Chapter 2

There were never any matches in the receivers; when the husband wanted one he was obliged to search the house. The newspaper he had folded and left ready to read at leisure was used to light the fire, although an overfilled waste-basket stood near. The towel-rack was empty just when he wanted his bath, and his bedroom slippers were always kicked so far under the bed that he was obliged to crawl on all fours to reach them.

Then his loving spouse was sure to want to be "cuddled" when he was smoking his cigar and reading,--a triple occupation only possible to a human freak, with three arms, four eyes, and two mouths.

Therefore I would urge you, my dear Edna, to mingle the practical with the ideal, and common sense with sentiment, and tact with affection, in your domestic life.

These general rules are all I can give to guide your barque into the smooth, sea of marital happiness.

It is a wide sea, with many harbours and ports, and no two ships start from exactly the same point or take exactly the same course. You will encounter rocks and reefs, perhaps, which my boat escaped, and I have no chart to guide you away from those rocks.

If I knew you better, and knew your husband at all, I might steer you a little farther out of Honeymoon Bay into calm waters, and tell you how to reef your sails, and how to tack at certain junctures of the voyage, and with the wind in certain directions.

But if you keep your heart full of love, your mind clear of distrust, and your lips free from faultfinding, and if you pray for guidance and light upon your way, I am sure you cannot miss the course.

To Miss Gladys Weston

_Who Faces the Necessity to Earn a Living_

It is indeed a problem, my dear Gladys, to face stern-visaged Necessity after walking with laughing-lipped Pleasure for twenty-two years.

What an unforeseen event that your father should sink his fortune in a rash venture and die of remorse and discouragement scarcely six months after you were travelling through Europe with me, and laughing at my vain attempts to make you economize.

You have acted the noble and womanly part, in using the last dollar of your father's property to pay his debts, and I could imagine you doing no other way.

But now comes the need of earning a livelihood for yourself, and your delicate mother.

I know you have gone over the list of your accomplishments and taken stock of all your inherited and acquired qualities. You play the piano well, but in these days of Paderewskies and pianolas, no one wants to employ a young girl music-teacher. You do not sing, and if you did, that would not afford you a means of support. The best of natural voices need a fortune spent before half a fortune can be earned.

You dance like a fairy, and swim like a mermaid, and ride like an Indian princess, but these accomplishments are not lucrative, save in a Midway Plaisance or a Wild West show. You are well educated and your memory is remarkable. You have a facility in mathematics, and your knowledge of grammar and rhetoric will, as you say, enable you to pass the examination for a teacher in the public schools after a little brushing up and study. Then, with the political influence of your father's old friends, you will no doubt be able to obtain a position.

I recollect you as surpassingly skilful with the needle. I know you once saw a charming morning gown in Paris which I persuaded you not to buy at the absurd price asked for it, after the merchant understood we were Americans. And I remember how you passed to another department, purchased materials, went home to our hotel, and cut and made a surprising imitation of the gown at one-tenth the cost.

Why have you not considered turning this talent to account? Though the world goes to war and ruin, yet women will dress, and the need of good seamstresses ever exists.

Go to some enterprising half-grown Western or interior Eastern town, announce yourself in possession of all the Paris styles (as you are), and launch out. Increase your prices gradually, and go abroad on your savings at the end of a year, then come back with new ideas, a larger stock, and higher prices.

You will be on the road to fortune, and can retire with a competence before you are middle-aged. A little skill with the scissors and needle, lots of courage and audacity, and original methods will make a woman succeed in this line of endeavour.

But why do I not approve of the profession upon which you have almost decided--that of teaching--you ask.

I will tell you why.

Next to motherhood, the profession of teacher in public or private schools is the most important one on earth.

It is, in a certain sense, more responsible than that of motherhood, since the work of poor and bad mothers must be undone by the teacher, and where the mother has three or four children for a period of years to influence, the teacher has hundreds continually. There are very few perfect teachers. There are too few excellent ones. There are too many poor ones. I do not believe you possess the requisites for the calling.

A teacher should first of all love children as a class. Their dependence, their ignorance, their helplessness, and their unformed characters should appeal to a woman's mind, and make her forget their many and varied faults and irritating qualities. You like lovable, well-bred, and interesting children, but you are utterly indifferent to all others. You adore beauty, and an ugly child offends your taste. A stupid child irritates you.

You have a wonderful power of acquiring and remembering information, but you do not possess the knack of readily imparting it. You expect others to grasp ideas in the same way you do. This will make you unsympathetic and impatient as a teacher. You have no conception of the influence a teacher exerts upon children in public schools. You were educated in private schools and at home, I know. I attended the country public school, and to this day I can recall the benefits and misfortunes which resulted to me from association with different teachers. Children are keenly alive to the moods of teachers and are often adepts in mind-reading.

