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ABOUT PEOPLE 
 
 KATE GANNETT WELLS 
 
 
 i NOV 20 11884 
 
 BOSTO"" 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 I 885 
 
 x- 
 

 Copyright, 1SS4 
 Kate Gannnet Wells 
 
 A/l rights reserved 
 
 Rockwell and Churchill y Printers, Boston. 
 
Two or three of these Essays have pre- 
 viously appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, 
 and a few pages of the others in various 
 periodicals. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Average People . 
 Individuality 
 Striving .... 
 Loyalty and Liberality 
 Transitional Woman . 
 Personal Influence 
 Who's Who . 
 Caste in American Society 
 
 9 
 35 
 69 
 
 95 
 123 
 149 
 
 173 
 199 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE 
 
 A VERAGE people are the ballast of the 
 world. Notwithstanding their usefulness, 
 how few people are willing to be ranked as 
 average ! How many secretly feel that they 
 are beyond the limits of that epithet, and that 
 their acquaintances are just below it ! 
 
 Those who think they have escaped the 
 boundarjr line, and are to be classed with re- 
 markable people, indulge in a perpetual mirage 
 of thought, which, to themselves, inverts their 
 hulk of commonplaceness into mast-heads of 
 prominence. We look at them through their 
 self-imposed atmosphere, and believe that they 
 are above the water-line ; but the air changes, 
 
12 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 and the relative proportion of their attributes is 
 plainly visible. 
 
 Insignificance is never greater than when it 
 thinks it is just above the average. Endeavor- 
 ing to avoid its limitations, it wraps itself in the 
 restlessness which it supposes is the necessary 
 malady of growth. It hugs its imagined head- 
 aches and heartaches, and believes that it is per- 
 petually suffering from an access of creative 
 thought, of original deed, which, always com- 
 ing, never appears. Some men and women 
 are ever on an uneven race for wealth and am- 
 bition ; they are discontented with the restric- 
 tions of home and humility ; they speak with 
 pathos of their unfulfilled aspirations, of their 
 weary, large-eyed gaze at society, of the hol- 
 lowness of life, of the solace in " interior 
 views," of the comfort in keeping thought- 
 diaries, and in interchange of misty quotations 
 with deep natures searching for peace and 
 truth. They try to do and to be more than 
 their mental and physical limitations allow. 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 13 
 
 The women want some loftier mission than 
 house-work, the men something more than 
 clerkships. So many win the public-school 
 diplomas that they are sure they can also suc- 
 ceed in the struggle for a profession, or for one 
 of the higher avenues of employment. A 
 failure is attributed to any other cause rather 
 than to mistaken self-estimate. This desire 
 for advancement, irrespective of personal qual- 
 ifications, is the reason for the increasing 
 influx of restlessness among so many persons. 
 Within its proper sphere it must always be a 
 permanent element of human nature ; but at 
 present it is assuming undue proportion, 
 owing to the transitional state between 
 woman's future definite activities, her possi- 
 ble, much-to-be-dreaded publicity, and her 
 former quiescence ; and because of the de- 
 ductions made by young men from the false 
 axiom, that, in this country, every one has a 
 chance to be President. Biennial State elec- 
 tions or second presidential terms would be 
 
14 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 calamities to those who take " uppishness" as 
 their motto in striving. That restlessness may 
 often have a physical basis ; may be fostered 
 by temperament, — if so, to be eradicated, — 
 or by special individual conditions, — then to be 
 conquered, — are but secondary causes for its 
 existence. 
 
 Restlessness does not necessarily progress. 
 It goes from one side to the other, tossing up 
 one set of miseries, and exposing for public 
 pity another set of foibles ; it hates others' and 
 condones its own short-comings. Education 
 and culture are constantly regarded as antidotes 
 to restlessness ; and though such only to a cer- 
 tain extent, their value is not to be decried ; 
 but a restless nature cannot be satisfied with 
 study alone. Education must be used as a 
 means of enjoyment, not as a stimulus to per- 
 sonal ambition, nor as the sole implement for a 
 livelihood. If valued for its power of securing 
 success, rather than for giving peace and 
 strength to the mind, it defeats its purpose, and 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 1 5 
 
 is no longer the blessing it might become. 
 Above culture rises the power of character, as 
 cure for all the evils that beset us, and as the 
 lever inserted under all difficulties. Instead 
 of endeavoring to strengthen character by vs^ork 
 for others, often unpaid, some seek to curb 
 their discontent and want of self-poise by start- 
 ing new schemes for the sake of novelty or 
 personal ambition. Others strive for the same 
 result by an endless pursuit of lectures, and 
 many by a diletta7tte culture, when real inter- 
 est in study is wanting. They aim too high in 
 the beginning of their effort at self-improve- 
 ment ; enjoyment is a test of capacity, and 
 capacity is increased by enjoyment. Religious 
 faith or "ethical" trust can alone cure the 
 restlessness which seeks its quietus in educa- 
 tion and culture. Its evil is heightened by this 
 endeavor to overstep limitations that cannot be 
 passed without injury to one's self or one's 
 duties. The debating societies of men are fre- 
 quently opportunities for self-display, and the 
 
1 6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 history and literature classes of women but an 
 excuse for spending a morning elsewhere than 
 at home. The culture thus sought comes from 
 books alone, when the mood of mind or weari- 
 ness of body makes it impossible to enjoy them 
 except for the grim satisfaction that is found in 
 doing for one's self. 
 
 Restless people often seek to rise by adven- 
 titious means ; they use others' kindnesses 
 and throw them away when a fresh social step- 
 ping-stone has been reached ; they snub those 
 below and fawn on those above them ; they 
 appropriate others' stories, and live on capital 
 stolen or borrowed, no thought of interest on 
 personal obligations ever occurring to them. 
 Such conduct is more contemptible, but not so 
 wearisome to aquaintances as uneasy intro- 
 spection, using one's self as a claimant for 
 sympathy. 
 
 The homes of those who think they are 
 above the average, because in their search for 
 distinction or a great soul they are devoured 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 1 7 
 
 with restlessness, are decorated with cheap 
 textiles of old-gold shades and ancestral dis- 
 colorations ; books are laid over literary ink- 
 spots on the table-scarf (not table-cloth) ; 
 chairs, purposely placed carelessly, are always 
 in the way. Men wear oppressive sleeve-but- 
 tons ; women divide their hair on the shadow 
 of a diagonal and adopt sestheticism in dress, 
 because it hides economy under the pretence 
 of a cultured soul. 
 
 Their speech is strewn with niceties " of 
 grammar and pronunciations which are pain- 
 fully correct ; acute accents are placed on sylla- 
 bles, and e7z is added to the participle got* 
 They never use a slang term which would 
 avoid the use of circumlocution ; they choose 
 their substantives and adjectives from Latin, 
 rather than Saxon roots. They talk of psy- 
 chological conditions, and use physiological 
 terms with surprising familiarity. There is no 
 humbug so easily penetrated as that of the 
 striving to be above the level of humanity. 
 
1 8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 Those who are below it are rough and 
 coarse, honest or not, as the case may be ; but 
 ever a terror. They are self-opinionated, care- 
 less in dress, words, and manner, because they 
 do not wish to be otherwise. Want of per- 
 sonal refinement, absence of humor, jealousy, 
 or indifference, mark them. 
 
 Average people, our needed commonplace 
 friends, are the mean in the social relations of 
 life between the two extremes of our ideals 
 and realizations. They are constituted either 
 as the average man or the average gentleman 
 and the average woman or the average lady. 
 So much conventionality has clung, in the past, 
 to the word lady that the term woman was 
 later employed, as indicating a being more 
 nobly planned than its circumscribed and 
 partial synonyme. But now no gentlewoman 
 is content unless she is also called a lady, for 
 the word woman has come to represent such 
 intensified shortness in skirts, thickness in 
 boots, such repulsive good sense and plainness 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 19 
 
 of speech, such self-asserting, executive ability 
 and dominant purpose, that in rebounding 
 from this type of femineity, we would almost 
 rather accept the sentimental heroines of the 
 novels of a past age. The obloquy of being 
 only a woman was ludicrously shown by the 
 misnomer with which a real lady unconsciously 
 spoke of A. S. Hardy's story, "But yet a 
 Woman." " Not yet a lady," she rightly 
 termed it. The tone in which society utters, 
 " She is no lady," indicates so final a settle- 
 ment of the matter that there is no opportunity 
 for controversy. The fiat has gone forth as 
 that of predestination, and there Is no use in 
 struggling against the mandate. 
 
 Man and gentleman have not inverted their 
 significance to such an extent as their feminine 
 correlatives. The exceptional gentleman in- 
 cludes the man, but to be a man does not 
 compel one to be a gentleman ; — and we say 
 manhood suffi'age ! If we possess the blessed- 
 ness of average excellence, the exceptional 
 
20 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 can easily be left aloft in its shining isola- 
 tion. 
 
 The average man or woman understands 
 arithmetic, spells correctly from memory 
 rather than by intuition, is industrious, cor- 
 dial, shakes hands heartily, is good-hu- 
 mored, sensible, moderate, free from preju- 
 dice, helpful, sometimes aggressive, generally 
 unconscious. 
 
 The average gentleman or lady knows 
 languages, writes an English hand, fulfils all 
 needful demands, but does not work from real 
 love of occupation, is well-bred, quotes bright 
 and applicable sayings, is even-tempered, has 
 honest prejudices, hides haste under a forced 
 slowness, helps where there is no fear of 
 being considered intrusive, lays the hand in 
 another's palm as greeting, smiles serenely, 
 laughs softly, and is self-contented, instead of 
 self-conscious. Rarely does either the average 
 gentleman or lady become the exceptional, 
 for they are radically " helplessly bornee." 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 21 
 
 On the other hand, average men or 
 women have such a real simphcity of pur- 
 pose that in evolution they skip the abortive 
 growth of the average gentleman or lady 
 and pass into exceptional gentlemen or ladies, 
 who are not cast down at a mispronunciation, 
 for the soul that is behind makes the tones 
 of voice hit like hot shot on each emphatic 
 word ; and the handwriting bears a stamp of 
 individuality which leaves the chance mis- 
 spelling unnoticed. In such persons we are 
 unaware of their motion, whether it is that 
 of speed or slowness we know not, only that 
 they are always coming to welcome us as 
 equals. We are ignorant of their personal or 
 mental habits : the books they read, the soap 
 or brushes they use, the clothes they wear ; to 
 be conspicuously neat and well-informed is 
 but little less disagreeable than to be unneat or 
 uncultured. They are far above customs, 
 peculiarities ; their methods are only known by 
 results. Knowledge is their servant, not the 
 
22 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 cicerone of their requirements, for each one 
 stands as a whole, not as a collection of points 
 with intervening spaces. Their conversation 
 does not consist of Social items or of literary 
 gossip. Their ready cordiality, sympathy, 
 grace, and proportion mark their outward 
 presentment. We know them best by know- 
 ing that we ourselves are never so brilliant, so 
 learned, or so happy as when with them. 
 The reality in them is the substratum of the 
 average man or woman, which can be re- 
 fined by the furnace of life-experience into 
 the purest human ore ; and which makes him 
 of humble appreciation able to cope with the 
 man of scholarship. No conversation is so 
 rich as that which caps the litterateur' s and 
 critic's reference with some bit of present, 
 human fact. 
 
 It is this reality which makes average peo- 
 ple so needful. As a rule they have not 
 self-consciousness, — that venerable inheritance 
 from American and English ancestry, — set 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 23 
 
 round with religious tenets, which prevents 
 our ease and our hospitalities, stifles our loud 
 laughter, and generates the well-bred smile, 
 makes us dread our enthusiasms and our heart 
 friendships, repels us from superior and infe- 
 rior, and keeps us on the look-out for snubs. 
 They do not aim at special knowledge, nor 
 take positions requiring it. They acquire 
 book-knowledge from simple enjoyment of it 
 rather than from a desire to know more than 
 others. Culture pursued for selfish ends misses 
 its beneficent power. Aspiration keeps its 
 ideals, but wisdom recognizes that the grasping 
 of them is not within the reach of all ; so aver- 
 age people may have had dreams of possible 
 future usefulness or attainment, but have become 
 content to be nobodies with slight stock of 
 general information. They take up the daily 
 routine of daily duties, thankful that there 
 is much in quantity to do, living to help 
 others, and trusting that, when old age comes, 
 serenity of mind will atone for the lack of high 
 
24 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 intelligence. They are guardians of their char- 
 acter, abiding within their limitations, hard as 
 it is to do so, and happy because needful to 
 the spot in which they are placed. They 
 create a home for others, not for themselves 
 alone, sheltering others in the wide sense of 
 caring for and helping them, often bringing 
 them within their own four walls. One must 
 make one's self, not one's house alone, into a 
 home. This is done by hundreds who live in 
 boarding-houses, whose affection is so large 
 that it hides the smallness of their room. 
 Above all, average persons have a large moral 
 sense, and are apt to judge of use, power and 
 beauty, of story and poem, by their moral ef- 
 fects. They involuntarily adopt means to ends 
 as a principle of economic force ; their sense 
 of harmony expresses itself by their choice 
 of whatever will best accomplish their pur- 
 pose. They even are religious ; their trust 
 in a higher power, which they do or do not 
 try to bring within the bounds of personality, 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 25 
 
 gives them calmness and self-poise. They 
 take duty as the substance of existence, gladly 
 accepting whatever joy comes as its lustre 
 and letting life find its justification in growth. 
 " Home-keeping hearts are happiest." 
 Average people make our homes, the homes 
 with the sitting-rooms, which represent the 
 common life of humanity. Let us keep the 
 good old word, for we must sit as individuals, 
 as families, and as nations, in order to rest, 
 and wait, and pause, and think. There are 
 the mothers who bake and mend, and are 
 glad because husbands like pies and children 
 love to romp. There are the fathers who 
 quietly work all day that their boy may go to 
 college ; who have a common purse with their 
 wife, and call her " mother," as tribute, un- 
 awares, to her blessed maternity which has 
 beautified the home, and who, when death 
 has led their life-long companion to another 
 dwelling-place, quickly follow her, as they 
 know not what else to do. It is the life 
 
26 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 of these average people that is described by 
 William C. Gannett in his poem 
 
 IN TWOS. 
 
 Somewhere in the world there hide 
 Garden-gates that no one sees, 
 
 Save they come in happy t-wos, — 
 Not in ones, nor yet in threes. 
 
 But from every maiden's door 
 
 Leads a pathway straight and true; 
 
 Maps and surveys know it not; 
 
 He who finds, finds room for two ! 
 
 Then they see the garden-gates! 
 
 Never skies so blue as theirs! 
 Never flowers so many-sweet 
 
 As for those who come in pairs. 
 
 Round and round the alleys wind : 
 Now a cradle bars their way, 
 
 Now a little mound, behind, — 
 So the two go through the day. 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 27 
 
 When no nook in all the lanes 
 
 But has heard a song or sigh, 
 Lo ! another garden-gate 
 
 Opens as the two go by! 
 
 In they wander, knowing not; 
 
 " Five and Twenty ! " fills the air 
 With a silvery echo low. 
 
 All about the startled pair. 
 
 Happier yet these garden-walks: 
 Closer, heart to heart, they lean; 
 
 Stiller, softer falls the light; 
 Few the twos, and far between. 
 
 Till, at last, as on they pass 
 
 Down the paths so well they know. 
 
 Once again at hidden gates 
 
 Stand the two : they enter slow. 
 
 Golden Gates of Fifty Years, 
 
 May our two your latchet press! 
 
 Garden of the Sunset Land, 
 Hold their dearest happiness ! 
 
28 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 Then a quiet walk again: 
 
 Then a wicket in the wall : 
 Then one, stepping on alone, — 
 
 Then two at the Heart of All ! 
 
 In this average home there is the sister who 
 washes and stiffens her one silk that the 
 brother may have another suit ; who turns his 
 cravats, and for his sake invites all the girls ; 
 and there is the brother who is a better friend 
 than beau, and who will not, even in his day- 
 dreams, think of her whom he wants to marry, 
 that he may longer support the aging father 
 and mother. Oh, it is the dear, blessed, aver- 
 age people whose names echo through our 
 prayers, who make each economy a loving 
 grace, each well-worn joke a blossom of good- 
 will ! 
 
 Or, if wealth has lightened daily cares, it is 
 still the average mother who lovingly takes in- 
 visible darns in the merino sock which a new 
 one could easily replace ; who changes the 
 brilliant chromo for Correggio's angels, and 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 29 
 
 who gives the good-night kiss at each bedside. 
 It is still the average father w^ho bids his boy 
 place emphasis on Jio7ior and ttse^ instead of 
 on popularity or high mark at examinations ; 
 and who demands rectitude and purity in the 
 husbands of his girls. It is the average people 
 who keep the churches even half-full, and the 
 country from being only on the verge of ruin. 
 It is their sturdy common-sense, independence 
 through force of character, which makes them, 
 unmindful of homage when offered to them- 
 selves, render it wherever it is due ; their 
 humble dignity, yet demanding payment of 
 the every-day respect that belongs to each 
 honest soul. 
 
 Some persons pass through the ordeal of 
 finding that aspiration can never become 
 achievement without pain. Others hide their 
 suffering in obedience to duty, and know the 
 cramping chills that come from never being 
 more than one is. They see women loved 
 with a passion which they can never inspire, 
 
30 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 and they know that any utterance of what they 
 feel would lose its power through their awk- 
 wardness. They see men reverenced for that 
 at which they thrill but can never describe. 
 They are always missing, always trying ; trem- 
 bling with the harmonies of nature, they are 
 dumb before their own formless selves. They 
 know that beauty finds ill expression of itself 
 through them ; that their tame and ordinary 
 words tell of affection w^hich is never radiant ; 
 of feeling which never prophesies, and of ap- 
 preciation which is never equality ; for they are 
 always conscious of the bitter refrain, — aver- 
 age, average. But above it rise the solemn 
 chords of patient resolve, quieting their hope- 
 lessness. Duty remains for them, and, as the 
 thought sings itself into the little moods of sad- 
 ness, their moan ceases, and, while gazing 
 afar off' and fondly at the great and pleasant 
 of earth, they seek only those whom they can 
 help by their small attempts at making things 
 pleasant. They take, gently, the ignoring of 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 31 
 
 themselves, crush their half-shaped, might- 
 have-been-bright answers, utter the remem- 
 bered commonplaces, and do the little kind- 
 nesses, and are true to their circumscribed 
 sphere of duty. These are the heroes of aver- 
 age life, the brave men and women who talk 
 of the weather, and children, and business, and 
 read the papers, and train themselves to sup- 
 pression of all vague, beautiful dreams of self- 
 possibilities. Grinding their souls into peace 
 by repetition of their futilities at home, at 
 school, and in society, by the time they are 
 twenty-five or thirty years of age they have 
 forgotten that there is aught but duty, except 
 for the spasms that come as some poem or grand 
 burst of music wakens again the struggle, — 
 never a jealous one, only bitter, and always 
 conquered by humility and duty, — gentle, in- 
 flexible, solacing duty. 
 
 In spite of this pain that comes to some, 
 contentment and sense of responsibility are the 
 prominent cliaracteristics of average people ; 
 
32 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 contentment with circumstances going hand 
 in hand with acknowledgment of varying 
 heights of mental stature, which humbly per- 
 ceives that to-day's highest result may be to- 
 morrow's future mediocrity. Contentment 
 may have had to learn its lesson, temperament 
 may have aided it, but once learned, the 
 task has not been forgotten. Tempera- 
 ment is fraught with responsibility, not devoid 
 of it; evil issues are to be shunned, beneficial 
 ones to be deepened. The more of gifts we 
 have, or the more of ease in acquiring them, 
 the less depression weighs upon us ; the 
 stronger will we possess, the more do we owe 
 to others. Self-regeneration can never be 
 effected by dependence on temperament as 
 excuse. The healthy-mindedness of average 
 people transforms the fancied force of tempera- 
 ment into the actual force of character. This 
 feeling of responsibility recognizes that con- 
 tentment is a personal attribute ; that yet one 
 can do little by himself; that the world de- 
 
AVERAGE PEOPLE. 33 
 
 mands utility as reason for daring to exist, and 
 that, therefore, average people must justify 
 themselves by organization if they are bent 
 on accomplishment of work in any large 
 direction. 
 
 Professor Price, the political economist, 
 asked his class of English students, and, later, 
 the New York Board of Trade, to define the 
 difference between men and animals ; but it 
 was a woman who replied, " Progressive 
 desire." Her excelsior was a constant, defi- 
 nite improvement, which necessitates Order ; 
 that is but a name for Organization, and that 
 again is but the watchword of Progress. All 
 must fall into line and pass on the word, or 
 else be court-martialled. Time does not wait 
 to gratify individual whims. The world's 
 welfare depends on us only as we add our 
 tiny personal strength to that of concerted 
 action. Ordinary ardor, forethought, and im- 
 agination weld all the possibilities of service 
 and being into action, which will employ its 
 
34 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 strength, not in endeavoring to arrange human 
 society according to the latest invention pat- 
 ented by the latest philanthropist, but by trying 
 to do whatever duty lies nearest, v^^hile waiting 
 for the glory of the heavens to solve its puzzles 
 and fill the soul with abiding convictions. 
 Such effort takes in silence the very humblest 
 sei*vices that the universe puts within its frail 
 hands, and finds, — it may be happiness, it is 
 contentment, in fulfilling responsibility and 
 duty, which lead to the happy freedom of being 
 an average person. 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME AND 
 SOCIETY 
 
 ^^1^ 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME AND 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 'T^HE reconciliation of individuality with 
 -*■ the rights of others is one of life's prob- 
 lems. Its solution is constantly baffling us, 
 yet it must be found, if our relations to home 
 and society are to be adjusted on any equable 
 division of mutual privileges. As Americans, 
 we are prone to stand up for our rights, and 
 take it for granted that everything should tend 
 to our advancement ; therefore, when we meet 
 some one who cherishes similar ideas con- 
 cerning his prerogatives, friction ensues. 
 Whether the striking together shall bring 
 success to each or end in destruction of 
 
38 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 one depends upon the adjustment of mutual 
 claims. 
 
 Individuality in its nobler form is more than 
 mere assertion of one's rights, — it becomes the 
 maintenance of a principle. For that one 
 works, contends, endures, dies. Often from 
 conscious or unconscious obstinacy, or from 
 self-love, sometimes from real absorption in a 
 cause v^ithout regard to self, is the individuality 
 merged in what one wishes to accomplish. 
 Napoleon, Palissy, Fulton, Carlyle, Emer- 
 son, an anti-tobacconist or a pro-suffragist, are 
 all alike instances of individuality. Without 
 it one cannot think of a reformer, or of a 
 leader in politics, charities, or social life. 
 That it is often disguised may but intensify its 
 power, for individuality may or may not be 
 marked by self-control and tact. Just so far as 
 it possesses such virtues, does it lead to power. 
 It can be either angular or curved. When the 
 former, we gain Simeon Stylites, monks of La 
 Trappe, fanatics, persecutors, disagreeable 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 39 
 
 friends ; when curved, we gain our Philip Sid- 
 ney, our Abraham Lincoln, our wise philan- 
 thropists, our calm enthusiasts, our guides and 
 inspirers. It is intensity of feeling that can 
 either be hidden or must find utterance of itself, 
 and thus, in either case, it becomes the national 
 expression of characteristics. It cannot be 
 easily defined, because it is the " make up,*' — 
 the whole of each one ; it is the atmosphere that 
 surrounds his moral, mental, and bodily quali- 
 ties. It is both a derived and educated force. 
 Whether it shall be our blessing or our curse 
 depends upon the amount of righteous will- 
 power exercised. Without It we lack the 
 beauty of distinctiveness and the force of ac- 
 tion ; yet the want of recognition of each other's 
 individuality is the efficient cause of many a 
 discordant home and confused social action. 
 
