a genius."
"Fiddlesticks on his genius," said old Mr. Nutcracker, "what does he do?"
"Oh nothing, of course; that's one of the first makrs of genius. Geniuses, you know never come to common life."
By this definition, Mrs. Stowe could never have neen a genius, for she come down to common life uncommonly well. When she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" she was-so the story goes-doing all of her own house work and caring for seven children. The passion of patriotism burned white in her breast and made her forget fatigue, so that when the little ones were all in bed, the brend set to rise, the clock wound, and the kindling placed for the morning fire, she wrote the words which stirred the nation.
"If Uncle Tom's Cabin had not been written," Charles Sumner said,, "Abraham Lincoln could not have been elected president of the United States."
This many have been the exuberant enthusiasm of a friend and orator, but certainly, the the writing of the book placed her in the company of liberators. Her name is written first in the list made ip of William Lloyd Garrison, John Greeleaf Whitler, Wendell Phillips, Freerick Dougals Gamallel Bailey, Theodore Weld, James Birney, John Brown and those who helped them.
It is very wonderful and beautiful that the idea of the book should have come to Mrs. Stowe when she laid in bed after having given birth to her seventh child. To have brought forth a dear child and a vast idea for freedom at once must surley have been a happiness past words. Of course the preparation for the work had been long. It was an unconscious preparation, but that was all the better, and helps to account for the spontaneity which throbs in every page of the book.
Kirk Munroe says, concerning this preparation: "At the time of her marriage Mrs. Stowe was not an acknowledged abolitionist, nor had she given serious consideration to the subject of slavery. In Cincinnati, however, it was froced upon her at all times and in all forms.
The city was one of the most important stations of the underground railway, and slaves were constantly escaping or being recaptured within its limits. The Ohio river alone separated it from the slave state of Kentucky; and Lane seminary, with which the frotunes of the Beecher family were so closely allied, was the rankest hotbed of abolition in the country. One by one the incidents that afterwards appeared with sich telling effect in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" were forced upon the attention of the young authoress. Topsy was an inmate of her own family. She cisited the Shelbys in Kentucky; Senator Bird and the great hearted Can Tromp were well-known characters of her acquaintance. Her husband and her brother, Henry Ward, drving by night over almost impassable roads, conveyed a fugitive slave girl,who had been a servant in the Stowe family, to a place of safety from her oursuers. Mrs. Stowe's brother Charles acted fro some months as collecting agent for a New Orleans commission house, and on one of his trips up the Red river, discovered the Legree plantation, of whuch he drew a faithful picture in his next home letter. In another letter he told of the slave mother who sought the liberty of death for her babe by springing into the river, with it clasped to her bosom, form the deck of a steamer on which he was traveling. All these and many more similar things Mrs. Stowe saw or heard of until she gradually became filled with a sense of outrage and indignation."
De. Famallel Bailey, editor of the National Era of Washington, wrote the Mrs. Stowe, the last part of the year 1850, asking for a serial story. Mrs. Stowe, anxious to supply an order which she expected would bring her some much needed money, beagan "Uncle Tom's Cabin," while she was recovering from her illness attendant upon the birth of her child, and during the months which followed, she completed it. In may, 1851, the serial began in the National Era. Before it was ended the circulation of that paper had increased 15,000. It was an inspired story. It was as if it emarated from the passion and misery of a whole nation. "I had no control over it." Mrs. Stowe used to say. "It insisted uponbeing written as it stands, and would suffer no abridgement."
After it was finished, John P. Jewett, a young Boston publisher, made overauters for the publication of the story in book form. Mrs. Stowe had received but $300 for the story as a serial, and was glad to suffer its republication. An edition of 1,000 was issued-and sold the first day. Ten thousand copies were then ordered from the printer and binder, and were sold as fast as they appeared at the book shops. The American people seized upon this book, which they read with terrible emotion. The story was as the core of the national hear. From it throbbed the arteries of politics, patriotism, prejudice, love, heroism and hate. Mrs. Stowe, at the end of six months was given $10,000 in royalties. At the end of the year 300,00 copies of the books had been sold. The story was dramatized, and was everywhere listened to with feelings which it would, in the calm times, be hard to understand. Since then the book has been put in twenty languages. It has reched a sale, approximately, of 5,000,000. Only three other books in the history of the world have exceeded it in sale.
Praise come from the distinguished men and women of all countries. Denunication came, too, and bitter at tacksipon the character of Mrs. Stowe-that quiet woman, who had grown ip a rompting country girl, married a professor of theolgical history, and tended her home while she have birth to and peronally cared for seven children.
The hour, the cause and the soman were too great fro her stoop to a defesnse of herself, but she did write a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," in such she produced the evidence which sustained her story, it was irrefutable. The cavilers were silenced. And in the legislative chambers, and in the hearts of the people, gathered hour by hour the storm which finally burst over this country, and flooded it for a time with blood and tears.
Mrs. Stowe wrote much else. Her "Dred Scott" and, like that books, servered to preserve to a forgetful people a grent historical conditionand a vital epoch.
In "The Minister's Wooing," "Pink and White Tyranny." "The Peral of Orr's Island," "Agnes of Sorrento," "oldtown Folks." "Foorsteps of the Master," "My Wife and I," "We and Our Neighbors" and "Self-Made Men" there appears nothing that could be termed henius. There is not even remarkable art. The books come within the realm of literature. They are noble humorous, pure, intellectual. They make excellent reading. But they are not great and while they would have placed Mrs. Stoww among the best eriters of her period in this country, they would not have own her the applause and affection of the world, nor the right to be called the greatest woman of her time. Far from it.
