New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-08-07
W1STED ENEPGY

Wasted ENERGY.
Nobody can critically observe the structdre
OF American social OF domestic life without
beng struck by the immense amount Of energy
which is wasted in the woman's half of it,
man ID the States has no difficulty in using all
the motive power that is in him. In most cases
II is needed fer money making purposes and
when 1t IS not, when lie inherits fortune, the
American still enters life hampered with the
idea that to make his heap of money bigger is
the chief end of man. The class, unfortu-
nately, is still small among us who understand
that life can be spent in a useful or cnnobling
pursuit without the stimulus or reward of
wages. We have no parallel class to that of the
idle gentry of small incomes in Europe Even
the English grocer OF draper, when he has laid
by snug sum in consols, retires from business,
buys villa, and devotes the rest of his life TO
fancy gardening or to playing gentleman, and
trying to push his children into better class of
society. The successful American, on the con-
trary, enlarges his business he dies III the har-
ness; he may give millions to found colleges
ana libraries as he works, but it does not occur
TO nm to give up work, TO sit quietly down and
to spend the rest of his days in studying a
science or reading history. lie would feel
himself as useless in the universe as a buzzing
gnat if he gave himself up to such frivOity.
Even the sons of American millionaires seldom
realize that their money is a basis TO lift them
to quiet helpful pursuits in life. Their sole
object too often is to get rid of it. They
become neither savants, Htterateurs nor even
solid quiet citizens, but are simply spendthrifts.
In amy case, however the American man finds
ample outlet for his energies. With the aver
age woman it is different. She, too recognizes
the value of money; if poor she wants to make
IT, and her anxiety TO do this battles perpetually
with her desire to do nothing which is strong.
minded and unladylilSe. How many hundreds
of thousands of women in inland towns and
country places this August are painting china
embroidering towels with hideous sunhowers,
sketching that most ubiquitous of bores, the
limp medieval woman in her poke bonnet, or
sending of vouminous manuscripts, all i'm the
hope of earning money secretly. She does not
earn it, Her energy is vasted because she does
not know how to bring it to bear. She is an
amateur dabbler in half dozen different arts,
instead of a painstaling, conscientious worker
IN one little unpretentious craft. Conscientious
work n one direction viii always bring wages
IN the end. In provincial communities, too.
custom and prejudice are strongly opposed TO
the earning of money by women who rank as
ladies' except as artists and authors. Her
energy is new wine in old bottles. The bottles
do not break, but the wine is apt to turn sour
and musty.
There is another kind of energy found in
these isolated communities, and IN the agricul-
tural life of our country thai makes many
woman's life wretched. The young men of
these towns and farms push out to the West;
the young girls are left behind. They are at
tractive, clever, and often independent as TO
means, but they do not marry. The very facul-
ties which put to use would have made Il en-
cheerful helpful wives and mothers become
morbid and poisonous when turned inward.
Such n woman is apt to take herself as she
would have taken her child, if she had one. to
train and discipline. She studies to improve
her mind; she cultivates Lcr conversational
abilities; or If deVout she prays in agony over
her shortcomings. She is perpetually laying
down rules for the words size is to speak. or
repenting of those which she has spoken. She
usually has an intimate friend, female, or.if n
man ono much older than herself, to whom she
indites interminable bulletins regarding the
condition of her character and soul. In short.
while she may be one of the most unselfish
creatures in the world she is also the most self
conscious; with all her efforts and prayers she
~
weakness and affectation, which moves through
life more like corpse put into action by some
galvanism from without than body worked by
healthy, natural blood.
The mistake made by all these women whose
energy is running to waste is that their aims
are too wide and too vague. A living is TO be
earned, not by general amateur ladylike pot
tering." as Carlyle grimly called it, but by a
definite trade or craft, followed accurately and
openly. The power of an unmarried woman is
in danger of growing diseased from want of
outside objects; the more reason, therefore she
should turn it away from herself. The Door she
has always with her; and BY the poor is not
meant only the penniless but the crippled, blind
and dumb of soul. A sufficient aim for such
one, too is to fill the place and fulfil the duties
OF a gentlewoman in a mixed community, such
as that of American towns. But few
of our American women realize that simple
duty, and we see the results in the communities |
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