 Each generation, as it is born, lives, and 
 passes away, talks of individuality as if it were 
 the product of itself alone, — a wonder only then 
 to be beheld ; regarding it as a distinct fact in 
 
40 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 man and a more easily recognized concept of 
 thouglit, than the myriad beauty and separate- 
 ness of leaf and stone, of cloud and snow-flake, 
 the individuality of and in nature. 
 
 Somehow we all like to be called individual, 
 if the word is applied as an adjective ; the 
 epithet original our modesty refuses, while to 
 be told that we have idiosyncrasies or peculiar- 
 ities excites our silent or outspoken ire. The 
 frank information that the complexion is bad, 
 tones of voice and manners annoying, is most 
 disagreeable ; but to be regarded as individual 
 places us on a height from which we serenely 
 take note of others' peculiarities. Individ- 
 uality, idiosyncrasy, peculiarity, — they are 
 the three terms in which our distinctiveness is 
 rated, yet each falls short of the force of the 
 word genius. We are right, however, in liking 
 to be considered individual, for it is a recogni- 
 tion that we have striven for something ; it is 
 better to be on the heights — if noble heights — 
 than on the plains. For something, that is 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 41 
 
 the point. Who can tell whether it is a good 
 or bad something ? 
 
 The consensus of the competent is needed as 
 judge of the right ; but the hour may come 
 when one alone is competent. Then the mul- 
 titude stand aloof and gaze. Only when the 
 voice of the wise is as the sound of many 
 waters do the people praise. An individual 
 who is such for the sake of growth, and not 
 from aggressiveness or a liking for peculiarity, 
 feels the sting in everything that separates him 
 from his fellows ; it is painful work to be alone, 
 yet to be alone with one's truth often means 
 living farther from men and nearer to God, and 
 what begins as an act of self-protection becomes 
 the religious deed and communion with the 
 Most High. As we swing ourselves on to the 
 heights we must often feel the pain that comes 
 to us through the self-complacency of others, 
 who misunderstand our simple longing to be 
 true, our unconsciousness is disturbed, and we 
 analyze our motives till afraid of ourselves. 
 
42 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 Self-inflicted torture should always bring, at 
 last, clearer vision and thankfulness for release 
 from self. 
 
 Long before individuality has attained such 
 lustre that it becomes an attractive rather than 
 a repellent force does it manifest itself in the 
 early stages of home-life. The entreaty to the 
 child to amuse himself, or to take care of him- 
 self, is the first open declaration of the rights of 
 the parent against those of the child. Infantile 
 graces and motherly love quickly adjust any 
 difference of opinion ; but, as years increase, 
 the child finds himself under the shelter of law 
 (ineffective it often is) which guarantees his 
 right to a certain amount of physical and 
 mental growth before he is used as a means of 
 support for the family. The laboring classes 
 chiefly reap the benefit of these laws, but in 
 other ways than earning, for which necessity 
 is often the justification, do the rights of parent 
 and older child conflict. The school brings 
 the difficulty. School-hours, home-lessons, 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 43 
 
 music, drawing, dancing, sleeping, dressing, 
 eating, leave literally no time for the girl's 
 mending or the boy's carpentering jobs about 
 the house. The dining-table is almost the 
 only place where meets a modern family bent 
 on modern education. The theatre, the winter 
 dance, and the summer hotel, rather than the 
 home, furnish recreation and rest, and cause 
 the little sympathy that too often exists between 
 children and their parents, who are spoken of 
 as old or nervous. We calmly allow this- re- 
 sult to be reached, feeling that the child's in- 
 dividuality has demanded it ; that it is right to 
 allow him to be snobbish, snubbish, and patron- 
 izing to commonplace friends and parents ; to 
 be cross, nervous, dyspeptic, because he must 
 have time for study. It is far better to main- 
 tain him a year longer in school, as an offset 
 to the minutes consumed in doing family 
 errands, than to allow him to evade them. 
 Notwithstanding, the child is right in feeling 
 that his school is of the utmost importance, 
 
44 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 with which family-life should interfere as little 
 as possible, and parents must submit to per- 
 sonal losses in convenience and enjoyment 
 because of the " schooling." The study 
 gained, the adult child has a right to decide for 
 himself on his future occupation, unhampered 
 by aught but parental advice. How often it is 
 said : " I should have been an engineer, 
 lawyer, mechanic, if my father had not wished 
 me to do otherwise." Far wiser that the 
 young man should struggle longer in the pur- 
 suit for self-support than bear all through life 
 the burden of wishing he had been something 
 else, because there seemed need of immediate 
 decision, either from pecuniary reasons or re- 
 gard for his father's wishes. 
 
 That parent makes a fortunate discovery 
 who early sees that, while it is her duty to 
 train the child as a child, to admonish 
 and punish, 3^et that, as the years go by, her 
 duties as direct guide lessen, and life-experi- 
 ence becomes the greater teacher. It is often 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 45 
 
 said that grown-up families cannot live to- 
 gether, because of the want of this recognition 
 of each other's individuality. The home 
 which unites many varying interests, in which 
 each feels that his or her peculiar hobby meets 
 with consideration and fairness, is the home 
 that is richest in intellectual wealth and 
 affection, — the home which broadens others, 
 into which it is a liberal education to enter, — 
 the home that makes cooperation possible. 
 
 But parents do not show that unbiassed 
 judgment of their children's divergence from 
 them which they manifest in regard to strangers. 
 The adult son or daughter feels that his or her 
 measure of difference is a source of poignant 
 regret. That there must be regret is natural, 
 but that the adult child should always be un- 
 comfortable, under the added force of keen 
 bitterness in his father's feeling, hampers his 
 own harmonious growth ; — he grows, but with 
 a sense of doing injury to those he loves best. 
 
 The legal and friendly aspects and advan- 
 
46 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 tages of the relation between parents and 
 children have often been obstructed by a semi- 
 religious sentiment. The parent's obligation 
 to the child is far greater than that of the child 
 to the parent ; parental disregard of the child's 
 individualism springing often from his feeling 
 that the child is a direct gift to him from God, 
 and that responsibility is lessened in proportion 
 to unconscious exercise of any duty or capacity. 
 God is the great law-maker, but the execution 
 of his human laws he leaves to man, whose 
 responsibility of giving to each child the op- 
 portunity for full development is thereby 
 increased a thousand-fold. To the child who 
 never asked to be born, should a wise, free 
 growth be allowed just as long as the parent 
 lives. What right has one to bring an individ- 
 ual soul into the world and then through 
 affection needlessly curb it? The child's 
 obedience used to be demanded on the ground 
 of authority involved in the relationship of 
 birth ; now it is demanded on the ground of 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 47 
 
 affection, and in this way the full, free nature of 
 affection is lessened. Never ask another to fulfil 
 a duty for love's sake, but for the sake of right. 
 Love is broad, but right glorifies it, and in every 
 act of affection there should be a foundation 
 of right. Parents and children, brothers and 
 sisters, and friends, should never appeal to each 
 other to remit any of the individuality of each 
 vv^ith the v^ords, " for my sake." Give it up 
 if it is right ; retain it if it is right. There are, 
 hov^ever, questions of expediency v^hich often 
 must be settled for the young by an appeal to 
 their affection. Only by development of 
 the moral and intellectual nature, of mechani- 
 cal skill and of religious trust, can all sides of 
 the individual be rounded into that graceful 
 freedom of action which leaves to others as 
 much space as it demands for itself. 
 
 In a family, the grown-up sons and daugh- 
 ters who possess strong individualism do not 
 always have the opportunity to learn through 
 their own experience. The very breakfast 
 
48 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 loses its flavor if the same freedom is not 
 allowed to sons in discussion of the morning's 
 politics which the father claims for himself. 
 After the day's toil, if the young man prefers 
 the solitude of his own room to the inconse- 
 quent hum of the parlor, his mother sighs ; if 
 friends are with him, his sister wishes they 
 would remain in the drawing-room. Often a 
 daughter in her 'father's house cannot call 
 anything absolutely her own. Her time is 
 for others. Money ! Her father may give 
 her hundreds of dollars as spasmodic gifts, 
 and nothing as an allowance. She may have 
 permission to buy an oil-painting when her 
 heart yearns for a water-color. She can have 
 credit at certain establishments, but she has 
 not $5.00 cash in her pocket wherewith to 
 buy an ice-cream, a ribbon, or a book. She 
 asks for money for the contribution-box and 
 is told that her father will attend to the family 
 alms-giving. She must invite guests rather than 
 be invited, as her parents like her presence at 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME, 49 
 
 the daily meals. She may study art, but must 
 not go to a life school. Education has been 
 bestowed, but, when she wishes to use it in 
 spheres apart from the home, her parents are 
 unwilling. Affection is the restraining power 
 by which the actions, charities, and occupa- 
 tions of the adult child are limited. The 
 father would be none the less venerated if 
 no direct appeal was made to him for each 
 necessity of life ; nor would the desire for 
 self-support torment so many if each daugh- 
 ter had a certain part of the family income. 
 Then her gifts, her charities, her personal 
 expenses, and her self-denials, would be meas- 
 ured one against the other, and each act would 
 be her own. 
 
 Yet it is from affection, from the pride of 
 support, from the joy of giving, from the 
 pleasure in feeling, that the father, as parent 
 and householder, has created his home, that 
 he misses, unconsciously, the balance of pro- 
 portion between his own individuality and that 
 
50 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 of his children. Nor is it only his adult 
 children who are thus repressed. The same 
 generosity leads him to prefer gifts of money 
 to his wife, rather than a balancing of 
 accounts which credits her with so much 
 due for her exertions in the household. Does 
 he, moreover, always feel that some of the 
 day belongs to her as much as his evening 
 hours belong to him? Somewhere or other 
 crop out his rights as an individual, which 
 the wife should zealously guard ; but are hers 
 guarded as much in return? Unless a wife 
 is considered to have as absolute a right to her 
 individuality as the husband has to his, mar- 
 riage can never be the beneficent institution 
 for which some people consider it was de- 
 signed. The same love that would protect 
 in health, and that would watch anxiously in 
 case of life and death, will be silent or cross 
 when home cares and perplexities weary. It 
 is the little rights of each other which we 
 ignore. 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 5 1 
 
 Again, as want of deference to others' indi- 
 vidualities are the silent looks, the long gaps in 
 conversation, the taking up one's hat and dis- 
 appearing on the part of men, and the sudden 
 absorption in mending, children, or books on 
 the part of women, — all from want of respect 
 for each other's characteristics, which it is only- 
 courteous to recognize as the right of each 
 individual. Silences only deepen individuali- 
 ties that are on the wrong side of a subject. 
 Frank, generous conversation, with ability to 
 be just as pleasant the next moment as if differ- 
 ence of opinion had not been expressed, helps 
 each to see his or her mistakes, to understand 
 whether he or she is acting from love of ambi- 
 tion, from obstinacy, or for truth's sake. 
 Homes must learn the impersonal art of discus- 
 sion, which makes the intellect grow, and 
 leaves love and belief in other's sincerity un- 
 touched. The stronger are we, the more do 
 we feel the force of the French proverb, " no- 
 blesse oblige;''' not that the person is aware he 
 
52 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 belongs to the noblesse,, the world's greatest 
 arid noblest, through the insignia of character ; 
 but because, being unconsciously noble and 
 great, he cannot help being tender to others ; 
 strength makes tenderness. 
 
 Another phase of the rights of individuality 
 among members of the same household 
 relates to questions of religious belief. The 
 parent is bound to mould his child into the 
 parent's highest ideal while it is very young ; 
 but, also, must he soon begin to lay before it 
 the fact that men as conscientious or as wise 
 as himself think differently. It may puzzle 
 the child ; but unconsciously will it be the 
 foundation of his later liberality in judging of 
 mankind. The parent's emphasis can always 
 indicate that his conviction of truth is the only 
 one his intellectual honesty justifies him in 
 holding. Thus the abstract law of the relativ- 
 ity of truth, and its positive, personal applica- 
 tion to the individual, are both maintained. 
 While the child is young he expresses his rela- 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 53 
 
 tion to the family by going to the family 
 church. Perhaps it is his first lesson in learn- 
 ing that individualism, within certain limits, 
 can express itself within an organization, and 
 that organization and cooperation are the 
 fulcrums of humanity. 
 
 But when the child, as adult, has thought 
 and arrived at different conclusions from his 
 parent, the latter should place no fetters of re- 
 straint or affection upon his will. The consti- 
 tutional tendencies of varying minds will carry 
 them to various denominations. The conserva- 
 tive and the radical cannot consort in their 
 underlying views of philosophy. The High 
 or Catholic Church must exist for those who 
 lean on authority ; the Broad Church for those 
 who are independent ; Radicalism for those 
 who are willing to follow thought to its more 
 ultimate conclusions ; oddities in church organi- 
 zation for those who must invent a sect for 
 their own personality. Homoeopathy and mys- 
 ticism are akin, as are allopathy and ration- 
 
54 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 alism. Loyalty to truth must compel one to 
 worship where he shall find emphasis laid 
 upon his essentials. But the individuality 
 that goes through several creeds, proclaiming 
 each alike, should wait until assured beyond 
 recall that it has reached its final truth. Not 
 the sprouting, but the full blossoming, mind 
 becomes the willingly recognized leader. The 
 sprouts of growth often prove abortive. In- 
 tense individuality, which makes one search 
 for truth, keeps one from rendering apparent 
 homage to another's truth on the plea that 
 religion is only a matter of life, rather than 
 of intellectual opinion. A doctrine in the long 
 changing of human interests is a greater force 
 than a man, and one's individuality and one's 
 reason must be very slight if loyalty to ideas 
 can be subserved to the personal gratification 
 of self-improvement, supposed to be effected 
 by regular attendance on a service whose 
 creed is disbelieved. The line of difference 
 should always be drawn at the farthest point ; 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 55 
 
 all possibilities of convergence should be 
 accepted, and individuality should surround 
 itself with an atmosphere of deference for every 
 form of thought, and of reverence for every 
 noble deed. 
 
 In spheres apart from home or church life is 
 the want of individuality felt in its more hu- 
 morous aspects, though its lack may be as 
 harmful as elsewhere. One of the chief char- 
 acteristics of modern society is its sameness. 
 The groups may be different, but the people in 
 each group are outwardly similar ; not only, on 
 the whole, do we dress alike, but we eat and 
 live alike. If our neighbor has moved into a 
 Qiieen Anne house, we must have at least a 
 room furnished in Queen Anne style ; men 
 wear black dress-coats ; women, soft- toned 
 hues ; our embroidery is in olive crewels ; and 
 we eat oysters everywhere, because it is so 
 much safer to imitate than to originate. Most 
 of us have no original capacity. We admire 
 or praise gregariously. We are like a flock 
 
56 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 of sheep, and not always does the first sheep 
 jump the right fence. We are cowards, and 
 neither praise nor blame independently. A 
 little reading-club was studying a certain 
 poem, and one of its members said, " I think 
 it is awfully stupid ! " Then went round the 
 whisper, " Isn't she bright, funny?" If each 
 had dared to say her own thought, it would 
 have been just what this lady said ; and the 
 universal fun would have been denominated 
 common-sense. There is affectation in eu- 
 phuistic words and simpering tones which 
 sometimes passes muster for a while, but only 
 to cover the person with final disgrace. The 
 literary criticism of a magazine or newspaper 
 column shows whether the writer is stamped 
 with an irrepressible individuality that puts 
 itself into w^hat he writes, or whether he is 
 fearful, and praises gently all alike. 
 
 It is very hard to maintain a graceful but 
 true individuality under the soft pressure of 
 society and frightened friends ; but, if the 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 57 
 
 world is to be any better for our living in it, 
 it will only be so in proportion to our distinct- 
 ness of thought, style, and mode of expression. 
 Then society becomes rich and brilliant ; the 
 bon-mots of the dinner-table whet the appetite, 
 and the opinions of the evening coterie become 
 laws for those who have no time, or are too 
 lazy to think. There must, however, be a 
 force that shall prevent our individuality from 
 too speedy expression of itself, or from inter- 
 fering with the rights of another, or prevent- 
 ing his expression of himself. Conventionality 
 is the rightful restraint upon individuality, the 
 heavy armor of what has been, not the elastic 
 armor of what one likes ; but, as with 
 any other coat of mail, it should not be 
 thrown off until the wearer is able to exist 
 unguarded. The laws of custom are scab- 
 bards that sheathe the cutting weapon. 
 
 Nothing should grow more slowly than in- 
 dividuality, or have its steel more finely tem- 
 pered. An individuality of crude opinion or 
 
5^ ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 of words is not the material which moves the 
 ages. Conscientiousness should guide its 
 growth, self-sacrifice illumine its path, and 
 love of beauty moderate its pace. Fanatics, 
 reformers, constantly injure their work by in- 
 sistence on the rights of their own sacred cause, 
 without regard to the conventions and amen- 
 ities of life. The reforms of a century hence 
 will not be accomplished in the despotic man- 
 ner in which many have been, and still are, 
 carried on. The liberal leagues, the temper- 
 ance cause, and many religious movements, 
 are sullied by the intensity with which one 
 would put his right into some one's else 
 being. Many a society is started to carry out 
 some special individuality, which by honest 
 meditation and compromise could have been 
 incorporated with some already existing in- 
 stitution, and thus have been saved the device 
 of a new name and the expense of a new set 
 of officers, etc. The organized individualism 
 often succeeds, but oftener is short-lived. 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 59 
 
 How careful ought one, then, to be in form- 
 ing new plans, lest they become a cause of 
 social stoppage or discord ! 
 
 All men and women should feel that in 
 some manner or other they are bound to stand 
 for some truth or deed ; that in some way they 
 help humanity ; that they are always to live 
 on the noblest heights of life, with puipose 
 ever in view. It may be a general or a special 
 purpose ; but there must be some one motive 
 besides the indefinite desire for indefinite 
 goodness, which shall shape out an individu- 
 ality. Only those men and women whose 
 life-work is clear before them can afford to 
 lay it by, as the side duties of life spring up 
 for immediate attention. An intense purpose 
 waits its fulfilment, and, in waiting and ripen- 
 ing, nourishes all the little seeds of endeavor, 
 and refreshes the waste places in others' lives. 
 There cannot be individuality without inten- 
 sity of feeling or conviction. Our modern life 
 demands such a complexity of interests and 
 
6o ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 such a generality of knowledge that the mass 
 of people, the non-active reformers, forget to 
 care for one subject more than another, and so 
 become just like everybody else. Half of 
 originality is simply daring to be true, simply 
 saying just what one thinks, but in a pleasant 
 way. "He said just what I thought" is the 
 frequent reflexion made on bright people, who 
 were no brighter than the listener, but who 
 were truer and less self-conscious. Obituaries, 
 resolutions of societies on valuable deceased 
 members, and eulogies on the living, have all 
 the same flavor, as if every one were a twin. 
 
 Although meek acceptance and repetition 
 of opinion can be tolerated in an evening 
 party, it becomes intolerable in committee 
 business and parish meetings. From laziness 
 or cowardice both men and women invent 
 excuses in order to account for their absence 
 whenever matters requiring decisive action 
 or opinion are likely to occur. The plea of 
 a previous engagement or a headache has 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 6 1 
 
 become an equivalent for a falsehood. If we 
 never spoke or acted w^ithout previous thought 
 (though the thought might be in the distant 
 background of accumulations of experience) , 
 and then gave our opinion, and did our deed 
 from intensity of conviction, but with an open- 
 mindedness to constant new impressions and 
 experiences, men and women would oftener 
 stand for some one definite mode of thinking 
 and acting. Conscience is the foundation of 
 individuality. Let that be developed as care- 
 fully as a sense of correct English ; then, like 
 each one's English speech, it will have its own 
 tone and quality. 
 
 If we only dared to be honest, society would 
 gain in intellectual and moral strength. We 
 all think mightily after we have left a discus- 
 sion. Do we never despise ourselves that we 
 have lacked the moral courage to stand for 
 our convictions, and do we never hate our- 
 selves that we have none ? When one has the 
 courage of his convictions he becomes a 
 
62 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 leader somewhere, for evil or good. One of 
 the most confirmed inebriates in a " Washing- 
 tonian home" had a peculiar fluency in 
 prayer, and led at all their meetings. 
 
 To avoid monotony in ourselves we must 
 seek expansion of our ideas and deeds ; but 
 only by being mindful of others' rights and 
 needs. Liberty loses its value without the 
 added grace of tenderness in its action. To 
 grow ourselves in our own way, to satisfy the 
 wishes of those who hold a diflerent ideal from 
 that towards which we are striving, — there is 
 the difficulty ! And it is only solved by patient 
 love. The home, with its varying interests, 
 can be rendered happy only by learning the 
 secret of the recognition of each other's rights 
 and peculiarities, and that each has a claim to 
 self-development but to a certain point. When 
 sickness, death, or poverty in the home check 
 further progress in some special line of work, 
 no complaint should be uttered ; the inevitable 
 must be accepted in brave silence, with the re- 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 63 
 
 membrance that to fight against it is self- 
 destruction. Wiien free growtli means only 
 unlimited selfishness it is an evil to one's self 
 and an annoyance to others. 
 
 It is much easier for those who have a mis- 
 sion to fulfil to prepare for that than for those 
 who, because of their indefiniteness, must 
 seek for some special work ; yet only as work 
 becomes specialized is it perfect. A woman 
 who, in fancying herself an individual, places 
 any art, profession, or business above that of 
 making her home a centre of affection and 
 brightness, fortified by good, plain cooking, 
 drifts into selfishness. 
 
 In order not to inflict upon others our indi- 
 vidualities, hobbies, peculiarities, idiosyn- 
 crasies, — however they may degenerate, as 
 does the meaning of each word, — the laws of 
 solidarity and compromise must always be ob- 
 served. The first is a broader law than " Do 
 unto others as you would have them do to 
 you ; " do to others more than you want for 
 
64 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 yourself. The solidarity of mankind demands 
 that any personality should gird on the panoply 
 of good manners ; and it is because of the lack 
 of this much praised but rare possession that 
 individuals become so disagreeable, while the 
 purposes for which they strive may be those 
 which all hold. 
 
