The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1877-06-13
For the Sunday Sentinel.l
THE ENVIED AND THE ENVIOUS.
BY MRS. SALLIE A. RAMAGE.

The idea seems to be gaining ground es-
pecially among women. that home life is te-
dious, home duties irksome. home seclusion
isolation, and that happiness and pleasure
can be found only by those who work for
wages or a salary at a trade or a profession.
The thought seems to be deep set in the
brains of many women that the old ways of
life are all wrong, and that a radical change
must be made before they can hope for the
perfection of living, the highest type of wo-
manhood. The hard earned success of other
women who have struggled and toiled for
the fame or fortune they have won is ever
before them, and without carefully consider
ing the difficulties, the chances for failure,
the diversity OF talents, education and train
ing they despise the home life they have
been forced to live and venture out into the
unknown way they imagine will lead them
to renown and wealth. They do not count
the wrecks of happiness and lives that are
thickly strewn on either side this long, hard
path; they do not note the tears, the groans
of pain, the agony of those who were COM
PEELED by necessity to walk therein, but they
ven with thorns of experience that await
them at the goal. They see other women in
dependent and untrammeled by care, and,
weighing their own home burdens, they
long for the ease that like a mirage
exists when all is most dreary and lonely,
and stretch out pleading hands to
grasp the phantom of happiness when they
already possess the substance. These women,
who from morning until night pursue the
even tenor of a home life, in their ignorance
of other cares and troubles, imagine that
their sisters who are engaged professionally
in other work never know the weariness, the
languor, the petty vexations that sometimes
threaten to bear them to the ground. They
think such life is one grand long sunny
holiday, perpetual pay day, time of rec
ompense and reward for which no labor or
struggling has been given. They grow dis
satisfied with their present surroundings,
their modest income, and fret and sigh over
the fate that could they but know the fact,
is so hower-laden, so gentle and tender to
them that it bears no relation to the iron
hand that presses other women out into the
conflict for bread Count over upon your
fingers the women who have been famous
for talents" for artistic or intellectual
strength, who have now fame as writers,
speakers, actresses, musicians, artists, teach
ers, professors of any branch of learning, and
then compare them with the wives mothers,
daughters, sisters who have never been
forced beyond their home threshold, and tell
the happiness of each. And yet few women
will do this. They declare their whole OBJ
ject in life is to be useful and happy, and
yet they covet the position which, unless
they are fitted for it, will abound with disap-
pointment chagrin and ultimate failure.
They can not believe that the fingers that
hold pen, the brain working to its utmost
power, the eyes constantly on the alert to
correct faults before others see them can
grow as weary as theirs occupied with home
duties. They do not know the anxiety, the
incessant strain upon every nerve and mus
Gle, the untiring application of the actress,
the artist, the student or the professional
worker, and, therefore, they conclude that
only their own lots are hard.
We know well how tired the wife and
mother is after hard days work How
irksome the duties that have kept her busy
from early dawn until late at night. How
her fingers are weary and her head aching,
and as she finishes her labor in the dusk of
the evening it is scarcely wonder that she
envies the one whose duties seem to her so
light, pleasant and remunerative. As she
yields up even her evenings to her children,
striving to amuse and interest them, she
compares her lot with that of the woman
who Is free to follow her own inclinations,
whose money is her own, whose time is not
touched upon by home cares or children's
demands, and she resolves that though she
is thus bound down she will give her daught
.ers such training that they will be able to
make their own homes that they will be in
dependent She is now comparing
the successful woman with her
self; she refuses to see anything
but clouds for her and sunshine for them.