The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-02
W.RAK SISTERS.

w BAh SISLEBS.
The line at which virtue becomes vice
through excess can never be exactly defined,
being one of those uncertain conditions which
each mind must determine for itself. But
there is line, wheresoever we may chose to
set it, and it is just this fine dividing mark
which women are so apt to overrun. For
women, as rule, are nothing if not extreme.
| Whether as saints or sinners, they carry
principle to outside limits, and of all parti-
sans are the most thSroughgoiug, whether it
be to serve God or the Devil, liberty or bigotry,
Bible Communism or Calvinistic Election.
Sometimes they are just as extreme in their
absolute negation of force, and in the narrow
ness of the limits within which they would con-
fine all human expression either by word or
deed-and especially all expression of feminine
life. These are the women who carry womanly
gentleness into the eXaggeration OF self
abasement, and make themselves mere foot
stools for the stronger creature to kick at his
pleasure; the weak sisters, who think all self
reliance unfeminlne, and any originality Of
thought or character aa offence against the
ordained inferiority Of their sex. They are
the parasitic plants of the human family;
creatures which live by and on the strength
OF others; unable to stand alone, and, when
deprived of their adventtious support, fall
ing to the ground In ruin perhaps worse
than death. 1t is sad to see one of these
weak sisters when given up to herself after
she has lived on the strength of another. AS
a wife, she was probably docile, gentle kind
OF MedOTa-at least on the outside, for we
must not confound weakness with amiability
suffering many things because of imperfect
servants and Improbable tralesmep, maybe
because of unruly children and encroaching
friends, none Of whom she has SO much moral
power as will enable her to hold in check; but
on the whole drifting through her days peace
f11I oh oh al in, H. ri
ties, never quite aground. She had a tower of
strength in her husband, on whom she leaned
for assistance in all she undertook, whether it
was to give dose of Dalby to the child, or
scolding to the maid, or to pronounce upon
the sOundness Of two rival sects each touting
for her soul.
While he lived she obeyed his cOunsel-not
always without futile echo of discoptent in
her own heart-and copied his opinions with
what amount of accuracy nature had bestowed
on her; though it must be confessed more
often making a travesty than a tac-Simtte,
according to the trick Of inferior trausators;
and not necessarily better pleased with his
opinions than with his counsels. For your
weak sister is frequently peevish and, Though
unable to originate, is not always ready to
obey cheerfully; cheeTfulness indeed being for
the most part an attribute OF power. Still,
there stood her tower of strength, and while
it stood, she, the parasite growing round
it, did well enough aud tourished with
| pleasant semblance of individual life into the
hollowness of which it was no ones business
to inquire. But if the tower falls, where is
the ivy Take away the husband, and what
! becomes of the wife, when one has been the
life and the other only the parasite Aban-
doned to the poor resources of her own iudg-
ment she is like one suddenly thrown into
deep water, not knowing how to swim. She
has no judgment. She has been so long accus-
toned to rely on the mind of another that her
own is psralyzed for want of use. She is any
ones tool, any ones echo, and, worse than
that, if left to herself she is any one's victim.
All she wants is to be spared the hardship of
self-relianCe, and to be directed free of indi-
vidual eXertion. She is utterly helpless
helpless to act, to direct, to decide; and it de-
pends on the mere chance of proprietorship
whether her slavery will be degradation or
protection, ruin or safety. For she will be a
slave, whosoever may be her proprietor, being
the pabulum of which slaves and victims are
1 naturally formed. The old age of Medora is
Mrs. BOrradaile, who, if her husband had lived,
would have probably ended her life in an
honorable captivity and well-directed sub
serviency.
We often see this kind of helpless weak
ness in the daughter of a man of overbearing
will, or OF termagant mother fond of man
aging and impatient of opposition. During
the plastic time of her life, when education
|
amount of mental muscle, and by course
of judicious moulding she might have been
somewhat fairly set up, she is snubbed and
suppressed till all power is crushed out oi
her. She is taught the virtue of selfabnega-
tion till she has no self to abnegate, and the
backbone of her individuality is SO inces
sanity broken that at last there is no back
bone left in her to break. She has become
mere human mollusk, which, when it loses itf
native shell, drifts helplessly at the mercy o
chance currents into the NAV of any stronger
creature that may fancy her for his prey
( One often sees these poor things left orphans
and friendless at forty or fifty years of age.
They have lived all their lives in leading
strings, and now are utterly unable to wall
alone they are infants in all knowledge OF tn,
world, of business, of human life; their you'll
is gone, and with it such beauty and attrac
tiveness as they might have had, so that mel
who might have liked them when fresh anC
J gentle at twenty do not care to accept thei
= wrinkled helplessness at forty; they have beer
kept in and kept down, and SO have made M
i friends OF their own; and then, when th
strong -willed father dies, or the termagan
t mother goes to the place where the wicked
: cease from troubling, the mollusk they hav
hitherto protected Ia left defepCeless and alone