A Woman of the World Part 9

Of many who have been helpers in my employ, you were one of the few who seemed to care more for me than for the wages I paid.

There was between us that ideal condition which I wish might exist between all employers and employees. You wanted the work you were fitted to do, and I wanted such work done. You were glad of the money it brought you, and I was glad to recompense you. You wanted appreciation and sympathy and consideration aside from your earnings, and I wanted a personal interest in my affairs, and a friendly wish to please me, aside from the mere work well done. You never seemed to me less womanly or less refined because you were a wage-earner, and I did not represent to you oppression or monopoly merely because I paid the money and you received it. I took you into my confidence in many ways, and you made me feel I was your friend as well as your employer. We enjoyed cosy chats, and yet you no more desired or wished to be present at my social functions than you desired me to enter into all your merrymakings and pleasures. You were, in fact, one of the most agreeable and sensible women I have ever known in any station in life. And now you write me that you are engaged to be married, and ask me to give you counsel in a very serious matter.

Together with your other excellent qualities, you have possessed economy and prudence.

At the age of twenty-five you have a tidy bank-account, the savings of eleven years. This money is increasing, year by year, and drawing a small interest.

Now comes your lover, a hard-working and sober young man, so you say, but earning only a small salary as a clerk.

He has met with some reverses, and is temporarily embarra.s.sed. He wants you to lend him a few hundred dollars, and he will pay you the same interest you are now receiving, but you fear it would be unwomanly on your part to take this interest money. At the same time you feel a reluctance to break in upon your savings, which you had planned to use in helping establish a home. You want to befriend your lover, and you want to be wise and careful, and so you write to me, your old-time adviser, for counsel. I fear I may hurt your feelings in what I am about to say.

I have seen much of the world, and have studied humanity in many phases and in many cla.s.ses.

There is one type of man I have never yet known to be strong, reliable, and trustworthy,--a man for a woman to lean upon in times of trouble and sorrow,--a man I would like to see any friend take for a life companion,--_and that is the young man who asks a loan of money from a woman he loves, or one who loves him_. Believe me, there is some lack of real moral fibre in such a man.

A husband and wife many years married, and united by common interests, may become so one in purpose and thought that a common purse would be as natural to them as a common dinner-table.

With mutual interests, planning for their future and the future of their children, there could be no talk of "My money" and "Your money" between them.

But before marriage, or immediately after, the man who begins to ask a woman for the use of her purse, should be distrusted by her. He could not broach such a subject unless he lacked a certain refined strength which makes a manly man a woman's protector by nature. Even where no sentiment exists between a man and a woman, the really strong men of the world never become borrowers from women. If through friendly interest and affection some woman compelled such a man to take a loan, he would know no rest or peace of mind until he had liquidated the debt.

When a man is a woman's lover, and asks her to advance money to him for any reason, she may as well realize at once the reed on which she will lean if she accepts him for a life companion. To deceive herself for a moment with the idea that he will be a staff of strength, is but to delay disillusion. A vital quality is left out of his character.

He is but one step removed from the man who _seeks_ a woman because she has money. And he is the most despicable of the human race.

I have known three women of different social positions to lend money to their lovers.

One man invested it and lost it, and never made an effort to reimburse the lady, who broke her engagement in consequence, after two unhappy years. Another went away owing the money, and was never again heard from. The third married the unwise woman who had loaned him her competence, and continued to look to her for support.

Therefore, my dear Nanette, I would urge you to think twice, and yet a third time, before you lend your fiance your savings.

Tell him frankly that you will feel more respect for him if he is willing to sacrifice comfort and save from his own income enough to lift the debt he has incurred, and that you are sure he will feel less humiliated as time goes by if he is not financially in debt to you. If he were to fall ill tell him it would be your first impulse to devote your money to his care; but while he is able-bodied and well, you do not like to have him lean on you for aid.

You can judge something of the man's character by the way he receives this statement from you.

And whatever may result, even if it is the end of your engagement, do not grieve your heart away over it. Better far to have the end come now than to marry a dependent and shiftless man, who will humiliate your pride by a thousand and one mean traits. The moment a young wife becomes the financial head of a household, and the man depends upon her to keep the family free from debt, sentiment and romance fly from the windows of the heart, and poor Cupid goes away with his head under his wing. This situation might befall people long married, as I said before, without causing disaster, because the wife would have years of other experiences stored up in memory, to maintain her respect for her husband.

The natural instinct of a manly man is to be the protector and the breadwinner. He loves to shield and support the woman of his choice. If she has any talent or profession which gives her satisfaction to pursue, and which yields her an income, he will, if broad-minded and sympathetic, place no obstacle in her path so long as this vocation is no barrier to their domestic happiness. But he is sensitive to her a.s.suming any of the financial burdens of life.

