Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-09-28
;a4istellaueuus &eadiug.
WOMAN,S UNSELFISHNESS.

Tn comparing one race with another, we al
feel that selfshness is not characteristic OF
race. But this observation suggests one stri
king exception to its general drift. You
NAV say that one person is more selfish thar
another, but you may not say this OF any
group of persons till you come to the largest
into which you can divide the personal world.
1t is not easy to make any generalization
about men and women, for everyone IS elthel
man or woman, and knows his or her own
sex in a different manner and different de-
gree from what he does the opposite but we
think the general opinion may, in this case
be taken as it's own justification and it ap-
pears to us that in some respects this great
distinction exhibits what we mean by the an
tithesis Of truth and of charity, or of what we
have called the non-preferential element in
love, Men are about as much or more true
than women as women are more unsel1sh than
men. We do not mean that if you could reck-
on up all the lies that ara told in year you
would find that the,greater number had fe-
male origin. When it comes to conscious
deceit, we shouldsupposethat men and women
were pretty much alike. We mean that a
mans words and thoughts originally stand IN
much closer relation to life than woman's do,
and that to some extent this explains his being
woman is. For the habit of assuming any
excellence has opposite effects, according to
the gap between our moral position and that OF
excellence. We actually widen the chasm, If
it be already so wide that the profession must
be called false. But sincere words are &C.
tions and in protesting a readiness for self
denial, even with knowing fully what it is,
we may to some extent, approach it. 1t is
not possible to imagine person bound over
to a self-sacriRcing life by professions that
might be called unreal. Every human being
must discover, when it comes to the point,
that the expectation of surrendering the pleas
ant things of life without reluctance or dltii-
Guilty, is mere ignorance OF what sacrlhce
means but an engagement to betray no re-
luctance or difficulty may possibly tend To
diminish these feelings, unless they be very
great. And, in fact there is a great deal OF
this uuselfishness among women-falthfulness
we mean to an ideal that is to some extent
illusory. sin matter so utterly insgnifi-
cant as ANYTHING personal to oneself, " as we
once heard it said bya brilliant and cultivated
woman. lone would not of course, think it
worth while to hesitate" The life long since
concluded, was not only by means OF such
glaring contradiction with that piece OF fan
tastic morality as we should be apt to imagine.
And perhaps many of the inconsistencies we
find in complex human nature may be ex-
planned by rememembering that it is not i'm
possible that both these effects should be
found in the same person, so that at one mo-
ment woman SHOULD be more unseltish be-
cause she has put herself in a position, in
which self-sacrifice is a necessity, and that
the next moment her natural impulses should
yet rush back upon her with rebound, and
her professed readiness to share a crust with
her husband should no more share any sacrifice
of her wishes to his than the sight of ''your
obedient servant" at the end of a letter sug-
rests the discharge of some menial office. In
the fiuctuating ebb and flow which we know
as character, the influence of exaggerated pro-
fessions may tend both to weaken and to
strengthen our moral life, and none but the
eve that reads all hearts can discern what IN
fuence is to give the ultimate bias to the
spirit which feels both.-Spectator.