A teacher should be able to enter into the hearts and souls of the children under her charge, and she should find as great pleasure in watching their minds develop as the musical genius in watching a composition grow under his touch.

An infinite number of things not included in the school routine should be taught by teachers. Courtesy, kindness to dependents and weaker creatures, a horror of cruelty in all forms, a love of nature, politeness to associates, low speaking and light walking, cleanliness and refinement of manner,--all these may be imparted by a teacher who loves to teach, without extra time or fatigue. I fear a proud disdain, and a scarcely hidden disgust, would be plainly visible in your demeanour toward the majority of the untrained little savages given to your charge in a public school. You have not the love of humanity at large in your heart, nor the patience and perseverance to make you take an optimistic view in the colossal work of developing the minds of children. Therefore it seems to me almost a sin for you to undertake the profession merely because you need to earn a living. There are other things to be considered besides your necessities. Fond as I am of you, I have the betterment of humanity at my heart, too, and cannot feel it is right for you to place yourself in a position where you will not be doing the best for those dependent upon you that could be done.

I have given up hope of seeing mothers made to realize their responsibilities. But I still have hope of the teachers. On them and their full understanding of all it is in their power to do, lies the hope of the world.

Therefore, my dear girl, I urge you to take up dressmaking or millinery instead of school-teaching.

If you ruin a piece of goods in the making, you can replace it and profit by your error. But if you mar a child's nature in your attempt to teach him, you have done an irreparable injury not only to him but to humanity.

If you saw a design started by a lace-maker, you would not think of taking the work and attempting to complete it until you had learned the art of lace-making.

Just so you ought not to think of developing the wonderful intricacies of a child's mind until you have learned how.

It is all right to deliberately choose a vocation which gives us contact only with inanimate things, but we have no right to take the handling of human souls unless we are specially fitted for the task.

To Clarence St. Claire

_Regarding His Sister's Betrothal_

Your request, my dear Clarence, that I try to influence your sister to change her determination in this matter, calls for some very plain statements from me.

I have known you and Elise since you were playing with marbles and rattles, and your mother and I have been very good acquaintances (scarcely intimate enough to be called friends) for more than a score of years. You are very much like your mother, both in exterior appearance and in mind. Elise is the image of her father at the time he captured your mother's romantic fancy, and as I recollect him when he died.

You were five years old, Elise three, at that time. Your mother lived with your father six years in months, an eternity in experience. You know that she was unhappy, and that he disillusioned her with love, and almost with life. He married your mother solely for her fortune. She was a sweet and beautiful girl, of excellent family, but your father had no qualities of mind or soul which enabled him to appreciate or care for any woman, save as she could be of use to him, socially and financially.

In six years he managed to dispose of all but a mere pittance of her fortune, and humiliated her in a thousand ways besides. His only decent act was to die and leave her undisturbed for the remainder of her life. Your uncle assisted in her support and saved the remnant of her property, so that she has, by careful and rigorous economy, been able to educate you and Elise, and keep up a respectable appearance in a quiet way.

Of course it was impossible to retain her place among the associates of her better days, and you know how bitter this fact has always made Elise. Your sister has the physical beauty and the overwhelming love of money and power which characterized your father. She has a modicum of your mother's sense of honour, but has been reared in a way not calculated to develop much strength of character. Your mother has been a slave to your sister. Elise is incapable of a deep, intense love for any man, and your mother's pessimistic ideas of love and marriage have still further acted upon her brain cells and atrophied whatever impulses may have been latent in her nature, to love and be loved. These qualities might have been developed had Elise been under the tutelage of some one versed in the science of brain building, but your mother, like most mothers, was not aware of the tremendous possibilities within her grasp, or of the effect of the ideas she expressed in the hearing of her children. Neither did she seem to recognize the father's traits in Elise, and undertake the work of eliminating them, as she might have done. She has been an unselfish and devoted mother, and has made too many sacrifices for Elise. At the same time, she has awakened the mind of your sister to ideals of principle and honour which will help her to be a better woman than her inheritance from your father would otherwise permit. But now, at the age of twenty-one, it is impossible to hope that she will develop into a self-sacrificing, loving, womanly woman, whose happiness can be found in a peaceful domestic life. She has seen your mother sad and despondent, under the yoke of genteel poverty, and heard her bemoan her lost privileges of wealth and station. This, added to her natural craving for money and place, renders a wealthy marriage her only hope of happiness on earth.

