St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-05-24
Some Women Who Keep Diaries and Some
Of the Things They Are Careful
Not to Put in Them.
The Fictitious Story Told by One Girl
and the Real Escapade of q
Clever Matron.
One Form of Independence to be De-
plored-- of the Amer
lean Girl.

weeping for their daughters who are not
married, or bridegrooms realizing the mean
ing of matrimony, or general lack of good
health, no one can say. Everybody feels
that world of discontinued souls is worse
than world OF properly punished ones.
As yet no better Offers so we all grin and
bear it; but there is no enthusiasm in the
grin. The wemen, as rule, have read
new books and devised new gowns; the
men seem to spend their time in posing as
Toys forever in the club windows, an
there is an air of expectancy about every
body. Some of those old gentlemen at the
clubs look as if they were expecting the I'M
dertaker and it may be that their families
remember the bill-which is an
item. Jack says he is waiting for the world
to come to an end, and well, Dolly,
was never eager in that direction, so l am
just waiting for the sun to come out. That,
after all, is about the best debutant. 1t
does not grow passe, its smiles are appre-
ciated more the broader they are, and alto
gether. for good and sundry reasons" it
is the incest of visitors, leaving you with
regret at its departure and never coming
one bit too early. There is much in being
sympatica during those overwhelm-
ing gray days 1 read Feuillet's new book La
Morte. 1t is very bright; more than that
it is wonderful psychical study of two
women, and very good blow is hit against
the
EDUCATION OF WOMEN
on the moral principle only-without any
catering to the emotional nature that de-
mands a religion. Of the two women the
good one, who was the first wife, never
gains her desire Ito teach her husband to
believe) while she is living; but afterward,
when he is married to the woman of rea-
son, the creature who finds her excuse for
crime in nature, then the dead one is the
victor. One always wants to say of the
woman of reason that of all other types
she is the one for whom there can be found
no raiSOn d'etre. Dolly, women will ap-
preciate this book. Feuillet seems to have
really been able to read more than one
kind of woman, and he paints them simply,
forcibly and truthfully. Do you remember
in the DIARY of Woman" that scene
where the question asked is:
what kind of woman best
performs hor duty?" A man wrote,
1.-The woman who best performs
her duty is one who does not seek romance
in life, for no real good comes of it; who
does not seek poetry in it. for duty is not
poetic; who does not seek it in passion, for
passion is only polite name for vice."
This was met with a chorus of applause,
until woman, who was grandmother,
had the courage to reprimand the young and
cOnceited author of this platitude by saying:
Il cannot let such heresies pass before
these young women. Under pretext of
making dutiful women, would you make
fools, young Puritan? In the first place, I
do not understand this mania for always
opposing passion to duty-passion on this
side, duty on that-as if one were neces-
sarily the opposite of the other. But we
can put passion into duty, and we not only
can, but ought and L would even say, my
dear sir, that this is the secret of the
lives of
vIRTUOUS WOMEN,
for duty all by itself is very dry 1 assure
you. You say that it is not poetic. That
is certainly my opinion, but it must be-
come so before anyone can take
pleasure in it; and it is precisely in render
ing vulgar duty poetic that these romantic
dispositions, against which you hurl your
anathemas, serve us. If you ever marry,
choose woman who is not romantic, and
see what will come of it. = It will
turn out that everything in her life will
seem fiat and insipid-her husband first,
then her freside, her children, even her
religion. All, surely it is not against ro-
mantle ideas that the present generation
has need of guarding itself; the danger for
the moment is not there. We do
not perish from enthusiasm: we
perish from platitude. Look at
the women whom they talk about in Paris
1 mean those whom they talk about too
much. Is it their poetic Imagination that
blinds them? Is it the search for the ideal
that misleads them? All, great Heavenl
threetfourths of them have the emptiest
brains and the barrenest imaginations in
creation. Ladies, and especially you young
ladies, do not fetter yourselves. Be enthu-
siastic; be as romantic as you choose. Try
to have a grain of poetry in your heads.
You will be the more easily virtuous and
the more sincerely happy. Poetic Senti-
ment at the tireSide of a woman is like the
music and incense of a church: it is the
charm of right living.". The grandmother
realized what living meant, for to her had
come experiences; the young women could
TALK GLIBLY
about duty and knew nothing about life.
That suggests this: Do women keep diaries?
Not real ones. AT a luncheon party the
other day there were some bright women
ton of one namby-pamby girl, who as
serted that she wrote all she thought and
about whom there seemed to be an impress
sion that she did not think to any great ex-
tent, each woman said that she would not
for the mines of Golconda keep diary tell
ing just what life meant to her. A chroni-
Gle of the cotillions. dinners and luncheons.
Of the plays seen and the witty things
heard-ah that would be charming, if any
body had the time. But what one thought
and felt-of that even priest does not
know all. He comes nearest; but there are
thoughts that are not sins. SO they are not
whispered even to him. Delca Willis was
there and was most emphatic in her views.
She said that women thought of them
selves and those they loved or hated in
such way that they would not. in some
instances, confess it even to themselves
they would deny dreaming such things.
Not necessarily wrong, but complex. Look
ing around the table wondered if Delicia's
neighbor would put in her diary the story
of the time when, not quite sure of her cue
in the play, she stood at the wings and was
passionately embraced by another woman's
husband. If the woman next to me would
be willing to write down all she felt when
she stood beside the coffin of
THE MAN SHE LOVED
best in all the world and had to act as any
stranger would-if my other neighbor would
care to write down the cruel words she saws
to her husband day after day, and then.
then Dolly, being sinner, and therefore
charitable, / recalled to my mind that there
were few little things l should not care to
see in black and white Delicia and l
stayed after the rest went away, because
Nancy Oliver begged us to, and somehow
we kept talking on the same subject. 1t was
a sort of experience meeting. Delicia said that
the mistake of her life had been in having
con fidante, she had gotten into the habit of
telling nearly everything. Though of
course there was always something kept
back. Nancy told us this: ''You both
remember my marriage-you know Mr..
Oliver was my fathers age-that
I tried to do right, but 1 never could under
stand what he married me for; l made no
difference in the house, and think was
rather in his way, though he was
alw avs polite and nice. A
girl of 19 is not satisfied with politeness and