The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-09-12
POWER OF WOMEN'S MIND.
A Question as to Whether or Not Tn
Are Capable of Serious Thought.

A Question as to Whether or Not They
Are Capable of Serious Thought.
The most striking paper in the Univer-
sal Review for July is entitled "On a
Certain Deficiency in Women" and is
written by Miss Fletcher, the author OF
sKismet," ssVestigia," and one or two
other delightful stories, who wells her
identity under the nom de plume OF
George Fleming. The problem proposed
in this paper is ssHave women capacity
for serious thinking?" question OF
which the writer plainly espouses the
negative side. And the one great reason
for their failure, she alleges, is one so
| full Of force, of unerring insight and OF
actual truth that it is impossible to deny
1.-THE reason that women are practically
never alone. s'In the present writer s
eyes," she says, "that disability consists
| almost entirely in the feminine incapacity
or radical disinclination (the word
matters ittle) for serious concentrated
and continued thought.
"And this gain derives in great meas
ure from the clowled life, the gregarious
habits, the snt ep-ike failing and halting
of educated women. Whether it is I'M
posed on them or accepted by them the
result, so far as art and morals are con-
cerned, remains the same" There is
depth of significance in this. TO wo-
man in what is conventionally known as
good society the love of solitude IS
utterly unknown. She is chaperoned
and escorted and ,companioned till she
has not only no clear idea Of her own
identity, but no very clear identity of
which to have an idea. The achieve
this result is, under circumstances that
very frequently occur, a tax that becomes
a serious burden materially, as well as a
constant clog mentally.
ga man may betake himself to any
place or resort he pleases, be spectator
of its life, and yet remain, if he likes,
the personal solitude of the prlmeval
wildness; but if woman would go to the
mountain, to the sea. to the clty-any-
where she will-she must have at least q
woman companion with her in the guise
of chaperone, friend or maid. Other
wise she will acquire at best reputation
for eccentricity, and at worst something
even less desirable. And thus she never
tastes the sweet of solitude. She never
knows the silence of her inspirations.
''There is scarcely one man IN q
thousand, says Miss Fletcher, "who at
some time in his life, has not felt and
indulged the impulse to step out from the
rank and file of his familiars and his con-
temporaries and envlsage his own nature,
stripped of its forms and surroundings;
not man worthy OF the name but has
searched for and found himself, has
hewn out his own conviction and wrest-
led, like Jacob, through the long nights
OF his youth, with the stern-browed angie
of some revelation. Aud all that implies
voluntary solitude; it implies an impas-
stoned interest in the impersonal and 3
continuous habit of the mind. And are
such things, then, finally denied to the
larger half of adult populations"
As society goes they are; and 1t is
hardly.an extraVaganceto say that this
denial of individual freedom is the most
inim ical influence to woman s intellectual
achievements. To woman living with.
out members OF her family this unwritten
law becomes a severe financial tax. In
at least half the affairs of her life she
must duplicate her expenses. When
ever she takes her walks abroad, SO to
speak, she must invite q. lady companion,
and as her companion is her guest she
must be entertained, 10th in the sordid
matter of bills paid, but in what is often
more-in giving her time and energy to
her guest. Thus she is severely handl-
capped for intellectual work. She is
cabined, cribbed, confined. She can
command no conditions for serious
thought. And "without serious thought
behind ia serious habit of thought"
as George Fleming well says, "tslent OF
which the world is full lowers to the
merest money trick of the imagination;
q thing thing pliable to fashion, at once
reigning over and dependent upon the
idlest whins of the day."