, 1880-12-03
Woman's Sentimental Symbolism.

One Of the grievous defects inces-
sanity found by woman in man is his
indifference to emotional associations
with material objects, He seems to her
very stolid, well nigh barbarous in this
respect. and naturally enough; for she IS
always fervently attached to the things
which have once given her pleasure, and
are, therefore, precious to her imagina-
tion. She can no more understand his
unconcern than he can understand her
enthusiasm about innumerable kick
shaws having no actual value, and re-
lated only to the past. She clings to
them fer what they have been; for what
they once represented; for the feelings
they have inspired; for the sentiment
that originally accompanied them. He,
seeing that they have served their pur-
pose, whatever it may have been, be-
lieves, after consigning them to the
trumpery OF other years, in getting rid
of them as quickly as possible. Woman
with all her ardent hope and glowing
visions of the impossible, lives in the
past almost as much as in the future
Man, SO long as he is active and removed
from old age, is too busy to recall yester-
day, too frugal of feeling to indulge in
the luxury of retrospect.
Womans sentimental symbolism
trenches upon superstition; it appears to
grow with her years. Man, unable to
sympathize with it, ridicules it ruth
lessly, though without effect. Unwilling
10 bother with the steady accumulation
of the toys and trinkets that have
amused him, but amuse him no more, he
shocks her by disregarding their inner
history. They are nothing, he says,
but paper or wood or metal or some
other fabric which it is vain to try to
idsalize. The fact that they are made or
bestowed under certain conditions does
not alter their character; they should be
treated like any other rubbish, having
fulfilled their mission. He would give
than away, send them to auction, throw
them into the street, were he not pre-
vented by mother, sister, or wife, per-
haps by them all, who are duly Mortified
at his total lack of sensibility. "How
can you think so?" they cry in chorus.
Then they recite with minute detail the
tender associations of the thing or things
he wants to sacrifice to his convenience.
He is borne down by force of passionate
iteration, and presented as creature in
capable of delicacy or sentiment. He
may have the best Of the argument, but
they have the best of the words, and in
such CONTROVERSY words will certainly
prevail.
Woman never can be cured, nor does
she wish to be cured of her sentimental
symbolism. 1t is part of her nature; it
Is not to be changed or modified. 1t be-
gins in babyhood with her dolls; its ends
with the final beat of the heart. Her
dolls she retains long after they have
been laid aside, and during her girlhood
she often takes them out and endows
them with new beauty and allurement in
spite of their begrimed faces, their ex.
tinguished eyes, their obliterated noses,
and their fractured arms. Were it moi
that natural babies usually succeed the
artificial ones, ii is doubtful if the dolls
would be boarded away as emblems OF
inclpient maternity and the probable in
nature. Stories are told Of over-mature
unwedded women comforting their lone
illness by secretly unlocking the dolls OF
their childhood and going back in fancy
to the days when they played with the
sawdust deities, and saw the strange fu-
ture full of golden light. The dolls
symbolic what might have been, and
with all their battered features and
dismembered parts, are dear for that
reason.
A woman, whatever her age, always
has dolls Of some kind, though they
are called by other and varied names.
She cherishes them because she has cher
ished them; she puts their past into her
present; she, in q certain sense, reverses
them backward. AS soon as she feels the
consciousness of her sex, her worship of
materialism as connected with her emo
tions rapidly increases. Every object
she receives from her boy admirers, be
1t bit of verse clipped from a news
paper, or piece OF whitfield wood or a
broke iack-knife, che wants to keep. and
viii keep as long as she can find contain
ing space. From II to so, often much
longer, the passion of girls and women
for this sort OF symbolism intensifies and
20 constantly broadens as TO include
more and more miscellaneous objects
One of their specialties is letters from ali
kinds of people, formal acquaintances as
well rs close friends, letters that tickle
their vanity as we'll as those that touch
their heart The simple Circumstance
that they are letters is sufficient TO insure
their preservation, and in some manner
their conservation. Those are most Ger
tain to be saved which there is the
strongest reason to destroy. Even the
instinct Of self-preservation is not poten