The truth is, as now and then a man is born out of the people, with no reason for whith mortals may account by stress of the cumulative power of the nation, sings the songs or fights the victorious battles of people so "Uncle Tom's Cabing" took shape-a great materpiece, painted high, where all the nations might read, upon the impregnable wall of liverty and the hand that drew the picture was guided by God, and moved as under God's holy spell.
Only to the pure in heart may such revelations come. As to Mary of Nagareth was born a Liberator, so to Mrs. Stowe was born this book, also a liberator, and she, also, was blessed among women.
Mrs. Stowe's life was one crowned with honor and praise. The house in which she lived at Hartford was decorated to repletion with the costly and curious soivenirs sent her from every part of the world by those who read her message and wished to show their love. When she traveled abroad her progress was one continued ovation. There were no kings but wished to honor her; no peasant but might shake her kind hand unabashed.
In the winter, for many years, she spent her time in her home at Mandarin, on the St. John's river, where it is broadest and where its length of placed waters looks most beautiful. The house was built in the very heart of some great oaks. In fact, it was built of them and about them. The grounds were luxurious with semi-tropical follage. The place rioted with beauty. But, after all, Mrs. Stowe loved her decorous New England home and garden best. On one side of her at Hartforf lived Mark Twain, on the other Charles Dudley Warner, and during the last few years, since her brain has been childish and weary, Mrs. Stowe has wandered about these grounds at will with her attendant, soothing herself with the quiet and orderly beauty about her.
Nearly all our great emancipators of the stormy '50s and '60s are now dead. The giants have passed. This last of them was among the greatest. She stands with Lincoln and Grant, with Sheridan, Sherman and Chase, with Whitney, Sumner and Garrison.
She heard the cry, "Prepare for war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, 'I am strong'" And she rode forth the battle as bravely as any man of them all, and stood firm with the rage of half a nation burst upon her.
At her call men volunteered to die; at her encouragement women sacrificed the dearest thing in life. At the sound of her trumpet wrong fell down, and in the day of victory she was crowned with the others.
ElIA W. PEATTIE
93
TAKES ISSUE WITH GIBBONS
Mrs. Peattie Discusses the Cardinal's Position Regarding "The New Woman."
Men Are Inferior to Women in Endurance of Pain and Resistance to Nervous Strain.
Some Plain Statements Relative to Motherhood -Attitude Be Assured Toward the Criminal Classes.
Last Sunday there was published in the World-Herald an interesting interview, held by a young woman reporter, with Cardinal Gibbons The subject discussed by these two persons was "The New Woman." whatever that may mean. Apparently it means, according to his eminence and the bright young reporter, the woman who is granted by universities, who takes an intersect in chic affairs, and who believes in science as much as she does in instinct.
Cardinal Gibbons has never approved of this type of woman. He has preached against her, and talked against her. If he is correctly reported by his interviewer-and indeed, the interview bears every evidence of being truthful-he says
"As a Catholic, I am bound to disapprove of any so-called woman movement. The church-of Rome exalts womenhod in the veneration it accords the mother of Jesus Christ but in exalting woman it still has regard for the special nature of her mission in the world, which is equal to man's, though not identical with it."
His eminence refers, very evidently, to the mammal functions of a woman, she is elevated, he appears to think, in proportion as she exercises these Napoleon, be it remembered, was of the same opinion. He respected most the woman who could bear the most children. He desired to hate the women bear men in order that he might slay them. Cardinal Gibbons' reasons are, no doubt, less sanguinary. But he also appears to entertain the same idea The woman he elevates about all others is distinguished because she bore a son in an unheard of sort of a way- a unique way, and one in which she set an example that no other woman has never been able to follow.
IS BUT AN INCIDENT.
It seems then, that it is not for truth, honor, industry, sobriety, intellectual development and spiritual growth that woman is honored or exalted, but merely because she can bear children. Now it is natural for woman to bear children She does it as a matter of course. Sometimes she does it with joy and sometimes with sorrow, but in one way or another three-fourths of the women of the world reproduce themselves. But this is only an incident of their lives. They are responsible for their children only secondly. First comes their responsibility for themselves fro their own lives, their own duties their own destiny.
The age has passed when one sees the hand of God in an epidemic. Physicians are here, scientists have labored. When an epidemic arises it is fought, and frequently defeated. Has not the time also passed when one sees the hand of God in the indiscriminate bearing of children?
Every thoughtful philanthropist knows that it would be a blessing to humanity if the criminal and half witted were emasculated so that it would be impossible for them to reproduce themselves. The statistic on such matters fill one with horror. Not long ago Dr. Klernan mentioned the case of one insane criminal woman in Illinois who had eighteen children and grandchildren, none of whom were sine or innocuous. Is it possible that this is the hand of God?
Who had not seen a fretful, overworked, nervous wreck of a woman with six or eight little children tugging at her skirts none of them properly cared for all, of them rather dirty, and doomed to poverty of the sort that grinds the soul down into the muck? Is the hand of God in that?
Now long ago I was sitting in a public medical clinic. A dragged-out looking young woman entered, carrying one little child, and with another tugging at her skirts. She was ill and told her symptoms to the physician who was in charge that day.