 The law of compromise ever adjusts the 
 balance between individuality and solidarity ; 
 the first preventing any mean yielding to low 
 ends or unworthy motives ; the latter making 
 perceptible the relationship of individuality to 
 the highest possible standard of personal mo- 
 rality and devotion to noble ends. 
 
 From such a union of forces comes a far 
 higher development than if individuality had 
 remained aloof in shining isolation. The 
 bud of purpose is deepened in color from its 
 secrecy ; self-assertion is maintained with firm 
 but gentle touch ; the constant accretion of 
 self-control strengthens every fibre, though by 
 processes that seem tedious to the young 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME, G^ 
 
 aspirant to full and free expression of himself 
 in thought and action. 
 
 The law of compromise leads to no deceit. 
 It is the self-protecting garment of society, 
 worn at home and abroad ; it is not the aban- 
 donment of a principle, but the waiting until 
 the arrow can go straight to the mark. 
 
 " The sun set; but set not his hope : 
 Stars rose; his faith was earher up: 
 Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
 Deeper and older seemed his eye : 
 And matched his sufferance sublime 
 The taciturnity of time." 
 
 Indefiniteness belongs to youth. With grow- 
 ing years come definiteness and fixedness ; with 
 middle life, wisdom and tenderness. The ear- 
 lier qualities lose their sharp angles, though 
 their centre remains more deeply buried than 
 ever in intent. Fanaticism ceases, enthusiasm 
 grows, help is rendered to all, not to one. 
 Still the struggle between heredity and present 
 
66 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 circumstances overshadows us. The moment 
 demands our yielding ; but our inheritance 
 raises our individuality into bristling promi- 
 nence. We are prone to sarcasm ; our grand- 
 fathers were ; it is part of us ; but the moment 
 shows we should lay it aside. Which will 
 conquer, the inherited or the educated individ- 
 uality? Each has his own peculiar passion 
 for pleasure, meanness, or extravagance, and 
 the inherited and the educated must wrestle, 
 step by step, until, by repetition and aggre- 
 gation of results, the victory is settled forever 
 on one or the other side of individuality. The 
 evil effects of heredity can be lessened, not 
 only from generation to generation, but from 
 year to year, while its blessed influences can 
 be strengthened. As science is eradicating 
 hereditary disease, so is education working 
 upon evil mental peculiarities ; even now it is 
 only cowardice that says : I have a misera- 
 ble disposition, because my grandparents had 
 
INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 6"] 
 
 the same. An individual to make use of 
 another individual as an excuse ! Very much 
 of a slave is he to himself if he allows himself 
 to employ such a pretext in palliation of his 
 want of effort. 
 
 The rightful extent of individuality must 
 ever remain a varying line ; yet a long view of 
 life demands that we prepare ourselves by 
 constant progress to be useful and honored ; 
 and for that must we have time and opportu- 
 nity for expression of the best that is within us. 
 Because truth is relative will we work for 
 what is our truth ; work, always ready to give 
 it up if nearer claims arise ; always able to 
 keep it until the moment comes again for 
 action. The laws of solidarity and com- 
 promise will stand as sentinels over others' 
 rights and needs. With individuality they 
 form the triad that labors for and with each 
 other, that all may grow into fuller individual 
 life, each home freer and happier, each church 
 
68 
 
 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 more enduring, each member of society work- 
 ing through definite deeds and thought into 
 that clearness of vision which reflects the 
 harmonies of the universe. 
 
STRIVING 
 
STRIVING. 
 
 TN Puritan homes each child was exhorted 
 to do his " duty" until the word became so 
 significant of outward observance that its 
 heavenly relation was lost. Modern ethical 
 homes have taken " right" as their banner 
 motto, and though it is capable of rousing 
 enthusiasm, the zeal it creates would be for ideas 
 rather than persons. Both duty and right are 
 impersonal terms ; midway between them, in 
 use and meaning, stands " character." Gen- 
 erally in speech the verb to have precedes 
 this substantive, adding the idea of a personal 
 possession to its abstract statement. As it is 
 something to be got, and that getting is its 
 
72 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 secret charm, children do not wince under 
 parental entreaties to strive for it, and their 
 elders eagerly claim it, as proof that they have 
 manliness and power. 
 
 Duty is done, character is made. Both in- 
 dicate performance, one is long growth, the 
 other may be single seed-sowing. Doing duty 
 makes character, and individual character 
 becomes the underlying structure of national- 
 ity. The possession or the want of it, makes 
 the difference between one man and another, 
 between the voter who cares for his country, 
 and him who gets a dollar for his ballot ; be- 
 tween the men and women who strive for 
 professional or public renown for the sake of 
 social ambition, and those who, whether 
 " praised or blamed, guard well the trust they 
 neither shunned nor sought." 
 
 When character is regarded as an epitome 
 of duty alone it becomes a mass of heavy, 
 moving power, bent on the accomplishment of 
 its ends, and, by virtue of its weight, bearing 
 
STRIVING. 73 
 
 down all obstacles with glacial rigidity, rather 
 than an embodiment of grace and beauty as 
 well as of power, conquering by its attractive- 
 ness as much as by its solidity, for grace is just 
 as much a part of character as is truthful ac- 
 tion. How imperfect are all definitions of 
 character when it hovers about us as a dream 
 of beauty, a blessed reality, an intangible, 
 actual union of strength and loveliness, as an 
 ideal of a friend, the realization of our Christ, 
 the blending of all separate perfections in the 
 fatherhood and majesty of God ! Without 
 irreverence or familiarity can we say that 
 God is character ; that in Him are united 
 the artist of the exquisite foreground with 
 its tiny patches of beauty and the creator 
 of the distance that pushes its shadows 
 into chaos. The child longs to resemble 
 his ideal, the parent ; the parent places 
 his ideal in the exceptionally great man and 
 woman, and they reach forward after divine 
 excellence, which, because of its unapproach- 
 
74 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 able loneliness, stands pathetic and majestic 
 before us. 
 
 Character is something beyond what we see 
 in a man. It resists circumstances, is self- 
 sufficient ; it grows. It is an assemblage of 
 qualities which distinguish one person from 
 another ; it is a particular constitution of the 
 mind ; the name by which we are known ; 
 the name, when a noble one, at which all 
 gates swing wide ; the name that shames and 
 greatens. 
 
 The germ of character Is constantly develop- 
 ing until it rises into immortality, to unfold 
 there into full strength and beauty. The 
 slight selfishness, that yet is justified in seek- 
 ing heavenly rest as a panacea, is forgotten In 
 the intensity with which, while living, we 
 work for those on earth and pray for the loved 
 ones above. 
 
 In a great character there will always be 
 found two elements, the ideal and the imper- 
 sonal : the ideal keeps It ever advancing ; the 
 
STRIVING. "]$ 
 
 impersonal keeps it ever deepening, as not 
 self, but others' good, is its universe. Over 
 both preside conscientiousness, keen, quick, 
 observant. It is the sensitive plate on which 
 impressions are received ; the index that 
 points to hours and deeds ; the chemical re- 
 agent that crystallizes actions into forms of 
 beauty and usefulness ; the spur to activity ; 
 the mirror of foolishness ; the solvent of per- 
 plexities. 
 
 Character itself is formed as a gradual ac- 
 cretion, which is utilized into thought and 
 action. It begins at the earliest stages of ex- 
 istence, and, whether we look back upon our 
 own formation or guide the growth of chil- 
 dren, we find distinct layers overlapping each 
 other. Each is marked with the tender lines 
 of grace and the bolder ones of duty, the law 
 of moral necessity ruling that each shall per- 
 form its full part in the making of the perfect 
 character. Some few men stand as peaks 
 whose grandeur is so stern that one hardly 
 
76 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 guesses at the sweetness which lies hidden in 
 the nooks of sentiment below their rugged 
 exterior. 
 
 No trait of character is more necessary or 
 prominent than truthfulness. Without it we 
 build ourselves only to fall to pieces ; careless- 
 ness and ignorance may cause an untruth, 
 wrong-doing a lie, that is, the direct intention 
 to deceive. The first lie in the child, and the 
 quickly uttered lie in after life, come generally 
 from the natural or unregenerate impulse of 
 self-defence. We lie to screen ourselves, and 
 then one by one the chain of lies is forged 
 that ends in weakness, sin, and ruin. The 
 utter foolishness of a lie introduces its comic 
 aspect; we all object to being "found out," 
 for it argues a want of skill. Like an ano- 
 dyne its effect is palliative and temporary, not 
 remedial. Cumulative or single falsehood 
 always ends in destruction of itself. Then it 
 is a universal wrong, and, when thus regarded, 
 there seems something grand in not adopting, 
 
STRIVING. 77 
 
 for the sake of the universe, a paltry, short- 
 sighted means of defence. It is language that 
 binds us all together ; by it we understand and 
 depend upon each other ; to misuse it is to 
 falsify our mutual relations. There can be no 
 real helping, no friendship, no wide business, 
 no true internationality, unless words are 
 truthful. 
 
 The twin of truthfulness, its counterpart, 
 is honesty. Both older people and children 
 start indignantly on being told to be honest, 
 as if stealing were confined to commodities 
 alone. Yet there is much actual theft in 
 society. We steal each other's ideas, patterns 
 for dresses, embroideries, furniture, and dis- 
 play them as if inventions of our own brain. 
 What is done by our French maid we call 
 ours, her wages giving us a lien on her handi- 
 work. There is also what sisters call free- 
 masonry, and what sisterless people term 
 purloining, which consists in free use of 
 each other's ribbons and jewels. Members 
 
78 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 of a household, as well as strangers, should 
 obseiTe the law of meum and tuum. Um- 
 brellas are borrowed and lost, books are 
 retiirned dog-eared. We steal another's time 
 by asking him to do what we can do our- 
 selves ; we promise to stay ten minutes, and 
 we sta}' thirty. We steal other's health and 
 patience by inflicting upon our friends the 
 history of our own troubles, using them as a 
 safet}' -valve for ourselves. As visitors we do 
 not regard the honor of our hostess' family, but, 
 when away from it, tell some amusing weak- 
 ness belonging to it. We steal into each 
 other's confidence for purposes of curiosity, 
 and, worse than all, we steal aflection, often to 
 reject it when it has lost its primal value. 
 An affection, once deliberately won, is a 
 burden or a privilege forever. Too often 
 the stronger nature appropriates the weaker 
 one, alienating its friends, and then, satiated, 
 preys on another. It is said that women 
 especially are prone to this fault, because so 
 
STRIVING. 79 
 
 many feminine friendships are also partner- 
 ships. But it is equally found among the 
 relations of married people and of men with 
 men. We also steal each other's reputation 
 by withholding praise when it is due, by 
 delicate or careless insinuations ; by alluding 
 to the disagreeable, in an acquaintance, without 
 mentioning the extenuating circumstances. 
 We often lessen another's impulse to greater 
 striving by non-utterance of our admiration 
 and love for him, our cool manners acting as 
 non-conductors of energy. Want of appre- 
 ciation of others becomes injustice. We do 
 not try to understand before judging ; people's 
 motives are often better than their awkward 
 results, actions. We are more liable to be- 
 come depressed from lack of approval than 
 self-conceited from knowledge of it. 
 
 Perfect truthfulness proceeds froni noble 
 simplicity, which seeks a worthy end rather 
 than tawdry effect. Having given itself, it 
 evokes as free surrender in another. Its 
 
8o ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 honest praise is never the hollowness of idle 
 compliment ; it is glad tribute gladly paid. 
 It passes along the by-ways of life, and divines 
 those hearts which are not strong enough to 
 rest alone in self-respect, but need outward 
 approval as recognition of effort. 
 
 Simplicity is often the result of early striv- 
 ing and of petty victories. Human nature 
 soon passes out of the childlike, happy stage 
 of unconsciousness. As conscience awakens, 
 as self-reflection is observed through the co- 
 existence of others, consciousness develops ; it 
 is the New England hereditary gift ; it be- 
 comes a tormenting, prismatic light caught 
 from every angle of life. Only as purpose 
 deepens are the many colors concentrated 
 into the white ray of simplicity. Sin, fri- 
 volity, selfishness, pass into rectitude, serious- 
 ness, disinterestedness ; one becomes earnest 
 to be or do something ; one cares to make 
 others happy ; one's own shortcomings, misery, 
 or happiness are all lost in intention ; and 
 
STRIVING. 8 1 
 
 thus one grows again into unconsciousness, 
 where it is best for peace's sake to remain ; 
 conscious of his purpose, unconscious of 
 the way of obtaining it. 
 
 But peace and purpose demand self-control, 
 which is the rock on which the whole charac- 
 ter rests. 
 
 Unless self-controlled one can neither govern 
 nor follow others long, for all take part in 
 helping mankind, as assistants or leaders. 
 Self-control is mastery of one's self. It is self- 
 restraint ; the ability to hold back from doing 
 the wrong or silly things, goaded by the whip 
 of conscience. 
 
 Self-control teaches that temperance ap- 
 plies to much more than meat or drink ; that it 
 is neither the demand for too much of any 
 one thing nor the constant search for novelty. 
 We throw away what is old by the law of 
 fashion, rather than by the law of use. We 
 call for new books, new bric-a-brac, new 
 pleasures ; we hunt for old-fashioned furniture 
 
82 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 in mockery of the new ; we are not creators, 
 but takers, each wanting something more than 
 he has, no one ever reaching the height of his 
 social ambition. We ask that life shall fill 
 each hour with new pleasures, never remem- 
 bering that temperance always leaves on hand 
 material for a good time later. We justify 
 our restlessness by calling It the spirit of the 
 times ; we go farther, and make temperament 
 or Inheritance an excuse for Inactivity. 
 
 This is cowardly, fatal to effort, sets a mis- 
 erable example, and results In transmission of 
 less moral strength to the next generation, 
 which should Inherit even more richly from 
 us their past than we have from ours. The 
 present Is always trustee to the future. 
 
 Self-control often seems unnecessary, and 
 brings disappointment in plans which we had 
 hoped would succeed, if It had not proved 
 foolish to urge them. It also teaches patience 
 with one's self and others, bravery, superiority 
 to circumstances, contentment, power to work, 
 
STRIVING. 83 
 
 and ability to bear the joy or sorrow of life, 
 and thus freedom. Men and women alike 
 need it, for the more that one sees of life the 
 less perceptible are differences of sex, and the 
 more prominence do varying types of char- 
 acter assume. Every one should have it, he 
 who commands, and she who endures ; the 
 narrow life and the broad one, the prisoner 
 and the traveller, the clerk and the merchant, 
 the belle of society and the unknown worker 
 in her attic. Yet, certainly, the semi-public 
 life (may it never be the publicity of political 
 life,) on which women are ei^terlng more and 
 more ; fairs and clubs, sanitary and charitable 
 work of all kinds, are teaching self-control. 
 Women, now, dare not snap at each other, as 
 they might like, if they want to gain their end ; 
 they are learning to compromise honestly, to 
 allow others their way, and in social judgments 
 to separate opinion from practice. It will 
 soon be a proverb : Never think you know a 
 woman till you serve on a committee with her. 
 
84 ABOUT PE OPLE. 
 
 Self-control also gives ability for j^romptness 
 and the observance of order ; the first, though 
 formed as a habit, can soon become a prin- 
 ciple, and so ennoble the wearisomeness of 
 details. It is the clock-work guiding life, 
 while unpunctuality is a robbery of one's own, 
 and a sure robbery of others' time. The prin- 
 ciple clinches the purpose by carrying it into 
 action at once. It sees that if a thing is right 
 to do now it is wrong to do it by and by. It 
 wastes not its powers for work, and never loses 
 energy or freshness of feeling ; it accepts no 
 excuse of carelessness or absent-mindedness, 
 for excuse in itself implies that the reason 
 offered as excuse was not necessity. It leads 
 to the great law of Order, which allows no 
 minor derelictions in personal lives. 
 
 We are governed by this principle while yet 
 governing its details. Many persons become 
 slaves to a fixed recurrence of action, consid- 
 ering that recurrence alone as order ; but self- 
 sacrifice often demands the neglect of little 
 
STRIVING. %^ 
 
 things which orderly habit seems to make im- 
 perative, since some higher good to others re- 
 quires instant performance. Such neglect, 
 however, is but the fulfilment of order, which 
 seeks that the greatest duty be first done. Its 
 chief value in life is this adjustment of the 
 relative importance of actions. We are very 
 apt to esteem minor necessities as major ones, 
 and so miss the grandeur of opportunity. 
 Those who have carried on the world's work 
 have performed it by selecting what was 
 first or most important, and not simply by 
 doing that which turned up first. So much 
 of life is lost because order is supposed to 
 mean a place for everything and everything in 
 its place, — a repetition of a mere routine of 
 hours and occupation, rather than the observ- 
 ance of this relative proportion of duties. 
 
 That perceived, then concentration turns 
 perception into action, and is the sign of 
 power. All great acts have been fulfilled by 
 its command, either slowly, as execution de- 
 
86 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 manded time, or quickly, by what is termed 
 impulse, which is, in truth, instant self-posses- 
 sion, acute presence of mind. How slovenly 
 is most performance, while the great forces of 
 the universe, daily little experiences, mental 
 struggles, weak ambitions, special interests, or 
 general work, join in the clanging call to con- 
 centrate, to gather up scattered human efforts, 
 and aid in thought and do in deed ! The loose 
 thinking which seems inherent in so many per- 
 sons is due to want of concentration. All can- 
 not apply their minds to all subjects ; some, in- 
 deed, can grasp none that require abstraction. 
 Their incapacity soon betrays itself, as is seen 
 by the helpless wandering of the eye, the con- 
 fused smile, the feeble joke, the harmless 
 incoherence of their words. Most people so 
 fail, though yet admiring power in others. 
 How beautiful and inspiring it is to watch a 
 face as it really thinks ; to see the ugly lines 
 fade away ; the eyes deepen ; the forehead 
 broaden and shine ; the mouth grow firm, even 
 
STRIVING. 87 
 
 the whole posture showing the making of a 
 thought ! 
 
 Continued, persistent application bends time 
 and material to its purpose. Through it the 
 money-market might replace the term specu- 
 lation by foresight or judgment, and inventions 
 might correspond to human needs rather than 
 to human ingenuity. Five minutes' absorption 
 of the child's mind in the effort to learn his 
 letters teaches more than their names. Busy 
 people have the most time ; as they give all 
 their strength to whatever they are doing, so it 
 is soon done and well done. Scatter-brained 
 work and play is lengthy and fatiguing. 
 Patience, Perseverance, and Thoroughness, 
 the three elements of concentration, enter into 
 the composition of a genius. 
 
 Greater than any other result of character is 
 its blessed privilege of usefulness, the chief 
 function of our being, the proud prerogative that 
 man shares with nature, the test and measure 
 of our worth in doing and being. In doing, it 
 
88 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 consists largely in working for other people 
 in their way, not ours. Too often we like 
 to make them happy by the method that 
 gives us the least trouble, and, if they will not 
 rejoice, we turn upon them and call them un- 
 grateful. When other success wanes that of 
 usefulness still remains ; attention to others' 
 wants, and sympathy for them, create ability 
 to aid, and practice brings tact and grace. 
 Each year, day, and hour is the maker of op- 
 portunity to him who takes the horizon as his 
 boundary line of helpful work. 
 
 For those to whom limitation has forbidden 
 activity there is the usefulness of being, the 
 passive side of character. The being ready 
 not to do is the hardest lesson of life ; not to do 
 in household striving, in mother's cares and 
 longings, in noble, personal ambitions, in shar- 
 ing the great throes of the world which ulti- 
 mate in victories of social progress, in shaping 
 anew the warped intellectual life, which de- 
 generates into affectation of literary values ; and 
 
STRIVING. 89 
 
 in keeping at bay, by watchful, tender care, 
 death, which seeks our beloved. 
 The helpless soldier sang : — 
 
 " I lay me down to sleep 
 
 With little thought . or care 
 Whether my waking find 
 Me here — or There ! 
 
 A bowing, burdened head, 
 That only asks to rest 
 
 Unquestioning upon 
 A loving breast. 
 
 ' My good right hand 
 
 Forgets its cunning now, — 
 To march the weary march 
 I know not how. 
 
 ■ I am not eager, bold. 
 
 Nor strong, — all that is past 
 I am ready Not To Do, 
 
 At last, at last. 
 
90 'ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 " My half day's work is done, 
 And this is all my part; 
 I give a patient God 
 My patient heart, 
 
 " And grasp his banner still; 
 Though all its blue be dim, 
 These stripes, no less than stars, 
 Lead after Him." 
 
 Let reverent, joyful thanks be ever given for 
 usefulness in doing and in being. We may lie 
 down tired with our efforts, we may wake 
 more tired, but as we think, "What now?" 
 there flashes across the mind some fresh act of 
 self-sacrifice or of ability to help in some hidden 
 or visible manner, and there comes instant 
 strength to reap fruition. The purpose sends 
 the blood to the weary limbs and the cheer of 
 the heart quiets the aching head. Never too 
 poor, too ugly, too dull, too sick, too friendless, 
 to be useful to some one. Now, one can live, 
 no matter what may be the pain in living ; and 
 

 
 STRIVING, 
 
 
 \ 
 
 91 
 
 heaven is 
 
 use, 
 
 too. 
 
 That 
 
 glory 
 
 \ 
 cc^s 
 
 not 
 
 with Hfe. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Then "Trust in all things high" dwells 
 within us, and, as we trust others, we make 
 ourselves worthy of trust ; guarding another's 
 confidence as our birthright, never deceiving or 
 betraying it, for such betrayal makes sore 
 hearts and lonely lives. We are neither jeal- 
 ous nor suspicious, and believe another right 
 until we know the contrary. Much of our 
 early trust passes away from us like an out- 
 grown garment. Knowledge proves insuffi- 
 cient, creeds shrink before experience, friend- 
 ships wither, ideals pass not into realities ; but 
 trust in the universe deepens as years add wis- 
 dom. It is that trust which enables us, what- 
 ever heaven may be, to bear the bitter fact 
 that we no longer have father or mother, hus- 
 band or child, — that we are helpless, often 
 homeless. Hardest of all is it, at times, to 
 trust God's righteousness, which runs so ad- 
 verse to our ideas of right. Why, if we did not 
 
/ 
 
 92 ' ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 trust id^ more than we think we do, we could 
 i>jc endure the misery of others. Immortality 
 ' finds strong ground for belief in our trust that 
 our longings cannot be deceived. And if we 
 trust, unconsciously to ourselves, that feeling 
 has shown itself in the light of our eye and the 
 elasticity of our steps. " God's in his heaven ; 
 all's right with the world," sings Pippa. We 
 sing it, too, though her God and our God may 
 have little alike except the trust we give to 
 each. 
 
