m UU'i'i'i! 'I'i'i'i'i'i'j'i'ii,! I I Storrs Ap oi5S-. 1 •isnniu iuqu'i.'jidiLL'iiii >3& university of Connecticut libraries BOOK 396.P162 c. 1 PAINE # UNMARRIES WOMAN BV ELIZA CHESTER 3 T153 001235flfl fl THE UNMARRIED WOMAN THE UNMARRIED WOMAN BY ELIZA CHESTER AUTHOR OK "CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE ' ''GIRLS AND WOMEN," ETC. ¥ NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1S92 Copyright, 1892, By Uodd, Mead and Company. All rights reserved. 55*X SBtotocrsttg ^rrs*: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Choice . '. i II. Literary Portraiture of the Unmarried Woman 24 III. The Reality 45 IV. Dependence 74 V. Freedom 89 VI. Problems and Opportunities .... 102 VII. Success 113 VIII. Intellectual Women 123 IX. Business Women 140 X. The Home Instinct 147 XI. The Love of Children 165 XII. Friends 1S3 XIII. Youth and Age 204 XIV. Co-operation 226 XV. Character 241 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN I. CHOICE. NOT long ago a distinguished Rabbi in one of our Eastern cities preached a sermon on the duty of marriage. He gave no quarter to men, but he kindly said that women were not always to be blamed for leading a single life, since some of them probably never had an opportunity to be married. A genial writer, looking at life at a somewhat different angle, refers somewhere to those years during which a woman never meets an unmarried man without having his monosyl- lable ready for him. Both these men have clear brains, large hearts, and a wide experience of human nature ; but does either of them do full justice to the unmar- ried woman? Such judgments cannot be ignored, however irritating they may be, — perhaps especially so to high-minded women ; for any current opinion must be allowed its due weight when we are trying to find out the exact 2 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. truth about a subject, and particularly when we wish to make a just estimate of character. A facetious old gentleman, addressing a girls' school, once made the following atrocious joke : " Young la- dies," he said, " you learn many things at school, — mathematics and history and music. You learn to decline many nouns ; but there is one noun no young lady ever learned to decline, — that is, matrimony." A hush fell on the school, and after the departure of the old gentleman, the principal — an extremely shrewd widow lady, who read her fellow-beings like an open book — made her own speech. " Young la- dies," she said, " I suppose that of all the interesting and valuable things our visitor told us this morning, nothing has excited so much comment, and is so likely to be remembered, as his unfortunately foolish remark about matrimony. For the sake of a joke, he has made a completely false statement. The truth is that probably no woman, rich or poor, beautiful or plain, ever yet reached the age of thirty without having some oppor- tunity to marry. But every sensible woman would rather lead a single life than to bind herself to any man whom she does not both respect and love." As there is no means of taking enough testimony to establish either of these opposing views, it would be presumptuous to say that every woman does have the choice of what her life shall be. If she does not, of CHOICE. 3 course she can have no duty. But surely a woman in the position of this principal is much more likely to know the truth than any man ; for she cannot possibly escape a thousand confidences from younger women. Nevertheless there is good reason to believe that many a woman,- even many an attractive and lovely woman, is so hedged in by circumstances that the choice is never set before her. I think we must cer- tainly admit this in any section of the country like Massachusetts, where women largely outnumber men. In many more cases, where it is not literally true that a woman has no chance to marry, it is practically so because of the quality of her chances. For instance, there is an authentic joke, often told in an ancient New Hampshire town, to this effect : Once upon a time there lived within the borders of the town a fine young lady, who had all the gifts and graces. She was a tall, good-looking girl, with superb health, a sweet temper, a wise and well-stored mind. She was thor- oughly trained in every domestic art. She could bake and brew, and knit and sew, and wash and iron, and watch with the sick and entertain company. More- over, she had six sisters exactly like her as far as all the virtues went, though each of the seven had sufficient individuality to preserve the family from any suspicion of dulness. This young lady one day received a letter from a gentleman who, after setting forth his own eli- 4 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. gibilitv as well as he was able, and describing warmly his appreciation of her excellent qualities, concluded with an offer of marriage, supplemented by this unique suggestion : " If for any reason you do not yourself look favourably on my suit, or if your affections are pre- engaged, will you kindly pass on this letter to any one of your sisters who may seem to be inclined to accept my proposals?" Now, it certainly cannot be said that any one of those seven sisters lived and died unmarried from necessitv, yet it can hardly be claimed that the letter gave large latitude of choice to the recipients of the offer. But to speak more seriously, there are probably very few women who begin life with a clear decision never to be married. Some, it is true, care so intensely for free- dom that they cannot even entertain the idea of bonds of any kind. Still such women often yield to the spell of love, as was the case with a well-known literary woman, who told me that her unwillingness to resign her freedom made her delay her marriage a whole year. " Now," she added, " I have been married fifteen years, and I have been so happy that I have never ceased to regret that one miserable year, when I fancied that I was happier than I should ever be again." A few women realize at the outset that marriage is not for them. They know there is some fatal impedi- CHOICE. 5 ment in their case to any worthy marriage. P< there is a strain of insanity in the family, or some dis- ease which they dare not transmit to others. Son,' an imperative duty to be done which will leave them no strength nor time for new ties. Now and then, one like Mercy in " Pilgrim's Progress " when wooed by Mr. Brisk, will not " agree " with any one who does not like her " conditions." Some — but these are exceedingly few — recognize those characteristics in themselves which, disregarded, make marriage a constant irritation to both husband and wife, and lead to the ruin of the children. Still others — and this number is probably very large — see on the threshold of life that they have not been placed in a natural environment, that their tastes and feelings lift them above their habitual associates, while their opportunities for growth and culture have been too limited to fit them for a place in other circles. Like Glory in " Faith Gartney," they see " lots of good times," but they are never " in 'em." Their conviction that marriage is not for them ripens very early. But most women who look forward at all expect to be married. If they are women of noble character, they do not mean to marry until they at least believe that the actual marriage will be ideal. It is not in her teens that *a girl learns that ideal marriages are not very common. .It is sometimes many years before experience teaches a woman that her dream is not to be fulfilled. 6 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. In the mean time circumstances are often leading her very far away from the goal she expected to reach without any guidance of her footsteps thither. Was it not Clara Louise Kellogg who, at thirty, answered one eager inquirer as to the reason she was still un- married, "I have never had time to fall in love" ? A woman who has a great art is often so absorbed in it that she does not realize how the years are flying. Intellectual women, too, have their minds so crowded that they sometimes forget that the mind is not the whole woman. But the women who have least time to think of marriage are those who earn their own living by intellectual work, especially that great majority of them who support others as well as themselves. Their brains are busy, day and night, and where is the place for new thoughts to enter in? With the very poor it is otherwise : they toil with their hands, but their fancies are free. This strenuous middle class of workers, standing between the rich and poor, furnishes a very large pro- portion of our unmarried women ; for its members have definite ideas about the decencies of life, and will not easily forego them. Dickens, in one of his Christmas stories, tells us how Trotty Veck's pretty daughter justifies her marriage. She says that her lover has secured a piece of work likely to last for some months ; and that as people in their circum- CHOICE. 7 stances can never expect to see much farther before them than that, it would be foolish to put off the marriage from year to year; for then, she says, she should at last die without knowing one happy mo- ment of a true woman's life. Her thought is a beau- tiful one ; and a tender-hearted woman of any degree would reason in the same way, that is to say, if she had a lover whom she loved. But while Margaret Veck, working with her hands, is sure to have a lover, the women I am speaking of are too busy thinking of other things to glance at one. They may not be ambitious or mercenary ; but they want a refined home, neat and suitable dress, books, pictures, and music. It is not worth while to sacrifice these for an ab- straction ; and naturally they assume a critical attitude which does not encourage the advance of any con- crete lover. Perhaps they do not choose the better part, and they are probably unconscious of making any choice at all ; but in most cases they are no doubt right, for they do not make too great a demand on life. Refined women who are able and willing to earn their living, can seldom be right in marrying a man whose character and habits will not insure them a refined home. There are exceptions. Misfortune may overtake a man, and reduce him to the direst poverty, and he may still be worthy of any sacrifice a woman can make for him. On the other hand, 8 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. refinement easily slips into luxury. A woman who loves music may learn to think that she cannot live without a season-ticket to the symphony concerts or a box at the opera ; and one who loves to be scrupu- lously clean may catch herself thinking that impos- sible unless she has a fresh white dress every morning. Miss Wilkins's " New England Nun " was uncon- sciously distressed at the prospect of marrying a lover who was always introducing disorder into her dainty sitting-room. I suppose the delicate dividing-line be- tween an unmarried woman, pure and simple, and a genuine old maid, lies exactly here. To an old maid her own refined habits are a little dearer than any human being. Yet how hard it is to make definitions. Think of the luxurious married women who will sacri- fice their own children rather than disarrange their toilette ! A girl's marriage, even in America, depends more on her mother's attitude than is generally admitted. There are mothers who have clear ideas of the kind of mar- riage it is possible and desirable that their daughters should make. They give their girls the training which fits them for such a marriage, they frown on all unde- sirable associations, and foster all that meet their wishes. Their daughters almost always marry and lead respectable and comfortable lives. It is not so certain CHOICE. 9 that they lead lives of enthusiasm. Yet it is hardly fair to laugh at such mothers and call them match- makers. They often know their children better than the children know themselves, and it is very well that the elders should guide the choice, though it would be intolerable if they made the decision. A woman who loves her child must try to secure the child's happiness according to her light. If she is high-minded, and wishes her daughter to marry a noble man, she will not use base means. If she wishes to gratify her ambition, she cannot use worthy means. It is, however, a great mistake to let a girl grow up with the idea that she will be sure to marry, or worse still, that she ought to marry. On the contrary, pains should be taken to teach her to choose well by keeping a high standard before her both as to friends and as to books ; while a few judicious words should be said to her from time to time. Unfortunately, few mothers seem to know how to say these words. There are some women so beautiful, so helpful, so attractive in every way to all men and women, and withal so loving as well as lovable, that their remaining single is a constant mystery. " Among the many lovers she must have had," said one such woman of another, " how is it possible there should not have been one she could love in return?" There is often, however, a quality in such women which, though overlooked by 10 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. friends, becomes evident in very close relations. They are women who are born to rule ; their rule is wise and beneficent, so that it is a real blessing for most people to be brought within their sphere. Still they them- selves have the aspiring nature which would find any marriage unsatisfactory unless the husband were also worthy to rule. They are not interested in any man of less force than themselves. They think they could yield with delight to a strong man ; yet the instinct of ruling is so powerful with them that those who are brought very near them always feel a certain inability to resist their influence ; and such constraint is generally irksome to a man who is himself a natural ruler. Ideally, two strong natures should be mutually helpful ; but it takes an extraordinary love to fuse them so that they do not, in practice, prove antagonistic. Here and there is a beautiful woman in whom there is not even such a flaw, a woman whose nature is so rich in sympathy that all must love her, while she lavishes love on everybody who comes near her. She sends away one lover after another, because her heart is full of a more perfect love than any she has yet felt. So it was with Lucy Smith, wife of the author of "Thorndale," who had left her youth far behind her before she made her ideal marriage. No one ever had a larger circle of loving and loved friends. No one ever had more true lovers. No one ever led a more cheerful, active, useful CHOICE. II life. Yet years later, she records a mental struggle of her middle age. She says : " I never had any other than one ideal of happiness, — love intensely felt and returned. Do those who really care for love care for anything else? I never did. But I believed that for me that one ideal was not intended. My life had had its vicissitudes of feeling and imagination. I thought that the future had no great joy for me, — only duties. I desired, I prayed, to be satisfied without personal happiness." But such women are as rare as queens. There is, in America, a large class of rich women who do not marry. I have no statistics at hand, but I have seen quite startling figures of the taxable property of unmarried women in Massachusetts. In this country a rich woman can have things so much her own way that the minor inducements to marry are wanting. If she is very pretty and vivacious, she will have a train of ad- mirers about her when she first makes her entrance into society, and will probably be carried off to the altar very early in the twenties. If, however, she is a quiet girl, though she may be amiable and domestic and intelligent and even pretty, her sterling qualities show to little advantage in the whirl of balls and par- ties, and she soon ceases to care much for ordinary society. She devotes herself to study or to charity at about the time the young men of her set give them- selves up heart and soul to business. She becomes 12 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. more and more cultivated, and the young men often become less and less interested in art and literature and music and the condition of the poor, as the years roll by. A recent writer in " The Nation " tells us that business is in itself an education ; it certainly does in- crease a man's general information and quicken his intelligence ; it often teaches him promptness and ac- curacy ; and there are men who keep their heads erect in the midst of the mad rush which cannot be avoided by any business man in this century : but no man whose chief thought is the making of money can preserve that temper of mind which attracts a woman who spends her time in studying the great literatures or in cultivating the arts. She finds these men bore her, and perhaps she bores them. She has it in her to make a charming home if she were once actually married, because then there would be vital common interests between herself and her husband ; but her secondary interests are not those of the young men she knows, on whom she ac- cordingly looks languidly. She does not see men of any other class, and if she did, she could hardly- avoid painful suspicions that attentions from them might mean fortune-hunting ; and so, though she does not absolutely choose a single life, she virtually sets herself apart by the time she is twenty-five. All women know other women of this stamp, whose characters are so surpassingly lovely that it is a grief to CHOICE. 13 feel that such sweet and wise natures are not chosen to be the centre of a home. It takes vigorous wooing to rouse such a woman ; but she is worth the trouble. That, however, is by no means so clear to men as to women, for " You must love her ere to you She would seem worthy of your love." Any woman will tell you that she has again and again looked on with amazement to see what an impenetrable veil seems to hide her friend's virtues from the young men in the same circle. We all at times echo Betsy Trotwood's lamentation on finding David Copperfield in love with Dora instead of with Agnes : " Blind, blind, blind." Sometimes, however, it must be owned that a rich woman is so wedded to the conventionalities of her own narrow circle that she is incapable of loving any- body, — like the unimpeachable "Miss Brooks" of a late novel, who preferred breaking with her honest lover to a marriage which would exile her from Boston. Miss Brooks's great interest was in afternoon teas ; but there are other women who are so full of plans and projects that they have no time to think of anything so commonplace as love. There was Madame de Montesson's sister-in-law who did n't want to marry and would n't be a nun because she " was so interested in prisons." Others devote themselves to philosophy 14 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. or art. Mrs. Phelps-Ward has presented their side both in the " Story of Avis " and in " Dr. Zay," though both of her heroines marry. Neither yielded easily to love, and it does not seem to have been the master-passion with either; fur the life of Avis was wrecked because her husband did not recognize the paramount claims of her genius, while the happiness of Dr. Zay seemed to depend on her husband's con- tentment with a secondary place. Most women who read the books sympathize with the heroines ; but it is a suggestive fact that men, even the most unselfish of men, do not. Some women miss marriage through a morbid tem- perament. Lions stand guard over every way. " I have been reading a ridiculous book," said a wise mother, a few days ago, " and I told my girls that I hoped none of them would ever be guilty of such idiocy as the heroine showed. She was in debt for her edu- cation ; she kept her terrible secret from everybody, even from her lover, whom she refused on account of it. He was made to believe that an insuperable ob- stacle stood in the way of the marriage." Now it cannot be denied that a debt would be an insuperable obstacle in the eyes of some men. They would decline either to wait for the girl or to help her to pay her debt. The heroine probably distrusted her lover, though perhaps only by distrusting herself. My CHOICE. 15 friend had no patience with that, though a great many unmarried women will understand it. My friend is a woman of ardent and vigorous nature, who be- lieves in no obstacles. When she feels that her aim is a worthy one, — and she usually feels this, — she moves straight forward so courageously that all foes vanish before her. This temperament is, I fear, more common among married than among single women. My friend feels that love is so great and ennobling a passion that it should give the law to life. She believes that nothing should stand between two persons who love each other. She thinks that if she had been an outcast upon the street, she would tell her lover the whole ghastly story, and risk all for the chance of his meeting her fully. As the most unworldly man might well doubt his right to give such a mother to his children, and the nobler the woman the less she would wish for the sacri- fice, her dream of love might crumble to the ground in consequence ; but might not that be better than the half- love that would weakly shrink away, trusting so little that the tale is left untold? Most women never rise to this level, partly because they have less power of loving, but chiefly because they cannot believe themselves worthy of a great sacrifice from another. Many a lonely woman would now be at the head of a happy home if she had not distrusted her own power to make another happy. Such women mag- 16 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. nify their defects, and hide themselves morbidly from society, and of course they are left alone. There is, therefore, a certain foundation for the coarse and com- mon jests which presume that the unloved have some- thing in them that is unlovely. From my friend's standpoint, marriage becomes a duty in a new sense. It might be more painful to meet a lover with a generous confidence than to turn timidly away from him, and leave him to wonder at the mys- tery ; but one can hardly doubt which would show the nobler nature. It is true few men can stand severe tests ; but my friend says it is base for a woman to hesi- tate to stake all, when the glory and perfection not only of her own life but of her lover's depend on her cour- age. It is easier for many women to relinquish happi- ness than to fight the battle which must precede the victory. A timid woman may be a good woman, but she must not admire herself for her timidity. Some brave women do fight the battle and lose, but they keep their self-respect. Of course all this refers only to those women who love and are loved in return. And love itself does not always create the obligation of marriage. For instance, a silly girl of sixteen once tried to elope with an equally silly young fellow. Her mother followed and rescued her. Some friends were expressing their gratification at the denouement, when a wise old gentleman startled CHOICE. 17 them by saying, "Why was it good to rescue her? She loved him." Now, can we really think that the kind of love in this case deserved much consideration? Grant- ing that it was genuine, did not this old gentleman for once fail to be wise? A marriage without love is hideous ; but it is not always those capable of the high- est kind of love who believe that love alone is enough to make marriage a blessing. Respect is quite as neces- sary, and it must be mutual. There must be sympa- thy of tastes, or the love will never master every-day dulness. There must even be the fulfilment of certain worldly conditions. A man and woman may be ex- quisitely happy on a microscopic income, — as William and Lucy Smith were ; but it could hardly be right to marry without any income at all. In such a case the true solution is in a long engagement. It is a popular belief that long engagements are fatal. Yet the ideal lovers can endure the petty strain of years, and ought there ever to be an engagement which does not seem ideal when it is made? William and Lucy Smith suffered keenly during the years they had to wait for full companionship, but they also had keen happiness. To miss the best within reach because something else is out of reach does not seem wise. Yet long engagements probably do tend to strand many women beyond the reach of marriage. All lovers are not constant, though there are heroic exceptions, 2 l8 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. as in this case : a teacher suddenly announced one day to her associates in school that she was to be married the next week to a fiance whose name nobody in the region had ever heard. "Isn't this rather sudden?" asked a friend. " It 's a nine years' engagement," re- turned the bride-elect. " We thought it was n't best to mention it, as Mr. had first to take a college course and a theological course, and then to find a field for work. We have n't allowed ourselves to think of it much, lest our minds should be distracted from our daily duties. And now I try to keep my mind faithfully on my work ; but positively it is hard to feel exactly the same interest in my scholars as usual ! " I dare say a long engagement does distract less con- scientious souls from the daily routine j so from this point of view something may be said against one. And no doubt the gradual adaptation to the exigencies of one kind of life does partially unfit anybody for those of another. Simply, however, because she may be de- serted after her bloom has passed away, the woman of finest fibre does not often hesitate " to give and hazard all she hath." There are those who look upon an engagement — though a broken one — as a distinction second only to marriage itself, and there are a few sentimental souls who think that even a disappointment in love creates a halo about a woman's head. A friend tells me that CHOICE. 19 one summer in a remote part of the country, she was puzzled by the awe-struck air of the natives in speaking of certain depressed young women. "Don't you know," it would be said, "that she had a 'nerly '? " My friend wondered what that might be. She had heard gnarled apples called " gnerly," and she concluded that her young acquaintances suffered from some kindred disease. At last she learned that a " nerly " was, in fact, " an early " disappointment in love, and that such victims were re- garded as in a measure heroines. In the same vein Dickens describes Dora's aunts in " David Copperfield." The one who had once had a lover is treated deferen- tially by her less favoured sister. I think this view of the matter is passing away, at least in America. Most women beyond thirty would be very unwilling to be looked upon as suffering from " an early." They do not consider it either courageous or beautiful to let any personal disappointment destroy the meaning of life. And they know how often a youthful disappointment is directly traceable either to their own fault or their lover's. If to their own, they are ashamed of it. If to their lover's, it does not often take them ten years to become ashamed of having ar- dently loved so weak an individual. Of course, many women do still deify the most worthless of lost lovers, just as married women do the most tyrannical and stupid of dead husbands; but ten years of the independent 20 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. life of American women does clarify the vision. Few sensible women of thirty-five feel in any way bound to admire and love a man simply because they did so at eighteen. Few men in these days need fear that the girls they have jilted will sigh over them very long. The women have better things to do. The experience is merely of use in teaching them to measure men. Nevertheless, there are genuine loves springing from the deepest sources, which meet no response, or before which an impassable barrier is raised. The lives of many women are changed — usually softened and en- nobled — by such an affection. But these women do not wear their heart on their sleeve. If their story is told at all, it is to give help to somebody else. They accept their lot in the spirit of Romney Leigh. " Having missed . . . some personal hope, I must beware the rather that I miss No reasonable duty." One great blessing of a single life is that one may cherish any genuine love without finding it fade into the light of common day. Of course a worthy love should be able to bear the strain of daily affairs, but it sometimes fails to do so. The unmarried are at least saved this. It is not single women who look on mar- riage as a failure. They usually believe in it heartily, only they acknowledge cheerfully in their own case that there is an impediment to the right marriage ; and any- thing lower does not interest them. CHOICE. 21 But can marriage ever be a duty as well as a happiness? So women have been taught in many ages and many countries. But it is hard to make an Ameri- can woman of Anglo-Saxon and Puritan descent admit that. Such women have been taught to feel their per- sonal responsibility too deeply to believe that their in- dividuality ought ever to be sacrificed to any ancient idea that the race must be perpetuated. Yet marriage may be a duty, if the impediment to it is merely worldly. A poor man and woman who love each other have cer- tainly no right to marry if their marriage is to lay burdens on other people ; but on the other hand, have they a right to sit down tamely and bewail the hard fate which precludes their " eating turtle soup out of a gold spoon"? Is it not a duty that they should both set themselves at work to overcome obstacles, and make their marriage possible? Will either live the highest life otherwise? Sometimes a girl lets herself be laughed out of a lover. An awkward man without tact tries in a blundering way to commend himself to a girl who is able to see below the surface. She knows his real worth ; she even enjoys a quiet talk with him when no one else looks on and criti- cises. She knows perhaps that she could be happy with him on a desert island ; but she cannot bear the laugh of her thoughtless friends, and so she frowns on his suit. Has she done her duty? Has she a right to yield to the 22 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN weak side of her nature in this way? Gwendolen, in " Daniel Deronda," thought Grandcourt " not too ridic- ulous to marry; " but how much better a ridiculous mar- riage would have been than the cold-blooded, worldly one she made ! Is there, moreover, any intrinsic reason why it is better to marry than to live alone ? Happiness and virtue are often bound up together in a strange way. What is the common, every-day effect on character of the two kinds of life? Must we not admit that there never was such a school for self-forgetfulness as marriage? A dependent unmarried woman learns the hardest lessons of self-sup- pression ; an independent unmarried woman, on the con- trary, has such a training in self-assertion that the sweetest natures can hardly keep their balance. Self-assertion is not beautiful, nor self-suppression either ; but self-forget- fulness is the very blossom of character. A wife or a mother sometimes seems positively not to know that she is sacrificing herself, she is so caught up and carried away by the surges of love in her heart. I do not mean that there are not thousands of selfish wives and mothers, and thousands of warm-hearted women who stand alone ; but simply that looking at the world as a whole, the unselfishness of a married woman is most often woven of richer threads than that of her single sister. There may be less merit in it, but it is far lovelier. CHOICE. 23 Yet what paradoxical folly it would be for a woman to marry for the sake of improving her character ! How surely she would defeat her own end ! Love will have to give the unerring law in the future as in the past ; and the love which does not spring from a character already noble will not exalt either the giver or the re- ceiver very much. So the full ranks of single women will rightly remain unthinned for many years to come. II. LITERARY PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. IT may be instructive to glance at the types of single women to be found in literature, since these types are often the foundation for criticism of actual women, and indeed sometimes influence women in criticising themselves. The unmarried woman does not hold a conspicuous place in literature. She is not often a theme for poets, and all the interesting heroines of the novelists are ex- pected to be married before their youth and grace have departed. There is, however, a notable exception to this rule both in ancient and mediaeval literature ; for the idea seems to have been handed down from the remote past that a woman who held herself free from common ties had a peculiar and exalted power. Under some cir- cumstances, such a woman became an object of almost religious worship. Among the goddesses, Diana, though of lower rank, is of more elevated character than Venus or Juno. Her coldness is the coldness of purity. It is the unmated PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 25 Minerva who is the goddess of wisdom. The Parthenon itself, the most perfect work of art ever produced, was built in her honour. Among earthly women, too, the ancients have left us some grand portraits. Iphigenia, beyond all others, stands out in perfect beauty. Her loveliness, her sweet- ness, her nobility, her courage in meeting the terrible fate from which only Diana could rescue her, have made her the inspiration of poet after poet, so that she is scarcely less known than the famous Helen herself. She is a typical instance of the character the ancients ad- mired in an unmarried woman ; for she was so per- fect a woman that she was accounted fit to be betrothed to Achilles, the champion among all the Greeks, and it was in obedience to a religious decree alone that the marriage did not take place. Men who have been inclined to think that while man was made " for God only," woman was made for " God in him," have often been willing to concede that a woman who does not marry is still a dignified figure if she devotes her life directly to the service of religion ; and if she is a beautiful woman and does this volun- tarily, relinquishing the earthly with the clear purpose of serving the divine, she inspires the most tender reverence. This idea was most powerful during the Middle Ages. The women who lived in cloisters and spent their days 26 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. in prayer and good works, commanded the respect of the most brutal. Those who resisted the offer of an earthly crown to be the bride of heaven figure frequently in legend as saints. Chaucer is perhaps the only poet of the time to regard a nun as if she were really a human being, and to poke a little harmless fun at her ; as in his Prioresse who " Sang the service divyne Entuned in hir nose ful semely ;" who spoke French " After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For French of Paris was to hir unknowe ; " who " Leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, Ne wet hir fingres in hir sauce deepe ; " and whose wimple " Ful semely pinched was." But even Chaucer admires her as a gentle and good woman. He says that in her " Al was conscience and tendre harte ; " and that she was " Ful plesaunt and amiable of. port, And peyned hir to counterfete chere Of court, and ben estatlich of manere And to ben holden digne of reverence ; But for to speken of hir conscience, She was so charitable and pitous, She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde." PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 27 Of the great mass of every-day women who lived lonely lives outside the convent walls, no poet nor historian has thought fit to tell us. A voluntary sacrifice, especially of wealth and pomp, always seems heroic, and appeals to the imagination even of a child. It is worthy of ad- miration ; but may it not take more of the stuff of which heroes are made to bear bravely a hard and obscure fate which we have not even had the pleasure of choosing for ourselves? In the Middle Ages the ascetic idea so predominated that it was thought good for both man and woman to be alone ; but this was by no means the Greek idea. Sophocles has no scruple in making his Electra — the sister of Iphigenia — lament the cruelty of her fate in being denied marriage, Electra is a woman of power with no natural outlet \ and widely different as she is from modern women in her environment and creed, her kinship with those whom the conventions of the present day have restrained from the right use of their powers is so marked that this alone might stamp Sophocles as a universal poet. Electra is not lovable, and even Iphigenia does not win our affection as Antigone does. Here Sophocles proves his consummate understanding of a large-hearted woman considered entirely apart from her relations to a lover ; for though she had a lover so devoted that he died for her, she seems scarcely aware of his love, being 28 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. so occupied with her duty to her father and brother. Antigone is of as heroic mould as Electra or Iphigenia. Her life is tragic, and she is not allowed to spend its ful- ness on husband or children. Though she risks death to bury her brother, believing that to be a religious duty, yet her piety has no tinge of the cloister. Her life is full to the brim, because she spends it in active work for those nearest and dearest to her. Her father needed her most, and she gave to him without stint. But she had overflowing love and sympathy for her unfortunate brothers. She does not fear even the tyrant Creon, when he stands in the way of what she conceives to be her duty, and she goes courageously to the living grave to which he adjudges her; though she says of her deed, — " I had not done it had I come to be A mother with her children, — had not dared, Though 'twere a hushand dead that mouldered there." She is not unkind even to her weak sister Ismene ; and the sharp words she says to her now and then are only those which must be said if a weak woman is ever to be saved from her weakness. How could Sophocles draw such a picture unless such women lived in Greece in his day? Yet Antigone is like the highest type of the unmarried women of to-day, and literature furnishes few pictures at all resembling her between the age of Sophocles and the nineteenth century. PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 29 " Our Euripedes, the human," has given us not only a less satisfactory Electra and the classic Iphigenia, but in the " Hecuba," an interesting study in Polyxena, who is offered a sacrifice to the manes of Achilles. Most other Greek poets, like most later poets, have ignored unmarried women. Of course, we cannot quarrel with this. In painting the faithful Andromache as a com- forting contrast to the faithless Helen, we may feel that Homer has done his great duty toward women, and we need not wish that he had interrupted the grand sim- plicity of his narrative to give us pictures of lives not partaking of the common lot. When we come to Dante, we find the religious idea prevailing. The true Beatrice was indeed married ; but the Beatrice we know from the Divine Comedy is ab- sorbed entirely in love of the divine. It seems that she represents Dante's ideal woman, though she is no longer on the earth. This exalted spiritual idea of woman is in keeping with an age worshipping the Virgin. Such worship colours the whole conception of Christianity in the Middle Ages. Yet the Bible does not present such a view of woman. Mary herself mar- ries Joseph. Jephthah's daughter bewails her fate as frankly as Electra. The Teutonic thought is shown in the story of Brun- hild. While she remains unmarried she has the strength of a man. Only Siegfried, the greatest of heroes, can 30 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. conquer her ; even he would have failed if she had not loved him. It is the yielding to love which robs her of her supernatural power. The acceptance of a similar idea by the French was no doubt a vast auxiliary to Joan of Arc in leading her soldiers to victory. Schiller, as a German, understands it. The English do not, and even if we do not believe that Shakspeare is responsible for much of " Henry VI.," yet we must admit that the play shows such a thought to be foreign to the greatest of English poets. Spenser, whose affiliations are so decid- edly with the Middle Ages that we can hardly realize that he was a contemporary of Shakspeare, shows us a trace of the same feeling in Britomart, the lady knight. Still more vaguely we find the same idea recurring in the Italian maiden knight, Bradamante. In the free Protestant world which has emancipated itself from superstition and asceticism, there is little left of such beliefs. They have passed so completely away from the modern mind that their effect is hardly worth considering. Perhaps the Romish Church has always clung to them more or less. Victor Hugo has made one nun — Sister Simplice — immortal, by a few strokes of his pen. She stakes even her soul's salvation by telling the lie which saves Jean Valjean's life. But it is her womanliness, uniting her to other women, which thrills us, and not her devotion, setting her apart. There has also been a reaction toward mediaeval ideas of late, as high- PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 31 bred girls with leisure have realized that they have a duty to the poor. Yet the women who devote them- selves most ardently to this service seldom take vows which prevent their marriage, and in books a heroine of this stamp is sure to be married at the end of the volume. In modern literature the unmarried woman suffers even more severely than other men and women from the so-called realistic tendency, which often means only the absence of the ideal. The great masters, who combine the real and the ideal, practically ignore her. Shakspeare does not seem to know that such a woman exists. Why should he? The complete wo- man should love and be loved. Her fate may be tragic, like Ophelia's, or happy, like Miranda's ; but it is im- possible to suppose that she should reach mature years and still be unmarried. Scott, however, with a happy blending of mediaeval and modern thought, has given us the noble picture of Rebecca. It is true her story ends when her rival, Rowena, is married to Ivanhoe j but from the begin- ning she has no hope of any other conclusion, so that she is a truly typical unmarried woman. And her character is so vividly portrayed in the book that we feel a security in her future. We know what her life will be as well as if Scott had written another volume describing it. 32 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. " ' He to whom I dedicate my future life will be my com- forter, if I do his will,' said Rebecca to Rowena. '"Have you, then, convents to one of which you mean to retire ? ' asked Rowena. "'No, lady,' said the Jewess; 'but among our people, since the time of Abraham downwards, have been women who have devoted their thoughts to Heaven and their ac- tions to works of kindness to men, — tending the sick, feed- ing the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these will Rebecca be numbered. Say this to thy lord, should he chance to inquire after the fate of her whose life he saved.' " Scott has given us another great picture in " Kenil- worth." However the living Queen Elizabeth may have differed from her portrait, the portrait itself is full of vitality. The Elizabeth of " Kenilworth " is a real woman : she has not the most remote resemblance to the Gloriana or the Belphcebe of Spenser, from the same model ; but her faults and virtues have a distinct meaning for other women. In general, however, there is a sharp descent from the sublime to the ridiculous when we compare the ancient and modern types of single women. This is probably due to the fact that single women are now much less rare than when every patriarch had a retinue of wives ; or even later, when no woman was safe till she had consigned herself to some husband, however unsatisfactory ; and any familiar figure is always in danger of becoming contemptible. PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 33 Most novelists, when they deign to describe a single woman at all, make her absurd. Perhaps no novelist really thinks that all the unmarried women are absurd ; but he wants a foil for his beautiful heroines, and more- over he does not often have the courage to leave one of his attractive characters unmated at last, even when he begins his story with that idea. The public will not endure that. In one of Miss Alcott's stories she prefaces the last chapter with — " Come, Philander, let 's be a-marching, Each one now his true love searching ;" and says whimsically (I quote from memory) that as one of her former books had been criticised because she wished her heroine to remain unmarried, as would have surely been the case in actual life, she had resolved in the new volume to find some mate — no matter how incongruous — for everybody. Accordingly the typical " old maid " has grown up in fiction. She is fussy, odd, plain or even grotesque in face and figure, ill-dressed, and always furtively looking out for a husband. Of course there are wide varieties of this type. For instance, the Volumnia of " Bleak House " is an utterly different person from the gentle and almost pathetic Miss Tox of " Dombey and Son ; " but they both have all the characteristics noted above. No one knew better than Dickens what 3 34 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. an unmarried woman may be. The most beautiful char- acter he ever described is Agnes in " David Copper- field ; " and in spite of her marriage in the end, the part of her life which we see chiefly is that lived while she supposes she is never to be married. Her devotion to her father, her high trust and courage in the midst of the plots of Uriah Heep, her patience with the exas- perating Mrs. Heep, her charming ways with the little girls she teaches, are all a guarantee of what her whole life would have been if Dora had lived. They are the more impressive because she was no longer a girl, and she had no hope of a different life in the future to sustain her. It would probably have been impossible in real life for her to enact the guardian angel to David and Dora without doing more harm than good ; but we may let that pass. In describing her, Dickens has shown his appreciation of a beautiful and high-minded woman who had failed to attract the man she loved. But probably even the bitterest spinster who reads " David Copperfield " is glad that the author used his privilege, and by a few strokes of his pen made Agnes happy in the end, though the spinster may have her doubts whether David quite deserved Agnes, and may be very sure that under the same circumstances she would herself have chosen to remain single. It is easy to strain a point in a book. The author's fiat goes forth, and the heroine is happy. In reality more wari- PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 35 ness is needed. So, though we cannot quarrel with the characterization of maiden ladies in books, we must ask ourselves whether the emphasis is truthful. I am in- clined to think that this unconscious misrepresentation had a definite and most undesirable influence on the judgment of many people. Girls hastily conclude that all unmarried women are like Miss Tox or Volumnia, and that anything is better than a single life. Even their fathers and mothers fall into the same error, and preach the doctrine, — " Far better be married to something Than not to be married at a'." Young men especially speak of " old maids " with a sneer which it takes courage to meet. How much better to bear the burdens of an ill-assorted marriage, the girl thinks, than to endure ridicule ! No doubt, most of the ridicule is directed against the woman of straw set up by the novelists, yet there are enough women of that sort in the world to make discrimination rather hard. Most novelists use unmarried women so sparingly that it is hard to recall many prominent characters of the class. I asked a friend who is a special student of Goethe, whom she considered the most typical un- married woman in his great portrait gallery. She replied : " I do not think we can speak of Goethe's conception of the ' unmarried woman ' in any modern 36 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. sense of the term. Goethe's women all indicate that their natural destiny is for married life. 