"Madam," he said gently, but with something of amusement in his tone, is it possible that you have these children, and you do not know what your symptoms signify? Why did you come to me? I can give you a little medicine to ease some fo your suffering, but you are not afflicted with a disease Your illness has natural causes"
She looked at him a moment, flushed a deep scarlet, and went wearily out trying to hide the tears that had fathered in her eyes. The students laughed after she was gone. They couldn't understand that a sentence of death would have been hardly more terrible to her than that verdict It meant that with a back which was never free from pain, with a purse that never reached her needs with two little ones not yet through teething she was to go not yet through all the torments of a year's illness and anxiety with each month of growing weakness her cares would be increased. No one would think of relieving her. No one would consider her really ill. Her neighbors might come in and compare pains with her. They would probably never think of helping her And then would come the final agony-that clack suffering which, once experienced, is never forgotten, and then the dragging convalescence, very likely with complications of the most painful sort.
One often wonders if men would consider the unrestricted bearing of children such a God-ordained institution if they had some of the suffering to bear themselves'
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
The truth of the matter is, that so inferior are men in physical endurance of pain, and in resistance to nervous strain, that they would perish under the suffering that women endure while they continue their daily work The work is not well done perhaps and the body a mere house of pain, but someway or other they live and fret
The question arises, are not two well-educated, self-respecting, well-trained, carefully developed children of more value to the state from an economic point of view than twelve under-fed, dirty, half-educated, weak and nervous children?
I once knew a woman who believed that it was God's will that she should have a child every year, or, at least, every year and a half. There were nine of them She was not strong. She did not love her husband. She was bitterly poor. The children were fine babies, and the two eldest grew to strong manhood The others, as they reached the age of puberty, developed the most astonishing weakness. Every joint seemed to be disserved. The arms swung helplessly back and forth. The legs would sustain the body only at times and then with the greatest difficulty. The head would lie on the shoulders. It used to be very obvious that if the woman had cared for her health, built up her vitality, and waited a few years after breaking her first two children, she might have had a family to be proud of. As it was, her poor hear broke with grief and shame-and it really seemed as if she had done something to be ashamed of. As for laying such misery as this to God-it would be blasphemous!
One does not deny that there are women who can bear twelve, twenty or thirty children. In Italy the descendants of the Roman matrons not infrequently bear thirty children. To be sure, they cannot very well support them. But in Italy one only lies in the sun and lives. In America it is against the law to merely lie in the sun and live, unless one has a bank account. The only vagrants approved of here are those who draw interest on invested money. Thirty children would, consequently be a horrible embarrassment in America. But there are women here who can best twelve children and still be strong and well. There is one very lovely and well-known Irish-American woman in this town has borne twelve children, and still is comparatively young and happy and handsome. She evidently, is the woman made for the trek and, since she is able to educate and properly care for them, she has reason to feel herself blessed.
But no man would think of asking a broncho to drag the same loads a Normandy draft horse would The load is intelligently tempered to the powers of the animal. Are we not to show as much humanity and intelligence where human life concerned?
CRITICISES RELIGION
There was a time when religion was even more tyrannical in its attitude toward women than now. Not only was woman expected to bear children, but she was disgraced if she could not. A barren woman was considered accursed, and unworthy of a man's love. As a matter of fact, behind the smiling faces of many women in this very city, who are much in society and club life because they are childless and have no duties to keep them at home lie bitter histories of disappointment, of withered hopes and physical suffering. Though fitted spiritually and mentally for motherhood, the boon has been denied them. But, fortunately, science had, at least, exploded the superstition that woman is bewitched of accursed because she cannot bear children. And men, apparently have, as a class, outgrown the ideas of Napoleon and Cardinal Gibbon's and love women regardless of their abilities in that direction. They have married their wives for companionship, hoping, without doubt, for sons and daughters, but too well satisfied with the marital associations to fume over their disappointment, and certainly too just to resent such a condition.
It is also noticeable that Cardinal Gibbons fears that the higher education takes woman for religious influences. His eminence has a much poorer opinion of religious than most laymen, who frankly think that the more one knows of God's world the more sincerely and reverently religious will one be. Ignorance is not the handmaid of God.
"God has given us a heart to be formed as well as a head to be enlightened," says the cardinal. That is very true. But he is wrong in assuming, as he does, that it is the uneducated woman who cultivates the hear. The New Woman, as she is ridiculously called, finds in her college, her club, and her social intercourse, the very things that teach her how great is her responsibility to her kind. The small gossiping which used to drag the sex into abject puerility are recognized now as hopeless bad form. "They stand associated with somen of the old provincial type. The women who think are the somen who feel. They are those who try to better the condition of their sisters by practical measures. They provide houses of refuge fro the fallen, secure physicians of their own sex for the insane, put matrons in the police stations, build college settlements in the slubs, teach good cooking and house cleaning, put travelers aid agents at the stations to protect the unsophisticated inculcate and live up to democratic principles, indorse and encourage legislation protecting their kind, and wage organized war against the vices that have for centuries corrupted men and wrecked homes.
LIBERTY AND INDEPENDENCE
All this means, of course, that woman enjoys liberty and independence American men, as a class, are not afraid of this They are proud of it and glad of it, and heaven knows that never in the history of the world were there happier homes or more devoted husbands that here Some of these husbands are even unselfish enough to feel proud of their wives' achievements On to put it better, they look upon these achievements as their own, seeing no division in the perfect partnership which they and the woman of their choosing enjoy together.
One never sees a man fretting about the development of a woman without wondering what mystery he is trying to protect, or what injustice he is endeavoring to foster.
But it is too late for the protests. It is rapidly becoming too late for the mysteries. Turn the light on. Let it flood the whole world--the light of learning and liberty! If this loses any woman a man's love, his love is well lost. If it keeps children from being born, they are well in their oblivion.