 With trust comes that element of character 
 which, starting in childhood, has not its full 
 value until the intellectual nature of the man 
 or woman has weighed the problems of life 
 and the secrets of knowledge. Reverence, 
 without which no poet is a seer, no scientist 
 a lover of truth ; reverence, reaching from the 
 commonest fact to the grandest discovery ; from 
 the humblest impulse to the noblest deed. Our 
 reverence 
 
STRIVING. 93 
 
 "... is foolish by falling below, 
 Not coming above what God will show; 
 His commonest thing hides a wonder vast 
 To whose beauty our eyes have never past," 
 
 It is reverence that gives the finest touch to 
 chivalry and the deepest meaning to truth ; it is 
 an attitude of mind v^hich permits us to see, 
 enjoy, and honor. It grows w^ith our growth, 
 though too often self-imposed limitations 
 check it. Our irreverence is due to want of 
 sympathy and observation more than to ill- 
 will. A knowledge of the hard times in 
 other people's lives, of their brave little at- 
 tempts for goodness or success, and of all that 
 careful human eyes and microscope and tele- 
 scope have found of law, and love, and beauty 
 fill us with reverence. Finally, as life widens, 
 the faculty of worship and appreciation is de- 
 veloped, until every half-known law or half- 
 comprehended goodness is the " vision of some 
 marvel come to light." 
 
 He who from his mountain-top of reverence 
 
94 
 
 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 places trust in the unrolled plan of life assigned 
 him, seeking use in grand or humble guise as 
 his goal, girding himself with a mighty will to 
 bring forth the evolution of order, keeps life 
 sweet and brave by his daily truth. He stands 
 as, — character, the word losing its abstract 
 signification in the grace and dignity with which 
 he has invested it, for the realization of the 
 ideal is the aim of all true individuality. 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 
 
 T OYALTY and ■ liberality are habits of 
 thought transmuted into modes of action. 
 In the modern desire to be free from prejudice 
 we are losing loyalty ; because truth is so mul- 
 tiform, we forget that its purpose is single ; we 
 wish to be broad, and we become vague ; we 
 dislike partisanship, and we grow indifferent. 
 We think of loyalty as a patriotic virtue, and 
 forget that it is the outcome of all intense con- 
 viction ; we even feel it to be a mark of illiber- 
 ality, while yet the want of it is impoverishing 
 our natures, and is pauperizing society. We 
 are so afraid lest we be called sectarian that, 
 in our insistence upon all possible good in 
 
98 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 others, we hesitate to affirm what is good in 
 our own opinion, our very charity often caus- 
 ing our disloyalty. 
 
 Loyalty involves the relations between our- 
 selves and some truth or duty. Liberality the 
 relations between ourselves and persons. Both 
 demand courage ; one demands breadth. Each 
 should keep equal pace in growth, for each is 
 the complement of the other. Loyalty is faith- 
 fulness and adherence to one's country, friend, 
 faith, duty, or opinion, by open acknowledg- 
 ment in word and act. It is always free and 
 generous, and seeks to strengthen whatever it 
 deems worthy of belief. It gives persistence 
 and enthusiasm to character. It is a certainty 
 of faith, which may or may not be a heritage 
 of joy. In either case it may cause separation 
 in thought or act from those who have other 
 objects of fealty. It should include the propa- 
 gation of one's belief just so far as such 
 spreading of it does not entail persecution. 
 About any unit of thought, environed by 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 99 
 
 loyalty, cluster action, organization ; the 
 thought crystallizing into creed and deed. 
 Unquestioning enthusiasms and friendships 
 develop loyalty at an early age, when its 
 declarations are apt to be those of unreasoning 
 prejudice rather than of calm, intense convic- 
 tion based on thought and experience. It 
 cannot exist in its nobler, permanent aspects 
 until it has fortified itself by liberality. 
 
 Liberality must always be born of know^l- 
 edge, for though, like Loyalty, it may spring 
 largely from sentiment or kindliness, it would 
 fail in many of life's emergencies unless it also 
 possessed wisdom. It is the power to look at 
 events, persons, and thoughts from another 
 stand-point than our own, which requires sym- 
 pathy, created by insight and comprehension. 
 But we fancy that at times special occasions 
 justify us in terming another's ideas absurd ; 
 because we are sure we know, and that the 
 possession of such knowledge should necessi- 
 tate moral obligation in action ; thus including 
 
lOO ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 the idea of ought in that of liberality, as if our 
 right ought to prove another's wrong, and to 
 compel him to adopt our ideas. Liberality 
 must adjust the equation of ought between our- 
 selves and others. The extent of the applica- 
 tion of our ought to some one else establishes 
 the foundation of social relations. Though the 
 world teems with individual and organized 
 efforts for the conversion of others to some 
 one's notion of ought, their attempts should 
 never bear the red mark of persecution, as they 
 have borne it in the past. 
 
 Many people consider liberality as a product 
 of the heart. They fancy that definite opinion 
 excludes liberalism, and fear that, the more 
 they know, the less certain will they be of arriv- 
 ing at conclusions ; yet they vaguely feel that 
 mental decisions are necessary. Though defi- 
 nite opinions can abide with appreciation of 
 another's convictions, people like to be freed 
 from the burden of making up their mind. 
 Much that passes muster for liberality is sham, 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. lOl 
 
 or indifference, which latter is the tempter's 
 own device for cheating one into laziness. 
 Clear, definite convictions result from the 
 union of liberality and loyalty. When loyalty 
 stands upon some narrow point of opinion, 
 liberality surrounds it with proofs that truth 
 also lies elsewhere, and intellectual somer- 
 saults are the result, leaving the mental acro- 
 bat on one and another rock instead of on the 
 table-land of thought. 
 
 Every one should know what he believes, 
 and why, in religion, politics, social affairs, 
 moral obligations, and philosophical consider- 
 ations. Ignorance is no excuse for accepting 
 results from another without the trouble of 
 examining them. Such questions cannot be 
 answered by books alone, as they need one's 
 own life-experience and that of others . If the 
 reply corresponds to one's needs then search 
 ceases, for salvation corncth when belief is 
 fraught with strength and honesty. Negation 
 often is as definite and noble as assertion; the 
 
I02 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 agnostic may be as loyal as the Christian. 
 The arrogance of an exclusive sectarianism 
 demands omniscience, but patience and humil- 
 ity constantly say, "Not yet;" and refuse 
 acceptance of any dogma until convinced. 
 It is hard to persuade zealots that loyalty can 
 call for negation without a corresponding 
 assertion. Their little science teaches them 
 that a vacuum must be filled, and, wh^n their 
 opponent expresses his dissent from their 
 views, they imperiously demand what is 
 believed ; and cannot comprehend why some 
 idea has not rushed into the mind to take the 
 place of what, in their opinion, should have 
 occupied it. Unknown to the thinker, as to 
 them, crystals of thought may be forming, 
 although his habit of self-restraint forbids their 
 taking definite shape, until they have absorbed 
 all they need from the surrounding elements. 
 It is hard for ultra-minded people to believe 
 that liberality does not belong to any one sect 
 or party. They leave conversative, expedient 
 
LOYALTY AND LLBERALLTY. 103 
 
 organizations, and form minor associations 
 with the fiilse battle-cry of HberaHty. 
 
 When HberaHty is considered as a product 
 of the heart, as a gift of temperament and 
 intuition, it lacks that permanent force which 
 results from knowledge and experience. In- 
 tuitions may be safe, but as they are not con- 
 scious, logical processes, they should not be 
 regarded as authoritative. Imbibing by a 
 process of faith is uncertain ground for con- 
 viction. Under its guidance the kindly heart 
 cannot reach unto the depths of suffering or 
 joy in another which self-experience has never 
 probed. Intuition may be safely followed 
 through average ordeals, but experience leads 
 open-eyed and clear-minded amid unusual 
 perplexities. 
 
 Must and ought are the adjuncts of illiber- 
 ality, which is the hinderance of another in his 
 pursuits and opinions. Even the force of per- 
 sonality should be careful in imposing itself 
 upon others to such a degree that their free 
 
I04 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 will is destroyed. The freedom we claim for 
 ourselves is owed in return. Each finds the 
 practical answer by his own gauge of intui- 
 tion and experience. The world-wide rela- 
 tions of every person are settled in concentric 
 rings, ever widening from their first or 
 innermost circle. The idea of ought, as op- 
 posed to or mingled with the conception of 
 liberality, finds its first circle of decision, em- 
 braces those of its own household, the final 
 circle including the brotherhood of human- 
 ity. 
 
 The manner in which people and events 
 are spoken of in early home-life creates the 
 first impressions, received unconsciously, 
 which will affect the child's future way of 
 thought and action. Soon he notices the va- 
 riance between words and deeds ; he hears 
 his mother say that a certain course of pro- 
 ceeding coincides with her idea of right, and, 
 at the same time, he sees her help a friend in 
 ways averse to her expressed opinion. He 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 105 
 
 does not yet know whether to characterize 
 her words and acts as inconsistent or liberal. 
 The puzzle has begun which will haunt him 
 for years, until he, too, has learned that a broad 
 outlook and a fervent faith necessitate each 
 other. School-life soon teaches him to be 
 loyal to truth and honor, in withliolding from 
 mean and doubtful ways with such pleasant- 
 ness that he attracts his fellows into right 
 observance rather than repels them from the 
 circle of his friendship. College and board- 
 ing-schools enforce these lessons with a power 
 that each one knows best for himself. 
 
 Church life again presents them. Within 
 a hundred years religion in America has 
 burst the shackles that fettered it. After State 
 conventions had ceased to support the church 
 by public tax, creed tests were still retained, 
 belief in which was evidence of eligibility 
 for holding office. Not only must Protes- 
 tantism be accepted, but, in Delaware, be- 
 lief in the Trinity; in Pennsylvania, belief 
 
lo6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 in God and the inspiration of the Bible. 
 When the Constitution was framed, in 1787, 
 it read: "No religious test shall ever be 
 required as a qualification to any office or 
 public trust under the United States." Re- 
 ligion, though freed from State control, is 
 still in bondage to the church. The com- 
 munion is oftener a test act than a memorial 
 service. Narrow convictions have led to the 
 founding of new sects, the separation within 
 the division, each based on a point more or 
 less broad, from whose contracting influence 
 humanity perpetually escapes, for the law of 
 progress ever makes the liberality of to-day 
 the sectarianism of to-morrow. Earnest be- 
 lief, tempered with comprehension of other 
 creeds, has been the fulcrum which has lifted 
 church-life into the philanthropy of human- 
 ity. Contrast Loyala, the sectarian alone, 
 with Fenelon, the sectarian and the liberal ; 
 Edwards with Channing, Wesley with Wil- 
 berforce, John Knox with the author of 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALLTY. 107 
 
 " Theologia Germanica," the schoolmen and 
 priests with Columbus and Galileo. 
 
 In the reaction from mysticism and church 
 theology the claim to eternal life has been 
 founded on doing to such an extent that 
 one is ready to shout with the revivalist, 
 "Doing is a deadly sin." What has become 
 of rapt absorption in the thought of something 
 which is not of concrete apprehension? 
 Where now are the faces that should make a 
 Sistine Madonna and a St. Jerome? A 
 loyal, liberal faith takes not meanness as a 
 synonyme for deacon, nor petition for prayer, 
 and finds the equivalent terms for religious 
 and political economy in the text-book of 
 life. The reconciliation of science and re- 
 ligion is the finding and the worshipping. 
 
 Many are so liberal up to a certain point 
 that it is almost thought that they have the 
 breadth of universal sympathy ; but suddenly 
 they reach a bound beyond which they refuse 
 fellowship. Many find it hard to be fair and 
 
Io8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 generous towards those who, in a spirit of rev- 
 erence to all truth, feel they have not yet 
 proved a God. If one, himself, holds a stead- 
 fast belief in Him, and wishes to make others 
 feel as he does, can he not yet see that certain 
 minds must have what they deem facts as 
 proofs? Can he not wait? Must others be- 
 lieve instantly because he does? His God 
 must be a very small God if his Impatience 
 can hurry others into belief. To wait, and to 
 plan while waiting, is the secret of liberality's 
 action. The weakness of human nature is 
 nowhere seen more strongly than in the invol- 
 untary presentation to the childishly finite mind 
 of the infinite questions of the existence and 
 abode of God, and of immortality. What it 
 can never answer it first asks. Because our 
 lives are all aglow with the hope of immortal- 
 ity shall we scorn another who looks upon it 
 simply as a reward for striving here, or shall 
 we shudder at him who looks bravely into Im- 
 mensity and sees nothing nearer than the 
 
LOYALTY AND LIRERALLTY. 109 
 
 divine obligation to love one another on earth ? 
 It Is hard to do neither, but the more w^e know 
 the easier w^ill it be. One's own mental 
 strength should facilitate comprehension of 
 others' doubtino^ or waitino^ attitude. 
 
 Words, like symbols, acquire special mean- 
 ings, and are the keys to sectarian as well as to 
 scientific storehouses. The kindly deception 
 that permits one person to use a word In a 
 mythical sense which another accepts as a state- 
 ment of fact is incompatible with accurate 
 thinking. Rather say : Your fact Is my sym- 
 bol ; to you the fact, to me the symbol. Is 
 God's call to both to make the thoughts of each 
 definite and clear. An Episcopalian clergy- 
 man preached for a Baptist parson. At the 
 close of the sermon the Baptist said: " I am 
 sorry I cannot ask you to partake of the Lord's 
 Supper, but you are not a close communi- 
 cant." — " Oh." replied the churchman, "even 
 if you should ask me, I could not stay ; for I 
 cannot receive the bread and wine from one 
 
no ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 who has never been ordained." A very nar- 
 row distinction, exclaim those who stand out- 
 side ; a veiy real one, say those who stand 
 within. 
 
 It is in minor matters of social life that our 
 illiberality constantly surprises us. Reforms 
 are most notable examples of it. As, for in- 
 stance, those who do not wear mourning can 
 appreciate neither the protection it affords nor 
 its graduated hues. A violent anti-tobacconist 
 refuses the name of gentleman to a smoker ; a 
 teetotaler deems a glass of sherry a sign of 
 inebriation ; even puddings must lose their 
 flavor under reformatory zeal, and silver tank- 
 ards of the past must be termed " ciiristening 
 bowls ; " a man who smokes and drinks may 
 be fit for heaven, but not for marriage or 
 society. 
 
 Unconventionality brands conventionality as 
 narrow. The longer one lives, however, the 
 more is the safeguard of ceremony valued. 
 As almost every social convention had its ori- 
 
Z YAL T Y AND LIB ERA LIT Y. 1 1 1 
 
 gin in some use or fear, the outward utility of 
 politeness, though not yet making its valua- 
 tions aright, must keep pace with inward rec- 
 ognition of equality. The American knows 
 no fear, but as often loves to praise as to peck 
 at his superior. Witness the adulation offered 
 our political heroes and our friends, as well as 
 the slander cast upon them. 
 
 Are those out of society liberal towards 
 those in it.? Many a fashionably dressed and 
 handsome girl has to suffer the reputation of 
 being frivolous and haughty, when she has 
 only a youthful capacity for enjoyment and a 
 love for pretty things. Unkindness is often 
 shown in the feelings towards a popular per- 
 son. It indicates, at least, self-command and 
 tact to be popular, yet a popular person or 
 lecturer is regarded as suitable for the masses. 
 Such narrowness includes self-denunciation ; 
 we are part of the masses. 
 
 Women, especially, formulate conventional 
 judgments, graduated by approximation to a 
 
112 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 certain standard of manner and dress. They 
 accept or outlaw one another by the number of 
 buttons on gloves, the shape of bonnets, and 
 a Greek or French " tournure." Externals 
 are generally a good basis for primary opin- 
 ion, but never a reason for illiberality towards 
 those whom taste does not approve. To 
 refuse to associate with others because their 
 manners are not suited to our liking is pro- 
 vincial, and provincialism is the essence of 
 illiberality, while cosmopolitanism is the 
 essence of liberality. Business and preoccu- 
 pation cannot be oflered as excuses for illiber- 
 alism and provincialism. An unknown or 
 queer person is invited to a family dinner. 
 An estimable woman wdio wore greens and 
 purples of bygone shades, who lounged 
 rather than sat, and who had lived in Boston 
 for several years, excused her shortcomings 
 by explaining that she had never been invited 
 to a meal where she met any other lady than 
 the hostess. Who has the courage to stop 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 1 13 
 and speak first? The one who is most 
 liberal, who knows that cordiality takes no 
 more time than rudeness. 
 
 Want of liberality and excess of loyalty to 
 one's surroundings introduces a comic aspect 
 into charities. Rich people often prefer to 
 employ a missionary to visit the poor, rather 
 than to go themselves, because " such an one 
 is more like the poor's own kind." The 
 Associated Charities tries to leap the gulf of 
 inequalities by saying, " Visitors and Visited." 
 The gulf of difference is there ; insight and 
 liberality cannot merely span it, but fill it up. 
 The poor are too proud to say they are poor ; 
 the rich, too anxious to escape any imputation 
 of nouveau riche or aristocracy. A liberal 
 spirit accepts classifications as outwardly true, ' 
 and then, through sympathy, forgets them in 
 action. 
 
 Housework and children are common 
 ground for all women, politics and trade for all 
 men. The poor are as interested in the 
 
114 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 wealtny as the latter are in them. A certain 
 old lady, who in her days of eyesight had been 
 in a printer's office and later was supported 
 by charity, said: "Young girls nowadays 
 dress dowdy when they come to see us poor 
 folks, and call it equality. If it were, they 
 wouldn't make such a fuss to hide it. I'd like 
 to see their silks and satins, and hear about 
 their beaux. It's as good as a love story, even 
 if you haint ever had the chance to get mar- 
 ried ; but they just talk about my rheumatism 
 and how to cook oatmeal till they don't do 
 one a bit of good." 
 
 The demands of socialism in all its various 
 phases can never be adjusted until capital and 
 competition put themselves in thought at the 
 stand-point of wages and cooperation. Com- 
 prehension, not of their wrongs so much as of 
 what they think are their wrongs, is the only 
 way in which, one can meet, by argument or 
 by law, the requirements of the working- 
 classes. House-keepers have to contend with 
 
LOYALTY AND LLBERALITY. 115 
 
 one form of ignorant, aggressive demand. 
 Tlie I-am-as-good-as-you-are feeling is the 
 root of the claim for more wages and of 
 impudent answers. Our servants are our 
 children ; home is a missionary field ; insight 
 understands why our cook grows tired of 
 always being a cook. We go oft' to our 
 parlor ; she stays by the cooking-stove. 
 
 All have not yet learned to be actively liberal 
 towards colored people. A formal and touch- 
 ing protest came from certain of them, begging 
 for more equal chances in the struggle for self- 
 support. The city gave their children, it said, 
 the same instruction as it offered those who 
 were white ; but when colored girls at the 
 North graduated they must either be washer- 
 women, or marry and bring more children 
 into this unequal world ; while white girls 
 found places in shops or as teachers, they 
 were rejected, because other employes or 
 school-children disliked them, and all black 
 maidens did not wish to go South as instructors. 
 
Il6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 The colored girl of the same ability as the 
 white has not the same chance in earning a 
 livelihood. If nature establishes the limits of 
 color, it also permits educated labor to succeed, 
 yet custom forbids. A friend found a vase, 
 black in hue, placed on an end of his mantel- 
 piece and a white one on the opposite corner. 
 He looked at them shudderingly, uttered the 
 word, " miscegenation," and ordered them 
 removed. His feeling about the blacks could 
 not even tolerate the mismated vases. 
 
 There is also the illiberality of the classical 
 against the scientific tendency in education. 
 A Greek scholar denounced President Eliot as 
 prejudiced because he favored the introduction 
 of more scientific studies, which the erudite 
 speaker thought were best fitted for laboring 
 people, and a president of a Western college 
 characterized Harvard as only suitable for an 
 aristocratic community. Graduation at Cam- 
 bridge or Yale is equivalent to a mark of 
 social superiority, supposed to be incomparably 
 
LOYALTY AND LLBERALITY. 117 
 
 better than any mental results which may fol- 
 low from careful, individual work in a Western 
 or Southern college ; the graduates from such 
 an one, on the other hand, are sometimes 
 anxious to conceal the name of their Alma 
 Mater. 
 
 And is there nothing to be said about the 
 illiberality of those of the regular school 
 toward homoeopaths, and of the latter towards 
 the former? Surely each man honestly 
 believes he is right. Does loyalty to a con- 
 viction that a "pathy" is wrong compel 
 quibbles in order to escape cooperation in 
 social or benevolent work ? Does it justify the 
 charge of " intellectual dishonesty " ? Another 
 school may be stupid, but not immoral. 
 Personal morality, as affecting his mental or 
 medical uprightness, should, ai least, be granted 
 to an opponent. | 
 
 There is a liberality to be observed in per- 
 sonal habits, even in food. If children are 
 trained to take what is on the vable, they are 
 
Il8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 taught a virtue which will serve them in after 
 years, when exposed to the chances of res- 
 taurants and a friend's kitchen. A vegetarian 
 is a terrible guest. An Englishman, at a 
 breakfast served in his honor, declined dish 
 after dish. At last the hostess said, "You 
 will try some potatoes.?" — "Yes, thanks," 
 was his glad assent; but, as he beheld them 
 baked in their brown coverings, he observed, 
 " I never eat them unless boiled." Two tired 
 ministers were invited to tea at the house of a 
 millionnaire. The weary guests fed on dainty 
 viands and drank water; "for," explained 
 the host, in uncertain tone, " my wife finds 
 that as tea disagrees with her, it must also 
 be of no benefit to others." 
 
 Leadership and union in work need lib- 
 erality, for there can be no hearty acceptance 
 of another's guidance without it. Then the 
 intelligent and the unintelligent, those who 
 are conventioixal and those who are earnest, 
 can work together for the sake of a common 
 
LOYALTY AND LLBERALTTY. 119 
 
 good. Mutual peculiarities are, however, 
 to be understood and avoided; thinking 
 of them is amusing, speaking is danger- 
 ous ; capacities are to be recognized, claims 
 adjusted, self-seeking avoided. When will 
 men and women be large enough to accept 
 another's valuation of them which does not 
 place them where they put themselves? How 
 many are there who are willing to lead until 
 fitter persons are found, and who then will 
 withdraw, feeling grateful that they have done 
 some good, and still more grateful that others 
 can accomplish better results than they? How 
 many are there who are brave enough to 
 accept the mandates of a liberality that gives 
 one measure and refuses another ; that under- 
 stands weakness and strength? Clubs, unions, 
 societies, organizations of all kinds, political, 
 social, reformatory, ' or beneficent, will never 
 reach their highest consummation, nor will 
 society be a broad, deep channel of usefulness 
 and pleasure, until liberality is the patent 
 
I20 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 mark of each ; until we can bear to hear the 
 truth about ourselves ; until we can be brave 
 enough to utter it about our fellow-workers. 
 
 It is a blessed fact that life compels us to 
 work together, though in our thoughts and 
 with our words we stand far off from each 
 other. Is my neighbor wrong because I am 
 right ? No one yet can say he has attained unto 
 absolute truth. The truth is absolute just so 
 far as it is each man's duty to do only that 
 which he believes is his present truth ; but that 
 truth may be relative to another person. 
 Relativity of truth is the fundamental equation 
 between our differing beliefs. Its relativeness 
 is no excuse for not believing something, and 
 no excuse for not wishing that others might 
 arrive at our stand-point ; while it is the reason 
 for acknowledging the why and wherefore of 
 another's belief, and for liberality in our thought 
 and treatment of them ; as variety is a divine 
 law of human nature. Do we ever know each 
 other or ourselves? Is not the best of our 
 
LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 121 
 
 natures unknown or dim to us ? That glory, 
 almost was within our grasp, has it gone ? Was 
 it our fault ; or could not we reach it? 
 