Mr. Volney has an enormous fortune. He is, as you say, a senile old man in his dotage. As you say again, such a marriage is a travesty. But Elise is incapable of feeling the love which alone renders marriage a holy institution. She has undesirable qualities which ought not to be transmitted to children, and she is absolutely devoid of maternal instincts.

I have heard her say she would consider motherhood the greatest disaster which could befall her. But she is unfitted for a self-supporting career, and she wants a home and position.

She has beauty, kind and generous impulses, and a love of playing Lady Bountiful. It is not so much that she wants to benefit the needy, as that she likes to place people under obligations and to have them look up to her as a superior being.

Old Mr. Volney is a miser, and his money is doing no one good. He has only distant relatives, and by taking Elise for a wife (according to law) he will wrong no one, and she will make much better use of his fortune than his heirs would make.

Your mother will be relieved of worry and care. Many worthy poor people and charities will receive help, and Elise will have her heart's desire--fine apparel, jewels, a social position, and no one to bother her. The valet and nurse will look after Mr. Volney, and his simple old heart will bask in the pride of an old man--the possession of a pretty young wife.

Had he full use of his mental faculties, and did he long for love and devotion, I would try and dissuade Elise from the marriage, but solely on _his_ account, not on hers.

The young man you mention, as your choice of a suitor for the hand of your sister, might better go up in a balloon to seek for Eutopia than to expect happiness as her husband. He has a sweet, gentle, loving nature, a taste for quiet home joys, fondness for children, and he has two thousand a year, with small prospects of more in the near future.

He should marry a modest, domestic girl, with tastes similar to his own, and with no overweening ambitions. Elise would simply drive him mad in a year's time, with her restless discontent, her extravagance, and her desire for the expensive pleasures of earth. It is useless to reason with her, or to expect her to model her ideas to suit her circumstances. Inheritance and twenty-one years of wrong education must be taken into consideration. What would mean happiness for many women would mean misery for her. I can imagine no more dreadful destiny than to be tied to a senile old man by a legal ceremony, even were I given his millions in payment. But that will mean happiness to Elise.

I think we should let people seek their own ideals of happiness, when they break no law, and injure no other life by it.

I shall congratulate Elise by this post on having made so fortunate an alliance. I could not congratulate her were she to marry her young suitor. I shall congratulate your mother on having nothing to worry about, regarding the future of Elise.

And I advise you to take a philosophical view of the situation, and to remember that, in judging the actions of our fellow beings, we must take their temperaments, characteristics, and environment into consideration, not our own.

You have made the very common error of thinking, because Elise is a handsome young girl, that love, and home, and children would mean happiness to her.

Women vary as greatly as do plants and flowers in their needs. The horticulturist knows that he cannot treat them all alike, and he studies their different requirements.

To some he gives moisture and sun, to some shade, and to some dry, sandy soil. The thistle pushes forth a gorgeous bloom from an arid bed. It would die in the pond where the lily thrives.

Too much sentiment is wasted in this world and too much effort expended in trying to make all people happy in some one way.

When I was a little girl, a Sunday-school superintendent presented every girl in the class with a doll, and each doll was exactly the same. Most little girls like dolls, but I never played with one, as they were always so hopelessly inanimate. If the good man had given me a sled, or a book, or a picture, I would have been happy. As it was, his gift was a failure. You want to present your sister with a devoted young husband, a cottage, and several children, because you think every woman should possess these things. Your sister happens to be one who prefers a wealthy old invalid.

Let her have what she wants, my dear Clarence, and let her work out her destiny in her own way. She will do less harm in the world than if you forced her into your way. Now you must remember that you asked me to help you in this matter, and I could only write you the absolute facts of the situation, as I knew it to be. I feel fairly confident that you will accept my point of view, and act as best man at your sister's wedding.

To Miss Margaret Riley

_Shop Girl, Concerning Her Oppressors_

Your letter has been destroyed, as you requested, and you need not fear my betraying your confidence.

Your mother was so long in my employ that I feel almost like a foster-mother to you, having seen you grow up from the cradle to self-supporting young womanhood.

The troubles and evils which you mention as existing about you, I know to be quite universal in all large shops, factories, and department stores, indeed in all houses where the two sexes are employed.

I know that a certain order of men in power use that power to lower the ideals and standards of womanhood when they can.

A pretty young girl once in my service related to me the cold-blooded suggestions made to her by her employer to increase the miserable wage paid her in a sweat-shop.

The sacrifice of her virtue seemed no more to this man than the sale of an old garment.