'The Beauti- ful Maiden finds admirers, also suitors, and probably at last a husband. Then she arrives at the True, which may not prove to be the pleasantest possible ; and if she is wise, she will devote herself to the Useful, — attend to house and children, and in this abide.' His women are not considered as having a career of their own, independent of man and of family life. Modern as Goethe was, he did not anticipate this in the grand way in which we see it realized to-day. Clara Barton and Harriet Hosmer were not born ; besides, Goethe was a German, and his heroines are inclined to be German women. But having said this, it is also true that his heroines are modern women, with broad views and deep interest in modern questions, — in the best modes of education, in economic subjects, industrial problems, etc., as these questions engage the minds of women to-day. " Hilaria, with her artistic sense and many other gifts, secures, as she deserves (according to the Goethe system of rewards), a good husband. Lydia, skilful in sewing, quickened by •' sympathetic love, sees her scholars increasing a hundred-fold, and a whole popu- lation of housewives led on and stirred up to exactitude and elegance,' and marries a good husband. Hersilia, intellectual and refined, fascinates the young Felix, rORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 37 and awakens in him that affection which a boy some- times has for a noble woman. Goethe does not say whom or when she married ; but of course she would marry, for in the last glimpse we have of her she says, ' It is lovely to see one's own form in a loving eye.' Therese, the thrifty, who ' trains children while Natalia educates them,' secures the kind of husband that a sensible woman would desire. Natalia, in some re- spects the noblest of all Goethe's heroines, who during her whole life never experienced a stronger wish than to discover the necessities of others in order to relieve them, who said that the love so often read of in books appeared to her the veriest fable, and when Wilhelm said to her, < You have never loved,' replied, ' Never or always,' — Natalia probably married Wilhelm, al- though it is not so stated. We cannot speak of her as unmarried, because she certainly will marry. Mignon and Macaria are abnormal characters. " Of course Tasso's lady-love does not marry, for the play is not carried beyond the development of Tasso's affection. Iphigenia is and remains unmarried ; but she could hardly be called Goethe's conception of an un- married woman. Probably she married when she went back to Greece. Ottilie, in 'Elective Affinities,' would never have married after her great grief. Goethe fore- sees this, and that poetic sentiment demands that she should die ; but you can see what the trend of her life 38 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. would have been had she lived, — useful activity for others." Most other novelists are still less interested than Goethe was in the development of the unmarried woman. I do not know that George Eliot has given us any better example than that of the quaint little aunt of Mr. Farebrother, to whom Will Ladislaw is so chivalrous (this being one of the traits in the latter's character which make women stoutly maintain that he was worthy of Dorothea, though men are constantly surprised that she should have cared for him). She is charming ; yet a fresh young girl does not want to grow into that quaint little aunt. In the Lucy Snowe of " Yillette," Charlotte Bronte" painted a genuine woman, and the colours are not too sombre for truth, though certainly very dark. The steadfastness and sanity of a woman so highly strung as Lucy Snowe, when every sensitive nerve became an avenue of pain, is so marvellous and yet so real that we can only account for it by supposing that the de- scription was written with Charlotte Bronte's own blood. It is well known that the author intended that Lucy Snowe should never marry. Her lover was to have gone down upon the ocean. But poor old Mr. Bronte could not endure such a tragedy, and to please him his daughter wrote the last vivid chapter, which leaves the result in doubt. PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 39 Although unmarried women hold a subordinate place in novels as in life, and can seldom vie in interest with the heroines who look forward to their wedding-day, there are certain trustworthy writers of fiction who draw their pictures from life, and who yet have the power of seeing below the surface, among whose minor characters we find now and then a delightful spinster. Mrs. Gaskell perhaps reaches the high-water mark in describing old maids, for in " Cranford " they appear in variety ; and moreover, they there hold the place of honour. We must laugh at them, but we love them, — especially Miss Matty. Nevertheless, here is a curious trait of human nature. We all acknowledge Miss Matty to be an exquisite creation, — a lovable, loving, gentle woman, such a woman as children cling to and men rev- erence. She had been pretty, too, and was a thorough lady, in the sweetest and most unaffected way. Every one of us admires Miss Matty ; yet if Miss Matty in the flesh could have overheard the sincere encomiums of her admirers, she would have wept hot tears of mortification. We all laugh at her a little, even when our eyes are wet ; and what woman, diffident of her own powers, can bear being laughed at ? And then, most of us — Miss Matty's inferiors — patronize her a little. And how hard it is to bear patronage ! No young woman can brook the idea ; and I doubt if any girl reading " Cranford " ever consciously wished she could be like dear Miss 40 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. Matty, though the chances are she will never be half so good. Mrs. Gaskell belongs to the less realistic part of our century, and perhaps we must allow for certain exaggera- tions. Some later writers have succeeded in creating some unmarried women who stand so firmly on their feet that we should think twice before laughing at them, just as if they were real women. Mrs. Oliphant is particularly happy in her delineations. Indeed, the elderly Miss Jean of " It was a Lover and his Lass " is so delicious that I will venture to say every reader of the book cares a hundred times as much about her as about her beautiful young sister, attractive as the latter is made. Of course we laugh at Miss Jean, but it is as we might laugh at our favourite friend. There is " stock " in her character that prevents our patronizing her. Per- haps herein lies the secret which distinguishes the recent portraiture of maiden ladies from the past. Perhaps, too, the freedom of the nineteenth century has produced a change in the women themselves corresponding to the change in the literature referring to them. Formerly they were either hard or sentimental, if we may trust the novelists. Now their cup may be brimful of sentiment, but they hold it with a firm hand. An exception to this generalization must be made in favour of Miss' Bremer, herself a single woman living in a land of free and simple habits. For before the middle PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 41 of this century she had already crowded her canvases with perfectly individual and rational old maids, best among whom is the inimitable and gifted Petrea, with her enormous nose. It is evidently Miss Bremer's theory that a woman without beauty stands little chance of marriage, but that that is no reason why she should not make the best of her misfortunes. A friend tells me that on being presented to Miss Bremer when that novelist visited New York many years ago, her first inward exclamation was, " Petrea's nose ! " So perhaps Miss Bremer drew directly from life ; and being so sound and sensible and altogether delightful herself, it is no wonder she made her unmarried heroines the same. Having a deep inner life, she could venture to draw outward features uncompromisingly. Among recent writers, Edouard Rod, in his suggestive book, " Le Sens de la Vie," has described the life and death of a poor old governess who had no brightness in her lot except that which came from the glow of her large, loving heart. We feel the dignity of the picture quite as powerfully as the pathos. W r e scarcely venture to pity the woman, notwithstanding her heartrending misfortunes, because we admire her and wish humbly that we could rise to her height. She was as old and shabby and plain and lonely as any caricature in fiction ; but the dominant note is character. She breaks down only once ; and that is when, past the age for work, all 42 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. her little savings are lost, and it seems inevitable that she should become dependent. The novelist saves her from that. We almost wish he had let the last blow fall, we are so sure she would have risen up from it as sweet and courageous as ever. A very different and much less sombre picture is that of Trollope's Lily Dale. Her character has not the almost tragic and altogether pathetic beauty of that of the old governess, yet she has certain qualities which make it possible to speak of her in the same connection. To begin with, she is a heroine nobody can laugh at, though she has such a sense of humour that she often makes us laugh with her. She is an attractive girl, who will always be an attractive woman. We are sure that her boots and gloves will always fit her, however old she may be ; and that her manners will always be irre- proachable, though she is too frank and cheerful to be conscious of them. Yet it is perfectly clear that she will never be married. Her experience with her false lover, Mr. Crosbie, and with her true lover, Johnny Eames, is particularly characteristic of women of her type. Mr. Crosbie looks like a hero, and Johnny's good traits are not of the heroic order. Of course she loves the hero. When the hero's perfidy becomes known, she no longer wishes to be his wife, even if that were pos- sible ; but she cannot therefore cast him out of her heart. When he wooes her for the second time, in a PORTRAITURE OF THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. 43 later volume, afraid she may yield against her better judgment, she puts the correspondence into her moth- er's hands. She likes and respects Johnny, who is a much better fellow than his rival ; but she can never make up her mind to marry him. Trollope conveys the impression that she was too romantic, and it is to be supposed that he knew her better than we do ; still, it always seems, in reading " The Small House at Ailing- ton," and especially " The Last Chronicle of Barset," as if the author were honestly puzzled to account for the decision of his heroine. It is clear enough to a woman. She did appreciate Johnny, but she was capable of loving a man of a higher strain. If Mr. Crosbie had never appeared, Johnny would have had no better chance. It was not Mr. Crosbie himself whom she loved, but her ideal for whom she mistook him. She was completely undeceived, being far too truthful to fancy that a man capable of Mr. Crosbie 's behaviour could ever be fashioned into a real hero ; but her ideal was not thereby changed, — and why should it have been? There never was a novelist whose eyes surrounded his dramatis personce. with less glamour than Trollope. Lily Dale is therefore a fact. She is not an extraordinary woman, nor is she placed in extraordinary circumstances. She has distinction, however, and its source is in herself. In other words, she has character. Whether she marries 44 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. or not may make a great difference in her happiness, but she will be the same woman in either case. It is this quality, above all others, which allies her to Edouard Rod's governess. It is because novelists in general fail to see the underlying character of the unmarried women who tread their boards that they so often give us carica- tures. Anybody who dresses up a lay figure inevitably calls attention to accidental rather than essential char- acteristics. There are plenty of absurd unmarried, as married, women, — perhaps more ; so that the story- tellers need not suffer for models. No attempt is made in this chapter for a systematic or complete survey of the judgment passed in literature on unmarried women ; still, the leading types have been denned. If it is an anticlimax to begin with Minerva and end with Lily Dale, it is chronologically to be jus- tified. Moreover, in consideration of the effect which literature has on life, it is not out of place to make Lily Dale a conspicuous figure. No young girl expects to be like Minerva, whether she marries or not; but in deciding whether to marry an unsuitable lover or not, it makes a vast difference whether a girl has been taught to look on unmarried women as like the typical "old maid," or as like Lily Dale, — though the portrait of Lily is merely life-size, and has none of the propor- tions of a heroine. THE REALITY. 45 III. THE REALITY. WHAT is the truth about the matter? Does literature tell the truth? Was the ideal of the past ideal, and is the modern picture of the nov- ists real? Can we form any ideal which is not studied from the real developing freely? In ages of violence, the only choice for a high-minded woman often lay between marriage and the cloister ; and those who could choose the cloister in preference to an ill-assorted marriage did show a peculiarly pure and lofty nature. Since their vocation had for its first object the service of God, and secondarily was a means of the training of children and of caring for the sick, it must have reacted on such women, and have kept them true to their noble instincts. No doubt the same may be said in reference to many of the Sisters of Mercy of our own time ; yet, as the margin of choice is no longer so narrow, this result cannot be so frequently attained. To imaginative girls, especially to those who have lost a lover, there is a powerful appeal in a cloistered life : the quiet, the beauty, the freedom from worldly care, ^6 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. even the fact of being set apart from their old compan- ions, — all these things have a charm ; while the active, loving service demanded of them in teaching and nurs- ing must do much to keep the balance which would be lost in continual solitary religious exercises. Where the rules are stringent, and the vows are for life, as in the Ro- man Church, it seems hardly conceivable that an ardent woman should not chafe against her prison-bars ; though we cannot know much about it. In the Protestant sisterhoods, however, there is freedom enough to make the life an instrument of action for many a woman who might otherwise drift helplessly about the world ; so, even in the nineteenth century, we have something which answers to the mediaeval type. Nevertheless, the women thus set apart are by no means representative unmarried women. Here and now, in America, is a great army of free women who live distinct individual lives, and who have clearly defined characters. Have they also any common qualities which will fix their place in the scale of humanity? The question will be best answered by describing a few of these women. This will at least give us some idea of the local American type. The examples will all be chosen from among women who have passed their thirtieth birthday, and who, so far as a mere acquaint- ance may judge, have no intention of ever marrying. Since, apparently, the causes which prevent marriage THE REALITY. 47 have most effect upon the women who earn their living by pursuits that are not mechanical, it will not be sur- prising if many of the illustrations are taken from the great body of teachers. One is a charming woman, who has taught almost from girlhood in a large boarding-school. Every year has added some new grace of thoughtfulness or sym- pathy to her character, and this is mirrored in her bright and peaceful face. Relay after relay of young girls has entered the school, learned what she had to teach them, and gone away into the world ; and still her interest in every forlorn new pupil is as tender as at first. She loves every girl, and every girl loves her. This love continues long after the graduation day, for this teacher has always been one of the potent influences moulding the characters of the girls. It is doubtful whether this would have been so if she had been merely a lovely woman. But in her case there has been con- stant intellectual growth. Her teaching has not been the same from year to year. She has herself studied and experimented and explored ; so that she has brought a freshness to her instruction of every new class, — though it seems as if her subject might have become threadbare in twenty years. Then she has lived much " in the open ; " and that is the reason which Black gives for the intangible charm of one of his most attractive hero- 48 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. ines. It does preserve youth. As long as any one finds daily delight in flowers and birds and trees and streams, the cobwebs will not gather in the brain. And when the pagan, physical pleasure in " the open," which is so common in youth, is for many years supplemented by thought and love, the type of character produced wins our joyful admiration. No wonder the girls feel as if Minerva herself had deigned to sit in the in- structor's chair. The life of a boarding-school is akin to that of the cloister. That this woman should be as beautiful and gentle and refined as a nun is to be expected ; but nuns are denied the free blossoming which comes from a life in " the open." Another woman has taught as many years in a great city high school. She has trained battalion after bat- talion of young men and maidens to be prompt, upright, and accurate ; she has taught them " to hound and hate a lie," even the seemingly innocent lie which may lurk in tripping figures in algebra and in fallacies in geom- etry. Nobody would dare to disobey her, but every- body likes her. She is prompt and upright and accu- rate herself. But it must not be supposed she considers it her mission to train the outside world in these vir- tues. In her social life she is as gay and frank and careless as a girl. She is the best of comrades. She is THE REALITY. 49 a lady to her finger-tips. There is no brusquerie nor noisiness nor mauvaise honte in her manner. With all her cordiality and vitality, her high spirits never pass the bounds of thorough refinement. How can they, when the refinement is in her heart? She does not, alas ! love to teach. She hates her work as heartily as she does it. But it is her work, and she rejoices in doing it as well as she can. When the bell rings at the close of school, no coerced boy hails the signal with more delight ; she drops her books — that is, unless it is her duty to study a lesson, as it often is — and gives not another thought to the school- room till the next day. She is not very strong, and when, like most teachers, she finds herself completely exhausted at the end of the session, she throws herself on her sofa, and takes a nap as free from care as a baby's. But the few hours that remain to her are what she calls her life. Friends and books, pictures and music, walking and driving, fill the time to the brim. " The horrid school," she says, " adds a special zest to the recreation." Where is there a happier woman? The deep source of her happiness, however, is here. She has an unfaltering faith in the love of God. This makes possible to her, " The beautiful Now and the better To Be." All must be beautiful now, she believes, — not only the pleasures she thoroughly enjoys, but the teaching which she hates though she is determined 50 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. to do it so well, — because it is all in the beautiful plan of God. And she has never so much as dreamed that there is not a still better future where duty and happi- ness will blend far more perfectly than now. I know I shail not be believed when I speak of another teacher, but that is no reason why I should not tell the truth about her. She is " The Phantom of De- light," described by Wordsworth, from her eyes, which "are stars of. twilight fair," and her " steps of virgin liberty," and her countenance in which " meet sweet records, promises as sweet," to " the reason firm, the temperate will." Indeed, she is " A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command, — And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of an angel light." In the mean time she has space " For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." A plain little teacher, with queer, shy ways, a woman of the sort that novelists are continually pouncing upon, extricates herself in real life from the half good-natured, half contemptuous ridicule which attends such a per- sonage in books, not only by her sweetness and gen- tleness, but by her genuine learning. Everybody is compelled to respect her. THE REALITY. 51 Another teacher is still beautiful at forty. She be- longs to a family in which the dower of every girl is beauty. As there is little tangible dower in dollars and cents in this family, and as she is the eldest daughter, her life has been crowded with work. All through her vacation she wonders how anybody ever gets time for school. Then the term begins, and she throws herself with the same earnestness into her work there. Early and late she is at her post ; and she wonders how any- body ever gets time to mend. There is pressing need for her at home all the time ; but then, if she did not teach, how would the boys ever go through college, or the girls have their music lessons? Being an ardent teacher, she loves her scholars, and is always ready to take them to an art exhibition or a symphony con- cert. Having an affectionate nature, she does not feel in vacation that her work is done when the bread is all made and the stockings are all mended. Her brothers find her a foe worthy of their steel at tennis, and her sisters a discreet and sympathetic confidante in their love affairs. She feathers an oar like one of the 'Var- sity crew, and rides a spirited horse. In short, she is the one person who never can be spared either in times of merrymaking or of sorrow. Of course she has worn herself out. Although there are no outward traces of a physical wreck, she is dan- gerously near it. She has a fund of good sense which 52 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. teaches her how to save herself when she can (though how seldom she can!), and this may pilot her safely through her perplexities. But if the break should come, she will not go about moaning. Her moral fibre will save her from being a burden, even when she is helpless. Being beautiful, and having a perception of the fitting in dress, possessing also those qualities which accom- pany gentle blood, she would always be an attractive figure ; but the firmness with which she treads her thorny pathway, and the smile which she wears when her feet are bleeding teach those who know her a re- spect akin to reverence. It is a pity that she must wear out. In this case no one is to blame for it, though usually the sacrifice of one means the selfishness of another. At all events, she has the satisfaction of feel- ing that she does not rust out. What becomes of the teachers when they are past work? Here I will offer only one portrait, — that of an old lady of seventy, who having taught most of her life, has retired to spend the remainder of her days in a quiet New England town noted for its cultivated so- ciety. Her calm face with its lines of thought, the distinction of her old-fashioned dress of the best and most durable fabrics and make, and the dignity of her bearing always strike even the stranger who meets her on the street. The sunny sweetness of her manners gives THE REALITY. 53 the real home feeling to those who visit her. She has a house of her own, — a rare possession for an unmarried woman. It was built by herself according to her own ideas and furnished to suit herself, with taste and re- finement. There are books everywhere, pictures here and there, a cosey corner by the bright wood-fire, and under the windows is a pretty garden. The friends who come to see her are soothed and invigorated by the tranquil, cultivated atmosphere of the place. And yet she lives alone ! Or rather, she is alone but for her housekeeper, a maiden lady almost as old as herself, and as typical an unmarried woman. The housekeeper is tall and angular, full of opinions which cannot be shaken, and with a conscience which often impels her to testify to her opinions out of season as well as in season. She is the kind of woman of whom novelists sometimes have a glimpse, though they seldom tell her story adequately, being satisfied with cataloguing her virtues of neatness, thoroughness, and devotion to her friends, while her eccentricities are made to fill whatever space is needed for low comedy. Yet this woman has a history, briefly summed up by her em- ployer in these words : " She has worked hard and commanded a high price for her work all her life, and she has never spent anything on herself. Now she is old and has not a penny." Moreover, she is a woman of intellect. As her school education was completed at 54 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. ten years old, and she has had no time to study since, she is not of course cultivated. But she likes to read, and looks upon the library of her mistress as equivalent to added wages. The books she selects are by no means the lightest on the shelves. But more than that : she thinks. Her strong, active brain is always poring over the problems of the origin and destiny of man. She cannot solve them; but who can? "Why is it," she asks, with pathetic solemnity, " that all the weeds will grow so easily in my garden, though I try to root them out, and that so many of my flowers die in spite of all my care?" Her mistress, whose fine, cultured brain was no stronger at the outset, has not found an answer in books, but she has learned, through a life by no means easy, the secret of serenity, and it sometimes seems as if she would be able to impart it to her sad- eyed handmaid. I cannot venture to take any more illustrations from among teachers, though it would be easy to find them. One rich woman of fifty has a charming home in the city, managed by a retinue of old family servants with manners that would put many society people to shame. Her house is always full of her attractive young nieces and nephews, so that she has no time to be lonely. This woman was a girl of nineteen when the Civil War broke out, — a beauty and a belle. When the first gun THE REALITY. 55 was fired on Sumter, the high-bred and spirited young men who had been her partners all winter were among the first to enlist in the army. Till then, it was hardly known that one of them was preferred above another ; but at this terrible crisis, when all spoke frankly, she became engaged to one in every way worthy of her. He went away the next day, and was killed within a month. Her friends thought that an engagement which had lasted only a few weeks could not influence her for a very long time. They sympathized with her, and expected her to be sad for a year or two ; and then they supposed she would choose again from among the many who loved her. But she never did. The re- lation between her and her dead lover had been perfect while it lasted, and she is so happy as to think it would have remained perfect through life ; and she is probably right. She has not given herself up to grief; she has simply thought of her lover as if he were still living, though in another world ; and it has been as impossible for her to think of another lover as if she were married. She is still lovely. Every motion is full of grace, and her sweet voice adds a fascination to all she says. Of course — since society women will submit to burdens — a large part of her valuable life has to be given up to calls and cards ; but still there is a margin, and in this margin she contrives to do hundreds of the " little, nameless, unremembered acts " which often tell so much 56 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. more powerfully in helping the poor than organized work does. Of course, it is an easy matter for her to send a check in aid of any deserving charity ; and this she does. She hears all the fine music and sees all the fine pictures in the city, and at her fireside there is al- ways a group of choice spirits who talk of the best things. Of course she goes abroad in the summer with a niece or two, making now the churches of Normandy her study, and now entering ardently into the Wagnerian opera at Bayreuth. She is both a just and a generous woman, and is also full of sweetness and love. She has no hobbies, she belongs to no societies, she reads no papers in public. No one less like the conventional old maid could be easily met with. Yet one character- istic of an old maid is believed to be aimlessness ; and this woman apparently has no special purpose in life, except indeed the great and earnest purpose to live like a Christian ! One attractive woman I know has chosen to be a nurse, and presides over a perfectly managed hospital. The fulness of her happy life comes partly from the satisfaction of relieving suffering, and partly from the respect and love given her in return. Another woman is a poet, and might have been an artist if anybody could ever have time to do two things. Most people would call her poor ; but she has the luxu- THE REALITY. 57 ries which wealth cannot buy. Her sitting-room is high up in a city apartment house, and that is the reason that the prospect from its windows is so enchanting. The clingy houses are so far off that they are seen only as thousands of shining lights, while beyond them is the blue ocean, and above them the sunset sky. The room itself is full of choice books and choicer pictures, because the friends of this woman are poets and artists who enrich the world, and it is but natural that they should give the work they love to the woman they revere. She is old in years, but with the freshness of eternal youth in her heart. Years cannot touch her. Love and truth, sincerity and simplicity attend upon hei. Life grows larger and sweeter as she grows older. A farmer's daughter, intending to be a teacher, lost her health, and then accepted the proposal of her min- ister's wife to help her about her housework. She identi- fied herself with the family, following them from parish to parish, sharing all their vicissitudes of fortune, and being always to them a trusted and valued friend. The family was never rich, and her wages could not be large ; yet this worker, having a real interest in the people and in the work she did for them, never thought of leaving her post ; and now, in growing old, she can look back on a life of solid, harmonious, connected work, with a feeling of dignity. Of a generous nature, the greatest pleasure 58 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. of her life has been to give away the larger part of her slender earnings, — sometimes to the missionaries, some- times to the poor, and sometimes to her friends. Her delight in preparing pretty and useful Christmas presents makes that the chief occupation of her life outside her daily routine, which includes not only tasks but plenty of reading. Perhaps she should have saved her money against the evil day which is to come ; but at all events she has lived her life, which she might not have done if she had believed a bank account essential. Most American women will not now go into families in this way, and for the good reason that most mistresses do not really respect those who serve them ; yet I can think of many women scattered about in thoughtful fami- lies, who do their work simply and thoroughly, whose neatness is true refinement, who are honourable and modest, and who have many quiet pleasures. These women do not seem restless nor unhappy, and they add in an unobtrusive way to the happiness of other people. A fair and gracious woman, whose tastes are all domestic, so that it seems almost cruel that she should not have been queen in her own home, lost her lover many years ago. An orphan, without brother or sister, above the immediate need of earning, yet hardly rich enough to establish an independent home, it might have been feared that she would have found no niche quite THE REALITY. 59 suited to her. But a loving heart is never without some- body to love. In caring for an old uncle and aunt, whose children are scattered over the world, she suc- ceeds in making sunshine in what might otherwise be a shady place. Here is a woman physician with a sweet, firm face. She spends her whole life in relieving suffering. She goes from the luxurious rooms of splendid houses, where her cheerful and sensible presence helps a morbid woman to hold her over-indulged nerves in check, to the crowded cellars and garrets of the poor, where her purity makes even the drunken and filthy loungers straighten them- selves up as she passes. She soothes little children, and finds a place of refuge for outcast women. All this is not charity, though she as gladly helps the poor as the rich. Accordingly, the poor have complete confidence in her : she comes to them because they have asked her to come for a definite service ; she might go as generously for the express purpose of doing them good, and altogether fail in her object. But her occupation gives her a per- sonal interest in the child whose back has been broken by being trodden upon in a drunken brawl, and in the girl who could not help going astray, because she lived in the room with a dozen other people. Her advice is sometimes taken, because it is advice that has been asked for. But whether it is acceptable or not, she can Co THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. relieve pain, and so go away comforted in spite of the dreadful sights she sees. Her fine character has a direct influence, too, in the stately homes she visits so unassumingly. There, too, her advice counts for some- thing, because the patient pays so high a fee for it ! She has scanty leisure ; but the little time she has is spent in a beautiful though simple home, where there are comfort and taste and harmonious colour, where there are books and music and pictures, — better still, where there are warm hearts. This woman is fair to see, and she likes to wear exquisite dresses. All her responsi- bility, and hard work, and knowledge of the degrading side of life have not destroyed the sparkle of her gay humour, which adds a grace to all she does and says. Here is another woman so fragile that one wonders how so weak a creature, without money or kindred, has found room to breathe in this hustling world. Yet the gentle radiance of her face shows that she has found life worth living. Perhaps her office may be best de- scribed in Miss Bremer's words : — "She belongs to that class of persons of whose existence a simple member of the sisterhood has thus expressed her- self: 'Sometimes it is as if one were everywhere, sometimes again it is as if one were nowhere.' This strange existence belongs in general to persons who, without belonging to fami- lies, are received into them for sociality, for help, for counsel and action, in pleasure and in need. . . . She may have THE REALITY. 6l her thoughts, her hand, her nose, in everything, and fore- most in everything, — but it must not be observed. Is the gentleman of the house in a bad humour ? Then is she pushed forward in the capacity of a lightning-conductor. . . . Has the lady the vapours? Then her presence is as necessary as the bottle of eau-de-Cologne. Have the daughters little wishes, plans, projects ? Then she is the speaking-trumpet through which they speak to deaf ears. If the children cry, then they send for her to pacify them. Will they not sleep ? She must tell them stories. . . . Does grand company come ? Is the house put in gala-array? Then she vanishes ; people know not where she is, no more than they know where the smoke which ascended up the chimney is gone ; but the works of her invisible presence cease not to betray her. ... It is the lot of the House Counsellor to prepare the useful and the agreeable, but to renounce the honour. If she can do this with stoical patience and resignation [in the case of the frail little Churchwoman I am describing, how- ever, I think we must substitute 'Christian' for 'stoical'], then her existence is often as interesting for herself as it is important to the family. It is true she must be humble and quiet, go softly through doors, and move with less noise than a fly." A great contrast to her is a dashing and efficient woman with an emphatic, cheerful voice, whose presence in various households is also eagerly welcomed, — partly, it must be owned, because she is so practically useful. There is no kind of work she does not do well and will- ingly, from cutting over old dresses to seasoning a gravy. But she is also welcomed gladly on account of her ex- cellent temper. It might be supposed that such an 62 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. active, well-balanced woman, too busy for idle fancies, would be sufficient to herself. That is not quite true, however. " Oh, dear me ! " she says, in her lively way, " of course we old maids should all be happier to be married ; but if the Lord has created more women than men, I don't know what is to be done. I don't know any better way than to make the best of it." One delicate little woman in the country, living on the rent of one-half of her neat cottage, finds scope for her powers in her luxuriant, fragrant garden. All summer she is sowing seeds, and weeding and pruning. The flowers grow up around her, vines hide the cottage, and the air is full of balm. In the winter her sitting-room is a garden. Her lavishness with her flowers has won the affection of every child in the village. Here is a great family of unmarried daughters, all so full of energy, so good-tempered, so fresh and bright, that one involuntarily wonders after the old fashion, how they can have been allowed to remain single. But then, we remember the famous Miss Pole, of " Cranford," who thought " it argued great natural credulity in a woman if she could not keep herself from being married." These sisters are doctors and musicians and teachers and artists, and there are always enough of them disengaged at once to make the old home- stead gay with vigorous life. THE REALITY. 