 " Perhaps in us all there are heights of will, 
 And shadowy deeps of thought, 
 A land in the heart of each one's Ufa 
 With self-surprises fraught." 
 
 Shall we merely tolerate each other ? That 
 is too small a word. We are to comprehend 
 another in his truth, as he understands us in 
 ours. The larger unity to come must be one 
 of purpose ; for the faith and hope of each per- 
 son will sing themselves into a creed. With 
 reverent spirit for others' purpose must we all 
 approach any offered feast of friendship. 
 Another's thought is not alone to be trans- 
 formed into our experience, but to be transub- 
 stantiated. It thus becomes a vital, individual 
 product again in some one else. Fundamental 
 agreements are deeper than surface contradic- 
 tions. 
 
122 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 Through loyalty shall we never feel that 
 truth has been lessened by our cowardice, for 
 having established its convictions, upon care- 
 fully examined premises, they have become 
 data of assured action. Loyalty never shrinks 
 from its own statement ; it feels its truth is the 
 only truth worth living for, but it does not rush 
 towards instant fulfilment, for, while believing, 
 it is willing to work and wait quietly. Loyalty 
 stands by the falling friend, while liberality 
 understands why he falls. Loyalty takes 
 Recognition for its motto, clings fast and sees 
 wide. Because it is the reverent worship and 
 advancement of the true, it feels deference 
 towards others' reverence ; yet 
 
 " It yields no step in the awful race, 
 No blow in the fearful fight;" 
 and still, 
 
 "The hidden river runs, 
 
 It qviickens all the ages down. 
 It binds the sires to sons." 
 
 The river of human sympathy, of liberality. 
 
TilE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN, 
 
 TT THAT is this curious product of to-day, 
 ' ^ the American girl or woman? Does 
 the heroine of any American novel fitly stand 
 as a type of what she is ? and, furthermore, is 
 it possible for any novel within the next fifty 
 years truly to depict her as a finality, when 
 she is still emerging from new conditions 
 in a comparatively old civilization, when she 
 does not yet understand herself; and when her 
 actions are often the awkward results of 
 motives, complex in their character, uncon- 
 sciously to herself? Pessimists speak of 
 woman's foibles as constitutional, and displayed 
 alike in all ages and countries. Optimists, 
 
126 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 accepting this statement, add to it the factor of 
 evolution, and believe that just as the race has 
 been modified physically by climate and con- 
 ditions of life, so will the former type of 
 woman, by elimination of the weaker elements 
 and survival of the fittest, be essentially modi- 
 fied into something larger and better than has 
 yet been. But, as in all modifications some- 
 thing valuable is often lost, there is danger that 
 many of the present tendencies amongst women 
 will be developed into undue and harmful 
 prominence. 
 
 -The expression in the faces of the past and 
 present woman indicates a change. A certain 
 noted physician, on receiving a new case, 
 always calls for earlier and later photographs 
 of his patient, that he may compare the changes 
 wrought in the course of years, which may 
 have contributed to the present condition. 
 Such a gallery of portraits might help in a 
 diagnosis of our modern woman. The peace 
 and equipoise, the hauteur, united with uncon- 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 1 27 
 
 sciousness of self, are all gone. The face of 
 to-day is stamped with restlessness, wandering 
 purpose, and self-consciousness. The trusting 
 religious tone has vanished from conversation. 
 A modern "lunch" affords opportunity for 
 testing ordinary feminine talk, which is never 
 bad or vulgar, on the whole, not even frivolous, 
 but is marked by superficiality in its discussion 
 of novels and subjects, though showing great 
 familiarity with all known and to be known 
 publications. Each woman could talk far 
 better than she does if she were not hampered 
 by self-consciousness. An Englishv/oman said, 
 "At home, politics and party measures are dis- 
 cussed at our ladies' lunches, but in America 
 one must first go to a circulating library before 
 accepting a noonday invitation." Latterly 
 suffrage has become a feature of conversa- 
 tion, but often in a humorous or questioning 
 vein rather than in an argumentative or 
 serious manner. Gossip — not scandal — and 
 allusions to conventional modes of philan- 
 
128 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 thropy lake the place of discussion of yester- 
 day's sermon or the last congressional debate. 
 If one wishes a foreigner to form a favorable 
 opinion of women, apart from any special vo- 
 cation they may have, he should be invited to 
 a ladies' lunch, pure and simple, and he will 
 be compelled to admit that American women 
 are easy, brilliant, kindly, cultivated, and alto- 
 gether charming. But he will read restless- 
 ness in many a face, will notice an empresse- 
 nieitt of manner, a little hurry in the gait, 
 quick tones of voice, a business air, suggestive 
 of the surmise that all these women are " in" 
 or "at something." The leisurely, graceful 
 element is wanting. 
 
 Society has grown so complex in both town 
 and country that it is difficult to assert any 
 universal predicates of either, without fear of 
 contradiction. The New England woman 
 should be taken as the largest representative 
 of the whole country, because the Southern 
 woman is minus her driving qualities, plus an 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 129 
 
 added grace and piquant deportment ; and the 
 Western woman is minus the Southern charm 
 and the New England self-consciousness and 
 morbid conscientiousness, plus an active self- 
 reliance that has already resulted in success- 
 ful individual and concerted measures. In all 
 these women, however, the wish for progress 
 has made such havoc that the woman of to- 
 day differs from the woman of the past. 
 
 As Justification of this new departure it 
 must be remembered that we are no longer 
 living in an age marked by a dominant cause. 
 Work, government, society, knowledge, phi- 
 lanthropy, yearly grow more specialized, 
 whilst our foremothers had above them their 
 faith in the special providences of God, and 
 around and below them a daily struggle for 
 material needs. Life was grave and tender in 
 these women, who felt that they were the 
 founders of a new race. And just as they 
 were beginning to realize that less praying 
 and less manual labor would obtain their daily 
 
130 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 bread and make them heroic mothers of men 
 whose motto was yet to be Renunciation, 
 came the Revolution, to give tliem another 
 unified impulse towards simplicity of life, 
 dignity of thought, and trust in God. All 
 women in these two periods thought and 
 worked alike for the same reason. Subdivision 
 in feminine interests was just creeping into 
 slight notice, when our last war again united 
 women in a single cause ; but the country 
 had grown larger, and faith in public 
 prayer, church-going, special providences, 
 less. The material comforts of the last fifty 
 years had disintegrated simplicity of life, 
 and rendered possible a speedy arrival at 
 modern complexity ; and there was rarely an 
 ineffaceable stamp of dignity left on those who 
 nobly had borne their part in hospital and 
 field and sanitary work. North and South. 
 Now thousands make temperance their holy 
 cause, other thousands consider female suf- 
 frage as such, and then the feminine hosts 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 13 1 
 
 break up into companies of one or more hun- 
 dreds each, all clamoring for their special 
 hobby, cause, work. 
 
 Such diversity of interests has some advan- 
 tages, but it also prevents that directness and 
 simplicity of aim which made our great-grand- 
 mothers such devoted, honoring wives, and 
 such mothers filled with the spirit of the Lord, 
 and has reacted unfavorably, to a large extent, 
 upon the home. Not only are the four ortho- 
 dox kinds of Thanksgiving pies in groaning 
 larders gone, not only has the sceptical feeling 
 arisen that turkeys may be roasted and pump- 
 kin pies eaten before the canonical November 
 day, but the mother-spirit that stuffed the tur- 
 key and strained the pumpkin is going, and a 
 new theory arising, that husbands and children 
 ought not to like pies, and that if perchance 
 such taste is inherited, it must be supplanted 
 by the notion that the wife and mother is made 
 for something beyond catering to appetites un- 
 content with plain apples and cheese for dessert. 
 
132 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 Men naturally care less for the home when 
 the wife does not first render service unto it ; 
 for, being married, it has become her duty, 
 voluntarily assumed, but sanctioned by the 
 State and sealed with marriage vows. Not 
 long ago a man and woman, swinging each 
 other's fingers, were wending their way to the 
 altar, when a dispute arose as to which one 
 should purchase the cooking-stove. '' You," 
 quoth the man, " for you will do the cooking." 
 '' Not so," said the woman. " 1 am not 
 going to do all the cooking. *' The dispute 
 waxed hot, and separation ensued. 
 
 Not only are pies in the home decreasing, 
 but affection for it is also on the wane, as the 
 need of individuality within it becomes more 
 definite. But few sons and daughters have yet 
 learned to sweeten the necessary transit from 
 their early submission to their parents to later 
 equality with the father and mother, or to a still 
 later guardianship of them, with reverence for 
 the parental relation in itself. Women do 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 133 
 
 not care for their home as they did ; it is no 
 longer the focus of all their endeavors ; nor is 
 the mother the involuntary nucleus about w^hich 
 the adult children assemble. Daughters must 
 have art studios outside of their home ; author- 
 esses must have a study near by ; and aspirants 
 to culture must attend classes or readings in 
 some semi-public place. Professional women 
 have found that, however dear the home is, 
 they can exist without it. Many still remain 
 at home, but ask, in their midnight musings, 
 why it should be right for a man to accept 
 that position which the woman, on account 
 of her home, must refuse. The query itself 
 could not have arisen half a century since. 
 Many men refrain from marriage, fearing that 
 the homes offered by them will not be the chief 
 delight of the wife, who will be capable of 
 finding pleasure and occupation in other ave- 
 nues of interest. It may be a selfish and 
 manlike feeling, yet it exists ; and after women 
 have adjusted their position, men may read- 
 
134 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 just themselves to it. The simple fact is that 
 women have found that they can have occupa- 
 tion, respectability, and even dignity discon- 
 nected from the home. The tendency is, that, 
 in the discovery of this possibility, they are 
 losing somev^hat of filial tenderness, of the 
 loyalty of kinship, and of close, concentrated 
 affection, and acquiring more of self-assertion 
 and universal expansiveness. 
 
 The day of religious diaries and confessions 
 is past ; but a moral and intellectual self-con- 
 sciousness remains, fostered by our system of 
 education and public examination, w^hich is 
 much to be deplored. Very few are free from 
 it, for it is an indigenous product, and only by 
 education can be altered into the educated un- 
 consciousness of middle life, or stamped out by 
 rare buoyancy of health and spirits. What 
 was woman made ybi^ .^ was the former ques- 
 tion ; and the quick answer came, For the glory 
 of God and the solace of man. Now the 
 question reads, as put by the teacher and so- 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 135 
 
 clety, What is she made of^ The school -girl 
 answers, So much per cent. ; the belle says, 
 So much beauty of head and shoulders poised 
 at such an angle, plus certain inflections of 
 voice and grades of manner to friends and 
 the jDopulace ; and the earnest "committee 
 woman " answers. Of executive force, insight, 
 and sensible views. They all know their pro- 
 fessions and their wants ; some stifle the smile, 
 lest it be unconventionally broad ; others repress 
 their enthusiasm, lest it argue a lack of savoir 
 faire; and those who apparently are natural 
 know they are natural. It is all a knowing. 
 They are not, perhaps, unhappy by result of 
 unfavorable comparisons, because dignity com- 
 pels acceptance of the inevitable ; but there is 
 little of happy humility, and a great deal of in- 
 dignant dignity in thought and manner. Our 
 public schools, our seminaries or colleges, train 
 the pupils to meet an audience ! No wonder 
 that the managers of the Children's "Pinafore" 
 found no timidity in its infantile performers. 
 
136 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 With this growth of modern internal inter- 
 viewing has come a loss of grace. vStiffness 
 and hardness of manner was a Puritan charac- 
 teristic, after a time softening into grace of 
 posture, slowness of gait. But now some 
 walk forth on high heels, balancing their 
 shoulders like scales ; others step squarely on 
 broad soles, and lo ! the world knoweth there- 
 of; others still are always in a hurry; grace is 
 wanting in all. Go from the streets to the 
 drawing-rooms ; how few move, look, or 
 speak gracefully ! The slow dignity and the 
 careless ease are alike mannered. Every one 
 knows that every one else is looking. Self- 
 consciousness, frivolity, and also earnestness 
 are banishing graceful badinage, easy postures, 
 lingering tones. A brilliant woman becomes 
 satirical, with relapses into humor; the humor 
 collapses into extravagant statements. Timid- 
 ity or decision in a woman speaker or pre- 
 sidcr recalls the fact that it is a woman 
 who is before one ; her decision often appear- 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 1 37 
 
 ing like a heavy borrowed article. The 
 charm of being, of simply being one's self, 
 apart from having a " mission " or "views," 
 is lost in the zeal with which women are seiz- 
 ing upon the new fields of usefulness thrown 
 open to them. 
 
 Every one must be or want a definite 
 something. Two instances may serve as il- 
 lustrations. The wife of a literary man, her- 
 self a writer, came to this country, and was 
 dined and lunched. ' ' What does she want.? *' 
 asked the earnest women. "Nothing!" was 
 the indignant reply of her society friend. 
 Again, a sculptor went back to Rome and 
 told how he had called to see a certain lady 
 because he liked her, when, on his third visit, 
 she asked, welcoming him, " Is there any- 
 thing I can do for you?" — " As if," he said, 
 " a man could not see a Boston woman with- 
 out her wishing to aid him. Can't they just 
 be themselves, and let us like them, and not 
 eternally have objects, views?" 
 
138 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 The value of existence is becoming the out- 
 ward hete noir that is stamping itself on the 
 face, voice, and gait of woman. Do some- 
 thing, be of worth in yourself, form opinions, 
 is the imperative mood in which the times 
 address modern women, whose likenesses will 
 be recognized at a future day by this dignity 
 of " woman's-mission" look, — a gallery of 
 photographed " causes." 
 
 Instead of grace there has come in many 
 women an affectation of mannishness, as is 
 shown in hats, jackets, long strides, and a 
 healthful swinging of the arms in walking. 
 Ready-made clothing for women seems to 
 have finished their emancipation from the 
 role of women of the past ; for with a much 
 lessened need of sewing has increased a read- 
 iness to show a so-called superiority to attrac- 
 tiveness, which as independence has certainly 
 succeeded. 
 
 More pronounced than any mannerisms is 
 the difference in the goal of past and present 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 139 
 
 ambition. Formerly, to be a good house- 
 keeper, an anxious mother, an obedient wife, 
 was the ne phis ultra of female endeavor, — 
 to be all this for others^ sakes. Now it is to 
 be more than one is for one's own sake. 
 Knowledge is valued as an end rather than as 
 a means. Of course there is much attainment 
 of knowledge among women that is purely 
 philanthropic ; but also there is a vast amount 
 of culture that is purely selfish. Some have a 
 provoking knack at using all their knowledge ; 
 the politeness of others forbidding inquiry as 
 to its date of acquirement. They willingly, 
 seem more learned than they are. They 
 " do " books as some travellers " do " Europe. 
 They are dogmatic, and possess a certainty of 
 conviction where others disagree, that is amus- 
 ing and aggravating. I accept your premises, 
 but doubt your conclusion, is a simple state- 
 ment ; but it suggests memories of authorita- 
 tiveness and slight philosophical acumen. 
 Then, women quote, quote, quote, and say, 
 
140 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 " Don't you remember? " At a literary dinner 
 this quotation had grown overpowering to a 
 thoughtful friend of only moderate memory, 
 and when repeatedly addressed with "Don't 
 you know?" she said, apologetically, "Oh, I 
 can only think ! " There was silence. 
 
 A middle-aged girl generally knows more 
 than her parents ; but not always as much as 
 other people whom she has not yet had the 
 discipline of meeting. This dogmatism is not 
 so apt to show itself on special points as in the 
 general way of regarding the universe, for the 
 ^ fact of being a product of this age confers the 
 supposed intellectual power which hovers in 
 the atmosphere. "To him that hath shall be 
 given" is literally believed. "I can," instead 
 of " I'll try," expresses much of modern feel- 
 ing. The ability to make much out of little is 
 not confined, however, to American women, 
 and is in itself power. It is always more strik- 
 ing to make a point than to see the whole of 
 an idea, and answers better for the short de- 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN T41 
 
 mands of society, not of life. Our grand- 
 mothers would stand aghast at the aphorisms, 
 quaintnesses, points, of the lady conversation- 
 alist of to-day, and would miss the old-time 
 calmness, fervor, and acceptance of life's 
 duties. 
 
 There is also an increasing tendency, in 
 spite of fashionable and benevolent cookery 
 schools, to disparage housework and sewing. 
 Women hint to each other that they can use 
 their time to greater advantage ; that they 
 were born for something better, being of the 
 educated classes ; and that manual labor is for 
 the unintelligent. Then, when intelligence 
 directs this mass of unlntelligence, it thinks 
 it is doing a great deal, and often sighs 
 pityingly over itself. Often from want of 
 manual knowledge these educated housekeepers 
 are compelled constantly to "change help" 
 and have garments altered. It is doubtful 
 whether there is the same patient endurance 
 of the hard conditions of life now as even fifty 
 
142 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 years ago, while there is more intellectua. pre- 
 tension. 
 
 Advertisements, the higher intelligence 
 offices, and bureaux of labor testify to the 
 presumed value of brain over hand education, 
 although the country is suffering for good 
 handiwork of all kinds. Women who apply 
 for situations want places as teachers, travel- 
 ling companions, translators, copyists, jour- 
 nalists, lecturers, and orators. One woman 
 wanted some work of " renumerative benefi- 
 cence, as the Almighty would be wroth with 
 her if her powers remained unemplo3^ed ; yet 
 she must gain her daily bread while awaiting 
 the results of her pen." Another, clad in 
 dowdy trimmings and frowsy feathers, brought 
 an article "written in a few moments' leisure 
 on the stairs, just thrown off" (she was tend- 
 ing table till something better turned up), as 
 proof of what she could do. A lover of her 
 kind, but no thinker, wishes for j^'^^ying parlor 
 audiences. Still another craves some larp^e 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 1 43 
 
 hall, where she can discourse on " the — isn't 
 sure what word to use ; something which 
 shows that religion and science don't exactly 
 contradict each other." Others have lectures 
 on Icelandic and Persian mythology as known 
 through encyclopedias, on the Visions to Be, 
 on the Centripetal Force of all Systems of 
 Philosophies, on Woman's Duties, Needs, and 
 Missions. All have something to say, and 
 all think they ought to be helped. Some one 
 said that within the last two years a hundred 
 applications had been made to her personally, 
 all for work which required more or less 
 exercise of brain-power ; and that not in a 
 single case was there evidence that the appli- 
 cant possessed more than the desire to be 
 cultured, rather than culture itself. 
 
 Eloquence is such a noble gift that it is sad 
 to see so many women who have studied 
 oratory, anatomically and physiologically, 
 philosophically and psychologically, desire to 
 make their living by readings and lectures ; if 
 
144 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 they do " orate " well it is often from art, not 
 feeling ; they lack the impulse, for truth's sake 
 to tell the truth, which alone constitutes elo- 
 quence. As many women can speak nobly 
 and well and with no thought of self, and as 
 elocution is a most useful study, it is hard 
 that others must speak and read merely be- 
 cause it is a tendency of the age. 
 
 Women are also in a transitional religious 
 condition, partly because it is hard for them 
 to unlearn the lessons of dependence, and 
 partly from social fear, self-distrust, and 
 religious reverence. As doubt and agnosti- 
 cism are "evoluted" in both sexes, they do 
 not belong here as special feminine develoi^- 
 ments. Women, however, need beware lest 
 the man, author or preacher, become their 
 guide, rather than the truths he enunciates : a 
 leader clogs as well as clears the road in 
 thinking out a subject. 
 
 A serious evil, arising from the greater 
 information about everything which women 
 
THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 145 
 
 now possess, is a vast amount of superficial 
 physiological knowledge based on feelings 
 rather than on facts. Women often harm 
 themselves thereby in body, soul, and mind. 
 No one who is not a specialist can generalize 
 on "feelings" or facts. 
 
 As the result of this capacity of woman to 
 exist for herself alone, and to be happy and 
 worthy in such existence, comes a reluctance 
 to look upon marriage as producing the 
 highest development of woman. There is 
 a pantheism of the affections as well as of the 
 intellect, and women are feeling that "causes" 
 and knowledge are better fitted to ennoble 
 them than the ill adjustments of a union which 
 is anything less than perfect love, entire trust, 
 and mutual honor, — motherhood and disci- 
 pline no longer being considered equivalents 
 for the crosses that may arise. 
 
 Woman's past condition has not been satis- 
 factory to herself, nor is it wholly a matter of 
 pleasant history for men. Because a few 
 
146 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 women already have proved that housekeeping 
 and culture, energy and grace, executive force 
 and affection, a profession and a home, can 
 coincide, it does not follow^ that the fulfilment 
 of certain tendencies v^ith many more w^omen 
 is not imminent, and much to be regretted ; 
 but just as fast as they become more pro- 
 nounced must there be a reaction against 
 them, which will eventually establish the 
 balance between the women of the past and 
 of the present. 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 'nr^HE relative position of men and women, 
 it is generally conceded, furnishes data 
 concerning the moral progress of a nation ; yet 
 their relations to each other, and the duties in- 
 volved in marriage, present unusual difficulties 
 to be solved, because we are still ignorant con- 
 cerning their extent. One generalization is 
 immediately confronted by another, accusing 
 the first of falsi t}^ and exaggeration ; individual 
 experience is sure, but limited ; though no 
 science and no method of general action can be 
 based on private experience. 
 
 Propriety itself has so long regulated the 
 utterance of enthusiasm, knowledge, hope, 
 
150 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 endeavor, that almost any attempt toward 
 expression of truth is sure to offend, unless 
 couched in scientific terminology ; but noble 
 propriety, founded on the relations of things 
 and not on the conventionalities of society, de- 
 mands that impropriety should be recognized, 
 spoken of, branded and remanded, not to obliv- 
 ion, but to the most earnest efforts of adult 
 men and women for its cure. Evil lurks in 
 " society," leads an open life " in the lower 
 ranks," and constitutes the raison d'etre of 
 many philanthropic schemes ; yet there is a 
 terrible indifference to the subject, though 
 annual reports, wretched newspaper stories, 
 and the highest class of novels deal with it. 
 To bring it into a work of fiction, unless the 
 book has a distinct moral purpose, is both in- 
 artistic and injurious, as familiarizing the mind 
 with evil, the existence of which should only 
 be dealt with under the plea of truth, duty, or 
 benevolence. As most light reading is manu- 
 factured for entertainment rather than for the 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 151 
 
 development of such attributes, it should be 
 freed from this incumbrance of evil in either an 
 attractive, picturesque, or saddened aspect. 
 
 Because of feigned or real indifference and 
 the '' proprieties," wrong-doing is not fading 
 away under the auspices of many wise and 
 fashionable reforms. When moral law is de- 
 clared to be more obligatory than instinct, and 
 the reasons for such belief are deemed matter 
 for serious inculcation, the populace demur and 
 the educated and aesthetic enjoin silence even 
 in the home. 
 
