Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-01-29

or girlhood up, is myth OF
the imagination which Voitaire or
Darwin, or some later constellation,
has utterly exploded. If she paints
portrait, no matter how excellent 1t
may be, she is assured by some cavi-
ler that she has caught a false express
sion. II she undertakes q lar dscape she
s confronted by another, whose pro-
vince it is to tear down and discourage
with the statement that she has
worked in a bad light and thus has
impaired the naturalness of her re-
suits. If she creates statue, she is
doomed to have it dissected as COM
pletely and as unlovingly as the
corpse of the pauper carved up into
portions for the scientific digestion OF
the anatomical class. If she writes a
book, the most ungrateful task of all,
she must, before she hurls her first
missile, prepare herself for a hot
and continuous attack, if not
for ultimate defeat, since to allow
nothing new to stand has become the
law of the critic of the day. There
fore, as the accepted decision that the
novelists of the past have exhausted
everything, and that in consequence
there is nothing left for the writers of
the future to do but to initiate, occu-
pies the same relation to fiction, as
the theory of predestination does to
the plan of salvation, of VIII t avail
is the ambitious and the
genius born now and in time to come :?
With these knotty problems, however,
the happy woman with the good hus-
band and the cheerful home is not puz-
zled; it is only the unhappy woman
with the glory and the i'm
mortality of genius, who must
fret herself to death over their
solution. Yet brilliant women, and
men, too, have written and are still
writing volemes upon the Highest
Sphere possible to women, and which
in the finest rhetoric and with the
clearest arguments are intended to
prove that cooking is drudgery, the
care of children slavery, and that a
career of fame (if she cannot have
both) is better for an enlightened
woman than a husband. But if the
humble man is acknowledged to be
happier than the ambitious man, does
| it not follow that the humble woman
is infinitely happier than the ambi-
tious woman, whose nerve is never
as strong and whose nature is always
far more sensitive than his with
whom in the arena of publicity she is
forced to jostle. Besides, even the
x,ad fny~ fhnv,,-
selves immortal places in the book OF
fame, have found their truest and
best happiness in the companion
ships which have in the duality of
their experiences weighed them down
to the level Of the ordinary woman.
Outside of the realm of poetry, Mrs.
Browning lived charmed life with
the man who helped to make her
what she was while in her maturer
years. Madame DE Stael, who awas
of an intensely affectionate nature,
descended from the heights of politics
and literature to wed the obscure
young soldier who loved her, so that
when she died he died of grief soon
after her. But these and others of
the same character of brain power
were born to be great, and
so could no more escape their
destinies than the stars can
escape their spheres, The masses of
women toilers, women artists, though,
are not SO created; and merely strug-
gle because they are compelled to.
Yet the world condemns them for
rushing out into the battle of life. in
stead Of quietly and contentedly re-
naming at home; and does not realize
or understand that the warfare is a
necessity, and that bread is the only
reward ever sought or found. The
lot of such women is incomparably
hard. They have all of the hardships
and none of the celebrity which makes
even the most weary road to success
easy. Again there are few. a very
few, women, who from choice aban-
don private for public life, and who,
with no particular aptitude, but a
genuine love of work, find their
pleasures outside of themselves and
their homes. These women are Of
ten amiable and useful members of
society, and as such are expert in
some branch OF art or trade but as
they are neither great nor domestic,
and as their husbands and their chill
dren (if they have any, needs must
suffer for their mistaken zeal, it
would seem that they, at least, had
not attained the Highest Sphere.
Who has? She, / think, who has
the opportunity and the ability to
make home paradise, to keep a
husband lover, and to rear up a
family of children to bless her and
benefit society.