63 I know two unpretending sisters who have earned a home for themselves by taking boarders. Their mort- gage is paid, and they are free women. They work still, but they can have guests in the house instead of board- ers. They are simple, earnest, energetic women, who have learned self-control from petty irritations, prudence and care from the necessity of making the ends meet, and thoughtfulness for others by having their own feel- ings so often hurt. They have learned the great science of cookery, if no other. They have read few books, but their experience of life has gone so deep that the best books have a meaning to them which would surprise many a woman who piques herself on her intelligence. Another quiet woman works at a trade which obliges her to live in a hermetically sealed room in the hottest weather. She looks a little pale and tired, but none the less lovable for that, and she might marry any day she would say the word. But no, she has her leisure hours which she can spend with her friends, and she says pleas- antly that she likes her work. It involves skill, and it pleases her to see how well she can do it. The room is close, no doubt ; but what lot is perfect ? What the inner life of all these women may be, no one can say. Many of them, no doubt, cherish a tender idealized memory in their hearts of some dead or lost friend, who is more to them than any daily 64 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. companion. Many a dull, gentle woman has this hid- den spring of poetry, which beautifies her life. When there has been no wrong on either side, such a memory of a hope is better than most fruition. There is to most women a charm in the belief that there is but one possible love for them in the universe, and all young girls believe it. It is doubtful whether, in the face of facts, many people past thirty can retain that belief, and it is by no means proved that it is the ideal belief; and yet the love of man and woman is certainly not like the great universal love, which nevertheless includes it. There is a personal charm which wins even when the pursuit of the loftiest common aims leaves one cold. A great passion not only swallows up the intellect, but it seems to be in a measure independent even of character and of beauty. It has rights of its own which must be respected whenever it does not conflict with the love of God. It may be true, in spite of logic and experience, that there are certain souls bound together by special ties in all worlds, although they may be separated by cir- cumstances, and that not even a failure in character on either side can destroy the necessary relationship be- tween them. Because it is not my own belief, am I sure it is a mistake? At all events, some women will always cling to it, and among these there will be some who have never seen even the dawn of a hope above their own horizon. THE REALITY. 6$ These examples of single lives are purposely chosen chiefly from the ranks of private women. It is true that many of the women are well known and influential in a very large circle ; but they are known directly by the widening of personal influence, and not through the newspapers. Thus they are more typical than their more famous sisters ; and most of us, I think, are oftener helped and encouraged by the spectacle of a rich and earnest life whose conditions are not very different from our own, than by the brilliant achieve- ments of one that is hopelessly out of reach. Besides this, the distinguished women, who are to be found about equally among the married and the single, are so well known and so much talked about that it is almost superfluous to mention them. If it were needful here to catalogue the single women who have accomplished great things, there would be no lack of material. From Joan of Arc as a military leader, and Queen Elizabeth as a ruler, to Miss Willard, enthusi- astically working for temperance, Jean Ingelow as a poet, Charlotte Cushman on the stage, and Professor Maria Mitchell holding an honoured place among sci- entists, they have made themselves felt everywhere. Perhaps they have had rather more to do than the married women in the department of modern educa- tion. The hundreds of boarding-schools which sprang up all over the United States, partly in consequence 5 66 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. of the impulse given by Mary Lyon, have oftener been presided over by single than by married women, who have done a distinct and recognized work, scarcely less important, though not carried so far as that of the women connected with women's colleges, among whom such names as those of Miss Annie Clough and Miss Helen Gladstone of Newnham will at once occur to everybody. Most of the pictures in this chapter are taken from among the women who either support themselves or have money enough to choose their own mode of life. But there is also a small and decreasing class of poor women who live in a straitened way in their own homes, with no definite employment except the daily drudgery of housekeeping. In such cases the narrow environment sometimes produces distortion of character. The " queer " women are often found in such circum- stances. There is no free development, and accord- ingly the result is often the typical " old maid." What we know of such a woman is, however, seldom the truth. W T e see only the husk. I remember when I was a girl I was once startled by discovering acciden- tally a beautiful deed which had been done by a wea- zened old woman, who had appeared to me so mean, so censorious, and so self-righteous that I had before thought her perfectly fair game. When I began to THE REALITY. 6 7 watch her more closely, I found that her meanness was the result of her giving away far more than she ought to have spared, that her censoriousness had been taken for granted, and that it was because of her self- abasement that her conscientiousness was so intrusive. But she was weazened and she was pinched, and we had all been laughing at her misfortunes ! It is peculiarly sad to see a girl who is attractive in youth, and who lives in the ease of moderate wealth, with the gifts and education which promise a certain position in the world, when she grows older without any definite occupation, especially if, when her parents die, she is left with so limited an income that she is obliged to forego all the little graceful acts and em- ployments which are an aim in themselves, and which can make such a fate beautiful. Such a girl is not usually to blame. It is not the custom of the family that the women should earn their living; she is not so trained that she can do it ; she is perhaps delicate in health, and it is impossible for her to adjust herself satisfactorily to changed conditions. If she had been married, all would have gone well. She would have been a gentle, merry wife and mother, and she would have entertained her friends charmingly. If she had been left with a fortune, she would have presided over an agreeable, hospitable, and lovely home. But how can a pinched life be beautiful? If several share it, 68 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. love makes the poorest condition rich ; but to be both poor and alone is narrowing indeed. Such women, at thirty-five or forty, are apt to look back on some very undesirable early lover whom they regarded with scorn in happier days, and wish they had known how they were going to feel later on : and if the lover were simply uncouth or dull or poor, perhaps they are not wrong. Though marriage without love is certainly fatal, and a woman of intellect should not dare to doom her- self to daily companionship with one who has no thoughts in common with her, yet an upright, kind- hearted man wears very well ; and it is perhaps unwise to cast off such a lover summarily, without taking pains to know him thoroughly. The difference between the present and the past generations of unmarried women is very striking, and even more so in reality than in appearance, since it might carelessly be supposed that the great contrast between the younger maiden ladies and those beyond middle age is entirely due to the difference of age ; whereas it is hardly probable that any large proportion of the younger women will ever be in the least like the old women of the present generation, because their early life has been entirely different. There can be no question that this fact is owing to the increase of freedom, accompanied of course by THE REALITY. 69 better physical conditions than those of the past, and by the new opportunities for education. That educa- tion is an important factor is proved by the sharp line of division between the college women and those of equal gifts who belong to the decade before them. The college women are less self-conscious, more vigor- ous, hold their powers much better in hand, and are far better fitted to their environment. Before women's colleges were established, it used to be said that " all American women who were educated were also morbid." But how seldom you see a morbid woman among col- lege graduates ! The women who fought their way to an education in the past did so under such diffi- culties, and found so little scope for their powers in their conventional world, that they were almost forced to be morbid. They could not help being self-con- scious, because they were denied any harmonious de- velopment, and were consequently always aware of their own inadequacy. The only way for them to earn a living was by teaching. Now, while a great many wo- men love teaching enthusiastically, a great many others do not ; and among those who love the work, a sense of insufficient preparation is enough to poison every hour in the schoolroom. In these days a woman teaches because she chooses the work, and in most cases such a woman has ample opportunity to prepare herself for her vocation. Of course she goes to school every morning with bright eyes and a quick step, and is JO THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. therefore a great contrast to the older woman, with her weary and heroic determination to do a hated duty. The older women were often, though by no means gen- erally, as good teachers as the younger, but with such expenditure of force in overcoming friction that their whole life was absorbed in the struggle. Within a few weeks two equally fine women have made two directly opposite exclamations to me. One said, " How dearly I love to teach ! " The other said, " I have taught twenty-five years, and every moment of the time under protest ! " No one believes this lady when she says this, because she is a wonderful teacher, who rouses great enthusiasm in her pupils. "How can you do a work you do not love, so well? " everybody asks. " Because it is my duty to teach, and I should be ashamed not to do it well," she says. The one who loves her work is young and fresh and sure of herself. She loves contact with people, espe- cially with children. She likes to plan a neat little scheme for bringing the truths of mathematics or the laws of language home to her pupils ; and, moreover, she has had a college education. The one who hates her work is as lovely, as refined, in many ways even more cultured, and has as warm a heart; but she is by nature a student, and not a teacher. She has origi- nal power; and she needs the quiet, uninterrupted time for investigation, which has always been denied her. She loves children, but not en masse. The con- THE REALITY. 71 stant clatter of thirty or forty children wearies her indescribably ; yet for special children her love goes so deep that it has proved the greatest blessing those children have ever known. The younger lady is origi- nal, too ; but her original work is directly upon human beings. She influences and helps every child in her school, and apparently without effort. There could not be a greater work ; but if the older woman had been allowed a natural life, I think she would have done something as great. How absurd that two women so different should be set precisely the same task ! But this has always been the case until the present genera- tion. It certainly is not to be desired that women should compete with men ; but till they were in a po- sition to do this, they could do nothing better. The power to earn our living by doing something for which we are fitted by nature is the first step toward the freedom which is working such wonders for us. It is seldom now that we hear the mournful cry of one of George Eliot's heroines, " God did a cruel thing when he made a woman." The single women I know between thirty and thirty- five are a delightful set, — fresh, happy, active, intelli- gent, humorous, and sympathetic, often pretty and usually well-dressed. We are sometimes exasperated because they seem too evenly developed. We dearly like a little imperfection in our loved ones. We would rather they should not be 72 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. " too bright and good For human nature's daily food." When we look on these radiant creatures, so at one with the "here and now," we sometimes wonder if the "divine discontent" which possessed the unmarried women twenty-five years ago was not the germ of a still higher life. Nevertheless, as most discontent is far from divine, I think we cannot seriously doubt that the change for the better has been immense. Shall I be accused of an untruthful optimism because I have omitted altogether that class of women who " pursue " a man? There are, I grieve to say, many such women, but they would not look upon themselves as women to whom this book is addressed ; and as they usually do succeed in their aim at last, do they really belong here ? I do not think I have chosen unfairly the representa- tives of the real unmarried women. Of course there are some odd, bitter, sharp single women, and in every class of human beings selfishness abounds. But am I not jus- tified in saying that unmarried women, at least those of America in the last half of the nineteenth century, rank as high both in worth and in charm as any men or women in the world ? Like everybody else, they have individual traits which are very amusing ; but to laugh at them as a class stamps one as conventional and .unobservant. THE REALITY. 73 Yet all these fine women are outside of the current of life. The race goes on without them. They certainly do a vast and noble work in the world, but their influ- ence on its development is a secondary influence. It seems almost as if their only chance of exerting any in- fluence at all lay in their making a direct effort, and that often under discouraging circumstances. But this is not altogether a misfortune. Rightly understood, it con- stitutes a definite demand upon them for a high char- acter, and I believe it is now so understood by most of these women. Those philosophers who theorize easily about the race as a whole, and think lightly of the claims of individual life either here or hereafter, would perhaps do well to consider the position of an unmarried woman. She is no doubt as much bound to sacrifice herself to the race as her married sister ; but her task is much harder, and the reason of her existing at all is much less clear. It is absolutely necessary for her to believe in individual re- sponsibility and development, both in this world and the next, in order even to guess at the reason for her crea- tion. She is forced in self-defence to accept the creed " That nothing walks with aimless feet ; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete." 74 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. IV. DEPENDENCE. IT takes an unmeasured love to make dependence bearable. Even then the bonds can hardly be worn without some chafing. For instance, a lady who had steadily refused a home of wealth and leisure from a richer friend, once said : " I love Helen enough to take anything from her ; but the trouble is, I don't always approve of her, so it would n't do for me to be in her debt." Most women in marrying submit to dependence. A few do so with open eyes and willingly ; but more do not realize what they are doing. In both cases, how- ever, the pain of dependence is usually relieved by love, — and more than that, this love is the woman's own choice. Such dependence must still often be bitter, but it is not like the dependence of the unmarried woman. At all events, marriage frees a woman from the control of anybody but her husband. Yet even in these days, with all the freedom American women enjoy, there is much tyranny exercised over the unmarried woman, though often good-naturedly and DEPENDENCE. 75 unintentionally. It is very hard to realize that a woman has a right to a life of her own. To be just, it must be owned that most women do not like to " stand upright in a realm of sand," like "a palm-tree." There is meaning in the worn metaphor of the " clinging ivy." The best of women would no doubt sacrifice their in- dependence without a tear, if they could anywhere find an unfailing human support. But they do not enjoy an apparent support which may sink under their weight, and they wish to have freedom in growing and twining. The ideas about women which find their way into print are still so conventional that I think we shall never be accurate in our estimate until we faithfully look about us, and ask what living women really are. Now, whatever may have been true in the past, must we not own that women in these days do wish for an indi- vidual life? Their purpose may be self-surrender to father, mother, husband, child, or friend, — it often seems as if it were so ; but even then, the woman wishes to choose to whom she will surrender herself. Can any reader point to one woman who is happy in being sac- rificed to other people, however numerous and complete her voluntary sacrifices may be ? Very well. Married women are supposed to have made their choice, though that may be an unwarranted assumption. But single women are often looked upon as puppets to be moved by their pastors and masters. ;6 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. "I am sixty- four," said a smiling old lady; "but my Aunt Hannah, who is seventy, cannot be reconciled to my management of my own house. She seems to think I am a giddy girl." Now, if this old lady had been married at twenty, I suppose her Aunt Hannah would very soon have retired from the field. At any rate, the young wife could have easily silenced her criticisms by sweetly saying that the master of the house approved of such and such ways. No dependence is so welcome to most of us as de- pendence on parents. Of course there are exceptions even to this rule. Some parents do not deserve their children's respect, and some are hard-hearted ; and then any kind of dependence upon them is a burden ; but in general, the love of father and mother is so full and free, their giving is such a pleasure, that we feel no weight, however much we receive from them. And then we have taken from them all our lives, long before we knew the name of gratitude. There is no wound to self-respect in being supported by our parents as long as they are able to care for us ; and we are glad to depend upon them for counsel and help. But there is a kind of dependence even upon parents which is irksome. Some parents expect the same obe- dience from a woman of thirty as from a child of ten. " I think," I once heard a lady say, as she was cutting out some garments, " that I shall not line the yokes of DEPENDENCE. 77 these night-dresses." She was a lady who had been for many years a successful teacher of unruly boys. She was renowned for her good judgment and common- sense. So far from being dependent upon her parents, they were dependent upon her. Yet her mother, who had always lined the yokes of night-dresses, looked up, smiling, and said, " Mind your mother, Lucy, and line the yokes." Lucy smiled too ; but she minded her mother, as she had been taught to do. Now, if such a suppression of judgment is required of a well-balanced woman of thirty who has gone out into the world and supported her family, what must we expect will be de- manded of one who stays at home and is supported from the parental purse? The elder daughter who leads a single life is a most delightful addition to the family group. Her father has his duties ; her mother hers. The brothers have their occupations which are sacred from interruption, the younger sisters are perhaps in school, but the eldest sister has no rights which anybody is bound to respect. She has nothing to do, and so she can do everything, from helping her father balance his accounts and en- gaging her mother's dressmaker to spinning tops for the children. I think such women are dearly loved in an honest, selfish way. It is charming to have some- body at hand to pick up all the stitches everybody else drops. And it is certainly very good discipline for any 78 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. girl, as well as excellent preparation for the thousand small sacrifices which marriage daily demands. Warm- hearted girls, who love their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters devotedly may even enjoy such a life for a while, but I do not think the enjoyment can last many years. The time comes when the girl wonders if it would not be more to the purpose to knit a stocking of her own. She is sometimes bold enough to fancy that the provoking stitches would not be so carelessly dropped, if the task of picking them up belonged to the heedless worker. The longer a woman leads this life of self- suppression the more unbearable it becomes to her; but to others it grows to be more and more a matter of course. It is harder and harder to break away from it. In such a case marriage is sometimes looked upon as a deliverance ; and that is an unfortunate view of it. If even with her father and mother a woman finds it hard to lead her own life, it must be still harder when she has a step-father or step-mother, and the difficulty is then aggravated by the natural but unjust conclusion on both sides that the fault is personal and not due to circumstances. A friend tells me of a beautiful young girl who lost her mother at sixteen. She was devotedly attached to her father ; and the moment she was allowed to leave school, she gave herself up to him with her whole heart. She kept his house perfectly, she entertained his friends, DEPENDENCE. 79 she read his books, she dressed to please him, and she was always ready to walk or drive with him, or, if he liked a quiet evening at home, to read or sing to him. So passed fifteen happy years. Living in the country, she saw nobody who tempted her to leave her father, and she never meant to leave him. But at that point the father married again. The step-mother was a fine woman, quite prepared to be a mother to the daughter. But could it be expected that such a daughter at thirty- one would wish for a new mother? She acknowledged, though of course with pain, that her father had a right to marry, and she tried to do justice to the good quali- ties of the wife ; but for herself her occupation was gone, her life had come to an abrupt pause. Circumstances were not so hard in her case as in many others. She was not poor, and she had a musical gift. She went quietly away to the city, where for some time she made a home with an unmarried friend and gave herself to music with the same zeal with which she had given her- self to a domestic life. In the end she married hap- pily; so I suppose the bitterness of her grief at her father's marriage must have been assuaged. But what if she had had no special gift, and what if she had been poor? Could she possibly have stayed at home without constant friction? And how could she have supported herself in any comfort elsewhere? I think most women would choose the independence at all costs; and yet So THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. it would not be pleasant to have it said, " She could not agree with her step-mother." Another young lady was really pleased because her mother made a second marriage. The mother and daughter had lived charmingly together for years on a very narrow income, and the step-father was not only a rich man, but good-tempered and agreeable. The daughter liked him, and thought life would be easier than before ; but as years went on, she found out her mistake. She had money enough, it is true ; but her generous benefactor never dreamed that she might want any freedom of life. Her time had to be at his command, her occupations such as he chose. Her companions and her opinions were also his choice rather than hers. He was an excellent man, and she was an excellent woman ; but he looked upon her as an opinionated old maid, and she looked upon him as her jailer. She sometimes fluttered her wings and tried to break away from her cage. She thought she should like to earn her own living, though she reflected with a shudder that she had no idea how to do it ; but the traditions of the step-father's family would not allow that. Any misery of dependence seemed better in that family than that a woman belonging to it should support herself. One wise man, about to marry a second time, settled ten thousand dollars on his unmarried daughter. He DEPENDENCE. 8 1 said he should like to have her stay at home, but that no one could foresee whether she and her step-mother would be quite happy together. The sense of freedom which both the women had in consequence of this arrangement resulted in making them ardent friends. A species of dependent independence which kind fathers in the past often bestowed on their daughters, consisted in leaving them a right in the homestead which descended to a brother. This is, I think, now less common. The friction when several adults of dif- ferent tastes and temperaments are thus compelled to live together is little appreciated by mere lookers-on. The fathers mean to do their best, and sometimes noth- ing else can be done. But probably there are fewer family quarrels when a definite division of the property is made, so that a woman does not forfeit her only means of support by choosing a home for herself. It is neither easy nor pleasant for most women to earn their living, but it is usually better than any alter- native open to an unmarried woman. Even when independent, so far as regards money, a single woman suffers from other forms of dependence. For a woman in society there seems absolutely no help. The mo- ment that she appears in public without the aegis of a married woman, she is looked upon as super- annuated, because it is not thought possible that a ,554-7 82 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. young lady should take care of herself. Some years ago I heard a group of charming girls declaiming loudly against the selfishness of a young married gentle- man of their acquaintance. I inquired what he had done to rouse their wrath. " Why, you see," said one, " he will not go to D.'s party. And if Mr. Snow does n't go, Mrs. Snow will not go ; and as Mrs. Snow was to chaperon us all, of course we shall all have to stay at home." This seemed reasonable enough at first. But among the girls was one who ought not to have been called a girl. She was past thirty, but both beautiful and attractive, so that she was in demand in society. She had been a high-minded and earnest young girl, and it certainly seemed that she must now be old enough to be an adequate chaperon for her companions. Just then the lamented Mrs. Snow came in, — a frivolous-looking young creature of about twenty. For propriety of conduct or force of character, she could not be compared to the older woman ; and yet the older woman felt that she could not go to a party except under the shelter of her wing. To have asserted herself would have involved one of two results, — she would either have been looked upon as altogether passee or as extremely eccentric. She was not ready to accept either judgment. We cannot altogether condemn the canon of society which decrees that a married woman, however young, DEPENDENCE. 83 is a suitable guardian for girls, since it is really true that marriage is in itself an education ; and many an older single woman, through simple innocence, might allow liberties which a married woman would be too wise to suffer. We must make the best of the world as we find it, and not insist that things are ideal merely because we wish they were. And yet, when Una, with her milk-white lamb, set out on her journey through the world, the king of beasts himself turned aside to defend her. The only sufficient guard for a girl — or for any one — lies in character. Rebecca, the Jewess, was able to defend herself effectually from Brian du Bois-Guilbert, when she seemed to be completely in his power. The walls of the mediaeval castle where she was a prisoner, could not be pierced by any cry for help ; but the certainty of the Templar that if he advanced a step farther his victim would throw herself from the window and be dashed to pieces, held him more securely at bay than if she had been attended by a dozen armed knights. I do not believe that the character of Rebecca is overdrawn, though it is cer- tainly unusual. We are often obliged to exchange poetry for prose, but at least we need not do so carelessly. We shall not unnecessarily exchange life for conventionalities, un- less we love conventionalities more than life. Yet a so- ciety girl is bound with such heavy chains of custom and 84 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. opinion, and it is so difficult for her to know the point at which obedience ceases to be a virtue, — for it is undoubtedly a great virtue, — that we must regard her dependence as a misfortune and not as a fault. Mar- ried women might help her by bringing about a change in public opinion, but she cannot help herself without being painfully misunderstood. A thoughtful girl who knew the shameful excesses in drinking of the young men in her set, resolved that at her coming-out party there should be no wine. Her family admitted that she was morally right, and that it was no prudish fancy of hers that champagne was becoming an appalling danger in that particular circle ; but they knew better than she did what fate awaited a girl who began her career by being " odd." " If she were a great beauty," said her father, anxiously, "we might risk it ; but she is only a simple, quiet girl. I should like to encourage her in doing this good thing ; and yet I look forward and feel as if she were con- demning herself to be an old maid ! " Think for a moment how the purity of a girl is guarded ! But for what ? That she may be given at last to some dissipated young man who would ridicule and despise her for making a stand against the fashion which had been his own ruin ! A girl must sometimes face the question whether she ought to bear pain for the sake of a larger life. Yet one who would grieve DEPENDENCE. 85 her father and mother by eccentricity must not lightly step aside from the beaten path. Often, too, she is in real need of the guidance society requires. And so her habits are formed and hardened. Marriage makes a sharp line of division between the fledglings and the birds, but what unmarried woman knows when the moment has come to put off girlhood? Who of us ever held a celebration on our thirtieth birthday, to show that henceforward we might be trusted to do our part in the world without the special oversight of a married woman? Yet most of us knew that the irresponsibility of girlhood was really over by the time we were twenty. There is something both beautiful and touching in the way girls cling to their girlhood. The instinct of reverence for those older and wiser than themselves ought to abide with them to old age ; but that is a different thing from a weak clinging to a conventional support, when they ought to be strengthening them- selves to stand alone. A woman, in marrying, satisfies the longing to depend on another by pledging herself in turn to give help to another; and when she has children, their entire dependence on her is a complete lesson in true self-reliance. She learns naturally her place in the long line between those above her who can guide her, and those below who must be guided by her. The same lesson is set for single women to learn, but the words are not so plainly written. SO THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. A discussion of this question which began and ended with society girls would be most inadequate, since society exists in such a microscopic corner of the world. Indeed, by far the majority of unmarried women are forced to be independent in a thousand ways which they would be only too glad to avoid. The cruelty of the situation is usually enhanced, however, by society traditions. A factory girl must go about alone after dark ; but her timidity and mortification are doubled by the knowledge that this is not considered the right thing for a lady to do. She seems to be proclaiming to every boor she meets, " I am poor and friendless ; I am helpless against rudeness." I do not see exactly how this can be changed. It is neither agreeable nor safe for a woman to go about by herself in lonely or dark places ; and simply because all cannot have pro- tection, it would be puerile to say that the custom of protecting those who can be cared for should be despised. But there are customs less rooted in na- ture, — at least at present, for some of them may have had a natural foundation in the past, — whose punc- tilious observance by the comfortable classes adds un- necessary bitterness to the cup of the poor. The small foot of the aristocratic Chinese girl seems to press thorns into the pathway of every poor Chinese girl who has to use her feet for walking. A woman's physical weakness makes some unwelcome DEPENDENCE. 87 dependence unavoidable. For example, it is hardly safe in most places even in the civilized world for a woman to live alone. Of course there are other and far better reasons why she ought not to live alone ; but this is suf- ficient to prevent her even trying the experiment at any time when the stress of circumstances may make it the only way of escape from intolerable dependence. It is not best that a man should live alone, either ; but when he has to choose between that and an unnatural life in the home of other people, he has no trouble in deciding what to do. A rich woman, with a retinue of servants, has another measure of freedom ; but if she is young, public opinion usually steps in to thwart her plans for a home after her own heart. Another cause of dependence is that, even now, women are looked upon as of a little less value than their brothers. In a poor family every nerve will be strained to give the boy a college education or a business train- ing. The girl might like the same preparation for life, and the parents may wish to give it to her ; but that would be very hard, and after all, they hope marriage will interpose in her behalf; so she receives little more than a domestic education. Perhaps this is what she most needs: but if she is to live a single life, this small outfit almost inevitably forces her into dependence. She usually has to be the superfluous member of somebody 83 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. else's family. She is not perhaps really superfluous, her services may be priceless, and she may be heartily loved ; but her position in the family is dangerously like that of a maid-of-all-work. Still, what can be done? If only one child can be educated, — I am speaking, of course, of the education which brings independence, since that which produces happiness and enlargement of the mind belongs equally to men and women, — should it not be the son? He must be self-sustaining, and all the more so if he marries ; while the daughter will probably marry, and if so, ought to be provided for. It is very hard, however, when well-to-do parents do not recognize the daughter's claim. FREEDOM. 89 V. FREEDOM. FREEDOM is a splendid blessing. Many a woman feels it to be an ample compensation for loneliness ; many an ill-mated wife looks with envy on the liberty of her unmarried sister. To be exempt from outward bonds is certainly something to be thankful for. But there is a law of liberty which often makes the married woman live and grow still more freely than one who re- mains single ; for there can be no free life without growth, and nothing nourishes the expanding human plant like love. A man whose feet are shackled cannot, of course, make much progress in the path of life, but the limits of the path itself help him to reach his goal. Suppose, then, we inquire how much freedom unmar- ried women really have, and how far it is a blessing, regarding these questions from another standpoint than that of the chapter on Dependence. A great many claims are made on unmarried women which would not be made upon them if they were mar- ried, simply on the ground that they have nothing to do. I heard a lady say a few days ago in reference to an unmarried friend : " I urged her to study medicine 90 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. whether she ever practised or not, because then her mar- ried sister would not telephone to her to pick up every pin that was dropped." It is an amiable weakness to yield to such claims ; still it is certainly a weakness, for it tends to fritter away one woman's life and at the same time to foster selfishness in everybody else. An unmarried woman on whom such claims are made can be free, but the price of freedom is courage. Is there, however, any truth in the popular notion that an unmarried woman ought to help the busy married women carry out their multifarious plans? Is there any reason why, of two sisters, the one who is single should be the one to give up her mode of life to care for, and perhaps support, the dependent members of the family, the old, the invalids, and the orphans, while the married sister has no such duty? Practically, I am inclined to think that the cares which seem to belong equally to all the brothers and sisters of a family do fall most frequently on the unmarried women, and that the same may often be said of the expenses, except in rich families where it is easy to share them. My conclusion may be wrong, but it has not been reached hastily ; and I believe that most unmarried women have some one dependent upon them for either care or sup- port, and often for both. So much for the fact. Ought this to be true ? It seems oftener more fitting that the care of parents should FREEDOM. 91 be given to the unmarried than to the married children. Most of us owe our parents more than we can ever re- pay ; but the duty of the unmarried to parents is increased by the fact that here they have a special power to fulfil their duty. There has been much cruel and unjust jest- ing about the mother-in-law. The mother-in-law is frequently — perhaps usually — a large-hearted and un- selfish woman who sincerely wishes to help her son's wife or her daughter's husband. Nevertheless, it must be ad- mitted that the presence of either a father-in-law or a mother-in-law in a family introduces an element which sometimes kindles strife. The ideas of one generation are never those of another, and with the best intentions on both sides, there is clashing. A married daughter may be willing to yield her own tastes and even some of her own convictions to her father or mother, but how can she yield even a little when she sees that she thus narrows the happiness of her husband or her children? Of course there are thousands of instances where it is right and well that the parents should live with the mar- ried children; and then all the family, from the oldest to the youngest, must cheerfully sacrifice many in- nocent tastes for the sake of the others, and by so doing the characters of all are ennobled and purified. But unnecessary sacrifices do not ennoble. Usually there is ample opportunity for unselfishness in a family which consists only of father, mother, and children. Any new Q2 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. member may easily disturb the harmony, especially one to whom either of the heads of the family has been subordinate. When the parents live with an unmarried daughter, the case is very different. She may or may not yield to them in all points ; but whether she does or not, no third person whose rights must be respected is involved. The question can be settled entirely by love and conscience. Further than this, every woman — and every man, too, only I am not speaking of men — has a deep need of some one near and dear to cherish. It is a reason for rejoicing to the unmarried sister that she has the right to lavish care on her parents ; while to the mar- ried sister who loves them as well, their personal care may be a source of perplexity. Of course, this is not a universal conclusion. One child who is married may have a home congenial in every way to the parents, and perhaps they would fit into it so perfectly that everybody would be the happier for their presence ; while a daughter who was sent out early to earn her living, and who has spent half her life among very different scenes and companions from those of her childhood, may have very little in common with her parents, even though she loves them and is thoroughly dutiful. And further, when the matter of support is to be con- sidered, the question is somewhat changed. Can it be FREEDOM. 93 right that a woman who is supporting herself should be called away from her work to take the personal care of others? It is sometimes necessary, but the call is often made when this cannot be said. Here is a concrete illustration. Suppose an old gentleman, with a small an- nuity and a pleasant home, loses his wife. All the children are married but one daughter, who is a teacher. Of course the father might give up his home and live with any one of the children ; but he does not like to do this, and it seems to everybody that the most agreeable arrange- ment would be for the teacher to come home. She does so, and spends the next ten or fifteen years in caring for her father. She enjoys this life, and is glad to feel that it is right. Then the father dies, and the annuity dies with him. The daughter is now thrown on her own resources too late in life to be able to work to any advantage. This is certainly so, in the very common case of a woman who is already between thirty-five and forty when she is called home. In the next ten years, methods of teach- ing change so much that even if she might still be a good teacher, nobody quite believes it, and she is thus stranded at forty-five or fifty, when she is, after all, still full of life, and forced into a position of unwelcome de- pendence for the remainder of her days. The brothers and sisters who were not quite ready to take care of their own father when they were younger, are now obliged, perhaps, to take care of the sister when they are older, 94 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN and may feel the burden more, and in the mean time, as the sister is still young enough to work, they cannot help feeling that somehow or other she could just as well earn her living ; while, if she cannot, they feel they have a claim on her for every trivial service. In a case like this, the daughter makes a great sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice of which no one takes account. The compen- sation is indeed ample. Because we cannot hope to be taken care of ourselves, is it no pleasure to take care of others, especially to shield the old age of one we love from toil and mortification? Most women make this sacrifice so gladly that they do not even know it to be a sacrifice, — they act with full freedom ; but has anybody a right to ask the sacrifice from them ? I hardly think so, and yet the cases are not rare in which a woman ought to ask it of herself. It is usually a duty as well as a privilege. The privilege rightly fills one's thought ; but it cannot be laid aside, as if it were merely a privilege. The married brothers and sisters would, however, un- questionably have a related duty. They ought year by year to make up the sum the teacher could have laid aside if she had continued her work, regarding it not as a gift, but as her due, except in case the parent has an equivalent property which can be bequeathed to the daughter who takes the care. But suppose a woman must continue to earn her living; then any personal care of others is almost be- FREEDOM. 