 Cannot something more powerful than 
 ever yet has been tried be brought to bear 
 upon the eradication of evil? Must not that 
 power be the weight of combined public 
 opinion working in concert which shall de- 
 mand that children be educated into knowledge 
 of what is true ? Great stress is now laid upon 
 the importance of a right intellectual element- 
 ary education ; the morals of truth and energy 
 are not neglected, but instruction in the special 
 
152 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 part of morality with which we are now con- 
 cerned is overlooked in most homes where only 
 it properly belongs. Neither this generation 
 nor the next may witness any palpable im- 
 provement from such teaching, but the children 
 of those who themselves have been well taught 
 could become unfamiliar with evil because 
 accustomed to a higher morality. 
 
 Also such thorough search into the causes 
 of evil is demanded that, the causes being 
 known, their annihilation may be effected. 
 These causes have been divided into the 
 " natural and accidental." Under the first are 
 included peculiarities of disposition, like 
 vanity, indolence, and grossness of character. 
 Granted that these are peculiarities, perhaps 
 even inherited ones, they are dependent on the 
 will for cultivation or partial extermination, 
 and upon the absorption of the individual in 
 voluntary or compelled labor. The moral and 
 intellectual tone affects the physique ; and full 
 employment in one direction negatives undue 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 153 
 
 occupation in another. Whatever strengthens 
 the will-power or ennobles the character is an 
 aid in the battle which the individual must 
 fight for and by himself, — yet not wholly by 
 himself; for the accidental causes foster the 
 natural ones, and the help of the community 
 is necessary in order to destroy the first. Only 
 by universal action can successful war be 
 waged against these accidental causes, and in 
 proportion to the diminution of their number 
 will the natural causes find a natural death. 
 The accidental causes, on the other hand, are 
 within the control of the community and of 
 the individual ; and, though not capable of 
 immediate government, they can be met with 
 counter-arguments and checks till finally ad- 
 justed or overthrown. 
 
 Among these reasons the most potent one 
 for the existence of evil is the difficulty of 
 obtaining remunerative employment. There 
 are thousands of women in and around New 
 York who do not receive over two dollars a 
 
154 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 week, and the temptations induced by such 
 wages are tremendous. It is starvation pay 
 which drives hundreds into immoral Hfe. 
 They may be wretched workwomen, but 
 ahnost any Libor is worth more than two 
 dollars a week ; and fuller pay would kindle 
 ambition to produce better work. In all our 
 large cities and towns the underbidding of 
 wages is contemptible ; goods, whether in the 
 raw material or as made up, pass through 
 hand after hand, in the modern subdivision of 
 life, until the last producer — generally a 
 woman, living in an attic or cellar — can barely 
 earn enough to pay for rent and one decent 
 meal a day. The poorer she is the less in 
 one sense are her needs, as ignorance and 
 poverty create their own boundaries of want. 
 But along the whole descent to her condition 
 are others who cannot eke out the means for 
 their necessary wants ; and, when we say we 
 all have a right to life, liberty, and happiness, 
 we forget how society constantly curtails the 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 55 
 
 extent of the latter. With more happiness 
 there would be less sin ; example and starva- 
 tion often leading one to seek temporary refuge 
 from despair and hunger. The poor are 
 willing to work, and look upon it as their 
 rightful lot ; but they claim that capital should 
 be so adjusted in its relation to the laborer 
 that even those who are farthest removed from 
 wealth should receive enough of its benefits to 
 prevent the agonized suffering of extreifie 
 want. When that pressure is removed, they 
 acknowledge that happiness, as their right, 
 must depend upon their own powers of 
 creation, endurance, or capacity for looking on 
 the bright side of things. Many, among the 
 immense number of women who vainly 
 endeavor to support themselves by the needle, 
 succumb at last to a temporary but easier 
 method of livelihood, though despising them- 
 selves for preferring the transient alleviations 
 of food and warmth to the continued struggle 
 for an honest life. There is no confession 
 
156 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 more touching, no contest more pathetic to 
 witness, than that of some of these girls, born 
 poor, living to be poorer, with no power to 
 do well any one thing, even menial work, thus 
 receiving wretched pay ; probably supporting 
 some relative, or child, if left widowed or 
 deserted, and at last giving up the fight for 
 goodness, and yielding for preservation of self 
 and of others. 
 
 The cause of evil that ranks next to that of 
 ill-paid remuneration for labor is that of intoxi- 
 cation. Wrong-doing and love of drink are so 
 inseparably connected that it is hard to distin- 
 guish cause from effect. When the first step 
 in evil has been taken for other reasons, this 
 second cause reacts and intensifies the capacity 
 for farther ill-doing. All grades of sin recog- 
 nize the service that liquor renders them, and 
 do not hesitate to apply its aid to their purposes. 
 
 The overcrowded dwellings of the poor are 
 the third cause. The proximity of parents and 
 children, brothers and sisters and boarders, in 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 157 
 
 one room, permits familiarity with phases of 
 life that accustom children to regard them as 
 proper normal conditions. Purity is often 
 unknown, the brutality of a low nature is 
 easily aroused, and children know and do 
 what seems impossible. 
 
 Certainly these three causes of evil are within 
 the scope of human remedy. While science 
 and political economy are puzzling over the 
 formula of their methods of procedure, indi- 
 vidual benevolence is endeavoring to find 
 means of prevention in individual cases. 
 These causes abound among the lowest ranks 
 of sin, and call forth compassion equally with 
 abhorrence. Removed from them, another 
 range of life is met with, due to other circum- 
 stances, though all these social circles of sin 
 intermingle, and it is hard to say where one 
 begins and another ends. This aristocracy 
 among the erring is one of its most painful 
 features, and yet often most touching in the 
 unexpected kindnesses rendered by one of 
 
158 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 larger to one of smaller means. In this 
 upper class of evil the chief factors of its 
 existence are loneliness and indolence ; abso- 
 lute want is not the exciting cause so much as 
 absolute loneliness. Take the familiar case of a 
 young girl who has come to the city, and has 
 been fortunate enough to find work, but knows 
 no one ; who comes from and goes to her shop 
 alone, and passes her Sundays and her evenings 
 in silence, — for, in spite of unions, and socie- 
 ties, and churches, it is hard to make acquaint- 
 ances ; some are too busy, others too tired, and 
 many too awkward. ~ Finally, a stranger or 
 friend appears, who enlivens the lonely hours, 
 and the end is soon met : there is no need of 
 following the downward course ; apparent 
 friendliness takes possession of real loneliness. 
 Weak and wrong in the woman ? Yes. But, 
 again, this evil of loneliness is one that society 
 and that other women are bound to correct. 
 There should be no need for loneliness to 
 accept such refuge, when so many thousands 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 59 
 
 of women have homes and hearts, and when 
 hundreds of women are working to protect 
 just such girls ; but these hundreds are not 
 enough. Every true woman should enlist in 
 personal search for the friendless. When each 
 holds another up then there will be no occa- 
 sion for falling. Indolence presents a feature 
 of character almost impossible to conquer. 
 Persuasion seems useless ; there is no power to 
 compel industry ; downright laziness prefers 
 ease by any means, and accepts sin with its 
 pleasures and pains as it has dawdled through 
 all other occasions of life. Personal influence, 
 extended where the rigor of the law cannot 
 reach, is the only method of attack upon this 
 nearly impassable front. 
 
 Next to these two sources of evil can be 
 ranked personal vanity, love of amusements, 
 theatres, dancing, and a fondness for dress. 
 All of them act as incentives, though to a 
 regard for dress has been ascribed more 
 force than it deserves ; it is really a minor 
 
i6o ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 reason compared with the love of admiration 
 that takes its root in loneliness. While at- 
 tributing so much force to this one cause, 
 loneliness, sin itself should not be rated one 
 iota less ; but, because it is loneliness, the 
 wrong of righteous humanity in allowing 
 such friendliness to lie in wait all around 
 one is unbounded. The unselfishness and re- 
 spectability of home affection is very limited. 
 For every woman w^ho tries to help others 
 there are fifty who shrink back. 
 
 There are also indirect causes arising from 
 undue familiarity in company, in " society ; " 
 from too free intercourse between men and 
 women, girls and boys ; from too little observ- 
 ance by the parents of young people's pur- 
 suits, and from the exclusion of older persons 
 from the good times of the younger ; from ill- 
 regulated feeling ; and from unhappy marriages, 
 — entered upon w^ithout forethought or mutual 
 requirements, and often only as a shelter or an 
 " establishment," — and from wretched pub- 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. l6l 
 
 lications. The measures already undertaken 
 for the- suppression of this last cause cannot 
 reach the immense number of books admitted 
 into family and public reading, stories written 
 by men and women, of which the trashy, 
 vulgar tales of newspapers stand at one extreme 
 and a '^ Romance of the Nineteenth Century " 
 at the other. Nothing but the general deepen- 
 ing of morality and of purer literary taste will 
 ever prevent the treatment of such subjects. It 
 cannot be effected by force, only again by in- 
 dividual watchfulness over one's self as writer 
 or reader, and over one's acquaintances as far 
 as personal influence may extend. 
 
 The enumeration of these causes, which will 
 doubtless be corrected or increased by the 
 reader, is given simply to show that every one of 
 them is such an accidental cause that society 
 and humanity should in this day be ashamed 
 of its existence. There is not one of them that 
 cannot be slowly uprooted, if all are in ear- 
 nest, and if there are homes whose inmates 
 
1 62 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 will all be equally anxious to help ; but anxious 
 and loving parental fears or foolish prejudices 
 or society's mandates damj^en enthusiasm. 
 Personal influence is relegated to that of some 
 special conference or church, and the evil 
 lingers. Not by " homes," not by laws, not 
 by societies, is the evil to be eradicated, though 
 all are helps ; but by personal influence, which 
 must find support in public opinion and in the 
 tone of education, else it will not develop into 
 sufficient strength to be of permanent value. 
 Public opinion must begin by regarding the 
 man as equal offender with the woman ; and, 
 though the law must punish each equally, the 
 castigation of society must be the powerful 
 deterrent. When those who lack honesty 
 and refinement find it impossible to be 
 received into society ; when, by parents, 
 the wealth, intellect, or position of suitors are 
 considered as of no value compared with their 
 morality ; when they are refused as partners in 
 the dance, either in the fashionable assembly 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 163 
 
 or the Irish picnic, — then will men feel that 
 they are challenged to a loftier standard of 
 action as requisition for friendship or marriage. 
 We talk a great deal about the power of 
 society, but are loath to exercise it. Society 
 does already forbid innuendo of speech and 
 open violation of conduct ; but it does not for- 
 bid Platonic intimacies, and marriages in 
 which there is little love and upon which lie 
 the weight of prior claims. 
 
 Much is now said about the importance of 
 teaching morality in the public schools. Ad- 
 visable as such instruction may there be, and 
 though indirectly it may largely conduce to 
 rectitude, it cannot include every phase of 
 morals. The education that is given through 
 the pulpit and the press must also be indirect ; 
 but in the home, where the listeners and the 
 pupils are one's own, the education should 
 begin, and be so perfect that it needs never to be 
 supplemented. It is in the home that it is so very 
 largely neglected, — in homes, too, where all the 
 
164 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 aims and wishes are for the children's benefit. 
 Direct instruction should be derived from none 
 other than parent or guardian, and should be 
 given to children as they grow, not waiting 
 till an engagement of marriage takes place, the 
 instruction then being connected with an indi- 
 vidual. The law of birth constitutes one of 
 the child's earliest subjects of inquiry, and 
 should be truthfully, though not fully, an- 
 swered in its earliest years. Then the child 
 knows in words the true law, but its full sense 
 it does not comprehend till later ; yet it does 
 not start with a false term, and its progress 
 from particular to general ideas is true, as its 
 years increase its knowledge, which is thus 
 planted deep in the mind, and ready for use 
 when occasion demands. Parents who have 
 had the bitter or sweet gift of experience 
 should insist on early frankness. By such 
 plain speaking, enforced by home example, 
 and by such choice of language and such rev- 
 erence of thoueht as shall make the child feel 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 165 
 
 that the production of life is the holiest law of 
 nature, it will be impossible for him to have 
 lax notions of moralit}' in later life. 
 
 A very slow method of reforming the world, 
 it is acknowledged, but no slower in regard to 
 this evil than when education is spoken of as 
 the ultimate cure of pauperism. This intro- 
 duction of special moral teaching into every 
 family has, however, a closer connection with 
 pauperism than at first appears. If children 
 are taught to understand reverentially the laws 
 of birth, they will soon jDerceive that the con- 
 ditions of birth are to be harmonized with 
 its environment, and that it is robbery of the 
 resources of the State to produce children 
 who shall be paupers or invalids. 
 
 Such education should be given alike by the 
 intelligent rich and poor, and is demanded by 
 every feeling of chivalry and philanthropy ; 
 here, again, the removal of evil becoming a 
 personal conflict. 
 
 Next to education, as the general deterrent 
 
1 66 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 of evil, comes the creation of new avenues of 
 employment, and of sufficient wages for any 
 work that is done. The growing belief that 
 the word "education" includes training of the 
 hand is the surest augury that industrial edu- 
 cation is to become an immense force in the 
 destruction of evil. But such teaching must 
 not be wholly left to the care of the State. 
 The Associated Charities in many cities are 
 establishing closer personal relations between 
 the rich and the poor. True friendship cares 
 for the industrial education of the friendless, 
 and will create a foundation for better wages. 
 The preventive still becomes one of personality, 
 though the help of the State and of associa- 
 tions can be more prominent concerning indus- 
 trial education than in regard to other means of 
 prevention. 
 
 Allusion' should also be made to the necessity 
 of creating a healthier sentiment in the minds 
 of the working-class in relation to household 
 service. It is frequently looked upon as a 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 67 
 
 disgrace, and personal liberty is supposed to 
 be obtained by making working hours include 
 only those of the daytime ; therefore, house- 
 work is declined. A more just, rather than 
 a kinder, spirit must pervade house-keepers. 
 The recognition of the fact that they consider 
 no work to be menial would establish better 
 relations between the help and the family. 
 Domestics must be allowed their right to 
 personal peculiarities, and to a certain amount 
 of time which shall be absolutely theirs, while 
 an equality, rather than a condescension, of 
 speech must be shown toward them. 
 
 Finally, as preventive, removed from direct 
 personal influence, comes legislation. Any 
 offence that is criminal in the woman should 
 be visited with an equal grade of punishment 
 upon the man. Reformatory institutions have 
 been and still are beneficial ; yet, when the 
 influences of the "boarding-out" system are 
 deemed better for the wards of the State than 
 the associations of an institution, surely it may 
 
1 68 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 not be unwise to ask whether greater personal 
 inspection of the nature of evil and increased 
 personal watchfulness over the unfortunate 
 may not aid in lessening more rapidly its ex- 
 tent. Such oversight will recognize that 
 there is as great a variety of temperament 
 and character as there is of persons ; will go 
 to them when their room is at zero ; when 
 they have little food for days together, and in 
 ninety cases out of a hundred are addicted 
 to drink ; will find some tender spot in their 
 nature ; will first improve their physi<:al con- 
 dition, then procure them employment, and 
 finally will endeavor to arouse their moral 
 nature. It is to the application of the work- 
 remedy that every one should contribute. 
 We must be willing to receive them back into 
 our employment because they need us. 
 
 Surely, want of occupation, vanity, care- 
 lessness of behavior, and temperamental pre- 
 disposition, can better be controlled by the 
 person than by the State. Rescue work within 
 
PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 169 
 
 and without the home is an individual work 
 rather than a pubHc missionary service. 
 
 With a careful understanding of the causes 
 and preventives of evil there is yet a future for 
 those who help and who are to be helped ; and 
 the " disinherited children," who now fill our 
 asylums, crying for their unknown mothers, 
 w^ll become themselves in turn parents who 
 shall find honest work for honest pay. Slowly, 
 imperceptibly, will any change be effected ; 
 but, at a time when woman's position and 
 duties are widening, the moral influence of the 
 home is thereby extended, and on its teaching 
 depends the morality of the world. Personal 
 influence in the ball-room and the workshop, 
 education of the young, whether poor or rich, 
 and intelligent comprehension of other natures 
 besides one's own, will aid in devising in- 
 dividual measures for individual cases, until 
 each sufferer finds strength to stand alone. 
 
WHO'S WHO 
 
WHO'S WHO? 
 
 1VT0 question has more servile terror or 
 ^ ostracizing power than this inquiry. 
 However desirable it may be before an 
 intimacy Is formed, or copartnership in work 
 undertaken, It has become imperative ere a 
 nod of recognition is bestowed. Even If 
 sudden philanthropy dictate the saving of a 
 life, the hero and the spectators must know^ 
 who has been saved. Cordiality changes Its 
 universal blandness into warmth when ances- 
 tors are well known. Not genealogical zeal 
 or elderly kindness alone ask : Where does he 
 belong? but fear of compromise raises the 
 same query, and accompanies It with full 
 notes. If we are to' be known by our friends, 
 
174 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 we care too often about who they are, rather 
 than what they are. 
 
 An Englishman once said he had heard 
 more concerning first families in America than 
 in his own country. Most naturally was it sf», 
 for our peerage is ever changing. Lowell's 
 poems and somebody's bitters may be adver- 
 tised on the same page of the "Atlantic." 
 "Family-trees" are no longer content with 
 the "Mayflower" as a starting-point; but 
 seek for social status in Saxon and Norman 
 days, and trace their coat of arms to ante- 
 diluvian fancies. Better an honest modern 
 invention, like that of the New York million- 
 naire, who, making his fortune by tobacco, 
 chose for his insignia three tobacco leaves, 
 with a Latin inscription, which, rendered into 
 English, ran : — 
 
 " Snuff has bought it; 
 
 Who'd have thought it?" 
 
 Select summer hotels afford the best exem- 
 plifications of self-regard, for in them each one 
 
WHO'S WHO? 175 
 
 feels that he pays for the Hberty of not doing 
 anything which he does not want to do. An 
 " arrival," whose bearing or whose name is 
 not a passport of distinction, may pass unno- 
 ticed for days or weeks, while a distinguee girl 
 or man cannot walk the length of the piazza 
 unremarked. Most curious are the sinuous 
 turnings with which people who live in the same 
 city ignore each other when in the same board- 
 ing-house, for the inconvenience of acquaint- 
 anceship on their return home would be much 
 greater than that of any temporary avoidance. 
 It is wonderful how quickly the desire for rest 
 or meditation vanishes when some one arrives 
 who is supposed to be worth knowing. Then 
 social intercourse receives its full valuation. 
 Those who are eagerly welcomed cannot 
 understand the coolness and coldness of the 
 world. Great men and women have little 
 chance for judging society aright, for they find 
 themselves sought, irrespective of antecedents, 
 while average good people are left to realize 
 
176 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 by their own experience how much lineage 
 adds to appreciation of good purpose. A 
 high rate of board per day does not give 
 absolution from daily politeness. It is ludi- 
 crous to see the perplexity of some one who 
 has paid a big weekly bill for being in, but 
 not of, the crowd, when, suddenly, he dis- 
 covers that he has missed a social opportunity. 
 "Blue blood" cannot mingle with anything 
 less cerulean ; next to belonging to " a family," 
 ranks belonging to the church. A Radical, a 
 Unitarian, a Methodist, a Baptist, is each one 
 degree farther removed than the preceding 
 from the high recognition of society. 
 
 Some 2:>eople are so afraid of being involved 
 that they miss the evolution of themselves. 
 Cosmopolitan or provincial behavior in a hotel 
 is after all each one's own affair, but when the 
 latter extends to the personal relation of a guest 
 to his host it becomes reprehensible. If one is 
 not willing to enlarge his acquaintance he had 
 better never enter society ; but, being there, he 
 
WHO'S WHO? 177 
 
 should be the servant of all, especially of his 
 entertainer. Introductions are too frequently 
 matters of diplomacy rather than of good-will, 
 and often are refused, if it is only the conven- 
 ience of the host which is to be furthered 
 thereby. As they are still required, it becomes 
 difficult to manage a party ; those invited being 
 often preengaged to each other for a conver- 
 sation or a dance, so that there is no chance 
 for the forced opportunities of presentations. 
 Few people are old or free enough to speak to 
 each other without the mediation of a third 
 person. A most amusing instance .of the 
 consequence of such fearlessness was a scene 
 between an elderly and middle-aged lady in a 
 crowded supper-room on Beacon street. The 
 younger one had eaten her salad and ices in 
 unbroken silence ; so had the elderly woman. 
 At last the first ventured to remark that, as 
 the room was very hot, the ice was refreshing. 
 ''Yes," was the long-drawn reply, coupled 
 with the words, " Have I met you before? " 
 
I'jS ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 " No," was the amused answer, " and per- 
 haps we may never meet again ; but I hoped 
 I might take the liberty of speaking to you 
 now." 
 
 " Yes. I am Mrs. B., of D avenue. And 
 you.?" 
 
 " I am Miss W., of X street." 
 ' ' Ah ! indeed ! The ice is cooling." 
 And the older lady, satisfied that the person's 
 name and address had a familiar and correct 
 sound to her ears, slowly drifted into a conver- 
 sation which was more congealing than the 
 ice. 
 
 When fame, however, heralds the advent of 
 a stranger, invitations to behold and speak to 
 him are eagerly accepted, clubs and social par- 
 ties vying with each other in speeches and 
 oysters. But, alas ! if one is simply a lady or 
 a gentleman from another city, or a side street 
 of one's own town ! Self-consciousness gener- 
 ally rebels at being invited for benevolent 
 reasons, and few have the courage of a cei'tain 
 
WHO'S WHO? 179 
 
 woman at a notable assembly, who, on being 
 asked why she was present, replied: "I am 
 next-door neighbor." But, as at most recep- 
 tions one meets people like one's self, and as 
 at least one-third of the world is plain and 
 awkward, would it not be well to insist on a 
 forced growth of conscience, which should 
 deter a young man from using his eye-glass to 
 examine a young lady before he is introduced 
 to her ; and which should compel a young 
 lady to instantly draw the unwilling victim 
 into conversation ? It is time for hostesses and 
 patronesses to insist on their rights if guests 
 have become the law-givers, and decline all 
 introductions except those they desire. Some 
 people cannot accept an invitation without 
 bringing their personal caprices with them. 
 Many elderly young men decline an introduc- 
 tion, as they " already have such an extensive 
 circle." One such individual was asked to be 
 presented to a lady who was sitting alone. 
 He eyed her thoroughly, and declined. He 
 
I So ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 returned half an hour later, saying: "I'll be 
 introduced to her now. I see several of the 
 men have been talking to her. Her profile is 
 not bad." "No," replied the lady. "When 
 I asked you because she was my friend, you 
 declined. Now I decline to present you." 
 
