Maids Wives and Bachelors Part 6

The Favorites of Men

It may be taken as a rule that women who are favorites with men are very seldom favorites with their own s.e.x. Wherever women congregate, and other women are under discussion, men's favorites are named with that tone of disapproval and disdain which infers something not quite proper--something undesirable in the position. If specific charges are made, the "favorite" will probably be called "an artful little flirt,"

or she will be "sly" or "fast." Matrons will wonder what the men see in her face or figure; and the young girls will deplore her manners, or rather her want of manners; or they will mercifully "hope there is nothing really wrong in her freedom and boldness, but----" and the sigh and shrug will deny the charitable hope with all the emphasis necessary for her condemnation. For if a girl is a favorite with the men of her own set, she is naturally disliked by the women, since she attracts to herself far more than her share of admiration; and the admiration of men, whether women acknowledge it or not, is the desire and delight of the feminine heart, just as the love of women is the desire and delight of the masculine heart.

In their social intercourse two kinds of women please men: the bright, pert woman, who says such things and does such things as no other woman would dare to say and do, and who is therefore very amusing; and the sympathetic woman who admires and perhaps loves them. But these two great cla.s.ses have wide and indefinite varieties, and the bright little woman with her innocent audaciousness, and the graceful, swan-necked angel, with her fine feelings and her softly spoken compliments, are but types of species that have infinite peculiarities, and distinctions. The two women, sitting quietly in the same room and dressed in the same orthodox fashion, may not appear to be radically different, but as soon as conversation and dancing commence, the one, in a frankly outspoken way, says just what she thinks, and charms in the most undisguised manner, while the other must be looked for in retired corners, quiet and demure, listening with pensive adoration to her companion's cleverness, and flirting in that insidious way which sets other women's cheeks burning with indignation.

An absolutely womanly ideal for the purposes of flirtation or of platonic friendship--if such an emotion exists--is not supposable; for man is himself so many-sided that the woman who is perfect in one's estimation would be uninteresting in another's. It is, however, very certain that the women men flirt with are not the women men marry.

Their social favorites, are not the matrimonial favorites, and therefore it is not a good thing for a girl's settlement that she should get the reputation of being a "gentlemen's favorite." It is rather a position to be avoided, for the brightest or sweetest girl with this character will likely pa.s.s her best years in charming all without being able to fix one lover to her side for life. This is the secret of the great number of plain married women whom every one counts among his acquaintances.

The position of a favorite is no easy one. She has to cultivate many qualities which should be put to better use and bring her more satisfactory results. She must have discrimination enough to value flirting at its proper value; for if she confounds love-making with love, and takes everything _au grand serieux_, her reputation as a safe favorite would be seriously endangered. In her flirtations she must never permit herself to show whether she be hit or not. She must never suffer a fop to have any occasion for a boast. She must avoid every circ.u.mstance which would allow a feminine rival an opportunity for a sneer. She must be able to give and take cheerfully, to conceal every social wound and slight, and to be deaf to every disagreeable thing. In short, she must be armed at every point, and never lay down her arms, and never be off watch. It is therefore a position whose requirements, if translated into active business life, would employ the utmost resources of a fertile and energetic man.

And what are the general results of talents so varied and so industriously employed? As a usual thing, the gentlemen's favorite dances and flirts her way from a brilliant girlhood to a fretful, neglected _femme pa.s.see_. She has in the meantime had the mortification of seeing the plain girls whom she despised become honored wives and mothers, and possibly leaders in that set of the social world of which she still makes one of the rank and file of spinsterhood. Her disappointments, in spite of her careful concealment of them, tell upon her physique. She sees the waning of her power, and the approaches of that winter of discontent which wasted opportunities are sure to bring.