95 yond her strength. Thousands of women undertake this, and their unselfish love does wonders ; but to overwork is added constant anxiety, and in the end comes a premature breaking down. When the break comes, there is no one to take care of the unmar- ried woman. A widow wears herself out in rearing her children, but in the end the children care for her. The unmarried woman, on the other hand, stands alone. This is also a strong reason why a single woman ought not to be expected to support anybody but herself. If she does not lay aside enough for her old age, she must be dependent on those too far removed from her to feel her dependence to be quite natural and right. If a woman could ordinarily earn as much as a man, of course it would be her duty to help in the support of dependents, whatever the risk to her own future ; but, actually, a man, even with a family to support, would not often be obliged to make such sacrifices in helping those beyond the circle as a woman must make. The duty of the married woman whose income is received entirely from her husband, is by no means clear ; and yet, it must be remembered that the brothers and sisters who marry do so to please themselves ; and has anybody a right to marry with the understanding that if the worst comes to the worst, the duties which one would have had in the event of remaining single are to be added to those which naturally fall on the sister who does remain single ? 96 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN While no rule can be made to fit all cases, it seems generally to be true that the support of the dependents of a family should fall on the men of the family, or, if that is not practicable, that it should be divided among all the brothers and sisters proportionately to their means. Further, in the case of invalid brothers and sisters, or orphan nephews and nieces, is not the duty of the mar- ried to give personal care as great as that of the single? The invalid or the child may, it is true, be a source of discord in the home, and the temperaments already existing there may be such as to justify one in objecting to any addition to the family ; nevertheless the authority of the father and mother would not be weakened nor the plan of life seriously altered by such an addition ; while the entire life of the unmarried woman would be changed if she had to devote herself to the care of a dependent. Circumstances may indeed make it better that the single woman should, after all, assume this care. No doubt any tie is a greater blessing than the absence of all ties ; and yet I believe, paradoxically, that an un- just burden is often laid on the single woman. Except in the case of parents, can any one have the slightest claim on her which would not hold equally if she were married? We are all bound " to do broad justice where we stand ; " and whether single or married, we must have that outgoing love which prompts to help everybody FREEDOM. 97 about us to the full measure of our ability. But it is not for others to judge of our ability. If we think we can better accomplish the end of our being by living a full life according to our own plans than by relinquish- ing them in favour of the plans of somebody else, we have the right to follow our judgment even if somebody else thinks it hard that one so free as we are should not run to help her in her own embarrassments. It may be — it probably will be — our duty to give up most of our cherished purposes for the sake of others ; but the giving up must be free, and not in response to a demand to stand and deliver. Here unmarried women are still practically bound, but they are absolutely free, though generally the best use they can make of their freedom is to give gladly what no one has a right to ask from them. The injustice of claims made upon them is often so great that it is pleasant to see a woman who resists them. Because one is not to have the happiness of a married life, is she to have no life of her own? Are other people to furnish her with duties and occupations, and is she to have nothing to say about what she shall do? There is, however, a very different side to this ques- tion. A high-spirited young woman, who found teach- ing intolerable, once said to me : " Oh ! what is the use of earning money just to keep myself alive ? How dif- 7 98 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. ferent I should feel if I were working to hold the family together ! " A woman asks herself, not what must I do, but what may I do ? She will not let others bind her with chains, but she will bind herself with the cords of love. The compensation for being free from the engrossing love of husband and children is that she has the privilege of spending herself for her parents, or her invalid brothers and sisters, or her orphan nephews and nieces. The unmarried aunt cheerfully pours out the savings of years to educate her nephew whose father is too poor to help him, and she enjoys his whole college career as much as he does himself. But would he be worth edu- cating if this arrangement had been his own proposal? It is the unspoken, unthought claims of others which should and do appeal most to the unmarried woman. But the great danger in resisting encroachments on our rights is that we may gradually settle into the belief that we have no duties ; yet we all have the duties next us. The most complete freedom frees us from ourselves. When duty ceases to be duty because we love it, we are entirely free. I was once touched by an anecdote told me about a sweet-faced woman who had just mar- ried a widower with a large family of turbulent boys. "What are you thinking of?" a friend asked her in consternation. " You will have to work day and night for them." " Would n't you work for those you loved? " FREEDOM. 99 asked the woman in reply. She married in this spirit, and the boys came at once under her spell. They loved her and helped her, and she made men of them all. She did work hard, but she worked freely. The married are as free in the best ways as the single. " The prison unto which we doom ourselves no prison is." But the single are free too. Knowing that no one can make a just demand upon us, leaves us free to use all our powers. And sometimes a woman knows that she has a special work to do. Without being a genius, she may be able to do that in art, or literature, or music, or medicine, or teaching, or nursing, which not only gives her high pleasure and completely develops her nature, but which is a greater blessing to others than any personal service she could render them. Of course, if the pinch comes, it is better for her to give up her career than for her married sister to neglect husband and children. Simply as a career it is not of much consequence. No career whose mainspring is ambition is worth fighting for. But it is worth while to use all our faculties in the best way ; and as this is what we usually try to do in the career we choose, we must not lightly give it up. There are some gentle souls who seem born to do unnoticed little services for everybody ; and as many busy married women sorely need their help, such women need not count their lives wasted, provided they help the right people. IOO THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. The danger is, they will help the tyrannical, who do not scruple to use them. Our beloved Miss Matty of u Cranford " says : " I did all I could to set Deborah at liberty ; for I knew I was good for little, and that my best work in the world was to do odd jobs quietly and set others at liberty." But Deborah was a single woman much better able to help Miss Matty than Miss Matty was to help her ; and it was Deborah's masterful dispo- sition which had at the outset prevented Miss Matty from having a home of her own. Nevertheless, of these two sisters, Miss Matty was most truly free. The service which we render from love is always free service. Those who insist on having their own way in everything are the true slaves, — slaves to their own passions, which are always the hardest of taskmasters. Inward freedom is never possible except to the large-hearted. But the outward freedom of any life depends principally on courage, secondarily on un- conventionally ; and so far as circumstances go, we must admit that money has more power in giving us freedom than we are at all willing to believe that it ought to have. On the whole, must we not come to the rather un- expected conclusion that unmarried women are neither more nor less free than the married, considered simply as the married. But a woman who is unhappily or FREEDOM. IOI unworthily married is indeed bound in a way that makes every single woman shudder. A woman may be tied to the most tyrannical father, the most insipid mother, the most miserly brother, the most exacting sister, or, delicate and timid herself, she may be called upon to support half-a-dozen feeble and querulous relatives ; and still she is an absolute mon- arch in comparison to the woman who is wrongly married. She is still essentially free, and there will always be hours when she will have a delicious and re- freshing sense of her freedom. Freedom is really menaced when a woman consents to a wrong marriage ; and no marriage is so far wrong as that in which the woman wishes herself to tyrannize. For one who marries with a low ideal, there is no hope except in the discipline she brings on herself, for that may rouse her otherwise dormant higher nature. In the mean time the single women who eagerly rec- ognize the claims justly made upon them both for love and work, and who firmly ignore all unjust claims, set the standard of a free, useful, and joyous life for the unmarried which will in time save many a weak sister from rushing foolishly into the prison-house of an un- suitable marriage. 102 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. VI. PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES. " npRANQUILLITY," says the author of " Thorn- -1- dale," " is to be obtained not by moderating all passions ; it is to be sought only by our delivering our- selves up to one. There is no garden virtue which can lie on beds of roses in indolence and security ; but there is a virtue to whose more enraptured gaze the wilder- ness becomes glad, and the desert blossoms as the rose." Most women feel this, and are not quite happy unless they are spending all their strength for some one person. This is seen in the unmarried as often as in the married. The absorbing love of one woman for another, or of a woman for a child, illustrates it. But if, as so often happens, we are not permitted to minister to the one friend — be it man, woman, or child — to whom exclusive devotion would be so easy, though sometimes, unfortunately, so narrowing, what is the opportunity which this experience opens to us? For we can hardly doubt that every special limitation bears with it a special opportunity. It certainly cannot PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES. 103 be that we have an opportunity for indolent indifference. It must be that when any heart has once been filled with unselfish love, though the flood may not flow in the channels we should choose for it, it must flow through other parched ways and bless other waste lives. We have then the opportunity to give large love to many, because we are not allowed to engross ourselves with one. Is it not true that single women, though missing the two closest relations of human beings, have greater op- portunities than other people for testing the value of all other relations in life? The daughter, for instance, who lives with her father and mother during her mature years, knows heights and depths in them which no girl, however loving, can have found out when, as a bride, she leaves the old home. The fancy in youth is apt to turn away from things near at hand. We feel the thorns in the roses we our- selves wear most quickly, and we sometimes throw the flowers away, thinking that the next we gather will not wound us. But when we have learned how to adjust our roses so that we see their colour and breathe their fragrance, while the thorns no longer pierce us, the very fact that they are ours makes them dearer. Some- times, it is true, the friction between relations grows with years ; but aside from the very exceptional cases where there is deliberate wrong- doing, this ought not 104 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. to be true. It would not be so, if we could form the habit of looking for the best in all, and ignoring foibles which, though irritating, are superficial. This I believe to be the meaning of a friend's remark that one of the great lessons of life is to learn to put up with our relations. But it is not, of course, for other people to teach us this lesson. I once knew a charming old gentleman, who had an only daughter. His dismay at her engage- ment was pathetically amusing. "You know," he ex- plained, " it was never my plan that Eloise should be married at all. I have formed her tastes, and she suits me exactly. We could have led an ideal life together." Eloise, however, did not think so, though she loved her father dearly ; and probably she was right in dancing merrily off with her gay young lover. A young lady endeavouring to comfort another for the loss of a lover, said, " Now you will be free to take care of your poor brother, and make a home for him." The "poor brother" was a fascinating, dissipated fellow, most injudiciously brought up, who needed nothing so much as the home his beautiful sister could make for him. But she turned pale at the suggestion, and drew her breath hard. "Perhaps that is to be my fate," she said ; "per- haps I am to be tied to Dan for life." Yet she loved him very tenderly, and was ready to make many sacrifices for him. If she ever had undertaken to make a home for PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES. 105 him, there is little doubt that her ardent nature would have found full opportunity to spend itself, and it is possible that she might have made a new man of him ; but it was certainly officious in her well-meaning friend to offer such a suggestion. It has sometimes occurred to me that sisters-in-law are obtuse in regard to their opportunities. The single woman has a great deal to learn from her sister-in-law, for a clear reason. However dearly a brother may love a sister, her faults are always more evident to him than the faults of other women, because he knows her so well ; and in choosing a wife he is most attracted by a woman of a different strain. Whatever the faults of the wife, her virtues are usually exactly those which the sis- ter needs most to cultivate. Of course married as well as single women miss their opportunities ; but the mis- sion of this volume is not to the married. Mr. Alfred Wallace, in a paper on " Human Selec- tion," published a year or two ago in the " Fortnightly," admitting that some of the most discouraging possibili- ties of Darwinism may be true, finds the remedy in the constantly increasing number of women of fine character and cultivated minds who will not marry inferior men. He thinks the present preponderance of women not likely to continue, so that in future women will have a larger choice than at present ; and he believes that all the signs point to their using their power so well that 106 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. marriage will be a far happier and better thing than is now common. Many thoughtful people who have had wide opportunities for observation declare that the average culture among women in the most progressive countries is already above that of men, though it is true that the number of great women is still very small. An Easterner going West, for instance, is often dismayed to find so few men in the cities intellectually fitted to associate with their wives and sisters. This would be appalling, if it were likely to last. Some predict that it will lead to the discontinuance of marriage, on the ground that men do not generally admire intellectual women ; but even if that is true, there is a level below which a culti- vated man will not sink in choosing a wife. And it is hardly possible that the present state of things should be more than a necessary phase of development. As a recent writer suggests, the cultivated women who do marry will see to it that their sons are not allowed to grow up uncultivated. Moreover, the many women who teach boys are having an appreciable influence on the standards of their pupils. A striking illustration of this is the surprising difference between the measures of the late King of Siam and the present one, due to the fact that this king was instructed by Mrs. Leonowens. The cause of the contrast between men and women seems to be mainly the requirements of business. Busi- ness was never so exacting as now, and devotion to it PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES 107 often reacts on a man's character and makes him inca- pable of using his opportunities for culture. It seems inevitable that there should be some change in economic conditions before long ; and here, even if women have not much direct influence, yet a large body of self- supporting women, to whom material things are valuable simply as the necessary foundation for the higher life, will insensibly leaven the whole community. In spend- ing the little money they earn themselves, they have occasion to choose every day between essentials and non-essentials. They are obliged to discriminate be- tween the conventionalities which have deep natural roots, and those which are artificial. This lesson can hardly be lost upon them ; and in fact, it seems already to have borne abundant fruit. And the social scales are very differently balanced in a country where indepen- dent educated women are common, from what they are in a country of ignorant and dependent women. It seems, then, that the body of unmarried women of to-day have a certain work before them which they are likely to do, though perhaps unconsciously. When women were altogether dependent on men, they had little power of choice. Now, the ability to take care of themselves makes it perfectly easy to choose a single life in place of any marriage which is not ideal. That high-minded women so often refuse family ties may not be for the immediate benefit of the world, yet it has an 108 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. educative influence which seems likely finally to raise the standard of marriage among men as well as women. And here it seems necessary to say a protesting word about the standards common among men, though in a book like this it is the faults of women which concern us most. I suppose we have all been painfully struck sometimes by finding that some man whose ideal in most respects is far higher than our own, still holds what seem to us low opinions about marriage. For instance, there is Lydgate in " Middlemarch," — an up- right man, with grand aims. We expect everything of him ; yet his first love is aptly described as the " divine cow," and his second is Rosamond Vincy. Rosamond shatters all his hopes of leading a large and usefu-1 life, and we pity him. Yet how can we help saying that he received exactly what he deserved? That he was de- ceived in Rosamond makes little difference, for he deceived himself. He did not love her for any high qualities he found or fancied in her ; he loved her for her beauty and her apparent deference to himself, which he was mistaken in believing indicated sweetness of character. Lydgate is the creation of George Eliot; but we have all been saddened by the sight of other Lydgates. Some of the very best of men still cling to the belief of Milton, that man was made " for God only," and that woman was made "for God in him." They do not care to have a woman develop her whole PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES. 109 nature, but only those parts which will make her cling more blindly to her husband, whatever his faults. High-minded women are so repelled by this attitude that some of them hardly recognize any real merit in men. A simply good woman shuts her eyes to the unpleasant truth, and offers herself up on the altar with devotion. An intellectual woman can hardly do this ; she will not give up her individuality to one who does not ask for the best in her. This is one reason why so many intellectual women stand alone. Of course they do so at their peril. A good man, full of truth and strength, is the most powerful help any woman can have in perfecting and enlarging her life. Even with the blemish on his character of disregarding the best in women, such a man may be worthy of profound respect as well as love ; and from a woman who loved him he might learn the lesson which would complete his life. But, alas ! the woman who could help him often repels him by her hostile attitude ; her anger at his misunder- standing of her nature disguises all her real sweetness, and the two are foes when they should be friends. It is only fair to say, after this arraignment of men, that the standards of men in America are higher than those in any other nation, and that every year we see a perceptible growth in their pure and chivalric regard for women. They may not be so careful to offer a woman a seat in a crowded car as they used to be, — 110 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. and I am sorry for this, not so much for the sake of women as for love of the old-time courtesy, — but I do not believe that any thoughtful man or woman will dis- pute the fact that every year men are more and more ashamed to offer women the dregs of a wasted life ; that there are more and more men who live lives of such purity and unselfishness that while they must uplift even the most trivial woman in their circle, the men them- selves feel a deeper and deeper need of a higher com- panionship than used to satisfy. Nevertheless, the majority of men do not yet ask for the best in women. In justice, however, I admit that most women do not ask for the best in men. Men and women do not apply the same standards to each other, but there is not much difference in the loftiness of the standards. There are probably as many noble and truthful men tied to petty women as there are sweet-natured women bound to selfish men. Neither men nor women can as yet be often said either to ask or to give the best in marriage. And however painful it may be for a woman to find she is not, after all, married to a hero, it must be far worse to realize that she her- self falls short in the marriage relation. Single women sometimes congratulate themselves that at least they have not been a disappointment to any one. Of course a very imperfect woman may demand per- fection in a husband ; and however magnificently she PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES. m may talk about her ideals, it is doubtful whether they are really as high as those of some humbler soul who gladly spends herself and is spent in the loving service of some man far inferior to her. I have heard of a woman who has no patience with George Eliot's Romola in her treatment of Tito. She always speaks of her as "that stuck-up Romola." Of course she is a married woman. Such a heroine as Romola appeals more surely to the unmarried, whose great happiness it is that they never feel it to be a possible duty to " grow coarse to sympathetic clay." A woman like Margaret, in Charles Dudley Warner's " Little Journey in the World," feels herself almost forced to shut her eyes to her hus- band's faults ; and in trying to believe in him whom she has sworn to honour, she loses her own soul. I suppose most single women have seen some such spectacle among their married friends. The wife is as lovely and decorous as when she was a girl, but she has modified her opinions, not because she has grown wiser, but because she cannot bear to condemn her husband. The opinion may be trivial in itself, — for instance, it may have to do only with the tariff or the suffrage, — but its burial is a kind of dishonesty, and its destruction a kind of murder. I believe that all single women should rejoice that no such compromise with truth is demanded of them. I once overheard some gentlemen talking in a railway- 112 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. car. One of them with a peculiarly clear and open countenance said heartily : " I am glad my profession is teaching. It is such clean work Nobody has a right to ask me to do a mean or underhand thing." Single women have the same reason for rejoicing. Here everything depends on the ideal in youth. The lover of Mr. Warner's beautiful Margaret is so charming that we cannot wonder he was irresistible. Still, he had no high aims, and we feel that the germ of decay must have been even in the fine Margaret at the outset to make her instant surrender to such a man possible. Yet we must always allow for the vagueness of purpose which characterizes most young people, unless they have been exceptionally situated. A delightful woman once said to me : " To tell you the truth, I suppose my sister and I should both have been married long ago, if we had not had such a splendid father. He and his friends have spoiled us for the young men we see who cannot compare in the least with them." It is a great protection to any girl to know one thoroughly noble man. While it would be presumptuous for any woman, knowing herself to be full of faults, to demand perfec- tion in a husband, the weakest has a right to ask of a man that his face shall be set towards the best. SUCCESS. 113 VII. SUCCESS. IT is not till a woman has put herself entirely outside the possibility of marriage that she will seriously consider what are the elements of a successful single life. Yet this is a very interesting question, the more so because any one who has to work under some ex- ceptional disadvantage may solve problems affecting the whole generation. A poor, weak woman working alone, who lives what all acknowledge to be a successful life, certainly indicates the way to a partial solution of some of the social questions agitating the civilized world, on the principle that every machine is as strong as its weakest part. The virtues which are indispensable to both the happiness and success of single women are of almost equal value to the young women who will finally marry. If we admit, as many of us do, that the best result of the discipline of our lives is to teach us love, we must remember that while those who marry have special help in learning this lesson, yet of all women in the world, the one who most needs to nourish love is the single woman who is so deadened by her daily struggle for 114 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. existence that she thinks she has no love to give, and who, rather than make the distinct effort necessary to go outside of herself, lets herself drop out of the sight and remembrance of everybody, and so misses the love she might otherwise receive. Another essential virtue is industry, — by which I mean something more than unceasing occupation. There must be perfect willingness to work, and this from the very outset. There are many of us who do work unremittingly from a sense of duty who yet have not the spirit of work. The proportion of such "un- gracious workers, though it seems now greatly decreas- ing, is, I think, larger among unmarried women than in any other class of human beings. This is for two reasons. One is, that the uncertainty in regard to mar- riage leads a great many young women to catch up any kind of work, believing it will not last many years, and to stumble along with a task for which they are unfitted, either by nature or education, blundering at the begin- ning, and never feeling it to be worth while to correct their blunders, until all is in hopeless confusion. An- other is, that until lately all women have been ham- pered by prejudice, and being confined to a few occu- pations, most of them have been compelled to do work for which they had no aptitude. Single women are not indolent as a class, and yet they are often very impatient to get through with their SUCCESS. U5 work. " Oh, dear me ! " sighed a young lady of twenty- two, " I am tired of supporting myself already. Yet I have only been at work two years, and I have a whole lifetime before me." She said this several years ago. But she soon had an opportunity to change her occu- pation, and now, at twenty-six, she is one of the hap- piest, as well as one of the busiest and most useful women I know. The fact is, work ought not to be simply work, al- though this sometimes seems inevitable. Work, to be fruitful, must be that expression of our best selves which we owe to the world in exchange for what it gives us. Since we receive so many material things whose pro- duction involves drudgery, we must be willing to con- tribute our quota of drudgery in return ; and there is drudgery even in writing a symphony. But it would be sad if a Beethoven should spend his life in teaching arithmetic, or if a boy who loved to follow the plough should become a clerk in the city. Most of us are forced to work for our living. We ought to be willing to do our share, and we ought to make a great effort to do the kind of work which we feel might be a pleasure as well as a duty. This will not always be possible. All who have artistic tastes cannot earn their living as artists. There will always be the discipline of discouragement and disappointment in every lot. But if we choose some work which we thor- Il6 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. oughly believe in, and which we are capable of doing, there will be daily compensation in it. Perhaps the young cannot understand this ; but unless the day means something to us, the life will be barren. Of course, great changes come to some of us, and a life that begins drearily ends merrily ; but usually the dull days lengthen into dull years. We must at the outset determine that each day shall be able to stand by itself, as distinctly good and worthy ; and to this end we must choose our work. How easy it is to say this, and how hard it is to do it ! How necessary it is to make the choice in youth, and how often we grow old before we even suspect we have the choice to make ! At all events, any attempt to shirk work reacts disas- trously upon ourselves. It is said there is much less fatigue in a ten-mile walk if the pedestrian starts with the intention of walking ten miles, than if, expecting to find a resting-place at the end of a mile, he is forced to go on for the remainder of the journey in uncer- tainty. The woman who decides at twenty to work faithfully as long as her powers last will be less over- worked in the end than the one who keeps hoping every year that something may " turn up " to deliver her from her task. The saving in the nervous strain is im- mense ; and beyond that, the intention of working all our lifetime makes us willing to give ourselves the necessary preparation for our work which in the end SUCCESS. 117 simplifies and improves it. Especially if we see clearly that we ought to work all our lives at an occupation we should not choose, we shall be more ready to consider what are our own faults which make our task so un- pleasant, and perhaps we shall then be able to correct them so early in life that we shall at last really enjoy what was once distasteful. Here is a suggestive passage on this subject from one of Charlotte Bronte's lately published letters : — " I have always been accustomed to think that the neces- sity of earning one's living is not, in itself, an evil, though I feel it may become a heavy evil if health fails, if em- ployment lacks, if the demand upon our efforts made by the weakness of others dependent upon us becomes greater than our strength. Both sons and daughters should early be inured to habits of independence and industry. A governess's lot is frequently, indeed, bitter, but its results are precious. The mind, feelings, and temper are subjected to discipline equally painful and priceless. I have known many who were unhappy as governesses, but scarcely one who, having undergone the ordeal, w 7 as not ultimately strengthened and improved, — made more enduring for her own afflictions, more considerate for the afflictions of others. . . . The girl who stays at home doing nothing is worse off than the worst paid drudge of a school. The list- lessness of idleness will infallibly degrade her nature. Lonely as I am, how should I be if Providence had not given me courage to adopt a career? ... As it is, some- thing like a hope and a motive sustain me still. I wish every woman in England had also a hope and a motive. Alas ! I fear there are many old maids who have neither." I 1 8 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN No one was ever better qualified to speak of "the painful but priceless " experience of a governess than Charlotte Bronte. If she said it was worth the cost, we may be sure it was. But in America, in this last decade of the century, matters stand a little differently. A great many kinds of special work are to be done which do not bring money, so that the well-to-do need never be without an object in life. This every single woman especially requires, whether she is rich or poor ; and if rich, she is really culpable if she undertakes any work without due care and training. To take these views of work demands courage, and courage is another virtue which a woman who is to lead a single life needs especially to cultivate. The faint heart seldom wins anything worth winning. A timid woman often seems to lack " charm " — that quality which Mr. Warner says is always wanting in a woman who does not know how to place the lights in a room — simply through her self-conciousness and self- distrust, though she may have the loving wish to make others comfortable, the perception of beauty in arrange- ment, and the intelligence necessary to carry out her ideas. She will not combine the efficiency and sweetness required to make her practically helpful, unless courage too is part of her equipment. Yet how glad we should all be to deserve the praise given to a famous New SUCCESS. 119 England woman : " Every motion she made gave com- fort to some one." This quality of character is a gift, and those who have it are sought after, and therefore usually married. But what an advantage it would be to a single woman ! Perhaps it cannot be cultivated ; still, there is always some hope of becoming what we consciously wish to be. A single woman must face loneliness, neglect, and often harshness and ridicule. If she is sensitive, she often feels herself to be such a target for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that her only safety seems to be in hiding herself from the world altogether. Who can blame her? Yet the women who have the courage to ignore circumstances and to go on modestly and bravely as if all were well instead of ill, are the happy women, and it may be the most useful, though I am not sure of this latter statement, because so many women who are outwardly crushed are of such untold value to others, after all. Courage to do her work, however distasteful, courage to choose the right work, courage to resist the encroach- ments of others, — all these forms of courage are essen- tial if a single woman wishes to lead a satisfactory life. Health is a requisite to the success of every man or woman ; but no invalid is so unfortunate as one who is unmarried, for whom no one is really bound to care. 120 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. It would be well for any young woman who is reckless about her health to take this fact into consideration, and fancy for a moment now and then what her condition will be after she loses her father and mother, if she should be weak and feeble. But such a dead-and-alive motive to cherish health as that is almost worse than no motive at all. The real truth is that we must live. Springing, abounding life is for most of us a right, and something better than a duty. Positive happiness and full powers for use belong to those who have so reverenced the body that it has be- come a perfect instrument to do the will of the mind and heart. The young girl has temptations to all kinds of frivoli- ties which will weaken the physical fibre ; but the dangers of the older, thoughtful woman are two, — overwork and worry. It is not easy to " consider the lilies," yet when we lift our tired eyes sometimes from our work and see the white coolness of the blossoms, we become aware that the best of life is given to us without our painful labour, and that the best work is never done till we are free from nervous hurry. And then we see a dim prom- ise of deliverance from anxiety. In drinking the re- freshing draught of the present we are strengthened for the hardest future, which, however, cannot possibly be as hard as it would have been without this refreshment. We are so afraid of suffering that we are willing to let SUCCESS. 12 1 ourselves deaden to it. Those who meet the " knife- edge " firmly must, it is true, bear the deep wound; but in the living, vigorous body, it heals, while in the feeble body it festers. Single women as a class, I fear, are too prone to the morbid, sensitive shrinking of which the final result is a dull, colourless, negative life. A sense of humour and a disposition to make light of annoyances sweetens any life, but especially one where the playful element is not supplied by children. The faculty of transmuting any little slight into a joke is especially to be commended. And then, though a single woman must make the most of the ties of family and friends, she can seldom escape many solitary hours ; and she must have resources within herself. Even if she does not excel in music or painting, the pursuit of these arts adds to her life. Hearing music and seeing pictures enlarge and illumi- nate the horizon. Beauty is necessary to life, to happi- ness, — almost to faith. But the simplest and cheapest pleasures are the best of all. The beauty of the world around us, whether blossoming with flowers or shining with snow, is free to all of us. Let me suggest to all lonely women the delight and vigour of an out-door life. All men and women stand in need of out- door beauty ; but certainly single women, whose home influences are sometimes so narrowing, have a peculiar need of it. 122 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. I often feel like applying to them the words of Belarius, in " Cymbeline," — " A goodly day not to keep house, with such Whose roof 's as low as oars." And further, there is the comfort of books, for all who have learned to use them. It is trite to say that books are our silent, uplifting, never-failing friends ; but how blessedly true ! If a lonely woman will learn to use them, half the battle of life will be won. INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 123 VIII. INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. THOUGH women are far freer to choose a single life now than ever before, it is still difficult to make it perfectly satisfactory ; because a chief source of happiness to a woman who has not the ordinary occupations of her sex will always be to do the work she is best suited to do, and to do it well, — while independence at least, and often wealth, are also the rewards of the right work rightly done. And this de- mands the most complete special training, such as is not yet within easy reach of most women. The obstacles in the way of fitting a woman thor- oughly for independence have been illustrated lately in the case of a young girl who wished to go to college. She and her twin-brother, who were orphans, having been brought up by an aunt in straitened circumstances, the only way to a college education open to them seemed to be by borrowing money. It was one of the few instances where borrowing seems both right and wise. They had inherited intellect from a long line of intellectual ancestors. The girl especially had an extra- 124 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. ordinary mind. She also had a noble character, and there could be no question that she both could and would use her education in the best way. At eighteen, her power as a writer was already so developed as to bring her some money. With a complete education she was sure to do work of unusual value, which she could hardly hope to do without it. It would have taken years for her to earn the money to go to college ; but all her teachers were convinced that, armed with a college education, she would be in a position to pay all she had borrowed in a year or two, at most. These facts were so well known to her friends that she had no idea there would be any difficulty in borrowing the small sum she thought necessary. Her brother, though he was by no means her equal intellectually, had not the slightest trouble in getting all the money he wanted. To her surprise and chagrin, however, nobody would lend her anything. She applied to one rich and gen- erous and cultivated friend after another, and they all said No. One or two even took the ground that a college education was a luxury as unsuitable for a girl in her situation as — let us say diamonds. Others said, in effect at least, "You are a charming girl, and will soon be married. You will have no need of a college degree. If you are in debt, it may delay your mar- riage." Others still, and these among the most tried and true of her friends, said plainly, " We should be INTELLECTUAL WOMEN 1 . I2 5 glad to help you if you were a boy, or even if you were a girl who seemed unlikely to marry. But you are now very attractive ; we are afraid college life will make you less so, and it may be the means of preventing your marrying at all. We cannot have that on our conscience." These little compliments could hardly lull the rising anger in the young maiden's breast. She smiled gently at them. "Suppose," she said demurely, "that I should make preparations to be married by carefully cherishing my present attractive ignorance ! And then, suppose I should n't be married, after all ! " In the end she did find help, though it took her six months to do what her brother had done in a day. Whether her advisers were right in supposing that she will be less fit for marriage at the end of her course or not, there is no doubt that if she remains unmarried she will be both happier and more useful in consequence of it. The friends who refused to help her were not narrow or thoughtless men. They were men of high aims and broad culture ; and their verdict on the vexed question of a woman's attractiveness cannot be disregarded. Most women whose opinion is worth considering, as well as a few thinkers among men, take the opposite view. Still, the evidence is strong that men in general suppose — and ought they not to know themselves, 126 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. at least? — that they are not attracted by a studious woman. This conviction reacts upon women ; and in their fear of what they may lose, they let slip their chances to fit themselves for a broad independence. And then, as our young friend said, " What if they are not married, after all ! " It is only fair to say, at this point, that when a man does demand intellectual com- panionship in a woman, he generally wants more than most women can give. This suggests the possibility that it is the hopelessness of finding real companionship which leads most men not to ask for any. Perhaps the higher education will effect something here. The question of a woman's education will have to be finally decided on grounds of absolute right; and all thought of expediency — even that expediency which involves a high and helpful love — will have to be put aside. If a woman is a better woman because of her education, she must be educated, whether her chances for marriage are thereby imperilled or not. If she is a better woman without the education than with it, then she should not have it, even if her chances of inde- pendence and happiness in a single life are thereby destroyed. It is almost a truism that intellectual education alone does not improve either men or women. As Emerson suggests, it is better that a bad man should have only his hands to help him carry out his evil designs, than INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 127 that he should be furnished with modern machinery. It has been said of Napoleon that he was not a worse man than many others, but that his powerful intellect multiplied the ill his low motives wrought. Looking at it in this light, education ought to make both men and women better. If it does not, it is because the moral development is sacrificed to the intellectual. Perhaps this is not often the case ; the head and heart usually develop together. But there is a danger in an intellectual life which, though it does not really affect women more than men, seems to do so on the surface. I mean that an intellectual life is some- times allowed to become all-absorbing, and make us indifferent to the claims of others, — especially to the petty claims which are so exhausting and annoying. Now, men have shirked these small claims for many cen- turies, on the plea that they could not meet them with- out neglecting more important duties ; and their plea must be allowed in part, because the difference in the physical powers of men and women does make a nat- ural division of duties, by which the smaller ones must usually fall to women, however little we may like to own it. The distinction is not so broad as it is supposed to be, however. It is really as wrong for an absent- minded German professor to forget to order the family dinner when he passes the market, as it would be for his wife to forget to see that it was cooked properly. 