His eminence says that the cardinal virtues of a woman are chastity and humility. It is unfortunate that it should seem to be the chief occupation of a large part of the men to destiny the first and to identify the second with servitude.
Chastity and humility! Women are chaste by nature, thank God And they will be more humble when they know more than they do now-and the "New Woman" is trying to speed that day.
It does not seem odd to refer to educated women as new women. Is human development a novelty?
But after all it is pity rather than resentment that one should feel for Cardinal Gibbons. His opportunities for knowing and enjoying the "New Woman' are so exceedingly limited.
ELIA W PEATTIE
TROUBLE IN POLICE COURT. The police are up in arms against Acting Police Judge Crosby, whom they accuse of offering a premium upon crime by his easy way of discharging every hard citizen who is brought before him and who tells a hard luck story. They quote several instances of ex-convicts who ought to have been sent up on general principles. On the other hand, Judge Crosby insists that the police must prove their cases and declares he will not send a man to jail unless he is satisfied that he deserves it.
A SMALL FIRE. A fire occurred at 1:30 pm yesterday in the two-story dwelling at 1385 South Seventeenth street, occupied by A. L. Emminger. The blaze arose from a defective flue, causing a damage to the house and contents of $1,000. The house was insured, but none was carried on the contents.
94
MRS. PEATTIE'S CANDIDACY
Progress of Her Campaign for Member of the Board of Education
Letters From Women Indorsing Her-What the Committee Is Doing to Elect Her.
Qualifications for Coting- Something About the Candidate-indorsed by Two Conventions and One League.
The current issue of the Woman's Weekly, the official organ of the Woman's club of this city, prints several letters from club members in support of Mrs Peattie's candidacy, among which were the following.
This year the women of Omaha have an opportunity to be represented upon the school board by one of their own number, whose ability and public spirit are unquestioned. The schools are neither republican, populist nor democratic, so the question of political affiliations need not ender for a moment into consideration. Our schools are the great national nurseries of the republic, and fitness for the position of school director is the only question that should concern us. With all due respect to the present board, whose members perhaps devote a short time every week to the general necessities of the schools, put off until the last moment for action, it certainly seems as if a woman would know better how to arrange details, which are, after all, the most far reaching in their consequences.
If the management of the schools had been in the hands of the women, is it to be supposed that at this present stage of civilization, with all the talk about herms, bacilli, etc, ad infintum that the women would have allowed children of all sorts of conditions of men, in all stages of cleanliness (I really want to rush into medical terms here, I know so much about it that it is a pity I do not know a little more) with eczema and what not-to drink form a common cup. It is inconceivable that this matter should have been neglected so long. A woman would see that her children were surrounded by the best possible conditions of health and morals. Men have apparently more important business in life than looking after children but a true mother will hold that to be her most important work, to which all other aims must subserve.
I once knew a lady who devoted her self entirely to her children. She said servants could do the work of the house, but her children were too precious to be left to the care of hirelings. Teachers, who take the mother's place a few hours every day, should be selected with the greatest care. Only women can judge women in many ways. There seems to be a mental obliquity of vision in a man's judgement of a woman's fitness for may positions.
I hope the time will come when women physicians will have the general women physicians will have the general oversight of the health of school down with contagious disease shall be detected at once before other children are infected. A medical supervision should be exercised over all schools, and very great attention should be paid to sanitary regulations. The city employs a man to run around and look after the cows, but children are heard with very little attention t the places from which they come, bringing with them germs of disease and death.
Perhaps a woman on the school board will inaugurate new conditions. At any rate, the honored member of the Woman's club who is a candidate for the position will bot be a nonentity Let the women of Omaha see to it that she is elected
AUGUSTA B. HENDERSON
Primarily, because women should have a direct voice in school matters. The larger part of the teachers are women, but the authority under which they work is vested in men, now entirely. One woman will be but one of the schools governing power, and that is little enough. Observation of the world's affairs goes to show that what men and women do together is better done than what either do alone. Men need women's capacity for minutes and painstaking detail-for keeping corners clean and beautifying the affairs of life; women need men capacity for broad dealing the carrying, out of plants in the mass.
Secondarily, because Mrs. Peattie, having had a large experience in public life, is by that fitted fro such a position. Her philanthropic work in the city and her writings prove her a humanitarian and a follower of the two great commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets.
There need be no thirdly. Vote for a woman as a member of the school board, because I believe women should have a direct voice in that matter which is beyond everything else their work, the education of their children. Vote for Mrs. Peattie because her nomination gives us the first opportunity to sustain and carry into effect that belief, and because she is a woman calculated to occupy the position with credit.
HARRIETS MACMURPHY.
In the nineteenth century it seems quite superfluous to suggest that women who are candidates for office do not need to subscribe to articles of faith. It is highly desirable that they be good, moral citizens, but it is hardly fair to require more, since no similar requisition is placed upon men hoping for election. We allow and believe that the more conscientious and faithful the individual, the better will all be performed. This is written for those who question the property of any woman being on the school board until church affiliation has been investigated We are happy to note municipal league. We are glad that she is to speak before the Congregational club next week. In the past we have noted from time to time that when the various church and parlor gatherings have wanted a drawing card, they have gladly availed themselves of the talent of Mrs. Peattie. Will they show their apreciation of her now? We fed sure that the gallantry of the members of the board of education is such that they will welcome a lady to their number. Vote for Mrs. Peattie H S Towne
The Weekly itself says editorially: "Mrs. Peattie's election is conceded. The question now is, who is opposed to her? She will be elected by a large majority. The opposition all agree on that point. The women have rallied in a manner which does credit to the sex, and after election among those who congratulate the 'woman on the school board,' will be hundreds of women who will say, 'I cast my first ballot for you.'