Spurred with a sense of haste by some unhappy slight, she perhaps unadvisedly marries a man who ten years previously would not have ventured to clasp her shoe-buckle. If he happens to possess a firm will and a strong character, he will try to pull her sharply up to his mark, and there will be endless frictions and reprisals, with all their possible results. If he is some old lover, weak in purpose, fatuous and brainless in his admiration, then the foolish flirting virgin will likely become a foolish flirting wife; and a miserable complaisance will bring forth its natural outgrowth of contempt and dislike, and perhaps culminate in some flagrant social misdemeanor.

To be a favorite with men is not, then, a desirable honor for any woman. They will admire her loveliness, sun themselves in her smiles, and catch a little ephemeral pleasure and glory in her favor; but they will not marry her. And the reason, though not very evident to a thoughtless girl, is at least a very real and powerful one. It is because such a girl _never touches them on their best side_, and never reveals in herself that womanly nature which a man knows instinctively is the foundation of wifely value,--that nature which expresses itself in service for love's sake, as a very necessity of its being.

On the contrary, a "favorite" leans all to one side, and that side is herself. She is overbearing and exacting in the most trivial matters of outward homage. She will be served on the bended knee, and her service is a hard and ungrateful one. And this is the truth about such homage: men may be compelled to kneel to a woman's whims for a short time, but when they do find courage to rise to their feet they go away forever.

So that, after all, the estimate of women for those of their own s.e.x who are favorites of a great number of men is a very just one. It is neither unfair nor untrue in its essentials, for in this world we can only judge actions by their consequences; and the consequences of a long career of general admiration do not justify honorable mention of the belle of many seasons. She can hardly escape the results of her social experience. She must of necessity become false and artificial.

She cannot avoid a morbid jealousy of her own rights, and a painful jealousy of the successes of those who have pa.s.sed her in the matrimonial career.

Nor can she, as these qualities strengthen, by any means conceal their presence. Every attribute of our nature has its distinctive atmosphere; it is subtle and invisible as the perfume of a plant, but it makes itself distinctly present,--even when we are careful to permit no translation of the feeling into action. Men are not a.n.a.lyzers or inquirers into character, as a general rule, but the bright ways and witty conversation of their favorite does not deceive them. Sooner or later they are sensitive to the restlessness, disappointment, envy, and hatred, which couches beneath the smiles and sparkle. They may put the knowledge away at the time, but when they are alone they will eventually admit and understand it all.

And the saddest part of this situation is that they are not at all astonished at what their hearts reveal to them. They know that they have expected nothing better, nothing more permanently valuable. They tell themselves frankly that in this woman's society they never looked for imperishable virtues; she was only a pretty _pa.s.se-temps_--a woman suitable for life's laughter, but not for its n.o.blest duties and discipline.

For when good men want to marry, they seek a woman for what _she is_, not for what she looks. They want a gentlewoman of blameless honor, who will love her husband, and neither be reluctant to have children nor to bring them up at her knees; who will care for her house duties and her husband's comfort and welfare as if these things were an Eleventh Commandment. And such women, fair and cultured enough to make any home happy, are not difficult to find. However peculiar and individual a man may be, there are very few in a generation who cannot convince some good woman that their peculiarities are abnormal genius, or refined moral sensitiveness, or some other great and rare excellency.

Therefore, before a girl commits herself to a course of frivolity and time-pleasing, which will fasten on her such a misnomer as a "favorite" of men, let her carefully ponder the close of such a career. For, having once obtained this reputation, she will find it very hard to rid herself of its consequences. And it is, alas, very likely that many girls enter this career thoughtlessly, and not until they are entangled in it find out that they have made a mistake with their life. Then they are wretched in the conditions they have surrounded themselves with, and yet are afraid to leave them. Their popularity is odious to them. They stretch out their hands to their wasted youth, and their future appalls them. They weep, for they think it is too late to retrieve their errors.

No! It is never too late to lift up the head and the heart! It is always the right hour to become n.o.ble and truthful and courageous once more! In short, there is yet a Divine help for those who seek it; and in that strength all may turn back and recapture their best selves.