128 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. Yet if both Professor and Professorin had forgotten their duties because they were absorbed in studying Sanskrit, how differently their failures would be regarded ! Every- body would speak of the Professor's lapse with an indul- gent smile ; but his wife would be accounted unwomanly. She would be unwomanly, and it is quite true he would not be unmanly ; but this is simply because men so long ago shifted their small responsibilities to the shoulders of women that the word manly does not mean all it ought to mean. Just in the same way a woman would not be called unwomanly who fainted at the sight of a mouse, because womanly does not mean all it ought. The woman who fainted would be silly, and the man who forgot his errand would be so thoughtless as to be unkind. Now, absorption in study is in itself as wrong for a man as for a woman ; and yet it shows a more callous nature in a woman than in a man, for this reason : in the process of evolution, certain qualities which go to make up a fine character have gradually been gained by women, and certain other qualities by men. Most women at the present day who have a high moral sense are ready to interrupt their favourite pursuits at any moment when others have a real need of their help, while most men still feel that their own pursuits are of paramount importance. Therefore, when a woman allows herself the latitude of a man in this respect, she INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 129 gives up the ground which women have already gained by years of painful struggle with their own selfishness. Even if at the outset they were forced into unselfishness by the physical superiority of men, yet the fact remains that one form of unselfishness is more common among women than among men. No intellectual progress could compensate for a backward step here. More- over, the beautiful quality of thoughtfulness which leads a woman to be constantly devising surprises of help and pleasure for others may possibly owe much of its devel- opment to the habit of living from moment to moment, without any definite plan of life. Yet any high degree of intellectual excellence demands continued study. Nobody can do great intellectual work in bits, simply by faithfully using the odd minutes. I suppose that this is why men vaguely fear that when a woman begins to study she may lose those fine qualities which she has won by generations of discipline. A woman ought to fear this for herself. She must be on her guard against a foe whose form is that of an angel of light. Her dilemma is often a serious one. Shall she give up something grand and beautiful in itself, something which would make her whole life delightful and useful, for the sake of satisfying the thousand little claims on her arising every day? She certainly must, if the claims are real ; she certainly must not, if they are unjust claims. Here is the crucial point. How can she decide, when 9 130 T11E UNMARRIED WOMAN. all her inclinations so heavily weight one of the scale- pans of the balance? Good women, in whom, however, the intellect predominates over the moral nature, will not give up enough. Women equally intellectual, in whom the moral nature — or perhaps we should say the emotional nature — predominates, usually make the mistake of giving up too much. Men have learned to rely so much on the certainty that good women will give up their individuality, that very few even of the best men are quite conscious when they make unjust de- mands on women. Their dread of the effect of the in- tellectual development of women is partly well-founded; for there is a real danger, as I have shown. But with- out knowing it, I think men are also unwilling to face the probability that a woman who is interested in a noble intellectual pursuit will not think it her duty, far less a sentimental privilege, to forsake it in order to satisfy unjust claims. I have had the happiness of knowing a few thoroughly unselfish men, and the mis- fortune of knowing some selfish women, — indeed, the virtue of unselfishness is not so unevenly divided be- tween the sexes as we sometimes fancy ; but the kind of unselfishness which leads to the constant sacrifice of our aims and occupations for the sake of others is, I think, far more distinctive of women than of men. Now, the more ready women are to make unjust sacri- fices, the greater will always be the demand upon them, INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 131 — even, I am sorry to say, from men otherwise high- minded. But when the moral and the intellectual de- velopment of women keep pace perfectly, the result of education will be this, — women will joyfully give up many things they now give up grudgingly, because they will feel that fame or fortune or even mental exhilara- tion cannot be weighed in the balances a moment against the delight of doing a genuine duty, especially in the service of one they love ; and on the other hand, they will courteously and firmly refuse to yield an inch of ground unjustly demanded of them. As moral in- struction is less systematically provided for us than intel- lectual, all girls who are striving for a higher education must themselves be vigilant lest the tree of knowledge overshadow and stunt the growth of the tree of love. I rejoice to say that the college-bred women of the time do already show us something of the embodiment of the ideal. It is possible, though apparently not true, that they do not marry as frequently as others. But if true now, there is no real reason why it should continue to be so ; and as a preparation for a single life, a college course is of untold value, — for whatever a woman's occupation, it will add meaning to every hour of leisure, while it is of the greatest help in her choice of an occupation. The late John B. Gough used to tell an anecdote of an orator who, wildly gesticulating, delivered the 132 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. following opinion : " In the city and in the country, in the street and by the way, in the valley and on the mountain, in the garden and in the desert, on the farm and in the factory, among the rich and among the poor, there is a great difference in people." This seemed a very commonplace mouse to be brought forth by such a mountain of oratory ; but, after all, can we put too great emphasis on the differences of people? Half the usefulness and enjoyment of life, not directly connected with character, comes from the opportunity to do the kind of work for which Nature has fitted us. Now, married women in general are called upon to do two or three kinds of work to the exclusion of almost everything else, although this century has brought an enlarged life even to the married, and the next century will probably provide a greater choice of occupations for them. But single women, if not too closely pressed by poverty, can consult their own powers, and follow congenial lines of work. Moreover, they can perse- vere in one direction till they reach a definite end, — for, while married women as a rule may be said to work "by the day," single women can carry one kind of work over from one day to another, till they achieve a solid result. It has not always been so. In the past, when all women were restricted in their choice of work, the larger opportunities were found among the married. INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 133 Lucy Smith says, suggestively, in speaking of marriage : "For one case of real sympathy of heart and soul, there are at least five, I should say, where the fuller life is the real attraction. There is a better time com- ing. I shall not see it, but I am glad to have seen its dawn." This was said in 1869. The inspiring sense of having some special gift which lays upon us the duty of performing some special ser- vice, and the consciousness that our greatest happiness depends on our rendering that service, are now almost universal among women who do not have to work simply for dear life. The educating influence of mar- riage is so great that the married women accomplish more in some directions — notably, I think, in litera- ture — than single women can; but single women in this decade have more freedom, and therefore, if they choose, more time, to give to any work they have un- dertaken; and they are beginning to feel the glow of satisfaction which always comes when we have done anything thoroughly. Sometimes the responsibility of using time and freedom aright is too deeply felt. A woman with the artist's eye or the musician's touch will spend all her inheritance and all her strength in learning the technique of her craft ; and just at the moment she sees the dawn of success, she falls a victim to nervous prostration. Henceforth, since life cannot be put to the intended uses, she thinks it has no uses 134 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. at all. One of the last strongholds of selfishness is the idea that it is praiseworthy to overwork in any self- chosen task. It does often seem as if God himself had set the task which demands overwork. If that is really true, the spirit will be able to endure with forti- tude when the body at last gives way; but if there has been the taint of ambition in our unremitting efforts to accomplish anything, however good the object may be in itself, that same taint makes our failure un- bearable. It is not pleasant to hear any woman say that because she cannot be an artist or a musician or an author or an inventor, therefore life is not worth living. " You are going to be an artist, I hear," said a lady to a fine young art-student. " I don't know about that," replied the girl, frankly. " I am going to do my best. If my pictures prove me an artist, I shall be glad." It seems to me this is the true attitude. I know a woman of great and varied powers. In science, in literature, in art, and in political economy she has shown such capacity that her friends feel that she might have been distinguished in any of these directions had she possessed good health. Delicate as she is, she has done more intellectual work than most strong women do. In her girlhood she accomplished so much in cryptogamic botany that an old professor of that science left her at his death all his books and INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 135 specimens, feeling that he knew no one else so likely to use them to great ends, since she had both capacity and will. When the break in her constitution came, she felt almost as if it were wrong for her to have these priceless treasures which she could not fully use, and so she was eager to share them with all who could appre- ciate their value. She did not spoil them by dividing them, knowing that they ought to be kept together till she could find some one able to use them as she would have done ; but she showed them freely to amateurs as well as to scientists, and she taught every one, who was willing to learn, how to take the first difficult steps in the way which would lead to their comprehension. There were not half-a-dozen people in the State who were competent to use the specimens, but she felt such a responsibility for the gift that the circle of those who could make a partial use of them was greatly enlarged. She, too, I think, looked truthfully and nobly at her opportunities. One of the great problems of the age is how to do the work of the specialist without sacrificing something more vital ; and it seems to me that single women have unusual opportunities to help in its solution, since so many of them are free from the personal ties involving duties which must always take precedence of intellectual work. The fundamental principle which helps us to discriminate between conflicting duties of this nature 136 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. is that we do our special work not for ourselves alone, but as our share in blessing the world. Bearing this in mind, how can we fail to give the " cup of cold water " when it is needed, even if we have to interrupt our examination of the hydrospires of the Blastoids to do it? And on the other hand, how can we fail to pursue our investigations of the hydrospires serenely when some selfish and indolent person (who is, in fact, usually one's self) demands some preposterous service of us which might better be left undone? The special work blesses a thousand strangers. Think of the help and courage and inspiration the Boston Symphony Orchestra give by their perfect playing ! The listeners do not perhaps know the names of a dozen of the musicians, and yet each firm hand and delicate ear adds to the overwhelming effect. Not a second violin, nor a trombone, nor an oboe can be spared from that marvellous web of sound. Every one of those men must be a master, but his part must be subordinate to the whole, or the rich harmony is lost. They say that every violin in the orchestra might be a soloist ; but if every one insisted on playing only solos, where would be the accompaniment without which the concerto would have no depth nor meaning? I remem- ber once sitting where I could watch the back of the stage, and that my interest was roused by a musician who seemed to have nothing to do. He sat quietly and INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 137 easily attentive to every note through almost three movements of the symphony. Then, as quietly and easily, he took up the cymbals, and, at the moment of climax, he struck them just once with that firm vibration which showed that he, too, was a master. After that, he went away. Perhaps no one else in the audience noticed him, and perhaps sometimes he may have wished that he had a more conspicuous part in the symphony. Nevertheless, the climax could not have been reached without him. The perfect fruit of specialization in music or art or literature gives such high pleasure, its beauty gives such happiness, that we must believe it is worth more than the every-day blundering good-natured work which is, after all, the best that most of us, with our hap-hazard training, can accomplish, although we must cling to the belief that motive is more than achievement. The giving of the cup of cold water moment by moment is not enough, though most of us fail to do even that. The moments must be linked together. It is not enough to walk, we must climb. The great work must be done, but oh, how ? Not by forgetting the cup of cold water. The younger single women in this half-century are set apart almost as priestesses of old to answer this ques- tion. The older generation of women were too nervous about what they called their "work." They did it, not perhaps quite for their own sake, but with too much 138 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. thought of themselves and the impression they made. They did not stand firmly enough on their feet, and they were not strong enough to fly. The ancient Greeks, not being yet awake to the meaning of love, produced perfect beauty, because of their unwavering aim. So with many great artists. They can watch a death-struggle for art's sake, and are not unnerved by sympathy with the sufferer. Then when men of the Puritan type discover that there is something better than art, even beauty itself is counted worthless. Just now the world, with all its hideous jangling, seems to be learning the lesson of love as never before ; and with love will come a return of beauty. The tense nerves of the women of the middle of this century, strained to the point of breaking in the deter- mination to do great things, made any beautiful work impossible. The lazy, artistic — I am afraid we must add, selfish — temperament conquered in every contest for beauty ; the light touch, the flexible voice, the charming witticism, the graceful motion all belonged to those whose nerves were unstrained, and whose actions were easy and natural. How unjust this seemed to the workers with a high purpose ! But if the time ever comes when love is so abounding as to swallow up the high sense of duty which is the next best thing to love, then the nerves will be firm without being INTELLECTUAL WOMEN. 139 strained, industry will be something very different from overwork, there will be ease and unconsciousness which is necessary to all beauty ; but with it such earnestness and depth that the work done will be far above the level of that accomplished by mere artistic laziness, and, to adapt the words of a friend, when our lives cease to be tense, they may be worthily intense. I say all this will be so ; but it is yet to be proved experimentally. Most of us have been sometimes paralyzed by discover- ing that a moral purpose was so at war with an artistic aim that we have been ready to predict failure for every friend aspiring to an artistic career who did not thoroughly believe in art for art's sake with utter in- difference to any moral results. Yet how can we help cherishing the feeling that what we see ought to be true really is true ? At all events, here is a problem set for the free women of our time to help in solving, and here probably is a great opportunity to do a new and lovely work ; that is, planting the germ of love in the soil of the intellect, to bring forth fruits worthy of the union. 140 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. IX. BUSINESS WOMEN. V T THAT is the effect of a business life on a woman's » » character? It is excellent, Sorosis says, for the woman who finally marries. Sorosis evidently thinks that a woman cannot be spoiled, or that if she can be, she will not be married at all. No doubt Sorosis is right. A married woman has such scope for the play of virtues which get little exercise among single women that a business training simply proves the necessary balance-wheel. But how is it when a woman gives her life to business ? The business women I know are a fine set. There is one charming little lady who presides over a variety store in a village. She is neat and trim and cheerful, she has a pleasant word for every one, she takes a sin- cere interest in supplying the needs of every customer, and I suppose she is building up an agreeable little fortune. She must be worn out when she locks her door at nine o'clock in the evening and turns home- ward ; but her bright spirit does not desert her even then, and she is the light of the home where her par- ents still live. BUSINESS WOMEN. 141 There is another who for twenty-five years has been at the head of a department in a great retail store. She has bought and sold and bargained and kept accounts till it seems as if she must have become a mere calcu- lating machine. She has seen the worst side of human nature, — the side we present when we haggle with one another, trying to buy cheap and sell dear. But through all she has kept a large, generous heart, which acts on the impulse to do a kindness without stopping to think of results. Her purse, which is well filled, is always open to the needy. Cheerful and upright, she wins the re- spect of even those who are trying to beat down her prices. Barter with her becomes a merry game. How can we make the most of these miscellaneous goods for both the buyer and the seller? Her adversary finally discovers himself good-naturedly joining hands with her for the common good. Another pale little woman has stood behind the counter for thirty years. She did not, alas ! choose this work at the outset, and it has been very painful. But she has made it a means of expressing a high character, full of love for the beautiful. All the ladies in town can rely on her judgment in the selection of laces and rib- bons. Her patience and good-will are unfailing, even when her head is aching and she can hardly stand. She has found a niche for a tiny vase, and every day it holds a fresh flower, a pink or a rose or a geranium from 142 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. her little window-garden. You could hardly believe that the beauty and fragrance of one flower could do so much to cheer and sweeten the day of the salesgirls at that counter as it really does. But she loves the flower so much herself, and looks at it and thinks of it so often that the girls look at it too, and it gives them refresh- ment after many an irritating passage-at-arms with a customer, for it turns the current of their thoughts. Once in her life this woman saved money enough to spend a week at the White Mountains. " I will lift up mine eyes to the hills," she said, " from whence cometh my strength." Every picture of that bright week is still vivid. It has never been effaced by new pictures, and she has dwelt lovingly upon it till it is part of herself. Another woman — a rich woman — goes daily to her uncle's counting-house to learn thorough business ways. She is prompt and accurate and thoughtful in the use of money. She has learned that even a large fortune does not excuse one for idle expenditures, and her wealth is a blessing in her hands. She has also come into unconventional relations with human beings, and has learned by experience that worth consists in what we are rather than in what we have. How many hundreds of women have occasion every year to be grateful for the gentle, well-bred saleswomen at Hovey's dry-goods store in Boston, who serve them BUSINESS WOMEN. 143 so politely and intelligently ! " Every one of them is a lady," says a friend, enthusiastically. A woman who has worked half her life in a factory, who is still poor and now growing old, keeps a few chickens, and ekes out her scanty income by selling eggs. Her lot has been very hard. It fell to her to support, not her own father but her step- father, and a brood of his children who were no kith and kin of hers. She did all this cheerfully, and her gentle courage does not fail her even in these troublous days. She does not mean to go to the almshouse, though, if her own toiling hands can ward off that fate. Still she says it is a pleasant house, standing on a hill, overlooking the sea. " If I had not done my best," she says, " of course I could never bear the shame of going there. But now, if my strength fails, I shall feel that I have earned the rest." In the mean time her sunny face is welcome everywhere. She gives, from a full heart, sympathy, work, and care ; and how small a thing is the giving of money in comparison ! If we were to judge by examples like these, we might say that a business life was a desirable one ; and thus far it does seem to have proved a blessing to women. It has given them independence, useful occupation, and to those who have business capacity, a chance denied to most women who work for wages to place themselves 144 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. beyond want. "But it must be remembered that women have not yet often chosen a business life ; they have undertaken it because of the necessity of earning a living. If business should ever become a passion with women as with many men, it would degrade them even more than it does men, because they have not the ex- cuse of centuries of training in the doctrine that it is always a merit to make a good bargain for ourselves. I have known some sorrowful instances of lovely and large-hearted young girls who adopted a business life and became so absorbed in it that, though still ready for great sacrifices, they were entirely oblivious to all the small courtesies which make so much difference in the daily happiness of one's companions. So far as I can judge, a business life does squeeze the sweetness out of a woman oftener than an intellectual life does ; prob- ably because it is merely a means to an end, and does not in itself tend to enlarge or ennoble the character, while it still demands constant attention. Of course any business pursued for the sake of helping the world is worth doing for its own sake. And there are also many byways of business, beautiful and useful in them- selves. The cultivation of flowers for decoration and for the making of perfumes which is now being carried on so extensively by women in California is of this nature. The enterprise of a Boston woman who takes care of children by the day or hour (at fifteen cents an hour BUSINESS WOMEN. 145 during the daytime, and twenty cents an hour evenings and Sundays), thus affording many tired mothers relief, is another illustration of such work. But when a woman engages in any business which she would not do except for the money it brings, the occu- pation, per se, is of no use to her. If she ought to earn the money, then her work does develop her character ; but there is no virtue in simply wishing to get rich, and no woman can plunge into the competition necessary to get rich, without running the risk of crowding out every- thing which makes life worth living. As a matter of fact, however, most business women are forced into their work by either their own necessities, or those of others, so that any criticism upon them is almost cruel. If a salesgirl who has stood all day at a counter is too tired for the little amenities of life in the evoning, it certainly is not her fault ; and if she could be delivered from the hard work, there is no reason why she should not develop into the most charming of women. If she sees her way open to a little business on her own ac- count where she thinks she can earn more money under pleasanter conditions, it would be imbecile to neglect her opportunity. There is no real reason why she should ever pause in a prosperous career which does not apply with as much force to every business man. And whatever the snares of great riches may be, a little money certainly lubricates and expands life so percep- 10 146 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. tibly that it cannot be regarded with indifference even by the most philosophical among us ; while to those who stand alone in the world, it adds a special grace of dignity which they can ill afford to spare, to say nothing of its mission in soothing the anxieties attending the old age of those who have no children to care for them. Within certain limits, money is so good that we must rejoice that avenues of business are now open for women to accumulate it. And yet it is true that when one's whole mind is set on making money, and all one's thoughts are given to the state of the market, there will be as little room left for the best things as in the life of a salesgirl. A woman's early life as a salesgirl may have been heroic because she bravely faced necessity ; while her later life as an independent business woman may be merely sordid because she sacrifices herself for a sordid object. This has not yet, however, proved to be the case with many women. In choosing a business life there are three points to be considered ; namely, our capacities, our opportunities, and the nature of the business itself. If the business would still be worth doing if there were no such thing as money known, then a woman need not hesitate to throw herself heartily into it ; but even then she must be on her guard, and not suffer it to crowd thought and love out of her life. THE HOME INSTINCT. 147 X. THE HOME INSTINCT. HOW is a single woman to satisfy the curiously two- fold home instinct? At the root of it lies the longing to express ourselves fully and freely. The most complete expression of the heart is found in the family itself, whether we live in a tent or a palace ; but the most complete expression of our tastes is in the visible, material home, and there is very solid satisfaction in that. To begin with this least important factor of a home : there are few unmarried women who can afford a dwell- ing-place which is any index to their tastes. This is not because they are poorer than the majority of mar- ried women ; but the expense of an adequate home for one person alone is far greater than the proportional share of each one in a family, and, of course, a woman does not often earn as much as a man. Even an extremely poor home may be a very charac- teristic one, and it usually is so in the case of a woman who marrying early a man likely to be always poor, accepts the situation, and begins at once to make the 148 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. most of it. But unmarried women who are poor must either live in a family over which another woman pre- sides, or they must earn their living. Now, it is the woman at the head of the house who gives tone to it j while one who earns her living must be either a boarder or a lodger in some definite spot within a given radius, and, in most instances, with great uncertainty as to the length of time she can stay there ; so there is little stim- ulus to try to gather her treasures about her. How much women suffer from this cause alone can never be known to any one but women themselves, and it hardly makes the matter easier to call it trivial. Mrs. Oliphant, with her eye for typical facts, de- scribes the feelings of a curate's wife who moves into a house where the carpets purchased by the former cu- rate are still on the floors, having been included in the bargain settling the terms of rental. The poor lady received all callers with embarrassment caused by won- dering whether they would suppose that she had selected those carpets herself! Fancy, then, the feelings of those who live all their lives with furniture selected by other people ! A woman of taste, living in a lodging-house, once told a friend that her landlady's feelings were likely to be so hurt at any readjustment of the pictures provided for the tenants that she had found it easier to let them hang where they were. She said she could bear them THE HOME INSTINCT. 149 when alone by not looking at them, but that it gave her a shudder when she saw a visitor's eye resting upon them. " How weak you are ! " replied her friend. " Why don't you send for your own pictures " (these were packed up in the attic of a relative's house) , " and tell her you are afraid you have not room for hers?" " Because," was the answer, " though I have been here two years, my work is so precarious that I have never been able to look forward many months ; and as I have to economize closely, I have felt it would be better not to be at the expense." Yet, if this woman had been a widow with children, situated in just the same way, she would prob- ably have spent the few necessary dollars and have en- joyed a refined room. She had not, however, the heart to make the struggle for herself alone. It is certainly a heavy task to transport all one's Lares and Penates from one boarding-house to another; and to do this often, with the complete furnishings of even one room, is a labour far beyond the powers of most maiden ladies. There are a few active women who impress themselves straightway on* every room they enter, but most of us cannot do this without some promise of permanence to inspire us. A very simple home is often far more beautiful than a house crowded with costly furnishings which have no clear connection with the character of the owner; but 150 THE UNMARKIKI) WOMAN. even the simplest home cannot be created without thought and time. A woman who works hard all day in earning a living may have a great longing for a home, and may have the capacity to make one out of very slight materials, and yet she is too tired to do it. A home cannot be made once for all by buying carpets and chairs and tables, or even with the addition of books and pictures. It must be a place of growth. It must be lived in, and the finishing touches which give it vitality must be added from hour to hour. A woman who spends all her fresh hours in an office or a school can seldom rearrange her flowers or her pictures, or devise new draperies to add grace to her rooms. Far less can she make her home the gathering-place for friends. It must be a very dear friend indeed whom she is quite ready to see at the moment she has thrown herself exhausted on her lounge. A few women who combine the genius for home-making with great physical -vigour do succeed in this difficult task; but the ideal home is usually the work of a woman to whom it is the chief work. The mothers of families are quite as busy as the single women who are wage-earners, but they are usually busy about just such things as are crowded out of the lives of the wage-earners. It takes a certain kind of leisure to make a home. The mother who is watering her flowers, or dressing a child's doll, or enter- taining a valued friend, has this kind of leisure, though she may not be idle a moment in the day. THE HOME INSTINCT. 151 The homes of old maids are believed to suffer so from over-neatness that this is sometimes accounted a crotchet of the unmarried. Do we not all wish to be neat? Is not neatness an element of beauty? Yet a perfectly neat room is never beautiful, for it has no life. The neat old maid puts her room in order, and things stay put. How prim and dreary it is ! The neat mother of a family puts her room in order, and the bevy of children rearrange it in half an hour, simply by living in it. The most carefully dusted chair does not look prim with a doll in it. The most perfectly swept carpet does not seem too good to tread upon when a child is sitting in the middle of the floor. No room can be too exquisitely clean for beauty, provided the neatness is the frame of the picture and not the picture itself. But the maiden lady who has no picture is laughed at for making ready her spotless frame. More and more, however, single women are becoming so in- terested in life that — to use the comprehensive words of a friend — they are learning to " keep their house instead of letting their house keep them." When a woman has something to do which eagerly interests her, the most immaculate room will receive a few uncon- scious touches which give it vitality. In some cases, indeed, we go to the other extreme. Too much ac- tivity produces nervousness instead of life, and there is no repose, but only confusion. The untidy old maid is 52 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. often a charming creature, but her foibles are of such a nature that she cannot really expect they will not be laughed at. A rich woman can, if she chooses, have a home which shall express her tastes, and if she has a circle of pleasant friends and sufficient love for intellectual pursuits, her home-life may be very agreeable ; but even then the best of it is wanting if the woman must live alone. It may seem, to those who have never thought about it, as though it would be easy enough to find congenial friends to fill such a home. It is not easy, however. It may be the result of the customs of generations, but it ap- pears to be true that satisfactory daily companionship is difficult unless there is some tie of duty, and that it is equally difficult unless there is some element of choice- For example, the family into which we are born has a claim upon us which is usually far more a blessing than a bond. The sentiment of duty holds us even when we are called upon to sacrifice many of our tastes to those of other members of the family. Now, when we choose friends for ourselves we do not feel that we are so bound, and very slight friction of tastes leads us to throw off these bonds. On the other hand, if there is no real congeniality between the members of a family the tie of duty alone is almost too irksome to be borne. Now, in marriage there is, first, the free choice which glorifies the relation, and then the irrevocable duty THE HOME INSTINCT. 53 which holds those firm who might otherwise be sepa- rated by the least jar. Circumstances thus help to strengthen the union, though of course an unhappy marriage is far worse than an unsuitable friendship. How is it possible for a single woman, however rich, to have any share in genuine family life? A family consists naturally of a man, a woman, and children. If any of these elements are wanting, the home life can hardly be saved from one-sidedness. But when there are two women in a home, one is frequently de trop. The richest of women can hardly take a whole family into her home with any prospect of making it home- like. She can adopt children, to be sure, and she can probably find some friend among women who will give her the daily companionship of thought which we all need, ^though unless both women can contribute equally to the menage, one or the other is likely to suffer some secret pangs. Two women do, however, often make a home together which is far more delightful than most married homes, especially if they share it with children. Nevertheless there will always be a distinct want in any household where there is not a man. A woman who does not have a daily opportunity of seeing the affairs of life through the eyes of a man is always in danger of unsymmetrical development, though she may not be aware of this, and may be perfectly contented with her lot. 154 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. An unmarried woman, however, can seldom have this opportunity in her own home. That is unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. All conditions of life have their peculiar disadvantages. Occasionally an unmarried woman has an unmarried brother for whom it is her great pleasure to keep house ; and if an orphan nephew or niece falls to the charge of the two, the home is sometimes ideal, though of course that depends on the character of the inmates. A lady who had kept house for her brother for some years tells me that she had often caught herself saying of one thing or another, ''Since I was married," etc. She had been separated from her brother while they were growing up, and when he was able to give her a home, the planning for it, the furnishing, the deciding how to make it most charming to their friends all seemed so much like the accessories of marriage that it is no wonder she made the slip. The women who choose to stay in the homes of their fathers and mothers also have much of the real home life, though their position must of course be subor- dinate. They do not always have an opportunity to express their tastes, but they can express their love ; and that is much better, though some women do not realize it till it is too late. A great many ardent women have an intense longing to order the home of those they love. They would THE HOME INSTINCT. 155 gladly take all the care off their sisters and sisters-in- law, and give themselves up heart and soul to all the details of drudgery ; and this is not because they love the perfection of the house, but because they love the people in it. A lady who had made an ideal home for her sisters sold her house at once after the last sister married, and engaged a boarding-place. She seemed to have a genius for home-making, and had always enjoyed her cares heartily ; so that some one asked her, in surprise, why she did not keep her home. " You could have everything exactly as you like now," said the inquirer, who had observed how often her friend had given up her most cherished fancies to please her sis- ters. " Do you really suppose," returned the lady, " that there would be any pleasure to me in carrying on a house for myself alone?" Does not this answer shame those of us who are impatient because we cannot consult all our little whims ? Yet I fear that the lady was practically wrong. She could have cared for others besides her sisters in a home of her own; and it would have been good for everybody that she should have used her great gift, and for once have expressed her own ideas of a home fully, without being hampered by those of anybody else. Moreover, it seems to be unfortunately true that the service of those women who most wish to do something for others is generally least welcomed by their own 156 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN relatives, — perhaps because it is a family trait to like to take the initiative in good works. One who has the most numerous and ingenious plans for the management of a home, and who would therefore be the most ad- mirable head of a household, provided she had married a man of kindred tastes and was training children of her own, is likely to be too original for the comfort of her parents and brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces, who have not chosen her before all the world, and who do not feel bound to obey her. I do not mean that such women are selfish or overbearing ; on the contrary, they are ready to spend their last fragment of strength in working for the family, and all their ob- noxious plans are formed for the welfare of somebody besides themselves. But the plans seem so good to them that it is hard for them to understand that they may not be attractive to the very people who are to be benefited by them. One woman, for instance, pro- vides a substantial, well-cooked dinner, but serves it in heavy earthenware, for a sister who cares little for beef and pudding, but would feel herself nourished by wafers of bread laid on delicate china plates. The first sister is sure she is right in preparing the good dinner, for that will promote health ; and what is so important as health? The second sister is no less certain that it is better "to die for beauty than live for bread." Both are fine, unselfish women ; but neither has all the THE HOME INSTINCT. 157 virtues, and those of one do not happen to harmonize with those of the other. If they are ideal women, they may work together. One will cook the dinner, and the other will lay the table ; but they will never do this while one thinks beautiful china superfluous, or the other thinks a hearty dinner is coarse. Though there may be a jar which prevents their being happy together, the first sister might make an extremely cosey home for somebody else, who could overlook the crockery in con- sideration of the beef ; and the second sister might plan delightfully for somebody in whom the aesthetic nature predominated. It is a pity that all women who have ideas should not sometime have a chance to carry them out ; but the place to carry out one's own plans is not in other people's houses. There one has to follow the lead of others. It is only the undisputed mistress of a house who can risk trying her own experiments. A married woman, on the assumption that her husband's tastes harmonize with her own, or two single women, not relatives, who have chosen each other because of congeniality, or any woman who is sole head of the family — its other members being young enough to be her children — may venture to act upon her own plans. Under other circumstances, such an attempt is not only mistaken, but it is sure to be called old-maidish, — which is ironically hard, since the women who meet such judgment are exactly those who would have 158 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN managed a family most admirably if they had been married. Nevertheless, if I may make the distinction, though a single woman cannot have the ideal home, she may have an ideal home. I could give a long list of such homes. Two charming women, who were once teachers, live together in a little cottage surrounded by a garden. One of them, a gentle invalid, with a refreshing tang of humour in all she says, gives her little strength to the study of literature ; the other, frank and outspoken, digs and delves in the garden, goes to market, and oversees the household. The invalid enjoys the fragrant garden which she could not possibly cultivate ; and her friend, though she would never have patience to select what she cares for from the general mass of literature, appre- ciates the poems and the essays which the invalid shares with her. A sweet and affectionate woman stays with her parents in her childhood's home. All the treasures of her lifetime are about her, As one after another of her brothers and sisters has married, and the pleasant care of her father and mother has devolved more and more upon her, the filial ties have become closer and closer. Her father, a gentleman of incorruptible integrity both in business and in politics, is a leader in the world. THE HOME INSTINCT. 