 One of Boston's oldest families gave a recep- 
 tion. Two scions of other old families at- 
 tended, to whom the host said : " I'll introduce 
 you to those ladies opposite," and he moved 
 towards them. "Excuse us," said one of the 
 men; "the ladies are of a peasant style of 
 beauty ; it is hardly worth while." The host 
 bowed low in recognition of their far-seeing 
 power, adding: "Yes, they are my nieces 
 from the country, but I will not trouble you." 
 No apology would he receive, though one was 
 eagerly offered. The old gentleman was right ; 
 he wished to vindicate the honor of his house. 
 
 No one has any right to accept even the 
 most general hospitality unless he accede to 
 reasonable demands, but the fear that a young 
 
WHO'S WHO? i8i 
 
 man may not come again excites such mortal 
 terror that he is allowed to do as he pleases, 
 which means to seek the attractive girls. 
 Then, as every woman has a number of friends 
 as guests who are only delightful when known, 
 she is obliged to seem unaware of their value 
 because so many men decline introductions. 
 The society phrase is, "I thank you ; I see so 
 many here whom I know that I will not 
 trouble you ; " and if the hostess persists, then 
 
 is added, " Thanks, I'll speak to Miss , and 
 
 come back to you." Woe to her if her per- 
 sistency continues, for then must she go after 
 the young man ; he will never return to her. 
 The preponderance of women over men in 
 every party is an evil which can only be 
 remedied by the general dispersion of the men 
 among the long trains of the ladies. In 
 crowded receptions introductions by the host- 
 ess are impossible ; the value of such parties 
 consists in their being a full bill of discharge 
 of social duties, at so much cost a plate or a 
 
1 82 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 head. It is no more complimentary to one's 
 vanity to be invited to such crowds, merely to 
 be lost in them, than it is to be invited to a 
 family dinner because the hostess does not 
 know exactly whom to ask to meet you. 
 
 The naivete of one's guests is sometimes very 
 amusing. They think one is semi-literary, 
 and that they shall meet such persons, and 
 they come and find real-estate men and whole- 
 sale dealers in leather, or they go especially to 
 meet the boot and shoe trade and find an 
 essayist and a historian. They fancy their 
 entertainer is homoeopathic, and find both old 
 and new schools present. They consider one 
 as pious, and the Sunday paper tells them that 
 piety has had a dance and an elegant supper. 
 It is considered odd when extremes meet in 
 private houses, though it is taken as a matter 
 of course when they come together on politi- 
 cal occasions. 
 
 A plain lady living in an unfashionable 
 street invited a gentleman of leisurely life 
 
WHO'S WHO? 183 
 
 to her home, because in her simpHcIty she 
 thought he seemed lonely, though he only 
 suffered from aestheticism. He came, and 
 at the close of the evening observed to her : 
 " I had no idea that I should meet so many 
 distinguished people at your house," his 
 voice unconsciously emphasizing the pronoun. 
 Such a remark stands in striking contrast 
 to that of Dr. Holmes, vs^ho said to his host- 
 ess : " Make use of me in any w^ay I can 
 help you most." That w^as high-bred cour- 
 tesy ; he came to serve her and make others 
 happy. If each v/ould believe, as simply 
 as did the Doctor, that such ability w^as 
 more or less in each one's power, hov/ agree- 
 able society would become, and how happy 
 would all be ! But people torment themselves 
 by thinking that they have neither use nor 
 beauty, therefore they stand in corners look- 
 ing suspicious or bored. Young men can 
 depart from a room when the pressure of 
 average persons upon them becomes too 
 
184 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 great, but girls must wait until the hour 
 when carriages are ordered, and patiently 
 endure the experience of never being sought. 
 They are wall-flowers, and as such must 
 cultivate self-respect and remember that if 
 they do not delight a young man's fancy, 
 they yet are beloved in their homes. Of 
 course there is fault all round ; wall-flowers 
 are to blame for being wall-flowers ; a belle 
 cannot appreciate the situation ; it is better to 
 go to cooking-schools and to read at Old 
 Ladies' Homes, than to submit to being 
 snubbed in society. If the wall-flower ele- 
 ment is inborn it makes no matter how 
 many elegant parties a girl may give, at the 
 next German she may not be taken out, even 
 once, by any of the young men who have 
 drank her wine and fed on her boned turkey. 
 It was not so a few years ago. Then the 
 fact that one had given a party was full 
 indemnification for being a wall-flower, and 
 invitations to dance were certain for at least 
 
WHO'S WHO? 185 
 
 half the season. Now, " there is quite as 
 much humiliation as fun about society." 
 
 A young girl, burdened with awkwardness, 
 yet with capacity for gentle resentment, over- 
 heard a young man ask another to be pre- 
 sented to her. The latter hesitated, inspected 
 her, and at last condescended to consent, say- 
 ing : "Well, trot her out." The crowd, passing 
 by, separated, and he was led up to her and 
 their names were exchanged. She coolly sur- 
 veyed him from head to foot, while he tried to 
 find something to say, for her examination 
 checked his ordinary volubility. After a 
 moment or two, she turned to the gentleman 
 who had brought him to her and said: "I 
 have seen enough, trot him back." And back 
 he went, with flushed face and dejected mien. 
 
 It would be well for wall-flowers to organize 
 for self-protection. Toy watches might be en- 
 grafted on bracelets, and then, with one eye on 
 the minute hand, and the other on her partner, 
 the young lady could tell when time is up, and 
 
1 86 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 dismiss her three-minute chevalier with a 
 knowing glance. There is as much fault to be 
 found with grateful girls as with rude men ; 
 but the girls are grateful from humility and the 
 men rude from selfishness. 
 
 The law of supply and demand obtains in 
 society as well as in trade. If one is a wall- 
 flower by necessity of her nature she cannot 
 win the laurels of belleship ; but if she is re- 
 fused them because her father is neither the 
 president of a bank nor a professional man 
 the ^withholding of them is contemptible. A. 
 belle, in full possession of her faculties, can 
 hold her court wherever she may be, in spite 
 of inheritances of quack medicines, patents on 
 domestic inventions, and Bonanza mines, ex- 
 cept in the charmed circle of first families. 
 Maryland has its Eastern Shore, Philadelphia 
 its Walnut street, New York its Fifth avenue, 
 and Boston the small radius on the north side 
 of Commonwealth avenue, and the northern 
 end of its first four or five streets crossing the 
 
WHO'S WHO? 187 
 
 avenue. Within these and like sacred pre- 
 cincts elsewhere, the answer to the question, 
 Who's who? must be given before entrance is 
 permitted. Once within them one would 
 doubt if society existed elsewhere. 
 
 A matter-of-fact damsel asked a bright, 
 jolly girl who danced every night, if she were 
 not tired of going so much into society. 
 " Why," she replied, " I can't do that, I only 
 go to parties." Are all the people worth 
 knowing or marrying limited to a certain set? 
 A rag-picker who carried her rags on her 
 back congratulated herself on the marriage 
 of her daughter to a man who carried his rags 
 in a hand-cart. 
 
 There is no single feature of American 
 uppishness which gives more occasion for 
 alarm than this desire to move in upper 
 circles. It destroys simplicity, underrates 
 home life, makes us look down on average 
 people and value opinion as an expression of 
 some special person rather than as of worth 
 
1 88 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 in itself. There is as much wit spoken around 
 the table laden with crockery as at that shining 
 with silver ; as much logical reasoning, 
 humble scientific research and reverence, out of 
 society as in it. Three-story brick residents 
 can discuss books as well as people. There 
 are two facts ever to be remembered regard- 
 ing society : first, that it exists everywhere ; 
 or that there is society out of society ; 
 secondly, that there is a foolish ambition 
 everywhere, which, rightly termed, is dis- 
 contented snobbishness. At a certain semi- 
 snobbish dead-in-earnest-to-succeed literary 
 set, the absence of well-known writers was 
 conspicuous, while the impressiveness of rising 
 talent was oppressive. " Is every one here 
 a professor?" was asked. "Professors or 
 professions/^ who will soon be recognized as 
 creating Boston thought," was the reply. 
 Such self-content is really better, happier, than 
 distrusting aping of another. Each circle has 
 its own public, and yet the circles intermingle. 
 
iviias WHO? 189 
 
 Snobbishness is not confined to one set 
 of people. Emphasized by fashion or lit- 
 erary pretensions it spreads from village to 
 city. It exists in sardine factories and in 
 palatial mansions ; it is met with at picnics 
 and dances as well as at dinner or conversa- 
 tion parties. The links are close. 
 
 When a society young man ventures to 
 marry a non-society girl enough comments 
 are made to furnish Miss Braddon with mate- 
 rial for a new novel. Is not a Jady a lady 
 anyway, whether in public or in private life, 
 whether a school-teacher or a book-keeper, or 
 living in a secluded street? And yet, if she 
 marries up in the world, how fortunate she is 
 considered ! Simple, lovely, intelligent young 
 women, respectful, upright young men still 
 exist, and make the delight of home and 
 society, as do the few chivalric individuals 
 who will talk to lonely girls at parties for 
 more than an hour rather than leave them 
 alone, the latter in their humility never fancy- 
 
190 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 ing that they mean to offer themselves to-mor- 
 row. 
 
 Amidst the comfortable old families, who 
 were merely born and have never risen nor 
 fallen, a quiet laugh circulates when people 
 like circus-dancers desire to leap through one 
 paper circle to another, forgetting the debris 
 they leave behind. Hundreds of persons are 
 fortunately so far advanced that they believe a 
 home is "good form." Society belles often 
 marry ministers, in their efforts to embrace 
 noble ideals. vSo there is reason to believe 
 that true values will at last be estimated aright. 
 Where there is real kindness and tact both 
 men and women are less mindful of their 
 social position. Agreeableness, whether in 
 artist, editor, wholesale jobber and clerk, will 
 make its own way, and mere exclusiveness on 
 the score of pedigree, must, in time, yield to 
 those who have a full mind, a noble heart, and 
 a kindly wit. 
 
 It is said that those who are sure of the 
 
WHO'S WHO? 191 
 
 purity of their ancestral line are always gra- 
 cious. Great is the charm of the high-bred 
 air, the delicate features, and the clear tones of 
 voice of one of long and high descent. Such 
 distinction holds in age as in youth, in the 
 wearer of black alpaca, and in her who is 
 clothed with maroon velvet. But it is the 
 certainty of a righteous cause which should 
 create self-respect, and the consciousness of 
 noble purpose in others which should make 
 one forgetful of their ancestry. Yet by our 
 manners are we first and most often judged. 
 Frequently there is not time, or it seems like 
 presumption, or it is an impossibility to try 
 and know another ; but our manners, like 
 the markings and outlines of diatoms, will 
 determine to what species and genera we 
 belong. The high-bred air and the free and 
 easy w^ay testify of birth, the peculiar style 
 of each person making the mould for the 
 next generation. On his own material must 
 each one work, and not accept his inheritance 
 
192 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 as an unchangeable quantity. In spite of 
 effort to be unlike any but one's self, lineaore 
 creeps through the Puritan conscience ; and 
 energy, though softened, still lingers in many a 
 rough reflexion of kindness, or in unnecessary 
 activity of speech. 
 
 Manners should exist as a growth of their 
 own, for they are needed long before complete 
 development of the nature is attained. The 
 foundation of the different varieties of good 
 manners is the same, for "fine manners are 
 the mantle of fine minds," says an old prov- 
 erb. They must be established on simple, 
 sincere purposes, else their polish will soon 
 vanish. Affectation of every sort destroys its 
 own intent. Any attempt at greatness of 
 thought, extensive reading, or forced wit, 
 which is not true, is a form of hypocrisy. 
 
 Yet it will not answer to be merely natural, 
 for that often means having a rough, ungrace- 
 ful exterior, though a kindly heart. Only 
 polished saints can afford to always act as they 
 
WHO'S WHO? 193 
 
 feel. Enough personal attention should be 
 given to manners to enable one to see his 
 faults, but not his good points. If there is a 
 strong desire to make everybody happier, if the 
 beauty and joy of life are felt, feelings will 
 naturally express themselves in manners that 
 will be agents of peace, mirth, and comfort. 
 They must be trained, however, by the old- 
 fashioned means of attention to the carriage of 
 the body ; by the posture in sitting ; by looking 
 attentive when listening or pretending to 
 listen ; by bowing at the right degree of 
 inclination, which should be neither a sweep- 
 ing curve nor a right angle with eyes cast on 
 the ground ; and by regard to commas, 
 periods, and tones of voice in conversation. 
 Before a man has spoken he is involuntarily 
 judged by his motions, then by modulations 
 of his voice, next by his language, and lastly 
 by his sense. 
 
 Manners, involuntarily, have some predomi- 
 nant mark. Through them is felt, at once, in 
 
194 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 some people, the power of noble command, of 
 a self-poised, thinking being who can rightfully 
 assume leadership. In others there is an 
 exquisite grace which moulds strength into 
 forms of beauty, that is found in j^ersons who 
 have an instinctive sense of proportion. 
 Again, in others there is a pathos that recalls 
 the tenderest part of one's experiences. The 
 manners of a well educated circle are like a 
 symphony, in which one takes the Andante.^ 
 another the Adagio.^ and still another the 
 Allegretto movement ; each has its own 
 charm, and the whole fills the observer with a 
 sense of delicious being, with a feeling of con- 
 solation and exaltation. 
 
 The self-control that puts aside its own pref- 
 erences and seems pleased, is not hypocrisy; 
 it is the exchangeable silver coin of society, 
 without which intercourse would become rough 
 and snappish. It is not sufficient to stop at 
 being good ; advance must be made to fine 
 manners. Nor need one be afraid of being too 
 
WHO'S WHO? 195 
 
 earnest or impassioned, for such characteristics 
 are consistent with courtesy. What eloquence 
 is in power to a man manners are to a 
 woman. They must often be started on 
 adventitious means, as when the conscious- 
 ness of much soft ruffling round the neck helps 
 in turning the head more gracefully. The art of 
 never showing haste is one method of cultivat- 
 ing an outward, physical grace. Opportuni- 
 ties of saying kind, true words to friends 
 should not be missed ; admiration of people 
 often leads to vmconscious copying of their 
 manners, the imitation fitting so well that it 
 becomes rightful ownership. Even when old, 
 and tired, and sad, the charm of pleasant 
 manners cannot be destroyed, for all sense of 
 self, or of endeavor to be brilliant, has been 
 lost in the constant desire to draw out the good 
 and bright in others. Sympathy, tact, ear- 
 nestness, appreciation, cheerfulness, — a sense 
 of humor, if possible, — grace of motion and 
 speech, make good manners. They are as a 
 
196 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 halo surrounding the real person whose char- 
 acter still keeps its integrity. 
 
 Because, in the complexity of life, we forget 
 that each should be a unit, working as best he 
 can, that what he does and what he thinks and 
 what he is, embraces all with which another is 
 concerned, is it constantly asked. Who's who? 
 The subtle influences of pure and high birth 
 are never to be scorned, for they intrench their 
 possessor within a stronghold which makes it 
 easy for him to bear the assaults of fortune or 
 the rudeness of men. The high-bred faces 
 win our aflection, the noble manner commands 
 our obedience ; but with refinement must go 
 strength, else the first is insipid. No inheri- 
 tance is ever a compensation for the want of 
 self-activity. Humanity has as many insignia 
 as there are noble individuals. A person who 
 is only so much of himself, multiplied by imi- 
 tation of others, minus somebody else, is a 
 wearisome sum in human arithmetic. Truth 
 and sympathy lie at the basis of all fine manner, 
 
WHO'S WHO? 197 
 
 and when these exist the horny hand of the 
 farmer and the gentle pahn of the aristocrat 
 can meet in cordial grasp of inward equality. 
 
 It is snobbish, aggressive, and zealous to 
 envy the well-born, or to speak- disparagingly 
 of another's useful qualities because his man- 
 ners are delightful. Knowledge of who's who 
 marks the careful observer ; recognition of 
 work, the honest judge. After the first ques- 
 tion of " Where does he belong?" is answered 
 by glancing down the vistas of inheritance, 
 comes another, What is he in himself? On 
 that reply alone depends fellowship. Let 
 American aping of others and social fear never 
 forget to profit by learning the lesson of regard 
 for all that is noble, in answer to these inqui- 
 ries. Let American independence and morality 
 transfer what it values into its own possession, 
 so that it may bless others with the warmth 
 of human sympathy, and of earnest purity of 
 purpose. Purpose makes manner ; the reflected 
 light of manner shines again on purpose, and 
 makes intensity radiant with beauty. 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 
 
 ^3^^ 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 
 
 OOCIETY in America is not an entity. It 
 ^^-^ is rather the reflection of the mood of the 
 individual who is contemplating it, the incar- 
 nation of certain tastes, and has neither locality 
 nor measurement. For some it possesses elas- 
 ticity, for others immobility ; all desire to enter 
 where many have disappeared in an apotheosis 
 of self-laudation, and when there, find that 
 their circle is not society, which is ever be- 
 yond and ever narrowing. 
 
 One lady, a leader of Boston fashion, stated 
 that, though "society" consisted of about 
 twentj^-five families, yet in the invitations to a 
 general ball it might be safe to include from 
 
202 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 four to six hundred persons. Society, though 
 not existing fei' se^ is deified as a goddess ; its 
 decrees are passports, or edicts, of social banish- 
 ment and death ; a knowledge of its laws is 
 the preliminary, and obedience to them the 
 final, requisite for admission. There is no 
 New England, no New York, no Western 
 society ; there was Southern society, founded 
 on inheritance of name, on ownership of land 
 and slaves ; but so long as there are annual 
 governmental changes in the body politic, and 
 constant reverses of private fortune through 
 the money-markets and opportunities for Bo- 
 nanza stock, and the advantages of high-school 
 in the East and of college education in the 
 West are ofiered free to all, there never can 
 be a dominant force, — society. 
 
 Manner conquers society sooner than wealth 
 or education ; an individual is relegated to his 
 proper social sphere, in the minds of all specta- 
 tors, as soon as he enters a room. The depth 
 of his bow, the tones of his voice, and the 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 203 
 
 breadth of his smile have averaged him. Man- 
 ner, however, is constantly reinforced by 
 mind, and the republican mind is one of 
 growth. The absurdity of American social 
 life is to talk of entering society ; for, as soon as 
 an American tries to bring society into focus 
 to be interviewed, it divides itself into 
 numerous facets of prismatic brilliancy. As 
 a protest against any attempt to define society 
 stands Mrs. Whitney's " We Girls ;" in which 
 some girl invites some one " next " to her, and 
 that next some one next in turn to her, till 
 finally the whole village is related in a com- 
 munity of interests. 
 
 This constant enlargement of a social sphere, 
 or the infinite subdivisions of acquaintanceship, 
 prevents society (granted for the moment that 
 such an entity exists) from being an unified 
 power for evil or good ; while, because there is 
 no such thing as society in itself, but circles of 
 individuals combining for social purposes, 
 these circles represent the social and educa- 
 
204 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 tional force of life in its less specialized aspects. 
 The absence of any one social power is the 
 safety-valve of American life ; and any person 
 who has been so unfortunate as to have 
 lived, moved, and had his social being in only- 
 one set becomes thoroughly provincial. 
 
 The power of society as a unit reached its 
 fullest exemplification in the days of the early 
 French salons. The salon was to Paris what 
 the newspapers and monthlies now are to us. 
 Then the salon made public opinion, and 
 literary criticism was a matter of experience 
 and reflection. Even now the French critic 
 imbibes the mental atmosphere of his equals, 
 and thinks and weighs before he writes ; whilst 
 many of our critics go tired from the theatre, 
 lecture, or concert to the newspaper ofiice, to 
 have put in type their fresh opinions, — per- 
 haps slightly tinged by the headache or 
 their somnolent condition, — which the 
 public next morning adopt as the general way 
 of right thinking ; forgetting that a critic is 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 205 
 
 one person, after all, and that the impressions 
 of an evening or of quick reading are less 
 valuable than the criticisms of lengthier obser- 
 vation and reflection. Our critics are able, 
 and honest and true, as far as in their power 
 lies, but under the necessity of daily produc- 
 tion, which must injure original quality and 
 expression ; yet they exercise upon the public 
 the formative power of the old salon, and 
 render null any necessity for its existence. 
 
 The second reason for the absence of salons 
 lies in the non-existence of any one circle of 
 people who, by virtue of inheritance, actual 
 deed, or promissory note, can definitely 
 establish their own social boundaries. Ameri- 
 can life is too busy for definition ; men are too 
 tired, women too anxious, to feel the delight 
 of constant recreation through conversation 
 at one another's firesides. We are all so 
 willing to be hospitable by the blazing 
 warmth on our own purchased or ancestral 
 andirons, that there are few who go out for 
 
2o6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 others' entertainment. We are all at home — 
 to nobody. Moreover, in a salon half the 
 world were eager listeners, forgetful of them- 
 selves ; but now we all must talk to prove our 
 position, express ourselves to show that we 
 have mind, or else look wise, hoping to realize, 
 by the swelling on our brows, the growth of 
 the thought within. 
 
 American society is an anomaly which must 
 puzzle all those who do not believe in it ; who 
 do not see that its varying centres are but 
 eddies on the surface of the fixed conviction 
 that one man is the equivalent of another in 
 capacity, and that his failure to prove it by 
 results is the consequence of circumstances 
 beyond his individual control. It is this belief 
 which constitutes the essence of American 
 impudence, boasting, aggressiveness, want of 
 grace, and knock-you-down manner. It is 
 also the source of our sturdy independence, 
 our valuation of character as the final esti- 
 mate, our reliance upon the common-sense 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 207 
 
 of our enemy, rather than upon the ghttering 
 g-eneralities and evasions of our friends. As 
 soon as the social variations are perceived 
 we become conscious that caste rules in Amer- 
 ican life with an iron rod, tempered only by 
 the fiery furnace of much wealth or rare 
 intellectual ability. The lower we descend 
 in what is called social life the more percep- 
 tible become its demarkations. In the work- 
 ing-classes, its sway is omnipotent. A 
 marriage between a laundry maid and a 
 washerwoman's son is contrary to all the 
 rules of propriety, and ends in family feuds. 
 The regular visitant at hotel cupboards 
 who receives pie is farther removed from the 
 tattered mendicant at backdoors than a mem- 
 ber of the diplomatic corps from a native of 
 Washington. In a certain well-known alley 
 resided a shrewd brother and sister of twelve 
 and fourteen, who assigned to each of the 
 other dwellers his proper place in the social 
 status of the by-way, imposing upon them 
 
2o8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 corresponding sumptuary laws of their own 
 devising. These little magnates stayed at 
 home and sent their agents begging ; all food 
 obtained was delivered into their keeping, and 
 then portioned out, as the Educational Bureau 
 would say, not according to the " illiteracy of 
 each section, but according to its geographical 
 area." Shapeless pieces of bread and cold 
 flapjacks were for the tenants of cellars and 
 attics ; mufiins and tidbits of croquettes were 
 for those who occupied the ground-floor and 
 middle stories of the tenements. 
 
