The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1881-05-06
ssOnIy q Bright Woman with a Touch
or Genias',


| asked him for work. He further told
her that he was engaged in the unprom
| Using labor of trying to develop certain
sectarian literature, but she was neithel
priest nor Levite-''only a bright woman
| with a touch of genius"-and he could
offer her no encouraging prospect.
The question naturally uppermost is
What shall this woman do? She is one
of numerous class whose cries smitt
our ears and hearts at the birth an6
death of every hour. Of what value te
her are power, capacity, will, equipment
genius, when opportunity is denied her;
"The lamp of Genius, though ~ Nature lit
1fnot protected, pruned and fed with care,
Soon dies or runs 10 waste with fitful glare"
If were not certain that this young
woman's environment bears close re-
semblance to that of many thousands Of
her sex should be much disinclined tc
violate private feeling by any allusion
to it; but she represents in her own ex.
perience the difficulties of. a problem the
solution of which is of far-reaching con.
Germ.
Here is q woman of tender rearing
whom certain not unusual calamities Of
life have deprived of those material sup
ports upon which she was always taught
to lean, thrust inexorably forth into the
world to learn the costly lesson OF
woman's self-reliance-to learn it un-
aided-and to put her native forces in
training when she is heavily handicapped
by previous disuse of them. It is not a
question of ambition, of so-called great
achievement, with her; but the dire, i'm
perious question of living. Who will
encourage her? Whittier shall she turn?
In what mill may she grind her grist OF
genius? She does not ask aims, albeit
she suffers the blood sapping pangs of
poverty. She has power, but no means
of applying it.; the will to work, but no
work upon which to expend her wiling
ness; courage, but no rock of oppor-
tunity whereen to plant her feet. Here
is the appalling struggle Of the human
being who is sinking, sinking in the
merciless quicksand-sucked down to
death-perishing almost within reach of
hundred hands stretched out, alas! too
late, too late. Her death is murder.
Who is the murderer? I do not know.
The beauteous Capulet foresaw her
doom in the tragic dispensation of her
only love sprung from her only hate.
Perhaps too-slender love murdered this
fellow creature who is s'only woman
with touch OF genius" It is possible
that had she been loved as wisely, as ten
derly she had not been flung into the
quicksand like rat in hole. Babes
have sometimes been smothered by too
many blankets, when the bracing outer
air was what they needed most, could a
wiser love have known it. To be ten
derby reared is to be robbed of self-sus-
tanning power. And that, [ suspect, is a
true bill of indictments against most
persons on whom is laid the high and
solemn Office of accountability for wo-
mans worldly veal.
I will not stop here to discuss the &C.
cusation (under which society has
WINGED SO many times) that girls are
trained for no future beyond their we'd
ding day; that their habit of thought is
directed to that one object, making girl
hood mere period of inpatient pro-
baton, and marriage the extinguishment
of any glimmerings of responsibility
they may have caught while frisking,
lamb-like, in the parental fold. This is
deplorable enough, but to deplore it is
not to remedy it. just now it better be-
comes us to ask ourselves what shall be
done to succor those who are walking
blindly into the devouring sands, even
q
walked, with no voice to call her back,
no wise and guiding love to set her feet
upon the solid earth. I am not sure that
human wisdom is penetrating enough to
find the solution of this involved prob
lem, so far as it relates to those women
who have suddenly been called to face
now with more particular reference to
,o1, Il IN
died in the arms of fond, mistaken love
love that sees nothing beyond the
present soft and enervating luxury of
its object. Take away their sheltering
shield and the first November breath will
topple them over, mere helpless heaps.
They moan with the pain of the unaccus-
toned blast, knowing that action is their
only hope, and yet bitterly realizing
their incapacity for it. Theirs is the suf-
fering, but not theirs the sin. Much
cherishing has been to them a kind of
moral morphia, uniting them for any
acts requiring vigor of mind or body
and subiecting them to the tramplings
of busy millions who are too intent on
reaching their own goals even to foot
them out of the path. I do not know
that there is in the world more help
less and forlorn condition than theirs.
There are no asylums for such women,
and see no escape for the greater num-
ber of them. fear they must lie where
they have helplessly fallen until their
breath is trampled out.
{ wonder how many such have gone
to Judgment embittered accusers of the
fatal folly that destroyed them!
I wonder how many fathers and moth
ers, who are dandling daughters in that
mistaken fashion to-day, are conscious of
the wrong they do!
The daughters of luxury demand the
right to know what possibilities lie be-
yond the gardens in which they bud and
blossom; and woe unto those who deny
that right!
The daughters Of toll have tasted the
elixir distilled from conscious power,
and it tingles through all their veins,
sending flashes Of light to eyes that
dare face and do hourly face LIES re-
sponsibilities, and flushing cheeks with
the pride of Independence. I do not
doubt their frequent yearnings for the
other state. Home, elegance, rich
drapery and all those haromies that
make up the sum of that intangible
beauty which is called refinement, are
very dear to woman. and it is not sur
prising that her nature coyets them. But
the Independent observer, man, sees al
ways the self-reliant, self-helpful wo-:
mans splendid superiority, and meas
ures his honest admiration of her by his