159 Thus this woman has an unusual opportunity to look out on life through the eyes of a man, and is saved from fall- ing into sentimentality, which so often proves a snare to a sweet woman. She is of course subordinate to her mother ; but her mother is herself so sweet, and the tastes of the two are so alike, that the harmony is com- plete. It sometimes seems sad that a woman of this gracious type should have no children of her own ; but by the time her little brothers and sisters were grown up, the house began to resound to the prattle of the flock of nephews and nieces ; and she is never without one of them to keep her young and happy. I think she has a genuine home, though she will not be at the head of it, let us hope, for many a year. Her freedom from its cares gives her time for "pursuits," and she has become a skilled botanist; while her knowledge of political economy makes her an interesting companion for very wise men. As she is rich, of course she helps the poor ; and as she has time for sympathy as well as gifts, her ministrations are most welcome. The ways of life are inscrutable ; but as there is always a fascination in tracing the providence in other people's discipline, I will merely venture the suggestion that if this woman — who seems to all her friends as marked out to be a perfect wife, mother, and manager of a household — had married, her sweetness, unfortified by real intel- lectual labour, might have degenerated into weakness. l()0 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. Of all Trollope's lifelike pictures, where is there a pleasanter one than the home of Lily Dale and her mother, in "The Small House at Allington" ? Its charm is hard to define ; but Mrs. Dale picking peas in the garden, and Lily opening a letter at the breakfast- table, and the pretty Bell in her brown holland dress all con- tribute to it, and it has far more to do in alluring one to a second reading of the book than all the scenes in Lily's stormy love-affair or Bell's quiet one. Lily, who writes the letters " O. M." — to stand for "Old Maid" — after her name, states briefly the situation in the home to her mother, in some such words as these : " We have both lost something, we are crippled for life ; but you have me left, and I have you." There was a strong love at the foundation of the home ; and in its outward form, its pretty rooms and green lawn and merry econo- mies all breathed the spirit of freedom and refined comfort. In larger families, where one daughter is not always so essential to the comfort of the parents, it is not, perhaps, best that she should resign her individuality and stay at home. Miss Bremer, in one of her stories, tells us of a beautiful and refined home in which every member of the family circle was high-minded and agree- able ; but she shows that nevertheless the unmarried daughters felt themselves out of place. There was no THE HOME INSTINCT. i6l scope for the expansion of their perfectly innocent origi- nal tastes. Two of them, therefore, decided to make a home of their own together. They loved their parents, and wanted to see them very often ; so they arranged their home on the upper floor of the family mansion. In it they found room for many activities which had inevitably been repressed in the old nest. Everybody was the happier in consequence. That an unmarried woman of Miss Bremer's warm heart, good sense, and shrewd observation should deliberately set off some of her very attractive heroines from their equally attractive father and mother in this way, is in itself an index to the feeling of single women in general. In most cases the difficulty of coming to such an arrange- ment without wounding somebody's feelings very deeply, would prevent its being tried. But many women do choose some companion among women, and the two do make a home which is ideally harmonious. When a woman is left entirely alone in the world, there can hardly be any doubt that she will be far happier if she can find some congenial compan- ion of nearly her own age to share her daily life on equal terms. There is a difficulty in the case of any paid companion, however dear a friend she may be ; for while the richer woman may be willing and glad to pay, and the poorer may be in dire need, the poorer will naturally yield to the richer, and the bond will 1 62 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. chafe one, while a subtle selfishness will grow up in the other. I am happy to say, however, that even in my own experience I know instances which contradict what I have said, because both women have such unworldly characters. Unfortunately, two women can seldom choose each other entirely for love. A woman who is earning her living must be satisfied with some friend within reach, though somebody far away may be much dearer. But there are so many delightful unappropriated women in the world that few need to be condemned to utter loneliness. I remember two teachers who set up a Bohemian kind of home in a lodging-house, going outside for their meals. The mother of one of them, who lived in a distant town, remonstrated with her daughter. She reasoned that a home was essential to the perfection and delicacy of a woman's character. She had never herself experienced the homelessness of boarding- houses. Her daughter explained to her that in boarding, even if you are so exceptionally happy as to find an entrance into a home complete in all its appointments and with a thoroughly united family, it is not, after all, your home, and the family is not your family. The mother then acquiesced in the plan. The teachers were very happy together. They could not, of course, carry out all their views about eating and drink- ing ; but they could choose their own hours for every- THE HOME INSTINCT. 163 thing, they could arrange their rooms as they pleased, they could talk or keep silence, and they could welcome their own visitors without being bored by those of other people. Do those who have homes appreciate at all the desolation of the women who have to ask a land- lady if it will be convenient before they invite a guest? Or do those who have not homes realize at all the charm of being able to ask friends to visit us whenever we choose? These teachers admitted that their life was narrow, compared with that of a larger family with a man at the head of it ; but they declared they did not feel the pinch of its narrowness half as much as that of their old life when boarding, and they had a wide daily outlook, — which is not always true of wives with hus- bands and children. In fact, they regarded most of their married acquaintances with genuine pity. Sometimes half-a-dozen teachers combine in one household. Many such schemes are brilliantly suc- cessful. This is surprising, when it is considered that every new element in a family is a possible element of discord. But many a woman who is a very disagreeable addition to her. married sister's family is thoroughly in place in such a voluntary association, — probably be- cause all the members have equal rights, and the code of the household is arranged with equal reference to all. I doubt, however, if so large a family would be 164 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. successful if its members were women of leisure. The teachers, of course, spend the greater part of their day in absorbing work, and they have no time for jangling. When artists or authors or dressmakers or saleswomen combine with teachers, so that no two members of the household have exactly the same occupation, it is said that the experiment is still more satisfactory, because each brings something fresh into the life. It would be folly to look upon unmarried women as a class, and suppose the home suited to one is suited to all j but it is worth every such woman's while to consider whether she has the best home within her reach, and to make sure that she does not miss it through indolence or timidity. THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 165 XL THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. PROBABLY no human being ever rose to anything like full stature without at some time having the responsible care of a child. Both men and women need the training which children give. Women, how- ever, seem to long for the love of children more than men do ; and the deepest grief of many an unmarried woman is that she has no child of her own. To win the love of a child that does not belong to you is not an easy thing, partly, of course, because, hav- ing no control over such a child, your allurements must be served chiefly in the form of comfits and kisses, which are not a very solid foundation for enduring af- fection, and partly, alas ! because you seldom love the child of another enough. Supreme love of a child in- volves absolute self-abnegation ; for a child can never make any material return for our sacrifices, and often returns only a lukewarm love. In the case of one's own children the sacrifices must be made, and they bring their own great reward ; but to make sacrifices not required of us, in cold ,blood, is rather hard. We 1 66 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. postpone them to a more convenient season ; and the child we had begun to love, in the mean time grows up. To love children and to love to take care of them are different things ; and the love of children in general is also very different from the overwhelming love we can give to the few who depend upon us. The most inflex- ible of old maids, who hates the noise and nonsense of her neighbour's children, will almost always have one favourite among them for whom she will encounter fire and water. Most unmarried women look with hungry hearts at the troops of sweet little children clustering about their married friends. Some of them dream, like Miss Matty of " Cranford," that a dear little child belongs to them. Perhaps they idealize the relation between mother and child, and perhaps some of them, if they had children of their own, would be as willing to leave them to the care of servants as some of their married friends are. And then all children do not grow up either affectionate or dutiful. No childless woman can be so lonely or so painfully forlorn as the mother whose children find her an inconvenience. Any woman who repines at her fate would do well to read some of Mrs. Oliphant's stories, — " Madonna Mary," or " Harry Jocelyn," for instance, where she paints a mother's disappointed surprise as she finds her children growing up into something very unideal, while they relegate her to some obscure corner, THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 167 as if her days were all spent. We need not believe that this is the common lot ; but we must acknowledge that it is not very uncommon. Nevertheless, the prompting of the heart is certainly right. To live without the love of children is a terrible doom, and not the less terrible when it is met uncon- sciously, as an Arctic traveller freezes to death in the silent cold. Yet of what avail is it to realize this? It is hopeless to expect that other people's children will ever be the same as one's own, and what can an un- married woman do to satisfy her yearning love ? Suppose the childless adopt children. The experi- ment fails as often as it succeeds. The child is seldom in a natural environment, and with the best intentions, the adopted mother is at cross-purposes with the little one. An only child, with but one parent, is always at a disadvantage ; and the more so when the parent belongs to an entirely different stock from itself. Then a young woman seldom makes up her mind positively that she will never marry, and by the time that conviction be- comes settled, she is too old to enter as heartily into youthful interests as is essential. With all these draw- backs, the woman needs the child, and the child usually needs the woman, so perhaps it is cowardly not to try the experiment. Sometimes it is a blessed success. The woman finds an outlet for her loving heart, and cherishes the child as 1 68 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. if it were her own ; and the child equally large-hearted, appreciates and responds to the love. The two are fast friends and companions in all their pursuits. The child cares most tenderly for the age of the adopted mother, whose unselfish devotion has made a full life possible. A rich woman who at thirty-five would take three or four little children — real brothers and sisters, if pos- sible — into her home, would probably find great hap- piness in store for her ; that is, of course, if she chose children to whom she felt really drawn, and if she were willing to give herself up to them as if they were her own. Few women are rich enough to try such an experiment, and those who are are held back by many considerations. No family is so rich that all the heirs of a childless woman do not feel that they have a claim on her property, so that the pressure within one's own circle against adopting children is often too great to be borne. And then, if a woman lives alone till she is thirty-five, her little daily habits have usually become to her like the laws of the Medes and Persians. She wishes she had a brood of children about her, but she would be horrified by finger-marks on the window-pane or muddy footprints in the hall. If she could not get time to read her paper at the breakfast-table, she would feel that the earth ought to pause in its revolution till she had caught up with the news. Furthermore, she often chooses to stay in her father's THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 169 house ; and there, of course, she is not at liberty to in- troduce new elements. In this case there is a com- pensation ; in caring for her parents there is room for active love. Most women cannot afford to adopt a child. That is very sad, for the poor women in lonely lodging-houses stand in greatest need of the life and cheer of children. Still, some poor women do wonderful things. A teacher who had asked her scholars to do some experiment at home which required a warm room, told me that one of the finest girls in the class came to her and said simply : " I am afraid I can't do the experiment. I live with my aunt in one room, and we cannot always afford to have a fire." A married friend says to her daughters : " Whatever your fate, never live alone. If you have no one belong- ing to you, find some child you can help. And don't wait till it would be easy to support a child before you find one. Go without something you need instead." Nevertheless, though love and willing effort go far to supplement strength, most women who must earn their living have demands made upon them which take all their strength as well as all their money. A widow can support her children, though the struggle is hard, be- cause everybody recognizes it to be her duty ; but what employer would be indulgent to a woman who over- tasked herself to adopt a child? What family would 170 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. excuse a woman from her share in the family burdens because she had pleased herself by taking a stranger to bring up? And probably she ought not to be excused. We are to do our plain duties, first, before we find out new and more delightful ones. Still, in spite of all the difficulties, there must be thousands of women who would be both happier and better if they would adopt a child or two ; and though they could not give children an ideal home, they could at least give them one well worth having. It is often said glibly that a teacher's compensation is in the love of her scholars. It is oftener said by out- siders than by teachers themselves. The love of chil- dren for their teachers is usually an exceedingly shallow stream, especially in those cases where the children pass on to a new instructor every year. The more devotedly a teacher loves her pupils, the harder it is to part from one class after another, — to watch a seedling perhaps till it begins to bud, and then to turn away from it and begin to cultivate another seedling with the same as- siduity. That teachers can bear this continual wear and tear of the affections at all, argues them to be either the largest-hearted or the least . exacting of human beings. The trial is increased by the fact that only a few teachers are capable of taking a roomful of strange children into their hearts at once. Children you do not THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 71 love are tormenting creatures. It is not everybody who can know children well enough to give them individual love in one year. The teacher's love is very different from that of the mother, who concentrates all hers, at least for the first year, on a single child. Then, though love is a plant of heavenly origin, and has the power of expanding infinitely, yet it is so limited by small human nature that when, as the years go by, it has to be divided among hundreds and even thousands of pupils, it is not every teacher in whose heart the flame continues to glow with perfect purity. Those who have taught many years will tell you that when they have been so happy as to carry one class through four or five years' work, that class has become so dear to them that it is impossible to believe any other could ever have been so worthy of love. This experience, however, is becoming rarer and rarer, as work is more and more specialized. Intellectual training is becoming more efficient in every detail, but the personal relation between teacher and pupil is disappearing. Some teachers seem to be satisfied with the daily interchange of good-will between their scholars and themselves. Is that because they live so much on the surface that they do not even know there are depths ; or is it because they have the humble spirit which takes thankfully the simplest gifts? In spite of all my counter- argument, the general ver- 172 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. diet is right, — the teacher's compensation is in the love between herself and her scholars, though the love is always chiefly on her own side. The constant effort to help one younger and weaker than ourselves does bring a high kind of happiness even when we do not succeed. And to some teachers some success is granted. Sometimes, years after the pupil has gone out into the world, it is given to a teacher to know that she has helped to sweeten and ennoble the pupil's life. Few of us, whatever our calling, can hope to reach many of our fellow-beings ; but we can reach a few, and so find inexpressible comfort. Such success as I am trying to describe comes only to those who put a soul into their daily work ; and even then they often seem to fail. Popularity in a teacher does mean something, because children are such severe critics that they take no virtues for granted. To win a child over, it is necessary to exhibit the real stuff. But though the most popular teachers must have some vir- tues, it by no means follows that they are more highly endowed than others who are very unpopular. I heard a pleasant little boy once reply to a question about his teacher : " Oh, no, I don't like her. I don't suppose anybody could like her." Yet I happened to know that the lady in question was one of the best and most unselfish of women, and that she gave her whole heart to her school. She only lacked the "Open Sesame" THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 1 73 to the children's favour. She had done all she could, but she was not attractive, — that is, to them, for she was abundantly so to many other people. But popularity and love are widely different. In schools where children of intellectual tastes predomi- nate, most teachers get a measure of good-natured lik- ing for the time being, and are remembered pleasantly enough. In girls' schools, if girls are of the " gushing " type, — a type not much in vogue at present, — there is often a good deal of "raving" about favourite - teachers. It is flattering, of course, and unless a teacher is a stoic, indeed, it is apt to be rather pleasing ; but it cannot satisfy any deep need. In schools where the majority of the scholars are not fond of study, it must be a very expert strategist who can win even the moderate favour which stands in the public mind for the love which is to be the teacher's compensation. But the real compensation is twofold. It is always even more blessed to give love than to receive it. And no teacher with high aims can fail to love some of the children she spends her life in trying to help • and such a woman always does win a friend or two from among her scholars, if she teaches many years. It may not seem much that a woman who has taught five hundred scholars should have found one or two who will love her all their lives; but after all, there are many mothers who do not have children thoroughly 174 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. devoted to them without any ties of interest. And though it is a very unusual thing for the bond between teacher and scholar to approach in closeness the ideal relation of mother and child, it is still true that it is sometimes more ideal than such an actual relation. There are no children on whom an unmarried woman lavishes so much love as on her nephews and nieces. Indeed, her zeal for their welfare, and her intense desire to carry out her theories in bringing them up, often make her an objectionable element in the family. She is so sure to see all that goes wrong, and also so posi- tive that if she could manage all would be well, that the mortified father and mother wish she would go her way and leave them in peace. The tantalizing quality in the situation is this : she stands so near to the child that she feels as if it were almost her own, and yet she has absolutely no control over it. To be so near and yet so far is extremely disturbing. What is to be done about it? I suspect this is one of the lessons of life which will never be so perfectly learned as not to be a means of wholesome discipline for all concerned. Whatever the solution of the enigma may be, it is not to be found in loving the children less. A woman may perhaps steel herself against such natural affection by keeping aloof from the children, and she may there- THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 175 by save herself some pangs ; but all of us who try to avoid pain find sooner or later that the price of happi- ness is the courage to bear suffering. We all know, I suppose, that we cannot be good women unless we nourish every germ of love planted in us ; but we often doubt, what is equally true, that we cannot otherwise be happy women. We must, then, love the children : that is very easy. We must also refrain from interfering in their manage- ment : that is very hard. It is seldom that parents and aunts have exactly the same ideas about the government of children. Sometimes the parents are wiser, and sometimes the aunts. Sometimes the aunts certainly ought to try to influence the parents ; but after all, the children have been intrusted to the parents and not to the aunts, and except in the case of actual crime, it is right that the parents should have the direction of the children. George Macdonald says that no one should interfere even with criminals, and gives thoughtful rea- sons for his opinion ; but most of us would feel that going too far. In families where the standard of char- acter is high, there is always hearty co-operation be- tween the parents and the aunts ; and this is good for the children and delightful to the elders. t The mothers find a relief from some heavy cares, which it is a satis- faction for the aunts to assume. Still, there is likely to be a twinge now and then when two women have dif- 176 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN ferent views about the same child, even if the matter under discussion is no graver than the pattern of a pinafore. There cannot be a moment's question that the aunt should yield unconditionally in all non- essentials. Indeed, in minor matters it is often bet- ter not even to offer a suggestion. Even where the essentials of character are at stake, how thoughtfully any suggestion should be made ! No aunt ever yet gave an acceptable hint to a mother about her children, if she did not include the mother as well as the children in her love. And further, it is hard to draw the line between essentials and non-essentials. A woman born to command thinks everything is essential. I have heard of a fine woman who was exquisitely neat, but whose sis- ter was careless. The careless sister married, and brought up her children after her own fashion. Of course, when the unmarried sister visited at the house, there was col- lision. The aunt was so shocked at the slovenly, un- kempt condition of the children that she ordered them all to the bath-room. The mother, whose feelings were hurt, objected to the ablutions. The aunt insisted ; the mother resisted. The struggle ended in the aunt's being forbidden the house. She comforted herself with the reflection that at all events an impression had been made upon the children. They knew that somebody valued cleanliness, if their mother did not. The aunt loved the children, and was willing to be martyred in THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 177 their cause. Whether the cause was important enough to call for that kind of martyrdom may be questioned ; but sometimes a cause does exist worthy of being bat- tled for. The battle seldom does any real good, ex- cept to ease the conscience. That is something; but fewer battles would be fought if all aunts could remem- ber that the children they say they love as their own are after all not their own. However, there is in general much cheerful work- ing together of parents and aunts for the best good of the children, and children do love their maiden aunts with a very honest affection ; so that the woman who does not expect too much really gets a great deal. If in an ideal world there were as many maiden ladies as in this, it is clear that they would have a spe- cial service to render in helping their married friends in the care of children. A child is such a precious thing, and needs to be developed in so many directions at once, that the best and wisest of fathers and mothers are seldom adequate to the whole demand. The father is perhaps a classical scholar, and the mother is a musician; how convenient to have a mathematical aunt who is willing and happy to take the child through the labyrinth of numbers ! Or the father is literary, and the mother is artistic ; what an advan- tage to have their work supplemented by a scientific 178 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN aunt ! Or the father is upright to the verge of stern- ness, and the mother is sweet to the verge of weakness ; how refreshing then is a merry aunt ! If the mother is an admirable housekeeper but hates sewing, what a blessing is the aunt who enjoys her needle ! If the mother wears herself out waiting upon the children, how salutary it is for them to have an aunt who insists that they shall wait upon her ! A charming woman once said to me, " My children love their Aunt Nancy [their father's sister] just as much as they love me. I don't understand why I am not jealous ; but that would be impossible." It was easy for other people to understand the reason. In this case both the mother and the aunt were thoroughly high-minded women, and they both loved the children unselfishly. Moreover, they were of different tempera- ments, so that they seldom wished to do exactly the same thing; while, as their principles were the same, they were working for the same ends. And they loved each other. In the ideal world neither parents nor aunts will be too exacting ; and the child, as well as its elders, will be the better and happier in consequence. The refinement of suffering comes when the mother of a child dies, and the child is intrusted to a maiden aunt for a few years, only td be taken from her when the father marries again. And yet the love that grows up between THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 179 the aunt and her charge is so great a blessing as to be full compensation for the suffering. If we have no available nephews and nieces, if we cannot adopt a child, and if we do not feel called upon to teach school, we are in danger of being shut out altogether in the cold. This is not necessary, however. There are troops of children everywhere, and we must be singularly unfortunate if we cannot find a means of attaching some of them to us. Those who win a child who has no particular claim upon them, and on whom they have no claim, are happy. Such a bond cannot be established except between those of kindred natures, and it is very enduring. Sometimes it is as strong as that between mother and child. I think such love is probably within reach of all ; but as it does not come to us in the daily routine, only those of large hearts, hospitably open to all strangers, are likely to wel- come the fledgling who will finally be their chief comfort. Every woman needs the love of a child ; every woman who wishes for it can probably have it. But no unmarried woman will ever receive this gift who does not actively seek for it. And the only way to seek for it is to give an overflowing measure of love, hoping for nothing again. The return usually comes from a quarter whence we least expected it. 180 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. There are women who say lightly that they do not care for children, that they can do very well without them. It seems almost like a lowering of standards to make a plea for any kind of love which does not begin and end in the nature of love itself. Still, observing women who have had the care of children, any one will see how their characters have been thereby developed. There is nothing which holds us to our best so firmly as the necessity of holding a child to its best. For instance, we keep back a censorious word in the presence of a child, when otherwise we could not control our temper. In youth we all permit ourselves many whims and vaga- ries, and often we do not relinquish these till we are taught their real nature by the child we are trying to train aright. Certain arch ways which are engaging in a young girl are silly in a woman ; but those of us who cannot measure ourselves by comparison with children often forget where we are in life, and become a target for scoffers. This is a very different thing from pre- serving the heart of a girl to old age. Children help us here, too, by keeping us alive to the interests of youth, though we have laid aside its follies. Many of the faults of youth are worse than silliness. A middle-aged woman, who in her teens had been a daring flirt, was once led to describe some of her escapades to a friend. She could not avoid reverting to her old tone of triumph in the narration ; so that the THE LOVE OF CHILDREN. 181 friend thought for a moment that she justified herself for some very doubtful deeds, and accordingly asked the question : " Should you be willing to have your Emily do a thing like that?" The change in the face of the mother was almost ludicrous. " My Emily ! " If she had been a Romanist, she would have crossed herself with horror. It was quite clear that in bringing up her Emily she had allowed no such latitude of principles. Her middle-aged ideas of right were really entirely different from those she had held as a girl, but in reviving old stories she had for a moment forgotten them. If she had had no daughter whose simplicity and innocence it was a delight to guard, it might have been a hard task for her to learn how entirely wrong her old theories had been. She would probably have preached them, and perhaps practised them, for many a year which had now been given to the careful, thoughtful training of her daughter. We all take a thousand responsibilities for ourselves which we dare not take for another. I know a woman so reckless in her speculations on philosophy, that be- fore her marriage it seemed as if she would not leave one stone in the universe upon another. But when her children began to ask her questions, she could not give them such answers as she had palmed off upon herself. She was no less truthful and no less courageous than she had always been ; but she was now forced to 1 82 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. look for depths which she had before ignored, and she found that the " mighty maze " was " not without a plan." Every child who loves and trusts us makes us ashamed of our unworthiness, and calls upon us for our best ; and through the love we give to children, we learn to forget ourselves. FRIENDS. 183 XII. FRIENDS. "\\ 7" HAT a thing friendship is ! World without end," * * says Browning. Theoretically the tie of friendship is not so close as the love between man and woman, but practically it is often closer and more satisfying, It always has the ideal charm which belongs to freedom. We are not bound to our friend either legally or by interest. The relation lasts only while it is vital. But most of us are so happy as to have two or three friends who stand to us for so much that we cannot comprehend any separation from them which would not involve a loss of our identity. The unmarried have most time and strength to give to friendship, and they are most in need of friends. To know that one contemporary — not simply an old per- son or a child — approves us, gives a different air to all we do. We act boldly instead of timidly, and are not only happier in consequence, but are often thus saved from being ridiculous. Two men or two women who otherwise stand alone in the world, may find in each other the opportunity to pour out that warm love which 1 84 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. nourishes life and happiness more than anything else we know. Such a perfect relation is not often possible when either friend is married. The one who is single must have lonely hours. The ladies of Llangollen furnish the most classical ex- ample of the friendship of women. Let me quote a part of Madame de Genlis's description of them. " Lady Eleanor Butler " was " an orphan 'from the cradle, and a rich, amiable, and lovely heiress," whose " hand was sought by persons of the best families in Ireland ; but she very early announced her repugnance to marriage. This taste for independence, which she never concealed, was in no respect injurious to her reputation ; her be- haviour was always marked by perfect propriety ; no woman was ever more remarkable for mildness, modesty, and all the virtues that embellish her sex. From earliest infancy she was the intimate friend of Miss Ponsonby ; by a singular coincidence of events, which struck their imaginations, they were both born at Dublin, in the same year and on the same day, and they became orphans at the same period. It was easy for them to fancy from this that heaven had created them for each other ; that it had destined them to consecrate their mutual exist- ence to each other, and to perform together the voyage of life. ... At seventeen they mutually promised to preserve their liberty, and never to part from each other." The query of an American woman would be whether FRIENDS. 185 such a "promised" liberty gave them any more free- dom than a marriage. Be that as it may, they made a secret journey to a beautiful part of Wales, and at " Llangollen" they found, "on the summit of a moun- tain, a little isolated cottage, of which the situation seemed to them delicious." Their guardians promptly brought them back to Dublin, but at twenty-one they returned to Llangollen, There they made an enchanting home, where they had lived seven years when Madame de Genlis visited them. She says : " I saw nothing in them of that vanity which is gratified by awakening the astonishment of others. They loved each other, and lived in that spot with so much simplicity that wonder soon subsided into a touching interest. Everything was gen- uine and natural in their manners and conversation ; and a singular thing is that though they had lived so many years in perfect retirement, they spoke French with as much ease as purity. I was very much struck with the dissimilarity of disposition between them. Lady Eleanor had a charming face, bright with freshness and health ; everything about her announced vivacity, gayety, and frankness. Miss Ponsonby's face was pale, and full of a melancholy expression. . . . Both had the noblest man- ners and the most cultivated minds. An excellent library, composed of the best English, French, and Italian authors, was to them an inexhaustible source of amusement and of various and solid occupation ; for 1 86 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. reading is only profitable when you have leisure to recur again to what you have read. The interior of the house was remarkable for the beauty of its proportions, the convenient distribution of its apartments, the elegance of the ornaments and the furniture, and the beautiful views which were visible from all the windows." Miss Ponsonby was an artist, Lady Eleanor a musician, while both filled the house with exquisite embroidery. They had a beautiful flower-garden, and their only fence was a hedge of roses, An excellent carriage-way led up the mountain to their home. Giant fir-trees grew on the top of the mountain, but around the house — which replaced the original cottage — were planted fruit-trees, especially wonderful cherry-trees. " At the foot of the hill " they had " a meadow for their flocks, a beautiful farm-house, and a kitchen-garden." Though they had not slept out of the house for seven years, they were said to be " far from reserved ; they frequently paid visits at the neigh- bouring gentlemen's houses, and received with equal po- liteness and kindness travellers who were either coming from or going to Ireland, and who were recommended to their attention by their old friends." In spite of this agreeable picture, Madame de Genlis looked upon them as " the imprudent victims of the most dangerous enthusiasm and sensibility." She says, with her usual good sense : " In the natural state of society, the affections which a family calls forth form in FRIENDS. 187 the course of our lives a necessary succession of conso- lations j a spouse consoles us for the loss of a mother ; the hands of our children are destined to dry up other tears ; a brother partakes our domestic griefs ; and a faithful friend compensates us for the loss of a false one. Let us then cultivate all our ties j let us not, in the thorny career over which we have to pass, reject any of our natural supports j if one of them fails, another will be ready to sustain our declining steps. . . . Nuns alone can dispense with the ties of family, they are altogether devoted to God ; besides, they have companions of their own age." This prudent, politic balancing of friend with friend, though sensible, does not belong to the highest type of woman. Listen to what Lucy Smith says after the perfect relation between herself and her husband had been interrupted by death : " I think the absolute Love exacts, at one time or other, suffering, — only less than itself, but incommunicable in intensity. . . . Perhaps that helps best of all, — that tearing instead. My husband once said to me, ' What should I do without you ? I could not live cut in half.' Well, I have borne it in his place. One or other must . . . After all, sorrow is a form of love. . . . Sorrow should have its perfect work. And I cannot grudge the darkened years in Tennyson's or any other's life." Friendship does not often reach such a height as this ; 1 88 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. but the distinguishing mark which separates a friend from an acquaintance is that in the case of a friend we are glad to bear the suffering which is involved in every close relation for the sake of the sweetness of the relation. Furthermore, to the Protestant devotion to God does not mean a cloistered life ; and whether the ladies of Llangollen risked too much by staking all on a single friend, or whether they shirked too many of the duties of ordinary life, depended on their inner purpose, which Madame de Genlis could not see. If they owned alle- giance to God, and chose their life because it seemed the largest and best open to them, they were right ; and even the inevitable loneliness of the latest survivor would not be without comfort. But if their friendship was simply imaginative and founded on nothing higher than itself, it was just as good and just as bad as the majority of marriages between amiable people without high aims. Nevertheless, exclusiveness does not appear to im- prove any relation but marriage. Though a mere breath of jealousy sullies the purity of friendship, yet, on the other hand, the strong love we give to one good man or woman seems to expand the heart so that we have more love to give to every other good man or woman. I do not mean, however, that it can be possible to love one friend too much. A quiet, middle-aged teacher in Massachusetts unexpectedly proposed one day to resign FRIENDS. 189 her position. The astonished and disturbed principal of the school remonstrated, and asked the reason. " I have a friend dying in California," she said. Suppose she left her place, and spent her small savings in the long journey and in taking care of her friend. Suppose in the end she was left alone, penniless and without a situation. What was that to her? She loved her friend more than she loved ease. Her life would always be harder in consequence of her deed, and yet there would be a light upon it which never shines for those who thinK of comfort. Of course it would have been different if she must have left others to suffer when she hurried away to her friend. No one can admit many people to the inner circle of friendship ; but this is not because there may not be love enough for all. It is simply because we are bound by time and space. Friends and acquaintances are widely different, though some persons never seem to find that out. A married woman, with her own family to engross her love, may find exhilaration and advantage in a host of mere acquaintances ; she exchanges calls with them, likes to see their housekeeping arrangements, or look at their new pictures, chats a little with them over books or music, and feels a gentle kindliness towards them. All this is very pleasant, but the friendships of a single woman must go deeper than this if they are to rescue her from either loneliness or superficiality. 