Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-23
CLUBS FOR WOMEN.
The Dangers which ssOuida'' Thinks
She Sees I'm Them.
Prom the pi,tsburr pasp.tch.

Prom the pittsburs Dispatch
Candidly il IL false philosophy which per-
suades people that enjoyment IL 30 be found in
excitement alone. The only really valuable
training Ia that which teaches A man or woman
70 be able 10 be indifferent 10 the ftful and
quickly exhausted pleasures of social life.
Those who cannot live without excitement,
whether IL take the form Of parties 30 meet the
Prince OF Wales. or of cheap trims 20 est
shrimps at Margate, are unhappy, dependent
on Others, never independent of fortune. Club
HE Will inevitably teach women 90 be more
and more intolerant of privacy and monotonv.
women usually like thing 10 dangerously ex-
aggerated extent when they like il at all IL IL
almost certain that IL they once acquire a taste
Tor club life they will become impatient of any
other; the constant quid novil the constant
change of society. the mimicry OF masculine
liberties, and the ease with which their per-
sonai wants are supplied. will all become
pleasures which will grow on them Nomeuis
clubs Will, j repeat never be much needed by
women OF the world who already possess al
tnat such clubs would offer them in more sat
isfactory forms; but they will become a dam
gerous attraction 20 those classes of women,
unhappiy so much upon the increase Who
not mistresses OF any home where they can
reign, educated enough to be restless and vain
owning or earning competence enough 10 af-
ford them leisure but not luxury, processing .
sterile and unnatural indifference 20 the opip-
ions and affections Of men. who plunge into
charlatanlsm, science. or politics, in
THEIR SEARCH FOR EXCITEMENT.
These women, meeting only other women,
Will increase their own discomfort and inpocu-
late with II the contented. The society Of wo-
men is not good. in great degree. for woman.
Women will harm the mind of a woman much
more dangerously than ninety nine men out Of
one hundred. Beware of female intimacies"
was said hSa wise diplomatist 20 his daughters,
and the advice was sound. Nomens clubs will
be hotbeds of such intimacies. The Jealous
dislike with which men regard the attachment
IN female friend of the woman they love is
well founded. To the friend are confided the
dearest secrets and the most dangerous conf
dences, and in her the lover or the husband
almost always possesses his greatest and most
lnsldlous enemy. Few men are very wise and
lew women are thoroughly loyal. All influence
Shlcn mas a tendency TO estrange women from
men Is bad, bad in itself and bad in its results
Men are not as yirtuous ar women would like
tnem TO be, nor are they often as clever as
they imagine themselves to be, but, such
az they are, they are indefinitely better objects
OF womens affections than women themselves,
and the mental atmosphere which they bring
with them Is more robust and inyigorating:
whilst their views are, on the whole. juster and
MORE SENSIBLE ABOUT MOST MATTERS
why women of the world are wiser in their
judgments than women OF the bourgeoisie is
due to the fact that the former is constantly
surrounded by an eyer-changing society Of
which men are the most numerous members
and the most intimate in association with her;
the latter Is, on the contrary. thrown for her
intimate associates almost entirely upon female
companions. The man is. perhaps the strong
est and best man who lives little with women.
but the woman who lives most among women
Is by no means the sweetest or the wisest
woman. There is an inclination among women
in the present days 10 defy themselves, which
Is fraught with immeasurable vanity. egotism,
and woe for themselves and Others Women's
clubs VIII be the nucleus of this undesirable
sef-adoration now so general in the weaker
sex. There Is in women hostility toward
men, a jealousy OF their powers, an envy of
their pursuits and their awards, which is
PREGNANT WITH EXTREME MISCHIEF,
and needs no encouragement from external
circumstance. There are too many, far too
many. women numerically; masses Of these
women are well educated and unemployed;
they are being Taught to believe that their SAL
walton lies in forcing themselves into careers
already overstocked by men: and the inevitable
result will be a deadly hostility between MANY
classes of the two sexes. Clubs will largely in
crease that class of women who are already
antagonistic to men. who are restless and un-
comfortable IN their homes who have passion
for physical science because they hope 10
satisfy through it their unwholesome curiosi-
ties, and who possess neither the qualities
which can attain brilliant position nor the
resignation which can accept an obscure one
The women's clubs. L. e., those for women
alone, will almost certainly be chiefly confined
to the middle classes. Women of fashion will
neither need nor care for them. Their menu
bers will be almost entirely recruited from the
large class OF tolerably clever, infinitely dis
contented women who are often declassees, al
ways discontinued and i'll at ease, and who pass
miserably from the fruitless restlessness Of
youth to an unloved and unlovely maturity.