176
CHAUTAUQUA LECTURE COURSE.
Mrs. Peattie's Paper on "[Song?] and Legend of the Middle Ages."
The Chautauqua college of Omaha has reached most satisfactory proportions, and is engaged earnestly in a course of study concerning Europe in the middle ages. Among the accessories to the course of study is a lecture every Thursday evening on some subject designed to assist the text books being studied.
The subject last night was "The Song and Legend of the Middle Ages [?] France," by Elia W. Peattie. The lecture concerned itself particularly with the songs of the [?], and was intended, as Mrs. Peattie said, not as a review of the profuse literature of this period, but as a glimpse into the time [?] through the lines of its poets and [?]. Mrs. Keysor is to have a paper on the literature of Italy during the same period, and Mrs. Tucker will have one upon the legends and songs of Germany. There was an attendance last evening of between three and four hundred.
177
CHAUTAUQUA LECTURE COURSE.
Mrs. Peattie's Paper on "Song and Legend of the Middle Ages."
The Chautauqua college of Omaha has reached most satisfactory proportions, and is engaged earnestly in a course of study concerning Europe in the middle ages. Among the accessories to the course of study is a lecture every Thursday evening on some subject designed to assist the text books being studied.
The subject last night was "The Song and Legend of the Middle Ages in France," by Elia W. Peattie. The lecture concerned itself particularly with the songs of the [trou?], and was intended, as Mrs. Peattie said, not as a review of the profuse literature of that period, but as a glimpse into the time itself through the lines of its poets and [?]. Mrs. Keysor is to have a paper on the literature of Italy during the same period, Mrs. Tucker will have one upon the legends and songs of Germany. There was an attendance last evening of between three and four hundred.
178
The department of english Verse of the Woman's club will meet under the leadership of Mrs. Peattie every alternate Friday afternoon at 4 30 o'clock at Myrtle hall annex in the Continental block. The first regular meeting will be held Friday, October 20. The first work taken up will be a reading of English lyrics from the birth of the lyric in English literature to the present day. Any member of the club will be made welcome who will read poetry in the spirit of a lover of verse, laying aside all thought of supplying ordinary rules of study and application. The department is not a [phoneical?] one.
The History Department, under the direction of Mrs. James H McIntosh of the club, will begin work Wednesday, October 25, at 3 30, in the same hall. A short meeting to organize will be held immediately after the general meeting of the club Monday, October 16
179
A WORD WITH THE WOMEN (By Elia W. Peattie)
Tuesday evening, December 3, the Nebraska Ceramic club will display its work at room 1 of the New York Life building. The exhibition and sale will continue throughout the week. the club has, among its half hundred members, some who do the most exquisite work, and it is certainly a favor on the part of those artists to exhibit their work, and to place some of it on sale at a season of the year when gifts are uppermost in the minds of women who rejoice in Christmas-tide.
There has appeared recently, in the Woman's Weekly, a new department, one of literary criticism. It is edited, or, more properly speaking, written, by Miss Irene Byrne of this city, a school teacher, who is, perhaps 20 years of age. It would be a liberty, perhaps, to mention the occupation and age of Miss Byrne but for the fact that she is doing remarkably good criticism--so good that it cannot but arrest the attention of all lovers of good writing. As a critic who has ventured to make her criticisms public, one ventures to mention her, just as one might take the liberty of making some personal remarks about a student who carried off honors at the university or a musician who has won praise. Not to distress more the modesty of a very retiring young woman one may venture to quote her last criticism of Thomas Hardy's fiction--especially Hardy's "Hearts Insurgent," which has appeared as a serial in Harper's Magazine, and which has been very recently sent from the press in book form under the title of "Jude, the Obscure" Miss Byrne says.
There is a certain likeness in the plots of his [?] noticeable to any who may have read many of the rather long list of books headed by "Desperate Remedies" in 1867, and finishing with 'Jude, the Obscure.' The likeness consists in this, that the complications generally grow out of the nature of the women whom he depicts, who, in spite of the Christian civilization into which they were born, are essentially pagan, in that they are creatures of untamed instinct who feel that joy and happiness should be their inalienable right, never thinking that their grasping for it may bring pain and sorrow to another.
These women are dowered with such a love of love, that their insatiable desire for it leads them into intimate relations with several men before they discover which one is really the prince of lovers, and even then they often waver in their allegiance and the tragedy of their lives [hes?] quite generally in the fact, that when the true lover does assert his claim, they are not quite free to give themselves wholly and unconditionally, and though they attempt it, their past or sometimes present lovers, keep them from doing so 'Undines of the earth," some one calls them, soulless creatures who because of their elemental simplicity, hold men captive.