While life lasts there is no such time as "too late!" And oh, the good that fact does one!

Mothers of Great and Good Men

Women are apt to complain that their lot is without influence. On the contrary, their lot is full of dignity and importance. If they do not lead armies, if they are not state officers, or Congressional orators, they mould the souls and minds of men who do, and are; and give the initial touch that lasts through life. The conviction of the mother's influence over the fate of her children is old as the race itself; ancient history abounds with examples; and even the destinies of the G.o.ds are represented as in its power. It was the mothers of ancient Rome that made ancient Rome great; it was the Spartan mothers that made the Spartan heroes. Those sons went out conquerors whose mothers armed them with the command, "With your shield, or on it, my son!"

The power of the mother in forming the character of the child is beyond calculation. Can any time separate the name of Monica from that of her son Augustine? Never despairing, even when her son was deep sunk in profligacy, watching, pleading, praying with such tears and fervor that the Bishop of Carthage cried out in admiration, "Go thy way; it is impossible that the son of these tears should perish!" And she lived to see the child of her love all that her heart desired. Nor are there in all literature more n.o.ble pa.s.sages than those which St.

Augustine consecrates to the memory of a parent whom all ages have crowned with the loftiest graces of motherhood.

Bishop Hall says of his mother, "She was a woman of rare sanct.i.ty."

And from her he derived that devoted spirit and prayerful dignity which gave him such unbounded influence in the church to which his life was consecrated. The "divine George Herbert" owed to his mother a still greater debt, and the famous John Newton proposes himself as "an example for the encouragement of mothers to do their duty faithfully to their children." Every one is familiar with the picture which represents Dr. Doddridge's mother teaching him, before he could read, the Old and New Testament history from the painted tiles in the chimney corner. Crowley, Thomson, Campbell, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Schiller and the Schlegels, Canning, Lord Brougham, Curran, and hundreds of our great men may say with Pierre Vidal:

"If aught of goodness or of grace Be mine, hers be the glory; She led me on in wisdom's path And set the light before me."

Perhaps there was never a more wonderful example of maternal influence than that of the Wesleys' mother. To use her own words, she cared for her children as "one who works together with G.o.d in the saving of a soul." She never considered herself absolved from this care, and her letters to her sons when they were men are the wonder of all who read them. Another prominent instance is that of Madame Bonaparte over her son Napoleon. This is what he says of her: "She suffered nothing but what was grand and elevated to take root in our souls. She abhorred lying, and pa.s.sed over none of our faults." How large a part the mother of Washington played in the formation of her son's character, we have only to turn to Irving's "Life of Washington" to see. And it was her greatest honor and reward when the world was echoing with his renown, to listen and calmly reply, "He has been a good son, and he has done his duty as a man."

John Quincy Adams owed everything to his mother. The cradle hymns of his childhood were songs of liberty, and as soon as he could lisp his prayers she taught him to say Collins' n.o.ble lines, "How sleep the brave who sink to rest." No finer late instance of the influence of a mother in the formation of character can be adduced than that of Gerald Ma.s.sey. His mother roused in him his hatred of wrong, his love of liberty, his pride in honest, hard-working poverty; and Ma.s.sey, in his later days of honor and comfort, often spoke with pride of those years when his mother taught her children to live in honest independence on rather less than a dollar and a half a week. The similar instance of President Garfield and his mother is too well known to need more than mention.

There can be no doubt of the illimitable influence of the mother in the formation of her child's character. The stern, pa.s.sionate piety of Mrs. Wesley made saints and preachers of her children; the ambition and bravery of Madame Bonaparte moulded her son into a soldier, and the beautiful union of these qualities helped to form the hero beloved of all lands,--George Washington. I do not say that mothers can give genius to their sons; but all mothers can do for their children what Monica did for Augustine, what Madame Bonaparte did for Napoleon, what Mrs. Washington did for her son George, what Gerald Ma.s.sey's mother did for him, what ten thousands of good mothers all over the world are doing this day,--patiently moulding, hour by hour, year by year, that c.u.mulative force which we call character. And if mothers do this duty honestly, whether their sons are private citizens or public men, they will "rise up and call them blessed."