190 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. A friend is one to whom we can frankly express our deepest thoughts without fear of being misunderstood. To our dearest friends we also express our feelings some- times. We do not always confide our circumstances even to the dearest. The nature of the circumstances decides that question. As it is not wholesome for us to talk or even think much about our feelings, we need not try to enlarge the circle of friends to whom it is natural to talk about them. The two or three to whom we must speak are a gift to us. Them " we do not seek, but find." But it is a great blessing when in place of mere ac- quaintances we have friends to whom we can freely speak our thoughts. It would certainly be selfish to shut our- selves in and refuse to make any new acquaintances ; but as the number grows larger and larger, how are we to have time to go below the surface with any one ? The only way I know of is to live a thoughtful life, and to be generous enough to give our real thought to every stranger who seems willing to receive it. Then ten min- utes' conversation may bring us a friend, though we never meet the same individual again. And why should we go out of our way to make mere acquaintances who do not care for the best we have to give? There is a reason, — conventionality decrees it. If we obeyed conventional dicta when disobedience was likely to hurt somebody's feelings, and ignored them FRIENDS. 191 when the only advantage of obedience would be the giving ourselves a certain station in the world, the true balance would no doubt be preserved. I know a woman who never makes a conventional call whose life is a perfect illustration of out-reaching love. She is busy in an office from daylight till six o'clock in the afternoon every day but Sunday ; and as she is not strong, her evenings must be short. If she were bound by conventionalities, she would see no one. As it is, she makes the most of her opportunities. If she has a leisure hour, and knows that a friend is within reach, she goes to see her, and she has such a loving heart that she finds a leisure hour oftener than you would think possible. If she merely meets you on the street, there is a cordiality in her greeting which puts you at once beyond the limits of formality, and you come near to her in exchanging half-a-dozen sentences. She establishes human relations with every one who comes into the office, and I do not believe there is a society woman in the city who has so large a circle of friends, or who knows the ladies in her circle so well. In driving about the city, leaving a card here and say- ing a few words about the weather or the last party, how is it possible to know one's acquaintances? But this woman, busy at her desk all day, talks first with a teacher who is ordering books for her class, then with a proof-reader who needs help in a difficulty, then with 192 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. a struggling artist overwhelmed with disappointment because her sketches have been refused. She sees how these other women bear themselves when at work or in trouble, and so she knows them, and has the chance to help them, — a chance she never foregoes. She takes a hearty interest in helping the teacher select her books, not only for love of the teacher but for love of the scholars she has never seen ; she patiently finds the references the proof-reader needs j she has been known to get up long before daybreak and carry an inland visitor off to the nearest beach to see the sun rise out of the ocean. It is, I know, a dangerous thing for a young unmar- ried woman to resist conventions ; yet some resistance seems to be necessary for a woman without husband or children who would have any outlet at all for a full heart. An intellectual friendship is always possible between two high-minded people ; but the close friendship of the feelings is not so easily formed when one friend is married. Yet the unmarried sorely need married friends to save them from narrowness. This is espe- cially true of women ; for as years go by they are more and more shut out of general society, and if they live only with other single women, it is impossible for them to have any large outlook on life. Their dearest friend will usually be another single woman ; but it is greatly to FRIENDS. 193 be hoped that some married woman will be very near to every one of them. A friend assures me that a very common type of the spinster is she who makes a home with another woman, and thanks fate loudly that there are no men about. It has not been my experience to know many such self- sufficing women. It will not do to say that a woman may not combine all the virtues in her single self. Virtue knows no boundary lines, and the most womanly woman must not scorn to cultivate the good qualities of a manly man. I rejoice to believe that many women are courageous as well as modest, and strong as well as gentle. Nevertheless, as most of us do not reach the perfection we aspire to, we usually feel the need of sup- plementing our own graces with those of another strain. The women I know are generally grateful for the friend- ship of good men, and often regret that they have so seldom the tonic of such society. They do not regard the fact that they are not married as a special blessing. As to supposing that women are a race superior to men, they have never dreamed of that, though they would certainly be affronted at any suggestion that they are inferior. Every woman has need of the friendship of men. Some women have such power to meet men frankly while still retaining the delicate reserve which must always bound such a relation, that they have as many 13 194 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. real friends among men as women. I think of a very beautiful woman, unmarried, and no longer young, who has this power. She lives on so high a plane all the time that it is natural for her to lift everybody she meets to the same ground. In a drawing-room full of fashion- able people, her discerning eyes will see a few guests who care for something beyond trivialities. By the time she has met a man of this stamp a few times at parties, the two have become friends. She nourishes every germ of good in the weakest man she sees, and he, in his turn, gives her the best he has to give. She often sees a very dark side of life in consequence of her faculty ; but she knows men, and not only helps them all by raising their standard of womanhood, but is her- self helped by them, for they teach her to look at life honestly without sentimental illusions. Very often, of course, somebody falls in love with her. She does not wish for this ; but she meets the question so truthfully and with such dignity that the most deeply disappointed lover feels that his love has ennobled him. Her power is a dangerous one, because it is singu- larly compounded of moral influence and the charm of beauty. A plain woman could not achieve the same results ; while a mere beauty would use her fascination simply in flirting. A woman who knows herself to be attractive ought to be very sure that she wishes for friends and not for victims before she allows herself FRIENDS. 195 any freedom whatever with men. If she is aware that she has not the courage to repel decidedly any undue advances from her friend, or if, on the other hand, she knows she would resent any sincere word of criticism from him, she would do better to avoid him altogether. The flirtation of a girl of sixteen, bubbling over with fun, may be looked upon leniently as a frolic ; but a woman's flirtation is degrading. The frankness necessary to a friendship between man and woman is endangered by the possibility that one of the friends will fail in love with the other, while this love will not be reciprocated. As long as both are single, no great harm will be done, provided both are honest, and do not try to win more regard than they give. No worthy life was ever really blighted by a worthy love, even when the love was unreturned. The suffering may be very great ; but the pruning-knife does not destroy the vine : it rather prepares it to bring forth fruit. It would certainly not be well that single men and women should deny themselves the pleasure and stimu- lus of a hearty friendship because of this contingency. It is rather a remote one, after all. Men and women of high aims do not, as a rule, go about the world fall- ing in love with every agreeable companion they meet. Novelists often so misrepresent the facts as to make all moderately young single women deplorably and un- 196 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. necessarily over-conscious. An unmarried man and an unmarried woman may often be the best of friends without the slightest wish on either side to be anything more ; and as long as neither has any nearer claim, there is nothing to be said against such a friendship. The moment it ceases to be entirely frank, however, there is danger that it will afford some foundation for the com- monplace innuendoes of silly people. Unfortunately, most single women past the age of thirty have not many opportunities to form friendships with men. General society has little place for such women, and it is usually most feasible for them to live with women only. Sometimes, however, it is best for them to be in the family of a married friend or relative ; and this introduces us to the vast and irksome subject of the "deceased wife's sister," which cannot, I fear, be omitted from a volume like the present. To doubt that a single woman and a married man can be the most excellent friends would be absurd and narrow ; yet this is what the English law virtually says in forbidding a man to marry his deceased wife's sister. It seems to say — a married man cannot see much of any attractive unmarried woman without being in danger of fancying her more than his wife ; so let us give the hus- band and his sister-in-law fair warning that under no cir- cumstances will they be allowed to marry. The derision FRIENDS. I97 with which this law is always mentioned in America goes to show, I think, that the standard of friendship is higher here than in England. Nevertheless, it is very true that the friendship of a married man and an un- married woman has peculiar difficulties, and that unless there is a still stronger bond between the wife and the unmarried woman, it is unwise for the latter to be a member of the household. Marriages are so far from being ideal that few families escape some jars, and it is not often that the ruffled waters are made more peaceful by the presence of any third person who may, however silently, take part against either the hus- band or the wife. If the third person is a woman, and if she sides with the husband, no judicious manage- ment can prevent some harm being done. Even if she agrees with the wife, her partisanship widens the breach. Experience shows pretty clearly that young married people at least should try their experiments without any spectators. When they have fully adjusted them- selves to each other's peculiarities, their seclusion is less vital. But circumstances rather than theories usually decide where the home shall be, and these decree that a great many pretty and pleasant young women shall be placed in positions which bring them into very close relations with their sisters' husbands and other married men. This is the more unfortunate because one of the com- 198 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. monest of tragedies is that two sisters or two dear friends fall in love with the same man. No one is in the least to blame for this, perhaps. The two sisters or friends have the same tastes and habits. They are equally attractive to most people. Perhaps the lover of one might, under a little different circumstances, have become the lover of the other. But he makes his choice, and nobody except the girl who has not been chosen sees why she should not live with her married sister or friend. Her position is a painful one. Such a girl ought not to subject herself to the inevitable strain of witnessing the daily life of her friends. Even if she could bear it without envy, there is a very com- mon contingency to be avoided. The sister or friend who is chosen is frequently not the one who will wear best. If the two are constantly contrasted in the home life, there may come a fatal day when the husband sees he has made a mistake, and then something more than heroism may be needed to enable the unmarried girl to conceal her own feelings. But even when the single woman has no special interest in her friend's husband at the outset, the position is dangerous, especially if there is much sympathy between the man and woman, because of the real need all women have of the friendship of men. Strange to say, the greatest danger is to a woman between thirty and thirty-five. A very young woman is not so susceptible to the charm of friendship as she FRIENDS. 199 will be later ; and as she usually expects to be married sometime, she does not often concern herself much with the attractions of a married man. Moreover, she is very likely to have in her train a number of bachelor admirers who are to her much more interesting. If she lives with a married sister whom she loves, she will probably be severely critical of all the short-comings of her sister's husband. But when the romance of youth is over, when a woman is no longer enthusiastically welcomed in young society, when the conviction that she will never marry has ripened, when the things of the mind begin to have a preponderating interest to her so that she feels the need of intellectual com- panionship, then daily association with a man of kin- dred tastes sometimes leads to a friendship which ends by her finding to her consternation that she has fallen in love where she least expected it. Just as often the same catastrophe occurs on the side of the man, espe- cially if he married early some one whose chief attrac- tion was a pretty face which has now begun to fade. The line between a perfectly innocent and natural friendship and another which, while equally natural, is altogether wrong, is so hard to draw that it is not sur- prising that the two are so often confused. But the woman who has owned to herself that she cares for a man on whom another woman has claims, ought not to deceive herself by supposing that she can always pre- 200 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. serve a noble attitude towards both, if she continues to be much in their family even as a visitor ; it may be very hard to alter her life and go away from them, but it can probably be done, and it ought to be done. In general, however, a woman would not make such an admission even to herself. She would blush to own that her friendship had in it any element against which she must be on her guard. Some women can be abso- lutely sure of themselves, and they would be ashamed to suspect their friend of less absolute self-control ; and yet such a friendship might be disastrous. There are two tests which a woman may easily apply to her conduct. How does the wife feel about this Platonic friendship? The wife may be altogether un- reasonable ; she may be a silly, jealous woman, incapa- ble of appreciating any worthy friendship ; but even then, no other woman can be doing right in continuing a course of action which disturbs the wife. On the other hand, the wife may be a simple sincere person, who never thinks evil of any one. Then the woman who is in doubt should ask how she herself would feel in the wife's place if she knew exactly what she now knows of the feeling between herself and the husband. It may be that the two have never spoken one word together which the wife has not heard. It may be that they have securely hidden their feelings from each other, and yet one of them may know that there is something in his or FRIENDS. 201 her feeling which the wife would find it hard to bear if she knew it too. The woman who can say honestly that if she were married, she could be glad that her husband should have just such a friend as she is to her friend's husband, and who also sincerely believes that the wife is entirely satis- fied with the friendship, may feel that she has endured all necessary tests. But many cherished friendships would fall to the ground before such tests. In cases where this was the result of the wife's exacting temper, it would be cruelly hard ; but in point of fact, it usually is necessary whenever an unmarried woman does not care as much for the wife as for the husband. The husband may be a very dear friend as long as the wife is still dearer. This is a hard condition. We see a great many women every day whom we like better than we do their husbands, and it is perfectly natural that we should see a great many men whom we like better than we do their wives; but in the latter case we. are not permitted to carry the acquaintance very far. So the list of a single woman's friends is short- ened. She cannot always even have all she seems to need. But aside from their own relatives, women are often so placed that they cannot have many friends among men. It is a great advantage when a woman can work with some man for an object of common in- terest. The relation of employer and employed is not 202 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. very satisfactory, because there is so little freedom, which is one of the essentials of friendship, on the part of the employed. The type-writer in a gentleman's office may work with him all day, and yet get no benefit from the association. In less mechanical work, however, the dis- tinction of employer and employed is sometimes for- gotten, to the advantage of both, as happens in nine cases out of ten when the principal of a large school is a fine man, and proves himself the wise friend of all the women who are his assistants. Such men and women work together with high aims, and their friendship rests on a rational foundation. Artists and musicians, physi- cians and nurses have the same opportunity to help each other, — even men and women who do mechanical labour learn to know each other's sterling qualities when they work side by side for a common employer. Indeed any work in which men and women can engage together teaches them supplementary lessons which neither can learn alone, except that which is done by the employed simply for the salary it brings, and by the employer simply to increase his income. But while every single woman has reason to be grate- ful for the opportunities she has to make a few friends among men, she will always be somewhat hampered in this direction. There are some drawbacks to every lot, and even a single woman cannot expect to have every- thing she would like. There is no limit set, however, to FRIENDS. 203 the friendships of women among themselves ; and these add a depth and richness to the lives of the unmarried which cannot be overvalued. But how can we win a friend ? The perfect friendship comes to us as a gift of God. We do not seek it. We are as much startled sometimes to find we have made a friend as if a new and unexpected continent had burst upon our vision. What is the secret ? Friendship is always possible to those who love the same things, provided these things are so high as to lift them out of themselves. A friendship which spends it- self very much in imparting personal statistics to even the wisest sympathizer will not wear. Those who supremely love goodness can never be long left solitary. Those who love nature, or poetry, or beauty in any form, already have that within them which may crystallize into friendship at any moment when another true lover comes along. This does not appear to be quite true of those who simply love art in a critical way. Even painting and music, when studied merely as a means of culture, sometimes make us envious of the culture of others, in- stead of giving us a thrill of delight in finding that some one else has seen the charm we see. Friend- ship is only possible to those who have a pure and single aim. 204 TIIK UNMARRIED WOMAN. XIII. YOUTH AND AGE. HPHE difference between a young woman and an old ■*■ one is most marked in the case of single women. " It is easier to be hopeful at twenty than at thirty," said a woman who had reached the latter age to a friend of sixty. The elder lady gasped. " What do you mean ? " inquired the younger. " I was only thinking," was the rejoinder, " how little / knew at thirty of the real dis- cipline of life. But don't be frightened, my dear ; my experience does not prove that yours will be like it." The freer women are, the later the age at which hey are looked upon by the world in general as " old maids." We do not need to consider the child-brides of the East to show this. It is true in America. Fifty years ago, thirty was the extreme limit of full, youthful life allowed to a single woman. Even now she is technically an old maid after that time ; but any one who chooses to observe will see that the women between thirty and forty show the same vigour and active interest in the world around them that used to be thought the characteristic of youth. Even physically these years tell less heavily than for- merly ; and when a woman's means allow her to follow YOUTH AND AGE. 205 her tastes in dress, it is not an easy matter to decide whether she is twenty-five or thirty-five, though she may be quite guiltless o.f any attempt at " making-up." The freedom which has produced this change has come through the opening of avenues for earning money. When the failure to marry involved the settling down in a life of dependence as a household drudge, no wonder women were old at thirty. Now that there is a different alternative, most women keep a measure of youth till forty, and though, of course, few marry later than thirty, yet their prolonged activity does react even in this direc- tion, and it is more and more common to marry late in life. If some Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep early in the century were to wake up now, would he not find the single woman of forty quite as fresh and quite as free from crotchets as one of thirty used to be ? So may we not say that the age when a woman becomes an " old maid " has been raised from thirty to forty? Could that ever have been so if she had remained poor? Consider the merely secondary question of dress. In the period of girlish bloom, this is not so important ; but when the bloom is gone, suitable dress is indispensable to give a woman a pleasing and refined air. A poor woman, already dependent on others, or anticipating de- pendence in the immediate future, is often obliged to forego the satisfaction of tasteful dress exactly at the time she most feels the need of it ; and the conscious- 2o6 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. ness of being more ill- dressed than usual often deprives her of the ease of manner which is so good a substitute for beauty. While exulting in youth and strength, one does not mind spending freely on dress, on education, on pleas- ure, and on travel, feeling such superabundant resources within oneself; but when the strength fails, it is impos- sible to disregard economy, and so the inevitable change is greatly hastened. Consider, too, how much more difficult even neatness becomes to the old whose eyes are failing ! The poorer a woman is, the sooner she becomes an old woman. The destruction of the poor is always their poverty, and the desperate effort to save narrows the life so that the power to earn fails too early. Few women earn much at best. How many do we know among them all, however clever and industrious and frugal, who have been able to save enough from their earnings to allow them an easy old age? The comfortable old ladies are invariably those who have made investments. Legitimate, trustworthy invest- ments are much harder to find now than they were fifty years ago, and the rates of interest accessible to a pru- dent maiden lady are much less than then, so that with all the advantages the present generation has in the mat- ter of earning money, the case of those who are past work is usually an anxious one. YOUTH AND AGE. 207 Most of us can call to mind single women we knew in our youth, who, having in their youth taught half-a- dozen years or so, had then retired and had apparently lived on their income ever after. Yet they may have taught district schools at four or five dollars a week. Of course their teaching was not as lucrative as it appeared to be ; but a competence, the Socialists tell us, is always gained by investments and never by work. The teach- ers of the present certainly have a much wider and fuller life than their predecessors. They buy libraries and pictures and pianos, they go to concerts and the theatre, they adopt children and manage missionary enterprises, and they travel from Alaska to New Zealand. They have very little left in the end for their old age, which, however, is luckily long postponed by all these agree- able occupations. If you chide them with extravagance, they will tell you that they could not do their work with- out such diversions, and that, moreover, it would be folly to pinch themselves to save the few dollars which might possibly be spared, since at the present rates of interest they could never hope to lay aside enough to live on. I doubt if any reader can name three teachers among her own acquaintances who can live entirely on their own savings. I remember once hearing a teacher of thirty say lugubriously, " I suppose the very best that can happen to me is to lead such a life as Miss A's. Miss A. taught 208 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN till she was sixty, and then settled quietly down in her own cottage and lived in comfort. Most teachers do not accomplish even so much as that." " Did you really think Miss A. earned her cottage?" asked a friend. " Why, everything she had was given to her by her cousin ! " If all this is true of teachers, how much more must it be true of the great army of single women who earn much less than teachers ! Of course all poor people, of whatever sex or condition, have to meet some of the same facts. But the married can usually look to their children for help when their strength fails alto- gether. I know a widow who has had a son and daughter to support, and the struggle has often been a desperate one. She has sent them both through col- lege, and now, while she is not yet too old to fill a fine position acceptably, her son, an architect, and her daughter, a lawyer, are abundantly able to care for her. In contrast to her, I know a single woman who for about the same number of years has had to support an infirm father, and now that she sees the time when she must cease earning very near, her father needs her more than ever. What does become of the single women who have outlived their working power, and who have not acted the part of wise virgins and filled their lamps with the oil of investments ? " What will become of the poor YOUTH AND AGE. 2(X) creature?" cried one lady, speaking of another who had just been displaced from her position in school to make way for a younger and better equipped teacher. " Oh," replied a member of the committee, care- lessly, " her sister's husband is well off. He must take care of her " ! Fancy inviting your sister's husband to take care of you ! There are all kinds of discipline in the world ; but we can hardly wonder that elderly ladies sometimes cling to positions which might be as well or even better filled by younger women, when the alternative may be dependence on a relative by marriage ! As no one is bound to care for a single woman in her old age, it is certainly worth while for her to try both to earn and to save as much as she can before it is too late. But the saving of money often involves the loss of some- thing better than money. A single woman whose lead- ing virtue is prudence may avoid dependence, but she will hardly avoid being a typical old maid. No one will ever be able to lead a very noble life who cannot sometimes trust the guiding power of the universe for something more than she can see. Though our time in giving well-paid work to women has added ten years to their youth, yet in every genera- tion we see many women in whom all the old-maidish characteristics are so intensified when they reach the age of forty or fifty as to require some explanation, since 14 2IO THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. no one leaves all her virtues behind her on passing any given birthday. The decline of physical vigour does not give the key to the riddle, because a rich woman who leads an active life, or a poorer one who supports her- self by congenial work, does not show this deterioration. In these cases the character ripens and mellows till it has a depth of loveliness not found in younger women. The serene and beautiful old age of many unmarried women calls out only admiration and reverence. It is the poor women who are misplaced in early life, or the rich women who are allowed no outlet for their powers, who, when the physical strength wanes, find themselves unequal to the demands upon them. An old maid, strictly speaking, is a forlorn creature. Poverty, or any other circumstance which represses natural development, produces a forlorn creature at last, even if the battle is waged bravely for many years. If you have undertaken the wrong work in life, the dis- aster is cumulative. There are, of course, many people so gifted that they can do many things passably well ; but the demand for passable work is constantly de- creasing. Superior work is called for. Moreover, work which does not interest you much may be endured for a time in youth, when you are sanguine that you will be relieved from it before long ; but it becomes more and more irksome as the years roll by, and when you at last realize that for your whole life it is to be your only YOUTH AND AGE. 211 bulwark against want, it certainly wears a very unpre- possessing aspect. It is not always possible to do the work we fancy we should like ; but let us try, when young, to choose what we are best fitted for, or at least something worth do- ing, and then let us patiently and unceasingly try to conquer all the difficulties which beset even the most fascinating occupation, so that the web we weave may be durable to the end. Nobody should tell a girl that it makes little difference what she does, if she only puts the right spirit into her work. It makes all the difference of working with or without friction, though it is true that character is a lubricating oil which will destroy much friction, and moreover there is a certain charm in experience of all kinds, however painful. The feeling that a particularly hard task has been set us ought to stimulate us to see what we can do with it. The dregs of a cup may be bitter; but when we have fearlessly drained it, they sometimes turn to sweetness. So, though the young must be most discriminating in their choice of possible lives, the elders who know they have chosen wrong may rejoice in their opportunity to work out the wonder- ful problem set us anew at every crisis, how to make character conquer circumstances. Fruit, in character, is a different thing from its bud. The plant does not fulfil its purpose till the beautiful 212 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. and perfect fruit is formed. But then the fruit must fall and give way to a new generation. Every human being who lives to be old has to meet the experience of being supplanted by the young. All sometime have to say of another, " He must increase, but I must de- crease." It is not very easy to say this cheerfully, without envy. The most successful person seldom suc- ceeds so well that he can be satisfied to think that his best days are over. But it must be easier to yield place to one's own children than to strangers. Parents eagerly strive all their lives to give the children better opportunities than they had themselves, and when the children outstrip them in the race, the temptation is rather towards pride than envy. But those who have no children must be noble indeed if they can see young people they played with as infants easily carrying off all the honours and stepping into all the desirable places. Those who talk about " soured and embittered old maids " should take this fact into consideration. For the old maids themselves, however, there is another view to be taken. In our sane moments do we not all wish heartily for the improvement and progress of the whole race from generation to generation, and do we not try our best to help the young to higher ground than our own? Ought we not to rejoice when our efforts suc- ceed? We have failed to secure a competence for our- selves, perhaps, but our washerwoman's little boy, en- YOUTH AND AGE. 2 13 couraged at a critical age by our advice, is a business magnate. Is it possible that we were not in earnest when we laughingly foretold this fortune for him if he would persevere in the right way? Is it possible that now it is accomplished, we are capable of the mean- ness of wishing that he were still poor enough to look up to us with the old awe? Or suppose that our lifelong effort to be an artist has brought us no farther than the drudgery of being a drawing- mistress, while the bright girl who was our favourite pupil twenty years ago has had pictures in the Salon, and can now correct every statement we make when we walk with her through an Art Gallery, — can it be that because we did not have her early chances, or even because we were less gifted by nature, we regret that she has left us so far behind? We re- member how we once hoped she would succeed. Do we rejoice the less in her success because we have not succeeded ourselves? Or, being musical, we have never been heard of out of our native town ; but is it possible that we are un- easy because our friend's child whose first pair of socks we knit, has received an ovation in Music Hall? When we ask ourselves a few questions like these, we often have to hang our heads with shame before we can answer them. What do we really love? Do we love ourselves to the exclusion of everything else? Or do 214 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. we love everything bright and beautiful in the universe, so that we can rejoice in the music or the picture or the poetry which we have not created? Have we any feeling but thankfulness that our young friends are hap- pier than we were ? " Suppose Mary can't afford to go to college ! " said one of Mary's aunts. " I could n't afford to go to college, either, when I was a girl. Mary must bear her trials like the rest of us." Another of Mary's aunts said gently; "It is just because I re- member my bitter disappointment when I had to give up going to college that I am determined Mary shall go, if it takes every penny I have." Because we have resolutely toiled up the mountain, clearing a pathway as we went, picking out the stones, cutting down the briers, those who start long after- ward catch up with us while they are yet fresh, and clear the way to new heights, though we meantime are too weary to keep up with them. But how delightful it is to know that every step gives them a wider and wider prospect far beyond our horizon ! It is, however, rather hard to bear when our young friends look down scornfully from their heights, and wonder why we are so slow. And yet perhaps we remember a time when we looked down in the same way on others. One great blessing of discipline of any kind is that it helps us to see truthfully. A clear atmosphere expands our horizon as well as does height. YOUTH AND AGE. 215 " / shall never be in Aunt Jane's place," once said a positive young girl, replying to her mother, who had been criticising her treatment of a disagreeable maiden sister of her father, and who had gently suggested that the girl herself might sometime be old and dependent like her obnoxious aunt. " First," she continued, " I don't believe Aunt Jane was ever bright or pleasant when she was young ; but I shall try to be bright and pleasant as long as I live. And then, / mean to make myself loved. Instead of laying down the law and interfering with everybody, I shall try to help everybody." " Including Aunt Jane ? " added her mother, dryly. The girl lived to remember her words. She, too, was a dependent maiden-lady, whose nieces and nephews thought her prudent suggestions an in- terference with their rights ; while her manners and habits seemed to them unpardonably old-fashioned. Yet she was thoroughly kind at heart ; and having a strong character, she had tried hard to keep abreast of the times. That there is no one who is especially called upon to love and cherish an unmarried woman, — at least after she loses her parents, — is a circumstance which intensi- fies the demand upon her for character. An unlovely woman has absolutely no reason to hope that she will not be left altogether desolate. Her only chance of happiness lies in being worthy of love. 2l6 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. Some of us succeed better than others in keeping step to the music by which the new generation marches, and every brave soul will listen for its exhilarating sound. It inspires us and makes us young again, even when we are old. But sooner or later we all fall be- hind. We may march on to the end, but it must be to the strains of older ' and simpler music. Mrs. Oli- phant touches this point lightly in "The Perpetual Curate." An elderly clergyman and a younger one meet at the bedside of a sick woman. Here, too, are the daughters of a church-warden, one of whom is twenty years the senior of her sister. The younger sister is a beautiful creature, fired with the love of all mankind, who likes nothing so much as going about among the poor in the gray cloak of a Sister of Mercy. The younger clergyman, too, is a man with all the gifts and graces, who, though for his ritualism he has risked his expected inheritance, has such a loving heart within him that he knows by instinct the way to comfort the wretched. The other man and woman are equally ad- mirable. The elder sister, though no longer young, has still a lovely face, set off by the dove-coloured dress she likes to wear. All four of these people sin- cerely wish to help the poor family in distress. The two younger see in the twinkling of an eye exactly what to do. The other two stand helpless and awk- ward. Both are conscious that they cannot do what the YOUTH AND AGE. 21 7 younger ones are doing. Humiliated, their glances meet. And then all at once they are themselves com- forted, for each sees the helplessness of the other, and understands that it is no fault in either, but simply the result of their belonging to another generation. Their sympathy soon increases to love. They cannot keep step to the martial strains to which the younger people march so naturally ; but they can together keep step to very sweet old music. Many shafts of ridicule are shot at "old girls," — not of the type of the cheerful, efficient, weather-beaten Mrs. Bagnet, whom her husband rightly describes as the " old girl," but at those of the sort who shriek, " For mercy's sake, don't mention the war ; that was thirty years ago." These are they who fondly believe that nobody knows how old they are ! They are often amiable in their absurdity, having so strong a desire to please that it is almost touching. They are to be pitied because their life has flowed only over shallows, and they have not yet come to the dignity of woman. Having the remembrance of these " old girls " in her mind, a dignified woman frequently prefers to dress as if she were older rather than younger than she really is. The assumption of the graces of youth by age is silly. Any reader of " Barchester Towers " will remember the agreeable impression we form of " Char- lotte Stanhope " at the outset simply because she had 2l8 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. the good sense — being past thirty — not to put on girlish airs; though we afterward discover that her good sense did not save her from being both cold- hearted and worldly-minded. It is doubtful, after all, whether we are not as mis- taken in yielding to age too soon as in clinging to youth too long. We certainly wish to keep young in feeling to the last, and can any one give a valid reason why we should not, if we can, look as young as we feel? I have heard of a man who promptly deserted his wife because she had deceived him about her age. Most of us, in such a case, would give the husband some meas- ure of sympathy; but ordinarily one's age should not be a matter of concern to other people. And it is not the parish register alone which decides our youth, either physically or mentally. A sound mind, a sound body, a fresh heart, an active interest in all the onward movements of the race, — these are the essential characteristics of youth. Pure air, and exercise, and healthful recreation preserve a sound body ; reasonable, and not feverish, mental labour de- velops a sound mind ; opening our heart to the love of all around us keeps us fresh ; and willing work leads to genuine enthusiasm about the work of others. Being thus young, is there any objection to our appearing so? I remember an old lady who had loved the fields and woods all her life, who continued her rambles till YOUTH AND AGE. 219 she was past seventy-five. Slender and elastic, a stone- wall was no barrier to her when she saw beautiful flowers or ferns beyond it. " I suppose it is rather undignified, my dear," she would say apologetically ; " but you needn't tell anybody." " I suppose I am the oldest woman in the house," said a charming old lady of eighty, who had gone to the theatre to see Julia Marlowe play "Juliet," "and no doubt everybody who sees me thinks I had better be at home ; but I am not so old as to have outgrown Shakspeare, and I hope I shall always love a good love-story." The great mark of age is that " desire shall fail." As long as we keep a keen interest in persons and things, in new truths and insights, we are not old. But however young we feel, there are certain visible incongruities to be avoided. A scrawny neck is not beautiful, however youthful the feelings of its owner. Gray hair forms a softer setting for the wrinkled face than does the dyed variety. Our dancing days need not be over as long as we can dance ; but rheumatism does finally prevail to such a degree that the exercise we see to be beneficial cannot be taken to the sound of a violin. Nevertheless, as long as suitable dress will make us look young, why not wear it? " I suppose you will be surprised to hear that I am going to be married in white," said an elderly bride, 220 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. in whose early years the course of true love had not run smooth ; " but my view is that if I am not too old to be married, I am not too old to have a wedding- dress." Though she was old and plain, she was erect and happy, and wore her robes like a queen, while the soft folds of the bridal veil hid all harsh lines and showed only the sweetness of her smile. It was worth taking the pains to be beautiful for once, though her lover knew her age very well, and understood that she could not look like this every day. I know a handsome married woman of thirty or so whose rose-leaf complexion and innocent eyes make her look like a girl of sixteen. She has a fancy when at home for braiding her mass of wonderful golden hair "in a tresse Behind her back, a yerde long, I guesse," exactly as girls of sixteen do. If anybody laughs at her girlishness, the laugh is sweetened by admiration. It is generally safe to defy fashion when we can produce beauty, though a great risk when, as is usually the case, the result is dubious. For why do not all women of thirty-five wear their hair in the mode of sixteen? Because they often have so little to wear. Is that any reason why my friend should coil up her splendid locks? Yet, if she were still unmarried, there would not be wanting censors to say that she was pretending to be young for the sake of ensnaring victims. YOUTH AND AGE. 221 Though it is chiefly the judgment which grows in age, it is a mistake to give up the hope of growth in any direction simply because we have passed the usual age for improvement. Who are we to say that we are too old to correct our pronunciation, or our table manners, or our hasty temper, or any of our disagreeable habits? Let us not be ashamed of our wrinkles ; but after all, are we quite sure we need to wear wrinkles, now that face massage and nourish- ment have apparently been reduced to a science, so that beauty is preserved, as it always should be, by attention to the health of all parts