"While her friends are rejoiced to know this is true, they will be none the less industrious for the remaining few days. In fact taking courage from good reports, they will work harder than they would otherwise be able to do.
'They will vote for her, because she is fitted for the position, because she cannot be overawed, because she has the courage of her convictions, because, more than all else, we need a woman on the school board!"
During the last fortnight the most ridiculous stories, the most slanderous insinuations have been scattered broadcast in order to turn the vote of the women from their candidate. To these, the committee having her campaign in charge, have very properly made no answer. They were the work of men for the most part, who played upon the impressionable feminine nature with stories too base to deserve refutation.
The committee has made a thorough canvass of the entire city and is assured of a very large woman's vote for its candidate. Registration is not necessary, and any woman having children of school age or owning property assessed in her own name is entitled to vote for school director. There is no salary attached to the office, as has been asserted by some of the Republicans; neither is there very much glory. A conscientious member of the present board says that his duties take up at least one-third of his time. While a man might use his election to the school board as a stepping stone to other political preferment, a woman's candidacy for the place can mean nothing but a willingness to serve the public disinterested.
Mrs. Peattie has nothing to explain, excuse or extenuate. Her career since she came to the city six years ago has been public enough to allow everyone to judge for himself. Her writings in the interest of charitable and other institutions have always been of an uplifting kind, and no worthy person or establishment ever appealed in vain, either to her purse or her pen. Her work in the World-Herald other papers speaks for itself, and there is no word of it which she would willingly retract. If the voters of the city, male as well as female, care to have upon the board a thoroughly non-partisan, independent and fearless member they could not do better than to vote for Mrs. Peattie. She has received the nomination from both the democratic and populist conventions and has been indorsed by the Municipal league and several organizations of women.
The arraignment is that the ladies will vote between the hours of 9 a. m. and noon and between [?] and 5 p.m. At those times there will not be so many men present and voting can be accomplished with less delay.
To the Editor of the World-Herald--When the forefathers of our country declared that "all men were created free and equal" and when afterwards they adopted universal (male) suffrage they were very considerably in advance of their age. Since then we have had a feeling that we accomplished almost everything that was worth contending for, and so we have rested on our honors, but while we have been resetting the other branches of our Anglo-Vascen race have been jogging along in their usual, slow but steady way and today by comparison with England, Australia or New Zealand we find ourselves behind these countries as regards the political position of women. It is true that we have agitated the question of "Female Suffrage" a good deal, but the women have always asked much that no one seemed willing to confer on them, and so very little has been attained. I do not forget Wyoming, but that is in itself but a small beginning for our great country. In England while they have steadily refused the ballot to women in national affairs, yet for years they have allowed women to vote in all local matters connected with property and education, and for nearly a generation women have been valuable members of the school boards. In that matter they have been decidedly ahead of us, because it is today the rule over the United Kingdom, whereas in our country it has been impossible for a woman to be on the school board or to vote where her own property was involved except in a very few of the eastern states. If women are ever to vote where her own property was involved except in a very few of the eastern states. If women are ever to vote in national elections they should be admitted to the privilege in this gradual way and I have no doubt but the local experience and responsibility would fit them for higher things. For these reasons I am thoroughly glad that Mrs. E. W. Peattie has been nominated for the board of education and I sincerely hope she may have the hearty support of her fellow citizens. It is an innovation in our western world and for that very reason I wish it success. I need not mention Mrs. Peattie's fitness for the position, for that is well known to all of your readers. She is by no means the only woman in our midst who would honor the position, but she is one of them and in every way worthy. THOMAS KILPATRICK.
The Municipal League The one object of the League is 'The Best Possible City Government for Omaha,' and to secure this it knows no party or sect, and aims to unite those in sympathy with its object, in the support of capable and honest men for the city offices.
To carry on this purpose the League has indorsed the following candidates, after careful investigation of their fitness, for the
CITY COUNCIL. First Ward- S. I. Gordon, republican Third Ward J. H. Getty, rep (by petition) Fourth Ward0 Dr. James H. Peabody, dem and pop F. B. Kennard, rep. Fifth Ward- Allen I. Rector, rep (by petition) Sixth Ward- G. P. Dietz rep (by petition) Seventh Ward- G. N. Hicks, dem Eighth Ward- Cadet Taylor, rep J. H. Schmidt, dem
SCHOOL BOARD. B. E. B. Kennedy [?] B. Wilson Rev. T. B. Crambiett Mrs. Elia W. Peattie Rev. T. J. Mackay J. G. Gilmore Jonathan Edwards G. W. DOANE, President
GREGORY J. POWELL, Secretary.
John L. McCague 1506 Dodge, under McCague Savings bank, bonds, warrants, real estate.
"5:45 p.m. at Omaha 8:45 a.m. at Chicago"
The new [vestibuted?] train running on the "Northwestern" east daily.
Board at the Cafe, 2016 Farnam st Batchelors quarters, good board, pleasant surroundings; reduced rates.
Secure rooms for the winter at Bachelors' Quarters. Reduced prices.
95
OF EMERSON, THE GIANT
Mrs. Peattie Defends the Literary Memory of the Philospher of Concord.
His Words Are Not Unchristian and His Teaching Are Uplifting to All Mankind
The Earnest Tribute of a Follower- Another Phase of "The Secular in the School."