Domestic Work for Women

To that cla.s.s of women who toil not, neither spin, and who, like contented ravens, are fed they know not how nor whence, it is superfluous to speak of domestic service; for their housekeeping consists in "giving orders," and their marketing is represented by tradesmen's wagons and buff-colored pa.s.s-books. Yet I am far from inferring that, because they can financially afford to be idle, they have a right to be so. They surely owe to the world some free gift of labor, else it would be hard to see why they came into it. Not for ornaments certainly, since Parian marble and painted canvas would be both more economical and satisfactory; not for housewives, for their houses are in the hands of servants; not for mothers, for they universally grumble at the advent and responsibility of children.

But to the large majority of women, domestic service ought to be a high moral question, especially to those who are the wives of men striving to keep up on limited incomes the reality and the appearance of a prosperous home; all the more necessary, perhaps, because the appearance is the condition on which the reality is possible.

Too often a false notion that usefulness and elegance are incompatible, that it is "unladylike" to be in their kitchens, or come in contact with the baker and butcher, makes them abrogate the highest honors of wifehood. Or perhaps they have the misfortune to be the children of those tender parents who are permitted without loss of reputation to educate their daughters for drawing-room ornaments in their youth, and yet do nothing to _insure_ them against a middle age of struggle and privation, and an old age of misery.

To such I would speak candidly--not without thought--not without practical knowledge of what I say--not without strong hopes that I may influence many warm, thoughtless hearts, who only need to be once alive to a responsibility in order to feel straitened and burdened until they a.s.sume and fulfil it.

Is it fair, then, is it just, kind, or honorable, that the husband day after day should be bound to the wheel of a monotonous occupation, and the wife fritter away the results in frivolity or suffer them to be wasted in extravagant and yet unsatisfactory housekeeping? Supposing the magnificent affection of the husband makes him willing to coin his life into dollars, in order that the wife may live and dress and visit according to her ideal, ought she to accept an offering that has in it so strong an odor of human sacrifice?

Even if it be necessary to keep up a certain style, it is still in the wife's power to make the husband's service for this end a reasonable one. Personal supervision of the marketing will save twenty per cent, and I am afraid to say how much might be saved from actual waste in the kitchen by the same means; and this is but the beginning.

Yet saving is only one item in the wife's lawful domestic service; if her husband is to be a permanently successful man, she must take care of his digestion. It may seem derogatory to thought, enterprise, and virtue to a.s.sert that eating has anything to do with them. I cannot help the condition; I only know that it exists, and that she is but a poor wife who ignores the fact.

The days when men stuck to their "roast and boiled" as firmly as to their creed are, of necessity, disappearing. The fervid life we are all leading demands food that can be a.s.similated with the least possible detriment to, or expenditure of, the vital powers. "Thoughts that burn" are no poetic fancy; the planning, the calculating that a business man performs during the day literally burns up the material of conscious life. It is the wife's duty to replenish the fires of intellect and energy by fuel that the enfeebled vitality can convert most easily into the elements necessary to repair the waste.

The idea that it is derogatory for cultivated brains and white hands to investigate the stock-jar and the stew-pan is a very mistaken one.

The daintiest lady I ever knew, the wife of a merchant who is one of our princes, sees personally every day to the preparation of her husband's dinner and its artistic and appetizing arrangement on the table. I have not the smallest doubt that the nourishing soups, the delicately prepared meats, the delicious desserts, are the secret of many a clear-headed business transaction, household investments that make possible the far-famed commercial ones. This mysterious relationship between what we _eat_ and what we _do_ was dimly perceived by Dr. Johnson when he said that "a man who did not care for his dinner would care for nothing else."