The rest of the criticism is equally interesting, but this particular portion has been quoted because it formulates the idea which, nebulously, has been floating in the minds of all who have read Hardy's stories. These delicate Hedonists of his, who win our sympathies, perplex our judgment, baffle us, and leave us mournful, have been difficult to classify. The leader--the average reader--has ralled alternately at the world and at the woman. Miss Byrne has had to moral as well as the intellectual perception to set the matter right. Woman has grown very fascinating yet very unlovely in recent fiction and portraiture. In the frontispieces of books, in the flat prints of the posters, one sees a subtle and immoral face, half symbolic, wholly pagan. The unsophisticated look at the faces in bewilderment. The experienced are hardly less baffled, recognizing perhaps, some taint to which their lower goul responds, yet knowing how to give words to the emotion that stirs them.
In fiction the woman grows less and less sacrificial, less and less submissive. She aspires less to be "the captain of her soul," than to be the arbiter of her pleasures. She is mysterious, full of secrets. She is high priestess of sophistry. And against the implacable laws of convention she beats her wing as the wild bird beats his against the cruel bars of his cage, and in the end, like that unreconciled struggler, falls bleeding.
One sees this drift in pictures and in literature--sees it every day, and wonders why men invent such sad, sad, things. But it is not often the folly and the futility of it is set forth in phrases so [?] and excellent as those which Miss Byrne employs.
One has the honor to salute Miss Byrne. May her studies be patient, her work humble, her triumphs many. There are few pleasures in life so fine as believing in those around one. It is easy to believe in Miss Byrne. If she chooses she may do good writing.
180
A WORD WITH THE WOMEN
Elia W. Peattie.
A committee from the Knights of Labor appointed to investigate the condition of women in the sweat shops of New York, brought out some interesting evidence the other day. Evidence was given that the Italians usually got their little children to make the coats for the clothing trade. Children only 5 years of age were taught to do certain parts of the work, and spent all of their time sewing on the heavy garments in the close room of a tenement sweat shop. Many of the older working girls work twelve and fourteen hours a day, but when the inspector comes around the girls, instructed by the contractors, swear that they work but ten. In some places the girls work in cellars under the buildings, and very many of them never go to school at all. Miss Lottie [Perpky?], the leader of the women in the recent strike among the cloak manufacturers, said that the coatmakers were on the piece work system and as a general rule "seldom take any time for their dinner, because they would lose time if they did. They generaly eat while they work. The contractors pay 4 cents a coat generally, and the highest price paid is 10 cents." She was asked how many coats an industrious woman could make in a day, and replied: "About seven coats a day by working very hard; that is 70 cents a day." There was much other evidence as to the lack of all proper conveniences for women, and the absence of cleanliness and sufficient room, the badness of the air and the relentless oppression of the contractors. The Italians do not belong to the union, and are so numerous that they force prices down to the lowest. The committee intends to continue its work.
Over in Germany the emperor is bending his kingly energies to opposing the new woman. He is of the opinion that the full duty of woman is to act as the helpmeet of man and to defer to him in all things, and to confine herself exclusively to domestic duties and occupations. He abhors the development of woman as he does anarchy. So he has caused the arrest of the leaders of the woman's emancipation movement in Berlin, and, being brought before magistrates, the women were heavily fined for being members of an unlawful society. An ancient law was resurrected to fit the case- a law prohibiting minors and women from belonging to any political society. Thus does his majesty endeavor to nip in the bud the suffrage movements of Germany. But he has really performed a tremendous service for sufferage. All great causes live upon persecution. The kaiser has made suffragists, by this act, in households where the idea would not else have entered. For even in Germany where maid and matron are full of domestic laws referring to the subserviency of woman to man, there is a growing understanding of the fact that it was the man who made these proverbs, they will not stand investigation. Something more than proverbs will be needed in the twentieth century to convince women that they are happier without their full liberty.
The women who work in sweat shops for $1 a week- as one woman testified that she did in New York- and the women who are arrested because they assert that they are citizens, entitled to have a voice in the Laws which govern them, are not going to be quieted by proverbs, not affrighted by prejudices, no lulled by flattery. One says this is no spirit of hostility. For, indeed, these oppressions do not fill one with light anger.
They are the faggots which will presently be kindled into a great revolution. Or, more properly speaking, they are the rungs of the ladder up which evolution will mount.