Never did I more sincerely congratulate myself upon the secular policy of our public schools, that the other day, when in reading an article by the Rev. John Williams, I was [?] to realize, that did out schools sense to be secular, due to the writers whose books would be expunged from the curriculum, was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mr. Williams, is talking concerning text books, says:
"Given as textbooks, Emerson, Fiske, Huxley, Tyndal, Begel, etc. and teachers more or less in sympathy with them, and the High school is already anti-Christian, and a large proportion of his pupils perverted, at the cost of a Christian-public, taxed to maintain it."
To set about proving that none of these gentlemen would "pervert" the youthful mind would be a task for too large for my knowledge, and too extensive for my space. I remember great words from all the writers. But it may be that some of them have spoken foolishly. I have not read all of their books. Life is very short and books are many with may rad but a few. And it is best I have Emerson's world for is--to read those which will help one quickest to an understanding of the course of thought. Among those of whom I have read something is Emerson. He has made dark days bright for me, he had taught me how to and the beauty in common life, he has preached to me of the greatest commandment of all. He has lifted me up, when I might have sunken. Sweet as rain after drouth have been his words after the idle clamor of the many. In my opinion no greater schools that to have the words of this modern philosopher take away from the students of the High School.
When the term "anti Christian" Is applied in such a community as this, it is meant, I take it, as an opprobrious epithet When it is used by such a scholar as the Rev John Williams, the Christian public- which is not necessarily the well-rend public- takes [alum?] and [?] itself against the new denounced by this title. No man is so great that he cannot be injured. To be impervious to injury to be God. And it seems to me that Emerson is injured when a very influential and much trusted man like John Wiliams deprecates his influence, and wants the people that he is likely to pervert the youth.
One stands perplexed in entering upon the rebuttal of such a statement as this-so utterly beyond fact is it-so egregiously inconsistent with the truth. Those books which we have read with a much tenderness as if they words there written were the emanations of our own hearts-those stalwart words, urging us on to study, to reverence, to unselfishness, to honesty and to peace-those words perverters? It is like saying that truth is hateful, or flowers a pest, or the faces of our children unwell comes to our eyes.
It may be that Mr. Willimas gathered his impression that Emerson was anti-Christian from the stern denunciation of pretense and worldliness in the church, of which Mr. Emerson sometimes delivered himself. But I am bound to say that I have heard Mr. Williams express similar sentiments. It seems particularly unfair that this poet should have been misrepresented by a priest, wise the priest always received so high and estimate from the poet. Concerning this Emerson says:
"It is certain that it is the effect of conversation with the beauty of the soul to beget a desire and need, to impart to others the knowledge and love. If utterance is denied, the thought like a burden on them in. Always the see is a sayer. Somehow his dream is told. Somehow he publishes it with solemn joy. Sometimes with pencil on canvas, sometimes with chisel on stone: sometimes in towers and aisles of granite his soul's is worship is builded; sometimes in anthems of indefinite music; but clearest and most permanent in words
"The man enamored of this excellency becomes its priest or post the office is coeval with the world, but observe the condition, the spiritual limitation fo the office. The spirit only can teach. Not any profane man; not any sensual, not any [?] not any slave can teach, but only he who can give, who has; he only can create who is. The man on whom the soul descends, through whom the soul speaks alone can teach. Courage, piety, love, wisdom can teach; and every man can open his door to these angels, and they shall bring him the gift of tongues. To this holy office you propose to devote yourself. I wish you may feel your call in throbs of desire and hope. The office is the first in the world."
It is quite true that he quarrels with the set terms, historical and [eccestaical?] by such vulgarity and Philistinism designates Christianity and Christ. He wearies to the sound of the form which means nothing to those who observe it. He is full of disgust at those who mumble words, and lead lives which give the lie to then professions. He says boldly what he thinks, not afraid of misinterpretation-too full of truth to care for policy. Here is the sort of think upon which some people ones their misconception of his religious ideas.
"In thus contemplating Jesus, we become very sensible of the [?] defect of historical Christianity. Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul knows no persons, it invites every man to expand to the full circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love. But by this easter monarchy of a Christianity, which [?] who fear have built, the friend of man is made of the injured of man. The manner in which his name is surrounded with expressions which were once the [?], of admiration and love, but are now petrified, into official titles, kills all generous sympathy and liking. All who [?] me feel that the language which describes Christ to Europe and America is not the style of friendship and enthusiasm to a good and noble heart, but is appropriated and formal---paints a demi god as the oriental or Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo. Accept the injurious impositions of our early catechetics instruction, and even honest and self-denial were but splendid sins, if they did not wear the Christian name. One would rather be.
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn--than to be defrauded of his manly right in coming into nature, and finding not names and places, not land and professions, but even virtue and truth foreclosed and monopolized. You shall not be a man even. You shall not own the world; you shall not dare, and live after the infinite law that is in you, and in company with the infinite beauty which heaven and earth reflect to you in all lovely forms, but you must subordinate your nature to Christ's nature; you must accept our interpretations; and take his portrait as the vulgar paint it.
"That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great social doctrine, Obey thyself. That which shows God in me fortifies me. That which shows God out me, makes me a wait and women. There is no longer a necessary reason for my being. Already the long shadows of oblivion creep over, and I shall decease forever." These are, I think, the utterances most treasonable to the church which Emerson ever uttered. And "if that be treason, make the most of it." It looks to me like honesty. Out of conviction such as that character is builder, citizenship is maintained. It does not [?] its responsibility, nor aim at selfish salvation. It is the language of honor and of truth.