Artistic cooking derogatory! Why, it is a science, an art, as sure to follow a high state of civilization as the fine arts do. No persons of fine feelings can be indifferent to what they eat, any more than to what they wear, or what their household surroundings are. A man may be compelled by circ.u.mstances to swallow half-cooked b.l.o.o.d.y beef and boiled paste dumplings, and yet it may be as repugnant to him as it would be to wear a scarlet belcher neckerchief, a bra.s.s watch-chain, and a cotton-velvet coat. Yet his wife may be ignorant or indifferent; he is too much occupied with other matters to "make a fuss about it,"

and so he shuts his eyes, opens his mouth, and takes whatever his cook pleases to send him. I do not like to be uncharitable, but somehow I can't help thinking that a wife who permits this kind of thing is unworthy of her wedding ring.

Let her take a volume of F. W. Johnston's "Domestic Chemistry" in her hand, and go down into her kitchen. She will be in a far higher region of romance than Miss Braddon can take her into. She will learn that it is her province to renew her husband physically and mentally by dexterously depositing the right kind of nutriment upon the inward, invisible frame. The wonders of science shall supersede then, for her, the wonders of romance. To feed the sacred fire of life will become a n.o.ble office; she will count it as honorable, in its place, to make a fine soup or a delicate Charlotte Russe as to play a Beethoven sonata or read a German cla.s.sic.

Truly, I think that it is almost a sin for a housekeeper with all her senses to be ignorant of the laws of chemistry affecting food. Yet the subject is so large and complicated that I can only indicate its importance; but I am sure that women of affection and intelligence who may now for the first time accept the thought, will follow my hints to all their manifold conclusions. One of these conclusions is so important that I cannot avoid directing special attention to it,--the moral effect of proper food.

Do not doubt that all through life high things depend on low ones; and in this matter it must be evident to every observing woman that food is often the _nerve_ of our highest social affections. There is an acute domestic disorder which Dr. Marshall Hall used to call "the temper disease." Need I point out to wives the wonderful sympathy between this disease and the dining-table? Do they not know that a fretful, belated, ill-cooked breakfast has the power to take all the energy out of a sensitively organized man, and make his entire day an uncomfortable failure?

On the contrary, a cheerful room, a snowy cloth, coffee "with the aroma in," bread whose amber crust and light, white crumb is a picture, in short, a well-appointed, quiet, comfortable first meal has in it some subtle influence of strength and inspiration for work. I have seen men rise from such tables _joyful_--full of such grat.i.tude and hope as I can well believe only found expression in that silent uplifting of the heart to G.o.d which is, after all, our purest prayer.

Then when at evening he returns weary, faint and hungry, a fine sonata or an exquisite painting will not much comfort him. I even doubt whether a religious service could profitably take the place of his dinner; for we _know_, if we will acknowledge it, that the importunate demands of the flesh do cry down the still small voice of devotion.

But how different we feel after eating; then we are disposed for something higher, the mind is elevated to gracious thoughts, the brain gives reasonable counsel, the heart generous responses. And I speak with all reverence when I say that many of our darkest hours in spiritual things are not to be attributed to an angry G.o.d or a hidden Saviour, but to physical repletion or inanition. But if these wonderfully fashioned bodies be the "temple of the Holy Ghost," how shall we expect the comforts of G.o.d in a disordered or ill-kept shrine?

Thus it is in the power of the housewife to turn the work of the kitchen into a sacrifice of gladness, and to make the offices of the table a means of grace. Certain it is that she will decide whether her husband is to be commercially successful or not; for if a man will be rich, he must ask his wife's permission to be so. And if he will be physically healthy, mentally clear, morally sweet, she must take care that his home furnish the proper food and stimulus on which these conditions depend. Nor will she go far wrong if she take as a general rule, lying at the foundation, or in close connection with them all, Sydney Smith's pleasant hyperbolic maxim, "Soup and fish explain half the emotions of life."