Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-08-23
-ssSSAlLLSS
9ai1u - Eagle
WOMAN AND HOME.
6oMETHlNG SENSIBLE ON THE "OlD
MAID" QUESTION.

Evening Dress of Long Ago-The Discreet
shopper-she wouldn't Pay Poll Tax.
A Lady Who Was Tired of Getting Into
Print-Items of Interest About the Fair.
1t is somewhat to be wondered at that
term of reproach has been manufactured out
of the words which state the social condition
Of an unmarried female of more or less date,
d term largely used by the vulgar among
young girls, and rather disused in good so
eety, term, too, which may in its own time
be applied to the larger number Of the young
girls using it now, since, though many are
called, few are chosen.
Considering that the spinster has been
ieemeda fair target for the receipt of all ran
dom shots with this supposedly unpleasant
term, 1t is also not a little singular that
wherever an ideal or powerful quality has
been personated in the poetry and religions
and myths of the raceit has been in the shape
tf an unmarried female There are the Nine
MUSES., for example, the presentment of all
art, all song, all soft motion, all thought and
relation; what weird and withered sisters
they would be by this time had not Pan by
Three Graces, too; what old fashioned, lean
hnd spiny spinsters would they be by this,
richly meritiug the opprobrious term if years
could make them do sol And Numa's nymph
Egeria: one trembles to think what changes
time would have wrought in her, making her
she ft subject for the epithet, had she not
gone dcwn into the gulf with Curtius and
many another fair and noble dream. The
lrvx,
as il were, In their own time what must they
s1e had they continued down to oursi
One does not speak Of the Furies or the
Uarpies, since one seems privileged TO doubt
5f such powers es theirs for controlling the
husband and the family were, under the gen
Hral law that allows no waste in the cosmos,
allowed TO be useless, and if there were not
Gnrnentioned husbands in the background
there, each like the felt but unseen companion
bf Sirius. But there is Pallas Athene, lofty,
gray eyed, beautiful and severe, who must
ever be liable to the imputation, together
with the farouche and silver proved Diana;
and there is Hebe, as open to the charge,
wonder as we may if years, in whatever
humber, can make Of her bloom anything
jess than loveliness. Heavenly and eternal
old maids, living in a separate atmosphere Of
y
epithet banded with opprobrium, with all
your beauty and bloom and immortality of
youth and receive no hurt, shall not those
of less degree of years, even if also of less
Eegree of beauty and charm, bear the same,
and with an equal indiferencei
The Goddess Of Liberty, too in our own
day, is without doubt an unmarried female,
now of many years standing, whatever Bri-
- 1o-- 4,.;A ho hold 70 ha.
but perhaps we may leave these mythical
women, and the Parcn, and the Norns, and
al the rest, and come down to the base Of real
flesh and blood in history, and ask if it dis
turbed certain great women to be branded
by the unpleasant epithet, or if it disgraces
Others TO share the epithet with them now.
70 pass by ST. Cecilia, st. Agnes, st. Catha-
rine, and ali that cloud of witnesses, and come
upon the secular: Shakespeare seems to have
thought well OF Queen Elizabeth, as she
walked 'in maiden meditation, fancy free"
Joan of Arc, it is true, died young, but if her
horoscope could have been forecast as for one
TO remain on earth, it is safe to believe it
would have set her down as one of the I'M
mortal spinster sisterhood
And among those of lesser social degree,
anay we ask what share of disgrace fell to
Jane Porter, the chronicler of Sir William
Wallace, the creator of that immortal hero
Thaddeus of Warsaw, type of half the heroes
born to the pages Of romance since thenf And
the same may be inquired respecting Hannah
More, who was as largo a factor III the rear
ing Of the brilliant Macaulay as any other
person; and again of Dora Wordsworth, near
~ as rare q poet as her brother-to mention
but few out of a multitude, and not tc
touch upon our own day at all.
Few people would have cared, not to say
dared, TO speak Of the great Eliza" as al
aid maid; few would have thought Of the
Term with Joanna Baltic or Maria Edge
worth or Mary Milford, and perhaps none i'll
connection with Mary Lamb; but they are
all of the band, nevertheless. And on the
whole it is not so poor thing to belong TO &
hand that can produce the ideals of art
poetry, religion and philosophy, that could
produce great ruler, a great warrior, anc
such souls today even as those Of Miss Di1
and Miss Nightingale; and in this view thOst
who arc subject TO the reprCach involved IL
the couoquial name of the band, can afford
20 consider the jeers Of those who use the
phrase, as Of no more weight than the chat
'tering Of sparrows IN the city streets.-Har
pers Bazaar