 Among the working-women is a feeling 
 of exclusiveness most noticeable, while with 
 working-men it is no more j)rominent than 
 with professional men. "It is this spirit of 
 caste," says a working-woman of fifty years, 
 " which keeps us all down. If w^e could 
 nag one another it would be some gain ; but 
 we avoid one another instead. There is no 
 union among us, never was, except for a 
 little while through the French International 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 209 
 
 Association, which has died out. We never 
 can raise ourselves from the bondage of ill- 
 paid labor till we combine, and most of us 
 would rather starve to death than associate 
 with those beneath us." Another one com- 
 plains that " the skilled workwomen pride 
 themselves too much upon their skill to be 
 willing to pull up the unskilled ; just as in 
 the professions a good lawyer or physician 
 will not take a poor partner. It is social 
 ambition, caste, that rules us ; it begins with 
 us, and goes up and up to kings and emper- 
 ors. A woman with many servants despises 
 her with one ; and she with one despises the 
 woman who does her own work ; and she 
 who does her own work looks down upon 
 her who goes out to work ; and the one who 
 goes out to do special housework scorns the 
 scrub-woman, who is the end of woman- 
 kind." 
 
 Many of these people feel that the higher 
 grades of labor can be protected only by 
 
2IO ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 recognition of social lines, and talk of "the 
 laziness and ignorance of the lower class of 
 working-women." Even when out of em- 
 ployment, or, perhaps, engaged in some 
 " uncongenial occupation as a temporary 
 makeshift," they still feel keenly that they 
 "belong elsewhere." "An honest working- 
 woman," said one of them, " whether of the 
 upper or lower grades of labor, holds her- 
 self infinitely superior to the trashy, flashy 
 sort. We may not get work, but we can go 
 from work to poverty, from poverty to ex- 
 haustion, from exhaustion to death, but not 
 to sin, — those who follow that are a different 
 class, with which we have nothing to do." 
 
 In a conversation with several of them it 
 was asked: "What is the real grievance of 
 the working- women ?" And the general answer 
 was that it was due to the spirit of caste, 
 which prevented combination and coopera- 
 tion, the two agents that could lighten the 
 burdens of ill-paid labor ; yet they had suffi- 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 211 
 
 cient intelligence to see that social union 
 among themselves must first be effected. The 
 stern self-restraint, the power of self-sacrifice, 
 the delicacy of taste, refinement of feeling, 
 appreciation of knowledge, and acts of touch- 
 ing kindness to one another, that are found 
 among hundreds of them, do not negative the 
 statement that the social line, based on kinds 
 of labor, is closely drawn among them. 
 
 " Kindness based upon equality ! " exclaimed 
 one woman. " No, it is kindness based on 
 caste. It is Arlington street and Fifth avenue 
 that make the North End and the Battery. 
 Employers don't care for employes. If a firm 
 give their girls parlors, lunch or sleeping- 
 rooms, it isn't because they care, but because 
 they can get more out of us if we are comforta- 
 ble. Your republican government doesn't do 
 away with caste ; it is the population to a 
 square foot that makes poverty, and according 
 to the laws of caste it is only for the poor to 
 emigrate. Did you ever hear of a rich man 
 
212 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 emigrating to make room for others? He 
 squats forever, and it isn't called squatting. 
 Talk of emigration and agriculture to factory 
 and city folks, who have neither money nor 
 health to emigrate ! We working-people don't 
 envy 3"ou your pie or your pictures, if we can 
 have bread. It is the deeper thing which 
 makes us indignant : it is being called fools 
 and simpletons by our employers, and bearing 
 it, because we must have the one dollar. 
 Labor is owned, and women are owned more 
 than men, and will be until they can dare to 
 combine and dare to refuse offers of ill-paid 
 work, larded with harsh words and lunch 
 privileges." 
 
 Is there rank, then, in all industrial pur- 
 suits? A tailoress declares that "Nowhere 
 are the lines of caste more strictly drawn than 
 among tailoresses and sewing-girls." Those on 
 "custom-work" and those on "sale-work" 
 need not necessarily know each other. Here 
 is a classification given by one who under- 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 213 
 
 stands, works, and aids others in various ways : 
 " Employments of working-people are either 
 subjective or objective ; one cannot consort 
 with another. Under the first are included 
 (i) the stenographer, (2) the newspaper hack, 
 (3) the type-writer, (4) those engaged in life- 
 insurance business and in any sort of nursing ; 
 the second division embraces (i) mercantile 
 women, (2) saleswomen, (3) tradeswomen, 
 and (4) servants, who are Pariahs, so to speak, 
 in the eyes of all other working-women." 
 
 These words plainly indicate wherein lies the 
 difficulty of obtaining good domestic service. 
 There is a certain loss of personal indepen- 
 dence as to hours and meals, but housework 
 ranks lowest in the scale of honest labor ; am- 
 bition, uppishness, or aspiration, is of national 
 growth. The proof-reader by universal testi- 
 mony ranks highest in the scale of laborers ; for 
 good proof-reading requires not only an excel- 
 lent elementary education, but also an intuitive 
 mind. A copy-holder often advances to be a 
 
214 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 proof-reader ; whereas a type-setter seldom or 
 never becomes a copy-holder. The most 
 amusing instance of drawing the line is seen 
 in the superbly quiet manner in which the 
 "ladies" behind the counters of large dry-goods 
 establishments regard the " women" in thread- 
 and-needle stores ; and these in turn look down 
 upon the "girls" employed in confectioners' 
 shops, and the lower kind of om7iium-gath- 
 erum stores always to be found in the neigh- 
 borhoods of the poor. They all may stand 
 upon their feet throughout the day and sell 
 goods ; but that is all they have in common, 
 except through incidental charitableness. 
 Again, newspaper-work ranges from that of 
 the regularly paid "contributor" on certain 
 subjects, to that of the person with the ready 
 wit to puff up patent medicines or do a job in 
 twenty minutes. 
 
 In talking with the thoughtful working- 
 woman one is struck by the philosophical 
 terms, — obtained through processes of imitation 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 215 
 
 and by imbibing mental atmospheres, — which 
 spring as readily to her lips as do the words 
 "feeling," "tone," "values," to those of 
 writers on art. Such women analyze life, lay 
 down propositions, premises, and reason from 
 them. Very often their foundation is weak. 
 One of them, whose analysis of the mental 
 requisites for different kinds of labor was very 
 keen, observed: "There are sensuous and 
 super-sensuous classes. The super- sensuous 
 care less about the technique of their work, 
 and fail in execution, but they are capable of 
 improvement, if lofty motives are appealed to, 
 and are ready to encourage stumblers. They 
 long to be all they feel, and their lives are full 
 of striving and failures. The sensuous could 
 be represented by those girls who don't know, 
 and don't know that they don't know ; they are 
 honest and virtuous, but their tastes are on a 
 low plane." 
 
 The working-women are struggling against 
 the identical limitations within themselves 
 
2l6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 which philanthropists and believers in social 
 cooperation and those of notable good-will in 
 churches have always felt. These women 
 recognize the power of mutual aid ; they ac- 
 knowledge that employers are not individual 
 tyrants, and that their only chance for a freer, 
 happier life lies not in strikes, but in combina- 
 tions, backed by a public sentiment in favor of 
 equal wages for men and women. Then, the 
 more intelligent daily see the hopelessness of 
 any such attempt at union, on account of the 
 intensity of the caste feeling among them ; the 
 enjoyments and occupations of each class are 
 distinct. 
 
 One more generalization can be given, made 
 by one who is doing all she can to elevate the 
 character of her fellow- workers : " Caste is a 
 nuisance to those who wish to get into what 
 3'ou call ' societ}^,' and it is our curse. There 
 are among us (i) the sensuous class, those 
 who dance ; (2) the domestic class, who stay 
 by themselves and get their own meals, or live 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 217 
 
 with their parents in rooms, who work all day 
 and sew all* night, and go to church on Sun- 
 day, or remain at home without gadding 
 about ; (3) then the God-forsaken class, who 
 stay honestly in their attics and die by inches, 
 who are not skilled workwomen by birth, and 
 who never can be, any more than all can be 
 artists, but who can do slopwork, and starve 
 to death (Why don't the skilled pity the un- 
 skilled, and look only to the slow process of 
 better-boin generations to do away with the 
 amount of unskilled labor?) ; and (4) there 
 are the servants," and she shrugged her 
 shoulders, as if mention of them were needless. 
 The desire for combination, as the means of 
 a general elevation, obtains among the more 
 thoughtful portion of the women. It does not 
 follow that because these women do not know 
 much they therefore think little. Life experi- 
 ence has made them rich in thought, and. the 
 socialistic and free-thinking papers urge them 
 on to clearer definition of their needs, often 
 
2l8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 in a wrong direction. Many of them have 
 attempted the formation of clubs and societies 
 of their own, which have ahnost always failed, 
 if for no other reason than because they have 
 so little surplus time and strength for anything 
 which is not daily bread. When entertain- 
 ments have been provided for them the very 
 fact that they were for them included a stigma. 
 Friendly and social evenings have also been 
 established for them here and there ; but only 
 when even any suspicion of kindness has been 
 omitted have they been successful. This un- 
 willingness of the more intelligent and lady- 
 like to associate with the less intelligent ren- 
 ders it still more difficult for others to form any 
 classes for their instruction or make social 
 attempts for their enjoyment. The spirit of 
 caste dominates them far more than people in 
 society. Some will not come, fearing patron- 
 age of the rich ; others, from dread of being 
 ignored by those of a higher grade, who yet 
 work for self-support. The Irish feel this in- 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 219 
 
 cubus of caste far less than the Americans. 
 Difference in station is an Old-Worlcl fact with 
 which the Irish and their ancestors have long 
 been familiar. Their church frowns on any 
 combination for intellectual purposes which 
 might disintegrate their religious faith, and the 
 sodalities themselves supply avenues for social 
 intercourse, with the added benefit of spiritual 
 instruction. 
 
 Among the Western women who are farmers, 
 caste is founded on the aristocracy of energy ; 
 she who makes the best butter, " raises" the 
 finest hens, " steps round smartest," and cooks 
 the biggest dinner for the largest number of 
 farm hands, is the leader. At the harvest fes- 
 tivals and the county fairs, the wives of the 
 poor and of the rich farmer meet on the same 
 social plane ; the one assuming and the other 
 acknowledging the superiority born of deftness 
 and strength. The hired girl is a neighbor's 
 daughter, who will soon marry, have a farm, 
 and be just the same as the woman for whom she 
 
220 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 is now working ; so there is no snubbing her. 
 Whoever is the best cook and the earliest riser 
 will have the means for a better dress, and in 
 all meetings will be the equal of her stalwart 
 husband, in his coarse, ready-made suit ; while 
 the weak, inefficient woman stays at home, has 
 no new dresses, and misses the stimulus of 
 the Grange meetings and agricultural shows. 
 Poor woman ! Children have multiplied, and 
 the farm income has not kept pace with their 
 growth. Yet she is the socially recognized 
 equal of her better-to-do neighbor in all but 
 energy. Caste is founded in the far West on 
 its primal, lawful ground of ability, whether 
 physical or mental. 
 
 In other circles the demarcations of caste 
 are felt more than they are seen, but the test 
 of consciousness is more absolute than that of 
 sight. It is, after all, a personal feeling, far 
 more indefinable since the position of women 
 has so widely changed. She is no longer 
 merely the house-keeper, obedient wife, or 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 221 
 
 needle-and-thread mother. Almost all have 
 some interest outside their homes. Once only- 
 Quaker women spoke in church. Now all 
 churches recognize that the power of deposing 
 a man from the pulpit, or of elevation to it, 
 rests with the women ; they really rule the 
 church. "Women have no business out- 
 side of their homes," said a countryman. 
 But his wife went to a prayer-meeting, and a 
 neighbor reported that " she had made a 
 feeling, eloquent prayer." The husband 
 
 slightly winced. She went to a temperance 
 gathering, and spoke fervently and pi- 
 ously, and the men talked of Farmer B.'s 
 wife; and Farmer B. "smartened up," got 
 his wife a hired girl, and declared that " his 
 wife wan't one of the show-off kind, but that 
 she begun low down in a prayer-meeting and 
 worked her way up." 
 
 As this ability to manage outside affairs 
 increases, women will have too little time to 
 be patient with the limitations of caste, for 
 
222 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 they must choose their working comrades from 
 those who possess personal power, though not 
 station. Ah*eady has the "committee life" 
 of women done much to break down society's 
 barriers. "Oh, yes, I took the initiative!" 
 said a fashionable woman, "and invited her 
 
 first. I knew her on the Board of . 
 
 Never heard of her before ; but she knows, 
 and has style too ; she is a lady." The society 
 leader recognized the words that really open 
 wide all doors ; knowledge, manner, savoir 
 yaire^ are imperative. Saints are charitable 
 toward outward failings, but busy and gay 
 people demand the passport of manner. 
 
 Since women have acquired such complex 
 duties or relations the varieties of society 
 within a city's limits are queer. The super- 
 abundance of women perhaps has necessitated 
 the frequent reading of a poem or an essay, as 
 an introduction to the later su2)per. The 
 washerwoman has hex '"'• l)?'ic-a-brac coterie." 
 The wife of a small store-keeper invites you to 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 223 
 
 pass a pleasant, social evening at her residence, 
 and ghastly poems are recited, and original 
 songs, on crumpled paper drawn from waist- 
 coat pockets, are sung. The wholesale mer- 
 chant takes the retail trader to dinner at a 
 hotel, not to his club or to his house. At a 
 reception of" choice friends," loose, disjointed 
 kid gloves encase long, lank fingers, which 
 give lingering pressure on introduction, as a 
 deep voice asks, "Where do you belong?" or, 
 "What are you doing for society or the 
 world?" or, "Have you a calling?" If one 
 could be sure that annual revenues would 
 never fail one would like to exclaim : "I do 
 nothing, am nobody, and aspire to nothing ! 
 I live on my estate." A widower says : 
 " Since my wife's death I am endeavoring 
 to maintain her social reunions. Will you 
 come and read?" and you go, — and find the 
 pictures near the ceiling. The height at which 
 pictures are hung establishes, in the eyes of 
 the social connoisseur, the society standing of 
 
224 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 their possessor. Money can buy color and 
 frames ; inherited taste alone can hang them. 
 All other signs may fail, but the height of a 
 picture will ever be the true indicator of one's 
 social position. Intellectual entertainment is 
 no test of one's social standing ; the lowest and 
 the highest are eager to offer this piece de 
 resistance. It takes the place of supper, or 
 whets the appetite for something substantial, 
 and is as often the bane as the delight of an 
 evening. People are no longer supposed to 
 possess enough intelligence to talk for two 
 hours at their own sweet will, but the topic 
 must be assigned by the paper, essay, brochure. 
 Even coffee-parties are intellectualized ; a 
 kettle-drum, a ball, or a huge reception, re- 
 mains as the only entertainment incapable of 
 mental improvement. When every one can 
 ofl'er original mental food who shall lead? 
 The coterie in the side street is as large as that 
 on the fashionable avenue. Within the course 
 of a few days a lady went to four lunches, two 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 225 
 
 kettle-drums, and two evening receptions, and 
 did not meet the same person twice. The 
 larger the city the more conspicuous is this 
 variety of circles. Where is society ? At each 
 door there were carriages, and each house was 
 well appointed. Some would fold their nap- 
 kins ; others would throw them crumpled on 
 the table. Some would have wine, others 
 water. In one house it was etiquette to re- 
 move your bonnet ; in another, to wear it. 
 Here " gents" were invited ; there, " some of 
 our best society." In one the men carried 
 opera hats, and wore white cravats, and bowed 
 deeply ; in another, frock-coats and flat scarfs, 
 and shook hands. All and each averred they 
 knew how, and all and each secretly feared 
 they didn't. 
 
 The outcome of all this variety is that while 
 there is caste there is no ruling force. The 
 most exquisite kindliness and the freshest bon- 
 mots are met with among people forever un- 
 known to fame. Clever talk and story-telling 
 
226 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 are often most graphic among those who 
 read little. Literary satire, analysis, and epi- 
 grammatic wit abound among the more 
 cultured ; and a quiet sympathy, restful man- 
 ner, and keen, general intelligence, with a 
 thorough knowledge of one's own specialty 
 (where there is such), among the most cult- 
 ured. It often requires moral courage to 
 invite a friend to simply a flimily dinner, or 
 to ask an acquaintance to meet an undistin- 
 guished guest, to hear an unauthorized voice ; 
 a social evening is burdened with a purpose, 
 belittling sociability and rendering impossible 
 the grace and freedom of the French salon. 
 To many, a celebrity has a mercantile value, 
 as increasing the number of those who will 
 come to them ; the more noted the celebrity, 
 the more are they "in society." Only let it 
 be remembered, the grocer's wife, who lives 
 over her husband's store, also issues invita- 
 tions to meet some one who has written some- 
 thing, or is going to do it ; and guests of as 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 22/ 
 
 much real intelligence will be met with in the 
 retail merchant's house as in that of the 
 wholesale jobber. 
 
 The timidity and ever-obtruding self-con- 
 sciousness of people prevent them from con- 
 stantly asking the same persons ; they are 
 afraid lest it is fancied they like them. A sym- 
 pathetic spirit in the host and real devotion 
 to intelligent culture are the only means by 
 which American society can approach the 
 merits of the old salon. Subordination of 
 one's self, interest in others' gifts, and will- 
 ingness to speak of one's own if asked, will 
 conquer caste and render society delightful. 
 A friend's friends are generally the persons 
 who consent neither to be amused nor to 
 amuse others ; but they exist in every circle. 
 Introductions are like courses at dinner, — we 
 have hardly found of what one is composed 
 before another dish or stranger is presented. 
 
 There will always be worthy unknown 
 people whom one ought to know in all ranks 
 
228 ABOUT PEOPLE, 
 
 of American life. The clerk, on eight hun- 
 dred a year, wonders that you have not read 
 his brother's article in the last magazine ; the 
 concocter of hair-oil in an obscure village sup- 
 poses every one has heard of her contribution 
 to society's physical welfare ; you take tea in 
 a little room, and eat pickles, cheese, and 
 bread with a lady and gentleman well known for 
 their devotion to humanity (you never heard 
 of them before, but that is your ignorance) ; you 
 are invited to a reception for the president 
 of (you were unaware of such an asso- 
 ciation) ; you have pamphlets of real excellence 
 sent you (the authors bore all the expenses 
 of publication, so little were they appreciated) ; 
 you meet with the wife of a representative to 
 the General Court (you had never heard of 
 her husband) ; cards come on uncanny paper, 
 asking you to meet an artist or musician who 
 exhibits his pictures or sings in some unknown 
 hall or church vestry ; you meet with a noble 
 author, and can hardly recall his books, or a 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 239 
 
 great scientist or genius, and the conversation 
 resembles that ot a French grammar. And so 
 it goes. But all this is society^ and it is all 
 fine and true, though with foibles that amuse, 
 and little awkwardnesses that grate, and stiff- 
 ness that chills. Every one is of importance 
 in his own circle ; how important will be 
 shown by his universality. 
 
 Some English ladies, in lunching at the 
 house of one of the best families, said that it 
 was the first they had seen where manners 
 were so simple that they dared to ask if they 
 might see the laundry and the kitchen. Peo- 
 ple are more shy than cold, and more self- 
 conscious and self-deprecatory than shy ; they 
 honestly do not think anyone can care to know 
 them, or that they can give, in their own per- 
 sonality, any pleasure. Why is it that, with caste 
 in every direction, the best society, as such, 
 does not exist? It is owing to wretched self- 
 consciousness, ambitions, and want of calm 
 self-respect, and it is the real excellence, the 
 
230 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 glory of American life, that there is no such 
 unit as society ; while both the evil and the 
 excellence are inherent in republicanism and 
 our gratuitous public-school education. Theo- 
 retically, all children are. educated in the 
 public schools ; practically, business interests 
 demand mutual assistance. Universal suffrage 
 gives the same right to the clodhopper, author, 
 or merchant. Any one may be where some 
 one else is, for force of will and long-headed- 
 ness conquer. This is what our Declaration 
 of Independence stands for. Are our children 
 to repeat, " All men are born free and equal," 
 and then to court social superiority? 
 
 The only position that has ever been ac- 
 knowledged cheerfully by the American 
 people has been the small circle of first-class 
 historians, poets, and scientists. Prescott, 
 Motley, Ticknor, Agassiz, Bryant, Longfel- 
 low were — Parkman and Lowell still are — 
 leaders of intellectual, social life, because each 
 unites an exquisite kindliness and active sym- 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 231 
 
 pathy for others' needs with his own attain- 
 ments. There is also political society, of all 
 degrees of honesty and grace, but towards 
 even the purest statesmen there are varying 
 degrees of personal animosity, kindled by dif- 
 ference of opinion, which leave him a doubt- 
 ful social empire. Certain families have 
 always stood for certain ideas, and extended 
 hospitalit}^ to those of the same faith. Money, 
 position, or literary success is generally sup- 
 posed to unbar the gates of caste ; but money 
 does not do it for those of the first generation, 
 though their children may be accepted. Posi- 
 tion is of variable tenure, and small literary 
 success is cheap. Force of character is worth 
 a dozen magazine articles, and if the small 
 number of our best intellectual men had been 
 anything less than manly, simple, and true in 
 their nature, American aggressiveness would 
 never have honored them as social leaders. 
 Character, not intellectual force, is what 
 republicans worship ; but discontented aspir- 
 
232 ABOUT PEOPLE. 
 
 ants are parasites on society, which adores 
 literary mediocrity. 
 
 Common-sense can never grant that only a 
 few know what society means, though willing 
 to confess that a few alone understand the 
 laws of conventionality. Republican com- 
 mon-sense cares to adapt the means to the 
 end, and if it can have a jolly time in its own 
 parlors, — if it can think and read and write 
 papers and dance and sing, it is not going to 
 be told that it is not — society. Each one is 
 worth the whole of himself; it was thus 
 with his ancestors, and will be so with his 
 descendants ; every true democrat will create a 
 little world around himself by virtue of his 
 own being, whilst the old aristocrat will ap- 
 peal to inheritance and land. When our 
 presidents are often the unknown third man, 
 brought from comparative obscurity to retire 
 again into mellowed light ; when presidents' 
 wives cannot banish wine from the tables nor 
 frizzles from the brows of the women, — are 
 
CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 233 
 
 Americans to talk of the ioowcr of society? 
 The power of tact, of sympathy, of native 
 force, of real intelligence, not of idle appre- 
 ciation, is the only power that American 
 individualism will ever consent to honor. 
 Our high schools and the minimum examina- 
 tions in colleges will make it more and 
 more possible for cultured circles to exist on 
 small incomes; a love for scholarship, en- 
 joyment of great w^orks, and perception of 
 the opportunities that the simplest forms of 
 nature offer for original research, even to the 
 child botanist, will make literary life less a 
 sham, power and money less a god, until 
 good manners and simplicity of thought and 
 life are as universal possessions in our repub- 
 lic as they are in our theories. Caste in its 
 unkindest or most exclusive forms will grad- 
 ually disappear in the reality of our living, 
 though it may always remain as an undefined 
 aroma from unknown distances. 
 
 But society, — where is it? Everywhere. 
 
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