If circ.u.mstances render it necessary for her to do so, he suffers keenly, and the utmost delicacy and consideration on her part alone can save him from utter humiliation.

This is the att.i.tude of the manly man, my dear Nanette, the man who makes the good husband and father.

The unselfish, broad-minded and considerate wife will lead a husband to think of her right to aid in the establishment and maintenance of a home when she is able to do her part. But the man who makes a good husband never suggests it as her duty, or asks her to advance money.

It is commendable in you to wish to aid in making a home. It is unmanly in your lover to ask you to help him pay his debts. Beware of the lover who asks for or accepts a loan.

To The Rev. Wilton Marsh

_Regarding His Son and Daughter_

My dear Cousin Wilton:--You have no idea how your letter took me back to my merry girlhood, when you and I resided in the same neighbourhood, and I was the concern of your precociously serious mind. Yes, indeed, I do realize what a mistake you made in living the repressed life you did all those early boyhood years. What a pity your parents reared one of your sensitive and imaginative nature in the gloomy old doctrines of a depressing religion, which so misrepresented the G.o.d of love: and how odd that your father and mine should have been born of the same parents, educated in the same schools, and yet be no more alike in beliefs or methods of life than two people of a different race and era.

And again it is not strange, when we realize that hundreds of generations lie back of both parents, and innumerable ancestors of both father and mother contribute their different mentalities to the children in a family. Back of that is the great philosophy of reincarnation--the truth of which impresses me more and more each year I live.

Do you recall your horror the first time I told you I had read a book on reincarnation, and confessed that it had made me anxious to study the theory?

You said I was a pagan and a heathen, and that I would surely be d.a.m.ned forever unless I turned to the way of salvation.

And do you recall your misery when I seized you one evening at your birthday party (you were twenty), and dragged you about the room in a waltz? That is, I waltzed, while you hobbled about like a lame calf, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of most of the company.

There were more who sympathized with my views of life than with yours.

You were such a wet blanket on our youthful spirits. Your ever-blazing lake of brimstone did not even serve to warm the blanket.

I have been gratified to watch your growth the last ten years.

You have so changed your point of view, which indicates your real worth and progressive good sense. And when you tell me that you have for years regretted your lost opportunities for natural and moral pleasure, and that you suffered beyond your power to describe in those old days in conquering your desire to dance and play games, it brings the tears of mingled rage and pity to my eyes. Rage at the old theology, and pity for the poor children whose lives were shadowed by it.

And now what you tell me of your son and daughter proves another of my theories true, and shows me how nature revenges its wrongs.

Children, my dear Wilton, especially the offspring of strong characters, _inherit the suppressed tendencies of their parents_. They bring into action the unexhausted impulses and the ungratified desires of those parents.

The greatest singers are almost invariably the offspring of mothers or fathers who _were music hungry_, and who were given no complete gratification of this craving.

The poet, you will find, is the voice of an artistic-natured parent, who was forced to be emotionally dumb.

And the proverbial clergyman's son is merely the natural result of the same cause. He is charged with the tendencies and impulses which his father crucified.

That your son loathes study, and hates church-going, and adores a bra.s.s band and a circus, and runs away to the races, does not in the least surprise me. Nor that your sixteen-year-old daughter grows hysterical at the sound of dance music, and prefers a theatrical show in your village hall to a Sunday-school picnic, and is mad to become an actress.

_They are your own wronged and starved emotions personified, and crying out to you for justice._

The very best thing for you to do with the boy is to put him into a gymnasium and a football team as soon as possible. Offer no opposition when he wants to see a good horse-race. Urge him to go, and ask him to tell you all about it when he returns. Begin right now to get close to the heart of your children.

Once you do that, once you convince them you are near enough to their lives to understand their needs and to try and gratify their natural longings, all your worries will take wing and fly away; for your children will cease to hide and cloak their actions and natures, and they will no longer wish to deceive or attempt to defy you.

Send your daughter where she can learn dancing, in company with other refined and well-bred young people. You have so far emanc.i.p.ated yourself from your old superst.i.tions and beliefs that this action on your part will not antagonize the desirable members of your congregation.

Only a remnant of the old bigots and intolerants are to be found in any congregation of intelligent people of to-day.

If that remnant is shaken out of its winding-sheet by being antagonized, you may galvanize it into life.

At all events, do not endanger the peace of your home and the happiness of your children, for fear of antagonizing a few parishioners of arrested spiritual development.

Give your son and daughter an outlet for the youthful vitality which is like steam: a moving power when used, dangerous and destructive when pent up.