Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-23


invasion of their pleasant Weymouth
Landing, scarcely less to be dreaded
than an Indian surprise, the cares of the
farm and hay crop on her hands, living
in want of every feminine necessity, not
only of dress, but such things as tea,
pins, sugar, and writing-paper, she yet
went through those wearing years of
separation, and shone beautiful and
witty at the court of st. James, when
the homespuu wife of modern congress-
man would have been ruined in health
and looks by the wretchedness of those
slow years. We have only to compare
the wives Of some of the presidents, dull,
common place women, who carried the
stamp OF their early trials through the
White House, and other bright women
who bloomed and expanded to their
honors till they honored the place, not
the place them. 1t could not be SAID
that opportunity made all the difference.
1t was mind, rising above circumstances
and making the best use of them, which
left one woman dullard, tolerated for
her husband g sake, and another be-
loved and remembered for her own.
Minds make their own opportunities.
Where one woman means that she has
no time for mental culture, another,
equally burdened, makes her chance,
cuts slip from q newspaper and pins it
where she can read while ironing or
washing dishes, and repeats poetry or
proverbs to herself while going about the
house, counting it no injury to her fam
lily if she takes ten minutes day in this
manner to keep her soul alive and grow
ing. For the best and deepest cultiva-
ton and education is gained in this way,
little by little, wrought into the memory
and worked over in thought till it is part
of the lonely Students being. 81 am
too grieVed and worried to think or read
when l have time to sit down with
baby says one woman. 81 never
could have borne what had to if had
not read and thought Of other things
when I rocked the baby or pared the
apples" says another; and it simply
shows the differenc in the souls of peo-
pie. Women of fine quality of intel
Iect will live through troubles and dis
tresses which send ordinary women in
sane, and come out looking younger
than their sisters who have been petted
and sheltered ell their lives.
But certain women follow closely the
example of the old lady on her death
bed, who, reminded that she had led an
easy life, whined out that 'she had al
ways made the most of her small
troubles - Few women overlook a
chance to be worried, and as for ignor-
ing q slight or offense, or failing to be
worked up and wounded by it to the
highest degree, it would seem flying in
the face of Providence, according to
their idea.
Enough has been said of the want OF
fresh air and sunshine in women's lives
to last the century out for all the heed
the sex give TO It. IT women will live
fifteen hours Day in back apartments
where the sun seldom enters, and take
their only outdoor recreation shopping
in hot stores, the ekin will become an@-
mic, lose its functions, and grow pallid,
dead and thick with wrinkles, which
form most IN dull flesh. If they would
only take care always to sit IN the sunny
window, and to keep the rooms well
aired it would turn the dial back for
their looks at least ten years out of forty.
But they will not for another genera
ton, and pass to the fact that women
task themselves too hard to expect to
keep young. Only to-day a stranger
writes me that she is twenty eight, has
been married over eight years, and had
four children, losing two; that she goes
into society which she calls lovely, to
dinners, lunches, dancing parties, keeps
house, and speaks OF being up nights
with sick children a good deal. Yet she
wonders why, when she tires little at
dances, she looks badly, and the lines
give q WORKOUT look to her face.
Men say that women will drive the best
horse to death, and they are not much
more merciful to themselves Suppose
this woman should advertise for strong,
fresh girl of toIerabIe manners and edu-
nd TO hoy fO
take care of four children in sickness and
health, keep the house and do more or
less shopping and sewing for the family,
be company for all my guests and our
own people, do the preserving and nice
cooking very likely, take the place OF
whatever servant is away, and beside
this dress and 20 out to parties two or
three times week, where you must be
lively as a girl of eighteen. You must
be prettily dressed and keep your hair
crimped all the time, and keep the chill
dren nice. - What terms do you think
would induce any girl to take these du-
ties? What price of love and home,
think you, would induce any girl of nine
teen to undertake such life if she knew
its stress beforehand? 1 doubt if any
lover, however ardent and handsome,
would ever win wife if she read and
unprecedented WIFI ll16 hOulO DElllS
her. But entering ignorantly upon these
duties, which tax mind and body, she
insists upon adding to them the full tale
of society brickmaking, and wonders
why she looks worn out. She is worn
out, and she win drop and die as GER
tainly as any overtasked creature long
before her time. What she minds more,
she will be Ragged and repellant to her
beauty loving husband years before she
dies off.
No woman in ordinary circumstances
can rear four children in eight years and
keep the run Of society too. A mother,
of all women, should be in bed by 10
O'Clock each night if she values her
looks. Better still if she goes to bed at
8, not to sleep always, but to read COM
fortably or chat with sister or inmate.
But one might as well talk TO women
about turning Mohammedan as about
going to bed at o. clock. Patti does it,
and Lucca, and ell the great singers who
are radiantlY handsome ct en- age when
other women retire from the foreground.
But these home performers think too lit
tie of themselves and too much of empty
society chatter evenings to forego being
up nights. Can you wonder that they
fade? SHIRLEY DARE.