The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-14

fashion things in time to her own plans and
bring the most recalcitrant of spouses to his
proper place rs wheeler. not leader There
is scarcely husband of the good and domes-
tic kind who does not suffer under the exclu-
siveness of his wife, and whose life is not inn
poverished by her determination to be his
sole source of pleasure and interest. Some
times he is driven to subterfuge and decep-
tior, and has to keep up his independence at
the expense of his truth; but for the mos
part he gives in, and habit after awhile fits
the yoke more easily to his neck.
The same feminine characteristic of love of
exclusiveness comes out in matters of dress.
One of the greatest proofs of friendship that
one woman can bestow on another is to give
her the pattern of some unhackneyed unpur-
chasable article of dress; and the sine qua non
of local patronage is the undertaking. on the
milliner's part, not to make any other gown
or bonnet like my lady's. 1t is not the beauty
of the thing which charms 30 much as its ex-
clusiveness and this it is which leads to those
wonderful exaggerations of fashion wherewith
women love to make themselves singular and
remarkable. For if they cannot have what
no one else has, at least they can have things
as no one else has them; which answers the
purpose as well and supplements if it
does not supply. 1t is this same feeling
which separates mistress from maid 30
far that you seldom see any sense of
the community of sex, but only that of the
difference of station between them. AFrench-
woman and her bonnie are on a very much
nearer footing than the typical Englishwoman
and her maid; our national exclusiveness of
temper marking off the grades here sharply
and harshly, while in France and Italy and
even Germany-we cannot say the same for
Spain or Russia-there is much more catho-
lie sentiment; and in America, of course, all
men and women are equal, save niggers, red
skins, and Cinnamon No doubt we are all
worms and miserable sinners before heaven,
and Christianity means love and equality,
catholicity and the sweetest humbleness; but
phrases are good for just so much as they are
worth in action, and things do not always fit
in with the words that describe them.
Christian equality gets sadly put about be-
tween rent-roll and pedigree, and the
charity which thinketh no ill is seldom
so strong as the jealous exclusiveness
which cannot bear that any one should share,
however remotely, in the pleasure and affec-
tion of ones own life. Fortunately for hu-
manity we every now and then come across
certain large-hearted, generous women, who
care more for the great body of the human
family than they care for themselves, and who
find their own best happiness in increasing
the happiness of others And with these are
no petty jealousies, no small suspicious no
narrow exclusiveness to them home is
temple rather than prison, and the domestic
hearth an altar, thoroughly sacred and holy,
but not an ddytum whence all outside the
veil are to be excluded. No one wants the
house-door flung open to the street, and the
home turned into a lounging-place for mob
of the idle and curious unattached to congre-
gate at will; but this is very different from
the exclusiveness which most women feel and
cultivate as their right, and which has the
effect chiefly of boring their husbands beyond
measure, and of making domestic life an
illimitably dull affair to all concerned.