of the body, and not by the poor devices that defy health? (Wrinkles, however, like every joint and line of the body, must, according to the scientists, tell the story of life and action; and if the life and actions have been good, we need not be afraid to let the tale be told.) I have known an old gentleman whose eyes failed at the usual time, and who yet, at sixty-four, recovered his sight perfectly, so that he read the finest print without glasses to the day of his death, twenty years later. But, however long we may keep our youth, we grow old at last, and we are less and less fitted for the tasks of younger people. The only powders that increase with age are thought and judgment. The teacher, for in- stance, who can manage a school well, or one who is particularly original and wise, may hold her position 222 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. till seventy; when a mere assistant, who has simply plodded along in ruts, may be superannuated at forty. In the hard eyes of the world at large, an old maid outlives her usefulness sooner than most other people. Even a social reformer like Hertzka, the author of " Freehand, " who tries to construct an earthly paradise for all, and who therefore cannot shut out old maids, explains the ingenious method by which their advent into the promised land was delayed as long as possible. He seems to be justified, because strong, fresh workers were certainly most needed at first ; yet his account is more pathetic than amusing to those who read between the lines. Even he would admit those of special gifts. Indeed, there is always a place in the world for thinkers. Of course the time comes when even thought fails ; but then the life is far spent. Those of us who hope for a green old age must cultivate our powers of thought. We must not be contented to waste our energies on trivial things, we must not even take our judgments ready-made from books ; we must think in earnest all our lives. Then we shall have a definite place to fill, and a definite work to do for others, even when we are blind and deaf and lame. The wisest young people cannot then do without us altogether ; for till their insight is verified by experience, they must always feel doubtful as to some of their visions. There is a higher motive than policy which bids us YOUTH AND AGE. 223 grow to maturity. Here is a sonnet of Hartley Coleridge which is worth our study in this connection, — " Long time a child, and still a child when years Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I ; For yet I lived like one not born to die, — A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears ; No hope I needed, and I knew no fears. But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep ; and waking, I waked to sleep no more, at once o'ertaking The vanguard of my age, with all arrears Of duty" on my back. Nor child nor man, Nor youth nor sage, I find my head is gray, For I have lost the race I never ran ; A rathe December blights my lagging May, And still I am a child, though I be old : Time is my debtor for my years untold." To keep young and to grow mature at the same time requires genius ; but it is essential if we wish to find any spot to rest in old age. We mature by thought, and by taking all responsibilities as they naturally come to us. If we never shirk in these ways, we are good for something even when we fail physically. But most of us grow so grave and tired that we have no strength left for the new interests which keep us young. It is not easy to be sound of heart and head at the same time. Yet that is — shall we say the task, or rather — the glorious ideal set before us. Here is one of my many reasons for continually preaching the doctrine that we should all have special 224 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. pursuits. A specialist has a more and more unique value as time goes on. Those who come after him must do his work first before they can go beyond him. The man or woman who knows more than any one else about some subject, however small, will always com- mand respect. One who is merely a specialist, however, will lead a narrow life. Let us try to have a reasonable knowledge of many things. And while special acquire- ments give us an assured position among our fellow- creatures, any great thought makes our inward life of value to ourselves. Plato says that a new truth pre- serves us till another season. And study, ardently pursued, brings great satisfaction ; but in old age, at least in the case of a woman, it takes something more than a pursuit to make us happy. We must have something to love. There are women who forget this in the Sturm und Drang of middle life, and find it out too late. Shall we sum up the practical means to secure a dignified and cheerful old age? Let us make ourselves financially independent of others, if we can do so without sacrificing something better than independence. Let us keep young in both body and mind as 'long as we can, and certainly not fancy ourselves old till we are so. YOUTH AND AGE. 225 Let us study faithfully and continually two or three subjects which demand thought. Let us look at all questions of life intelligently and truthfully, and thus learn to think ; so that in age our opinions may be judgments to be respected. Let us live much out-of-doors, and look for beauty of all kinds, — in Nature and art, music and poetry, and human life. And above all, let us give ourselves freely in love to all created things and to their Creator. Then, when old age is fairly upon us, it will not be hard to say, in the words of Emerson's " Terminus" : " As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime : ' Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed ; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed.' " 15 226 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. XIV. CO-OPERATION. THERE is at present a strong tendency among women of all classes to organize in clubs, — as witness the two thousand visitors to the Chicago Con- federation of Clubs held in May, 1892. From Working- Girls' Clubs to Sorosis, there are associations for all kinds of work and all kinds of pleasure, — even without laying stress on the fact that, as a leading member of the Chicago Woman's Club once remarked, they so often incidentally serve the delightful purpose of " clearing- houses " for party calls, and other devices of the unoc- cupied to fritter away the time of women. Literary clubs flourish everywhere ; their influence is excellent, but it is doubtful whether any society composed entirely of women is exactly the best place for an unmarried woman. At all events, if we have a chance to choose between a woman's club and a mixed club, shall we not be more likely to supplement our own deficiencies and receive new inspiration from the mixed club? It is, however, necessary for women to work together for certain ends. Take the working-girls' clubs, for in- stance. Let me quote here from a sketch of them CO-OPERATION 227 given in the " Boston Herald " not long ago, on the occasion of their annual reunion in Tremont Temple, under the title of " A Human Sisterhood." Their work is almost a new thing; but " it is," says the " Herald," " one of those noiseless agencies which makes headway because it is the right thing to do. Its Monday even- ings are devoted to lectures, entertainments, and socia- bles, except when business meetings are in order ; on Tuesdays there are classes in cookery, embroidery, letter-writing, and composition ; on Wednesdays dis- cussions alternate with a dancing-class ; on Thursdays there is a class in dress-cutting, and on Fridays dress- making and millinery are in order. The Monday evening entertainments during the winter have been of a varied character, giving the girls a great many good lectures on practical subjects ; and in the Wednesday evening dis- cussions such questions as ' Shall we call ourselves ladies or women?' 'How to talk correctly and well,' * What is the cause of low wages ? ' and ' What do we mean by marrying well ? ' have been debated by those who felt a practical interest in them. It is not sur- prising that a sisterhood of this kind, which is not a charity, and in which every girl is made to feel her own independence and personality, should be exceedingly popular, and should be rapidly growing in numbers. . . . It has no religious character, it has no relation to any trades-union or temperance and suffrage societies ; but 228 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. it is chockful of common-sense applied to the real con- ditions of life. . . . One of its greatest results has been the development of a new impulse in the working-girls, — something to stimulate them and encourage them in their daily work, the opening out to them of opportuni- ties for mutual service. It is an organization capable of almost indefinite expansion, and reaches out far and wide to cheer and encourage a large number of young women who have but little of the bright side of life in their daily experience." Such clubs could hardly admit young men, however desirable that might be, without some definite plan of supervision, like that proposed by Miss Lucia Ames in her " Memoirs of a Millionaire." Yet the King's Daughters do not shut out the King's Sons; the Chautauqua Circles and Christian Endeavour Societies make room for both young men and young women. The Alumnae Associations of the various schools and colleges have, at least for the time being, special objects to accomplish, which must be brought about chiefly by women. So with such organizations as the Woman's Rest Tour Association, which, beginning modestly in the minds of two or three young Boston ladies, is spreading fast in every direction, and is a kind of co-operative bureau of information and assistance for cultivated women of small means, who wish to travel quietly and thoughtfully abroad at the minimum of expense. So CO-OPERATION. 229 with the Educational and Industrial Union of Boston. Such a central office is absolutely necessary to meet the wants of women coming as strangers to the city. The need of it is even more imperative than that of the Christian Union and the Christian Association among young men ; and we all know what valuable work these organizations have done. A truly determining force in the progress of women is the Woman's Education Asso- ciation of Boston ; though its work has been so silent, and accompanied by so little waste of words, that few realize what it has done as the foster-mother of the Harvard Annex, in aid of the Natural History Museum and the Art Museum, in providing excellent courses in Natural Science and Political Economy for young ladies out of school, in encouraging home study, in founding homes and gymnasiums, and in promoting manual training. All these things, and a hundred others, have been done simply, without the aid of even a fair, and chiefly by women themselves; though they have con- stantly had the advice and co-operation of the most eminent men. I shall make no attempt to mention all the women's clubs, or even all the leading ones of so much as a single city like Boston ; I have only called attention to the kind of work which naturally falls into the hands of women of leisure and education when they combine with each other. The majority of women in these clubs 230 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. are married ; and in most instances it is better for a single woman to co-operate with married women than with those of her own estate. But there are many signs that the next fifty years will see a great increase in another kind of club, which will benefit the unmar- ried women almost exclusively, — that is, a club where woman will live with as much freedom as in a hotel. There is something repellent in this prospect, to all who are able to grasp the real idea of a home, as a place where the affections are nourished, rather than as a collection of beautifully furnished rooms ; and if such clubs should prove so satisfying that women should come to prefer them to homes, there would be reason for dismay ; but for the women who cannot have homes, such institutions are an urgent want, both socially and economically. The Young Women's Christian Association, for exam- ple, does incalculable good, by furnishing girls with a refined, well-ordered home, at a very low price. Better still, the girls find suitable companionship, both in study and recreation. They are given as much freedom as can be safely given to a very large number of undis- ciplined girls in a strange city. But for women above thirty, a co-operative home where they would be entirely free is such a desideratum that such schemes are sure to be tried soon on a large scale, as they have already been on a small one. The great CO-OPERATION. 23 I trouble appears to be to find enough women who are congenial, who will consent to combine and observe necessary conditions. Rich women will probably always prefer their own homes, and that is certainly to be hoped. Self-supporting women do not now command enough money to admit of their taking a large enough house, in a good street, to make the experiment a success. Half the women who would be willing to co-operate insist upon finding a location in some aristocratic quarter, and the other half are obliged to refuse because they cannot afford a large rent. Of course, it would pay in the end, if twenty or thirty women could be served from one kitchen, where all kinds of food were bought at whole- sale, and cooked by the Atkinson apparatus, in the scien- tific, healthful, and appetizing methods of the New England Kitchen. But the wage- earning women cannot try such a venture. They have not much money in ad- vance, and it is hard for twenty or thirty women to com- bine satisfactorily in any new scheme where it is necessary for each to risk almost all her savings. But the landlord who builds neat and tasteful apartment houses, with suites of two or three small rooms suited to women, with a private restaurant in the basement, as well managed as the New England Kitchen, in a respectable quarter of any New England city, and who will be content with a moderate percentage on his outlay, will find he has not builded in vain. Such a house might easily become a 2 32 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. colony of little homes, — one woman bringing her mother, another her friend, and another a little niece or two to vary the monotony of spinsters. It would not even be necessary to insist that only single women should be ad- mitted. If food could be served in the separate apart- ments (and nothing could be easier than to send down an order through a speaking-tube, which might be filled by the agency of a dumb-waiter), the privacy of each apartment would be so complete that any quiet family who found such rooms satisfactory would not be out of place in the house. But it would not do to raise the rent by a large outlay on stucco-work and frescoing. Of course such a building ought to be planned by the women themselves, who have learned their own needs practically ; but what woman of experience has money enough for the venture, and what architect or builder would think of calling in such aid? The whole cost of heat, light, food, and service in such an establishment in Boston need not be more than $200 for each person. The rent would vary with the locality, and the number of rooms; but it would be quite pos- sible for a co-operative association to let a flat of four or five rooms in a moderately good street, to two women, for another $200 each. Now, though $400 would be a large sum for most single women to pay for a home, it is considerably less than marty are obliged to pay for board in any place suited to the work they have to do. Of CO-OPERATION. 233 course smaller apartments in some very modest street ought to be had at a far less cost. In connection with college settlements, the question how far it is possible for women of small means to live a life of refinement in the city is now being very seriously discussed, with a view to co-operation among such women. A scheme of a somewhat different nature has been undertaken in New York. I quote from the " Business Woman's Journal " : "A wealthy New York woman has had built on Rivington Street a comfortable, commo- dious, fire-proof structure, to be used as a lodging-house for women. For fifteen cents, a clean bed in a comfort- able dormitory can be obtained, with the use of a small cupboard. For thirty cents a room with one window may be had, and in an adjoining restaurant meals can be obtained at very moderate prices. There are con- veniences for washing and ironing in the building, and a sitting-room where the women may sit and read and sew." There are already many institutions for the shelter of old ladies, — " Teachers' Retreats," " Old Ladies' Homes," and so forth. They are needed, though perhaps we are not so badly off in this country as our cousins in England, where, to quote from the " Nation," some say that " one in every two of the wage-earning classes who pass the age of sixty-five dies as a pauper," and others that 234 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. u forty-five per cent of all persons in Kngland who reach the age of sixty years die as paupers." But no one would choose to go to a " Home " or a " Retreat " who could possibly help it. Nothing but a co-operative establish- ment, owned and managed by the inmates themselves, free from the visits of a Board, and not liable to be de- scribed in the papers as a u beautiful charity," will ever satisfy independent, self-respecting women. The time is probably not far distant when such co-operative homes for the old will be established. The first will be among those who are well-to-do as long as they are able to earn, but who have little to fall back upon at last ; and their experiments will form the basis for others undertaken by those who are a little poorer. These experiments will be necessarily tried by unmar- ried women who have no children to care for them, and who have no means to keep servants, while yet they do not feel it safe to live alone. To suggest possibilities. — Here is a description in the Catalogue of Abandoned Farms in Massachusetts, issued in 1 89 1, by Mr. William R. Sessions, Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture : Farm of 2 acres, suitable for cultivation. House two-story, square, 12 rooms, good repair. Barn small, in good repair. Fences mostly wire, in good condition. Cistern. Railroad sta- tion, 1 mile ; post-office, 1 minute's walk. Price $350, all in cash. CO-OPERATION. 235 Now, such a house would furnish a comfortable home for as many as seven women who could agree to use the same kitchen, dining-room, and parlor. They could, of course, do all of their own work, or, if they chose, they could keep a servant, doing a part of the work them- selves. One of them could buy the house outright, and the others could pay her a reasonable rent. Here are some estimates of expenses founded on actual experience : — Board, @ $1.25 per week for each of 7 persons . $455 Rent, 6 % on investment 21 Fuel, including a fire in each private room . . 100 Servant, board and waste, $2.00 per week . . 104 " wages, $3.00 per week 156 Total $836 This would bring the expenses of each down to about $1 19 a year. x\s in a country town seven women co-oper- ating could dress with the utmost simplicity without re- mark, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the $56 which would bring the total annual expenses of each woman up to $175, would be enough for comfort. If these seven women had congenial tastes, they would each have books and pictures, music and bric-a-brac, which would interest all the others. It is to be hoped that all the women might not be of the same age. If some were under forty, there would seem to be a breath of youth about the house. Two acres of ground would allow 236 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. them to cultivate flowers if they liked, or even a few vegetables ; there would be room for pets, and if any thrifty old lady wished to raise a few chickens, who would prevent her? A week's visit from a friend who could share one's room need not cost more than the week's board, so the community would not be cut off from the outside world. The situation of this farm is far down Cape Cod, and who knows whether our old ladies would even have a view of the ocean from their home ? But there are a great many other abandoned farms scattered through New England, where, for a moderate price, beau- tiful scenery as well as a comfortable home is to be had. If the co-operators had an income of $200 each, the last $25 would easily give each of them three or* four weeks in the city, for they might engage an unpretend- ing furnished room, and occupy it by twos through the winter, keeping a few plates and cups and a chafing-dish there for the preparation of simple food. In Boston, at least, good baked beans can be bought for eight cents a pint, and the New England Kitchen furnishes the most delicious and nourishing stew for six cents a pint, while at many bakeries two good fish-balls can be bought for consumption in private at five cents ! Three weeks in the city for women between sixty and eighty years of age does not mean as much sight-seeing as for the young ; still three services on Sundays would give them an op- portunity to hear the leading preachers and some famous CO-OPERATION. 237 singers, there would be time to visit the art galleries, sci- entific museums, and charitable institutions ; they could look up doubtful questions in the libraries, and there would always be four of the admirable free Lowell lectures to choose from every week. Perhaps they might save pennies enough for a symphony now and then, or a favourite actor. Three weeks of this sort would give one something to think of for a long time in the country ; and if two vis- ited the city together, there would be a chance to talk over things, while each relay of visitors would have some- thing new to tell. There would be no stagnation in such a household, — though alas ! we may not forget the probability of nerves and irritation. An income of two hundred dollars would hardly bring such returns to a woman who lived alone ; still, such an income from four per cent investments means a capital of $5,000, and two women who had $5,000 apiece could make a cosey enough home by themselves if they chose to do housework, and were willing to forego the visit to the city and a few other luxuries ; and there would probably be a far more home- like atmosphere in a house inhabited by two women than by seven. I am not advocating the Abandoned Farm scheme as an ideal mode of existence, but merely sug- gesting that it may be better than some alternatives, — the almshouse, for instance, or dependence on a distant relative. And then the almost unavoidable loneliness of great numbers of single women, as they grow old, must 238 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. be remembered. Anything which provides them with a number of congenial friends in old age is worth consid- eration. But ah ! there are so few self-supporting women who ever lay aside $5,000 that such a plan as this will not appeal to many. By co-operating in housework, however, by admitting a few more inmates into the house, by cutting off some little luxuries from the table, and staying at home the year round, it is within bounds to say that the expenses of each woman might be reduced to a hundred dollars a year. Moreover, everybody tells us that life at the South costs far less than in New Eng- land, the necessary expenses of food, shelter, fuel, and clothing being so much reduced by the genial climate, while the possibility of living much out-of-doors adds lux- ury to the poorest home. Why should not a colony of women past earning set up their household in some favoured spot in Virginia for even less than the above prices? Even a hundred dollars a year means a prin- cipal of $2,500, which ought not, indeed, to be beyond the reach of women who have worked and saved forty years ; but, as a matter-of-fact, few wage-earners do at- tain to such riches. To possess the fortune necessary for even cheap co-operative living in old age involves such foresight and prudence in working women from their youth on that it will be long before almshouses and old ladies' homes will be unnecessary ; still, there is a con- stantly increasing class who could live in comfort by CO-OPERATION. 239 co-operation while they suffer from anxious want when trying to live alone. Such women will finally learn to combine. If it could be in the country, where there is always fresh air and beauty " to be had by the poorest comer," they would not lose all of life worth having ; but as most women, as well as men, must work while they can, seldom having an income from investments large enough for the most meagre support, the need of co-oper- ation in the city where there are chances to earn is most urgent. Perhaps some new light on these questions may be thrown by the lately formed Teachers' Mutual Benefit Association. If in the next century new social conditions prevail, as is predicted, the poor may then be less called upon to speculate about the length of time they can afford to live after they are forced to stop working. For some time to come, however, women who have no claim on the younger generation will have occasion to consider how far co-operation can free them from an old age of care. The reality of things is seldom as depressing as the possibility. Most unmarried women are happily not re- duced to such alternatives as I have named. And why not? Because love is the power that moves the world, and even an old maid is not left without the love of warm hearts. Nevertheless, it is sometimes well to face the worst. When we have provided for the worst, how 240 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. gladly we can welcome the spontaneous kindness which saves us from it ! What a different feeling we then have from the irksome sense of gratitude which we are coerced into when others help us because they are forced to do so ! Let us then face the future and provide for it, if we can. But let us never so misread the meaning of the universe as to postpone the present duty in our effort to prepare a bulwark against a future need. Let us never for a moment permit ourselves to fall into that most frightful of all forms of scepticism which allows us to doubt that God will be able to take care of us when our utmost faithfulness has still been insufficient for us to take care of ourselves. " Greif an mit Gott," say the Germans, — " Try, with God's help." It is the word of the Swiss peasant, entreating some one to save the fugitive Baumgarten from his bloodthirsty pursuers, while the raging lake be- fore them makes instant death appear inevitable to any one embarking upon the waters. William Tell, risking everything, prevailed ; and Baumgarten was saved. CHARACTER. 241 XV. CHARACTER. T N spelling out our answer to the question put to every f- one of us, "What is life?" we find to our surprise that though we want life to go deep, we shrink from the process. Is not the end of life character? Now, " so generous is fate " that character may be formed in many ways. Here the married and the unmarried have an equal chance and an equal responsibility. And yet character is not altogether independent of circumstances ; that is to say, certain circumstances favour one set of virtues or faults more than another. It is popularly believed that an unmarried life produces crotchets ; and a skilful novelist, whose individuals need not stand for a class, may have a right to present the crotchets of a single woman, so as to make her a very amusing creature ; but can the writer who has an un- varnished tale to tell truthfully say that her crotchets are any more amusing than those of married women? How it would enliven my picture, which is painted in rather sombre colours, if I could think so ! As beauty and taste in dress no doubt attract, probably an undue 16 242 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. proportion of plain, ill-dressed women are left to be old maids. Such women are often laughed at by the thoughtless, but that is not on account of their crotchets. The reason that the crotchets of married women are less noticed is because they live in a home which they plan themselves, while maiden ladies have to be fitted into odd corners in other people's homes. Perhaps there are as many married women, for example, de- voted to a parrot or a poodle as there are old maids, of like tastes ; but with the old maids the animal is made the centre round which life revolves just be- cause there is no human being on whom its owner is free to lavish as many caresses as she would like. Crotch- ets are either funny or exasperating to everybody but the person they characterize j but when their genesis is traced, they often become pathetic. Nevertheless, it is hard for a single woman to avoid oddity. She is often chained to conventionality by timidity. She is not sure that any one really cares about her bright ideas. Enforced conventionality with inward rebellion produces an odd result. It is a trite remark that " we " can accomplish everything, while " I " can do nothing; and single women have great temp- tations to discouragement, sometimes even to envy. A maiden lady can hardly advocate a needed reform without hearing it called a chimera fit for old maids. She can hardly praise a great man without hearing him decried CHARACTER. 243 because old maids admire him. If she is quick-witted enough to perceive such judgments and therefore to suppress her opinions, she always appears odd, because her real self is at variance with her exterior, and the moment she is aware she is odd, she becomes odder than ever. A woman must have confidence not only in her opinions but in her power to please, even to speak with authority. One who stands completely alone in the world cannot always have that confidence. A friend says that a woman who has to buffet the world alone always shows marks of it. She either becomes too self-assertive, or morbidly sensitive and timid. We all know both the masculine and the ultra-feminine type. Perhaps we do not like either of them very well. We wonder not only at their want of grace, but at their want of common-sense. Yet perhaps both are accounted for by the fact that such women so often have to do a man's work with a woman's limitations. The most perfectly rounded character is moulded only from a ///// life. Growth comes from living, not from stagna- tion. Luckily, we live from within, and not from without; when we have the germ of life within us, there are no circumstances from which it does not draw nourishment. I have never found it possible to believe that the right idea of life does not include happiness, and so I find myself obliged to agree to the paradox that though happiness is not the chief end to seek, it is 244 THK UNMARRIED WOMAN. an end we are sure to find sooner or later according to our faithfulness to our aspirations. The philosophy of character, and probably inciden- tally of happiness, is in keeping our true relations to the life above us, to that on our own level, and to that below us. Wilhelm Meister defines the three kinds of religion as reverence for that which is over us, for that which is like us, and for that which is beneath us. Now marriage inevitably affords training in the two latter relations. The more ardently we love our equals, the more quickly we learn the lessons of justice, for- bearance, and mutual help. The happy married women, in whose case the close companionship of a lifetime only exalts every pleasure, learn their lessons unawares. But the unhappy wives, to whom their relation is irksome in the highest degree, can hardly escape learning part of the lessons. They must be just, they must be for- bearing, they must help, and they must share both pleasure and pain with another whether they will or no, unless they are willing to sit down tamely and see their lives go to wreck. Few are so indolent as to do this ; and most are urged on by something more potent than the spur of necessity. A married woman, once in her life at least, chooses her own environment. It is easier to conform to our own choice than to adapt our- selves to the unavoidable. The husband may turn out to be a scamp ; but there is a time, however short, CHARACTER. 245 when he is transfigured by the light of the ideal, and in the attempt to fit herself to him, the wife must gain something in character. She cannot possibly shut her- self up alone in utter selfishness, as a single woman who finds her natural companions uncongenial may some- times do. Indeed, she does not wish to do so, or why should she have married at all? She will sometimes try, however feebly and waveringly, to go out of herself. A thoroughly selfish girl is at first attracted by a man who loves her, because of what she receives from him ; but gradually she begins to wish to please her lover by doing him some service in return, and from this weak germ real love begins to grow. If a woman is selfish, and her husband is a tyrant, her bitter lessons will be learned by force ; but it will be impossible for her to shirk them ; and for a while, at least, she will probably justify her marriage to herself by making some attempt to learn them. A single woman, even when she misses the highest happiness, has no such abyss of suffering to fear. Some maiden ladies, accordingly, metaphorically cross them- selves whenever they hear of a divorce case, and thank Heaven that they have never been ensnared in the matrimonial web. Still they have a temptation of their own which must not be ignored. They may not learn their true relations to their equals at all. As they are so happy as to be exempt from force, they can learn 246 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. them only from love. Can we actively choose to be large-hearted, if such a temperament is denied us? Most of us, alas ! are incapable of this ; but we all have opportunities to put ourselves into those close relation- ships which develop our powers. We can welcome even severe discipline which forces us out of ourselves. Such a bud may be very hard, but it will open at last into a flower. Single women seldom fail to observe the letter of the law of love which says we are to give to others ; but when they are so unhappy as to have no one near and dear with a claim upon them, their interpretation of the law tends to grow narrower and narrower. Their own little tastes are magnified in importance ; they must sit in their own special easy-chair, and drink from their own special cup. If they are studious, their studies are of more importance than all the world around them. If they are fond of music, they will not miss a symphony concert, even if they know that a lonely friend needs them. Their nerves gain more and more sway over them, and everybody must conform to their fancies. There are those who are tempted to feel themselves ill- used when one of their kindred becomes dependent upon them, and sometimes this does befall through in- justice ; but even then there have been cases where the necessity of caring for others has so awakened the dor- mant love of the worker that she has joyfully acknowl- edged the burden as a precious trust. CHARACTER. 247 Yet who but an ascetic values discipline simply as discipline? A sweet and lively girl, having been brought under the influence of a prominent evangelist, became " converted ; " and sincerely wishing to lead a life which should have meaning in it, she told a friend that she thought she should like to marry a minister. She thought it would steady her to live with one whose whole attention was given to religion. Yet when, in the course of time, a young divine offered himself to her, his profession caused her such dismay that she would have refused him if she had not loved him dearly. She proved a model minister's wife in the end ; but it is clear that if she had married simply for discipline, with- out the love, she would have been in full revolt in three months. Her early wish was rather sentimental. It was like another wish of hers, caused by noticing how much a friend's nature had been deepened by sorrow. " I have never had any trouble in my life," she said enviously. "If I could only lose a friend, I am sure it would improve my character ! " Those of us who have come to years of discretion know that we need not seek discipline. There is always enough trouble to develop all of us. Our part is the making the most of every opportunity, both of joy and pain. Self-inflicted discipline is seldom a blessing. The joyous giving of ourselves because we love to give is quite another thing. "To love," says the author of 248 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. " Gravenhurst," " is the great glory, the last culture, the highest happiness; to be loved is little in comparison." We dream that it is the wife who enters into this great glory of love. So it is sometimes, but not always. The unmarried woman looks about with a sinking heart, as she sees how few marriages meet her own tests. If she is large-hearted, she often has a far better chance to pour out an unstinted love on worthy objects than her married sister has. The love of our equals teaches us justice in the largest sense. It teaches us sympathy too. No woman can do without dear friends of her own age, position, and tastes. The wife has one friend ; the single woman must not rest content till she has found at least one. But the most completely self- forgetful love is that of the mother for her child. Even where the marriage is far from ideal, the sweetness and helplessness of children make an appeal to the mother which is not to be withstood. It must be hard, indeed, for a mar- ried woman to be entirely selfish. The claims of a child are continual. Even its reasonable claims are made by night as by day, and whether the mother her- self is well or ill. They cannot be put aside, however bad-tempered the mother may be. It is true the rich often delegate their duties to others, but the duties must be done by some one. Such incessant care, which would be almost unendurable without the love that goes CHARACTER. 249 with it, with the love is a delight. The mother's love is without thought of reward ; and though children give back love in return, they never do it from a sense of duty. The mother's love teaches perfect sympathy with those below her. It teaches generosity and ready helpfulness towards the helpless. All mothers do not learn the lesson perfectly. Many unmarried women learn it in a greater measure ; but the mothers learn it oftener. A childless woman, who has a clear vision, will see that she must be alive to every opportunity to fulfil a real claim made by any helpless creature upon her, if she wishes to approach the beautiful self-forget- fulness she sees in so many mothers. But it will not be an easy task. It takes an overwhelming love to carry us over all the drudgery before us. How can we love everybody? We may love all in a general, luke- warm way, wishing them well and doing them little favours which do not cost us much trouble. We may be above hurting a fly, or even an enemy who has hurt us ; but that is not the love which takes us up out of ourselves, and gives a peculiar delight and zest to pain and weariness, and makes suffering for one we love better than any kind of happiness for ourselves alone. What shall we do? Will not all thoughtful observers bear me out in this, — that if we open our hearts fully to the love of the child, or the dependant who is already near and dear to us, 250 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. the love grows into almost as splendid a plant as the love of a mother for her child ; while if we are con- tented with simply doing our duty, the love dwindles and the obligation becomes irksome? So with our equals, if we use our friend for our own pleasure, in- stead of spending ourselves for her, the friendship dies out, — that is, on our own part. It may seem to some one that I am calling on un- married women to lift themselves above themselves, if they would have even the chance of the higher life which opens naturally to the married ; as if I were quoting the Oriental dogma that " Marriage is promo- tion," and requiring the unmarried to reach an unnat- urally high level by their own unaided exertions. And yet this is not true. The relation on which all other relations depend is the relation to the Power above us. We call it God, or we call it Goodness ; but it is the same for every one of us. The power is inexhaustible ; the spring refreshes all comers. All peculiar circumstances make a special demand on character, and furnish opportunities for special virtues. The married have their temptations, and the unmarried theirs. Serenity, for example, is easier to the single than to the married; for, as Mrs. Browning says, "Who at once can love and rest?" and yet CHARACTER. 251 a living serenity is harder for the unmarried, for that must always be quickened by love, and love is not always at hand. Yet a living serenity is essential to us. None of us can know beforehand where our weak- nesses lie. Neither men nor women can measure their own strength, and say how they can bear either a married or a single life. But if the relation of any human being to God is the true one, it involves sooner or later true relations to all other creatures. We do not lift ourselves up ; but we allow ourselves to be lifted by an unfailing power. Miss Susan Blow, in her won- derful Dante lectures in St. Louis, said : '•' All duties grow out of essential relationships, and all sins are greater or less violations of more or less essential rela- tionships. All secondary relationships are of course grounded in the primary relationship ; hence the germ of all good or evil to man lies in his relationship to God." We climb, like Dante, to the top of the mountain, but we rise higher still by the wings which are not ours. Better still, when we lose ourselves in the love of God, the light of that love so illumines and warms us that all the waste and desert places around and below us glow with it, and we no longer find it hard to be what we wish we could be to tnose who stand beside us or to those who look up to us from below. It is common in these days to begin with love of 252 THE UNMARRIED WOMAN. man, and struggle upward to the love of God. George Eliot said she had no faith in any religion which did not begin with love of our fellow-creatures. No doubt love of God and man are inextricably connected, as in the two commandments of Christ ; but some will always begin their conscious life with love of God, while others as surely begin with love of man. When the higher love is most perfect, we realize that it cannot of itself be enough. We must love human beings, and that not merely in a general way. Hearty personal love is indispensable, — and to both men and women. Has a thoroughly beautiful life ever been lived by any one whose ideal was not true to both " the kindred points of heaven and home"? For those who have none of the great loves which are the foundation of the home, there are two dangers : there is sometimes a feverish longing to accomplish some conspicuous and definite work which shall estab- lish our right to live in the world that is usually so indifferent to us ; and sometimes, on the other hand, there is a lassitude and hopelessness which make us feel that we can do nothing of the slightest importance to any human being. Then " Higher far Thou must mount for love." That is the hope we get from Emerson. The doctrine sometimes seems too hard, as if the high air were too CHARACTER. 253 much rarefied for a weak, struggling woman, reaching out for visible and tangible help. We think our life is on the flats, and not on the mountain- tops. Neverthe- less, we do not really live till we look up. George Herbert tells us the truth, — " A grain of glory, mixed with humbleness, Cures both a fever and lethargicness." THE END.