In matters not theological, but simply religious. Emerson is a guide whom on would place above most moderns. The dignity which he infuses into life gives it almost a heroic cast, and the young man or woman who reads him understandingly must needs be filled with reverence for the worlds of God. He perceives why he must do the best to develop his brain, and beautify his body, and refine his soul. He perceives, about all other things, how he can never escape from his relation to his neighbor. Anyone with a prehensile mind, who would follow the directions he gives in his famous essay on book, would find himself [?] to meet with serenity any sorrow which the world might bring him. Vulgarity and he would be an ocean apart. Gentleness and courage could not fail to be his attributes. He celebrates the education of man. He says:
"Let us make our education brave and preventive. Politics is an afterwork, a poor patchling. We are always a little late. The evil is done, the law is passed, and we begin the uphill agitation for repeal of that which we ought to have prevented the enacting. We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call root-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only mediating the symptoms. We must begin higher up, namely, in education.
He gives lessons in fine manners. He educates his readers in what well-mannerd men do.
"I wish cities could teach their best lesson-of quiet manners. It is the [?] especially of American youth--pretension. The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, [?] his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon."
Emerson talks of nobility in youth, and seems always to be writing to some strong young man or woman who will hitch his wagon to a star.
"A man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants. How can you mind diet, bed, dress, or salutes or compliments, or the figure you make in company, or wealth, or even the bringing things to pass, when you think how [?] many are the machinery and the workers.
Not that he depreciates concentration or industry. But he does not believe in recognizing obstacles. He instructs one how to make an art of living.
"A man is a beggar who lives only to be useful, and, however, he may serve as a pin or a rivet in the social machine, cannot be said to have arrive at self possession. I suffer every day from the want of perception of beauty to people. They do not know the charm with which all moments and subjects can be embellished, the charm of manners, self-command, of benevolence. Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman--repose in energy. The Greek battle pieces are calm; the heroes in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect; as we say of Niagara, that it falls without speed. A cheerful, intelligent face is the end of the culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of nature and wisdom attained."
No one could be a [?] and follow the teaching of this paraclete. Listen to this:
"We wish to learn philosophy by rote, and play at heroism. But the wiser God says, fake the shame, the poverty and the penal solitude that belong to truth speaking. Try the rough water as well as the smooth. Rough water can teach qualities worth knowing. When the state is unquiet, personal qualities are more than ever decisive. Fear not a revolution which will constrain you to live five years in one. Don't be so tender at making an enemy now and then. Be willing to go to Coventry sometimes, and let the populace bestow on you their coldest contempt."
He helps the young to hero worship. He wants them to have ideals. He is not afraid of beautiful illusions--so long as they are not delusions.
"Beauty, [?] and goodness are not obsolete; they spring eternal in the breast of man; they are as indigenous in Massachusetts as in Tuscany or the Isles of Greece. And that eternal spirit whose triple face they are molds from them forever, for his mortal child. Images to remind him of the infinite and fair"
If ever man preached the potency of earnest work, Emerson did. He talks to no idler. He cannot conceive of a man without a message, a business and an obligation. He believes in the expansion of the human. He does not confuse the inadequacy of man with the dispensations of God. He does not encourage a man to think that providence is responsible for his shiftlessness, his treachery or his failure.
"Ah! said a brave painter to me. [?] a man has failed, you will find he has [?] [?] instead of working. There is no way to success in our art, but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day every day."
Emerson touches us all up with a friendly criticism. We never know when we are going to be hit. He says, for example, and this touches many of us:
"Though a man cannot return unto his mother's womb, and be born with new amounts of vivacity, yet there are two economies which are the best succedanes which the case admits. The first is the stopping off decisively our miscellaneous activity, and contracting our force on one of a few points; as the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the trees into one or two vigorous limbs, instead of suffering it to spindle into a sheaf of twigs.
"Enlarge not thy destiny, and the oracle; endeavor not to do more than is given thee in charge. The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation; and it makes no difference whether our dissipation are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one's plaything more, and dives us to add one stroke of faithful work. You "must elect your work; you must take what your brain can, and drop all the rest"
This is the man, then, who is a perverter of youth! The man whose books menace our students!
Do we not take shame, remembering how gross and material our ambitions are; remembering how greedy we are, how oblivious of our own best good or of the good of others; remembering poor language and impoverished thought; remembering poor development of perceptions and sensibilities, that we should look down upon this man, in our stiff Puritanism, or Episcopacy, shutting him away from us, though he comes bearing a torch that might illuminate our dark? How might we grow in grace and beauty if we were to sit at his feet and learn! How might the narrow hearts of us grow! How might the ice in us melt, touched with divine warmth!
Shall Christianity forbid all goodness and knowledge except that embodied in itself? Will it call all wisdom secular except that included in the gospels? "There is nothing secular but sin."
Oh, dear God! Thou who molest the world and all that in it is, who [?] stars and dust of stars and "the wind that blows between the worlds," let us have humility, nor dem we hold monopoly of truth. In each spark of brightness and of beauty, of reverence and of joy, may we not see a spark of thee? Help us to remember that the souls of men were made for the glory of God--not for the glory of any time, or creed or race--not for gentile, not for Christendom, not for twenty centuries.