The girl did not make the sacrifice, however, and she did not starve, freeze, or die. She managed to exist and to better her condition by doing domestic work and saving her money to fit herself for more congenial employment. When I last saw her she was planning to become a trained nurse, and had paid for a course of instruction in massage. I tell you this merely to illustrate a fact I fully believe, that any girl who is determined to live an honourable life and retain her self-respect can make her way in the world and rise from lesser to higher positions, if she is patient and willing to do what is termed menial work as a stepping-stone. You tell me that scores of girls are kept in poorly paying, inferior positions when capable of filling better places, simply because they will not accept the dishonourable attentions of some of the men in authority.

You beg me to arouse the good women of America to a crusade against what you say is a growing evil and to boycott such shops and stores.

But you ask me to do what is an impracticable thing.

You would not like to be called as a witness were this matter brought before the courts. Were all the good women of America to begin such a crusade, where would they obtain the proofs of their accusations?

And even if the witnesses were ready, there is not a newspaper in the land that would dare champion the reform. And no great reform can be made without the aid of the press. The daily papers, as you say, give columns to protests against lesser evils, but you must know that these newspapers are largely supported by the profitable advertisements of manufactories and dry-goods houses. Glance over the columns of any of our large dailies and see how much space such advertising occupies.

Imagine what it would mean to lose all this high-priced patronage. Therefore, even if the most moral of editors knew that these establishments were undermining our social conditions and invading our homes, I doubt if he could be induced to make a protest. It is a curious thing to see how many are the kinds of victims caught and held in the clutches of the money-devil-fish in our wonderful land of freedom.

Even clergymen who are preaching morality and brotherly love are compelled to keep their mouths shut on certain evils and abuses, lest they offend the pillars of the church and deprive the treasury of its income.

In a certain New England town famous for its educational institution, a clergyman denounced a corporation which had swindled the poor and deceived scores of citizens. He was requested to discontinue further references to the matter, as the church treasury was supplied by the money which accrued from this monopoly.

The most powerful members of the church were officers in the corporation.

The young clergyman sent in his resignation and gave up an assured salary to follow the light of his own conscience. But there are few with his bravery and, therefore, the strongholds of selfishness and self-indulgence remain impregnable. While we admire the splendid character which makes a man capable of refusing a salary which means hush-money, we can at the same time understand the difficult position of a clergyman with a hungry brood of children to support, who hesitates at such a move. We can understand how he argues with himself, that by taking the money of the monopolists, he is able to do more good for humanity than by refusing it, and losing both influence and income. It is a false argument, yet the worn and weary mind of the average orthodox minister will accept it as the advisable course to pursue. So you will see how difficult is the task you suggest my undertaking. You tell me that it is useless for you to leave one shop and go to another, as all are more or less conducted on the same lines; and that it is mere chance if a girl finds herself in a position where she can advance on her merits. Even then a sudden change in heads of departments some day may destroy all her hopes.

You say I have no idea how many girls go wrong just through the persecution and tyranny of these men--forced to fall in order to keep herself fed and clothed. I repeat what I said already in this connection,--that I am certain any girl determined to keep herself above reproach and ambitious to rise in the world can do so. She may have to endure many privations and sorrows for a time, and that time may seem long and weary, _but a change will come for the better as surely as spring follows winter, if she does not waver_.

If you will look carefully into the facts of the cases which fall under your observation, I am confident you will see that it is vanity and indolence, not hunger and oppression, which cause the majority of the girls you mention to go astray. They desire to make as good an appearance, and to be given the same privileges of leisure, as the favourite who has been promoted through unworthy methods.

You tell me you would rather jump from Brooklyn Bridge and end the struggle at once than lose your self-respect, but that you are weary of seeing the girls with less conscience, and lesser capabilities, pushed ahead of you and your worthy associates. Yet I am certain from the tone of your letter that you will never forget your self-respect, and I have faith that you can make your way in the world in spite of all the designing masculine oppressors in existence.

So will any woman, who sets her mark high, and believes in the invincible power of her own spirit to conquer all the demons of earth.

Do not imagine your position is one of unusual trial and temptation. A young actress of my acquaintance has been obliged to fight her way slowly to partial recognition because she would not accept the conditions offered, with leading rôles and fine wardrobe, by two polygamous-minded managers.

She is making her way, however, and the very battle she is fighting with life has strengthened her powers as an artist. A young stenographer has been compelled to give up two positions because she would not allow the loverlike attentions of married employers. She was called a silly prude and discharged. Yet she is occupying an excellent position with a clean high-class business house to-day.