Many there are who thrill with a knowledge of thee. Many there are who bear a message which men may pause to hear. Keep down the arrogant assumption, keep down the exclusive pride, [?] the narrow definition. Break down the barriers that hinder our outlook. If they be superstitions, or fears, or selfish hopes of personal salvation, or vanity of intellect, or formal scholarship, then let them go. Between thee and as may nothing stand! Through finer [?] than that we breathe, may the eyes of our souls penetrate to thee, as the eyes of the body rejoice in the sun! If, looking so, all of us can see thee, with imperfect mortal gaze, who shall [?] because we see thee differently? Who shall not know this to be but the faulty trick of human eye? Or will thou even love us less because we do not know what name to call thee by? Help us, in mercy, to build high the temple of truth, and decorate it fittingly. Let us not doom it to a ignoble size because the stones offered are not cut to our personal liking, or in imitation of the one we shaved with reverential hands! For the temple is to be immeasurable. And all the nations of earth shall add to the grandeur of it. And hands we counted humblest shall lay on is transparent quartz and onyx, veined with purple and with white. ELIA W. PEATTIE.
THE SNOW LEOPARD. A Fine Large Feline Animal From the Snow-Bound Himalayas.
The [ounce?], or snow leopard, is one of the rarest and most beautiful animals of the feline family. The London zoological gardens have just secured one of these animals. It was one of the few interesting beasts lacking in the wonderful London collection.
The snow leopard inhabits the mountainous districts of Central Asia, one of the most inaccessible and least explored parts of the globe. The fine animal now at the gardens came from the Western Himalayas. He was captured when young by the retainers of Thakir [?], chieftain of [?] in [L?], and sent as a present to Mrs. MacKay of Kullu. She brought him up as a household pet, and this year presented him to the zoological gardens. He is now six feet long.
The snow leopard has markings similar to the ordinary leopard, but the fur on the stomach and cheat is entirely white. In the other places, where the fur of the ordinary leopard is yellow. It is nearly white in the snow leopard. The fur is very long and silky. The animal is also adorned with a tail of great length and beauty, according to the World.
The white leopard is indeed a dandy among leopards. The expression of his [maniticent?] eyes shows that he appreciates his own physical qualities. He puts forth proudly his fine white chest, and its long, wavy hair, and he carries his tail with as much grace as a well built young woman the train of her ball dress.
He is strong and swift and an excellent sportsman in his native places. But, in spite of his muscular strength, he is very delicate. He only thrives in mountain air. The climate of the Indian seaports have invariably been fatal to those specimens which it has been attempted to ship to Europe.
The snow leopard lives by preference at a height of 9,000 feet on the borders of the snows in the Himalayas and [Tibet?]. He catches and eats wild sheep and goats.
The cunning or astute bassarie (Bassuris Astuta) is a relative of the raccoon. A bassaris is among the recent additions to the London gardens. The expression of his face is sufficient to justify the adjective applied to him. Besides, all his family are noted for cunning.
The astute bassaris is found in Texas, California and Northern Mexico. He is about as large as a small domestic cat but more slender. He has a long cylyndrical talk of white, striped with seven or eight distint black lungs. This is one of his most remarkable features. He has a very pointed nose, well whiskered and large bright eyes
The bassaris is very fond of a nice bird and shows great skill in getting one when he wants it, A wood near a well-filled poultry yard is the happiest combination he knows of.
GREAT MEN'S NAMESAKES. Charleston News and Courier: All the grandsons of Charles Dickens, it is stated are named Charles. It is a great mistake. That is as far as they will ever get The great men and the successful small men of the world all have new names Genius shines in one place, like a lightening bug, and then goes out to appear somewhere else. It does not run in the family. Most great, and good, and wise men would be much pained to see themselves in the third generation Start a boy with an unknown name like Napoleon Bonaparte. or Rider Haggard or Jay Gould, or Rudyard Kipling, or Waldo Emerson, or Will Cumback, or Robert Burns, or Bret Harte, or Richard Croker, or something of that kind, and he will rise to eminence. Name him after somebody who has already attained eminence and he will sink into oblivion from that instant.
THE POWER OF THE COURTS. Indianapolis Journal: "We are likely to have a tornado in two or three days," said the weather man to his assistant. You'd better run down to the courts and get an injunction." "Do what?" "Get an injunction. Isn't that what injuctions are for-to restrain the lawless elements?" If his job had not been a federal one the assistant would have resigned.
SOME SUMMER RHYMES Naturally. When in her little bathing suit Along the bench she walked The effect was quite electrical And not a few were shroked -Detroit Tribune.
Transparent. She took all sorts of concoctions To make her complexion clear Till everybody saw through her Whereout she desisted poor dear -Exchange
On The Beach. In to bathe the maiden goeth And no dread of danger showeth For her simple nature knoweth Naught of woe: But anon she's shoreward springing With her screams the air is ringing I or a horrid crab is clinging To her toe. -Boston Budget.
Down By The Sea. Down by the sea. The melody of ocean sweeps the beach, Until The bill At the hotel Gets clear beyond his reach, -Detroit Free Press
A Frequent Thorn. Among life's thorns alas, we find in all too frequent growth The girl who neither sings nor plays And thinks she does them both -Buffalo Courier.
It Is Missed. When the heat's intense and there is no ease Neath the sky's too torrid arch. How we miss the east winds cooling breeze That we kicked against last March -Boston Traveller.
Save Time. When a grand o'er he said "good night" Twas one of cupid's larks She murmered Willie, dear you might Save time with ditto marks." -Washington Star.
Autumn Gay. Autumn gay will upon be here With scenes which stir the poet's soul. And also make him wonder where He'll get the cash to pay for coal. -Buffalo Courier.