Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-06
NOTENOUGHFREEDOM
For the Many Professional and Work.
ing Women of the Age.
A GREAT BLANK IN THEIR LIVES.
One of Shirley Dares Readers Writes Her
a Strange Letter.
is MATRIMONY THE ONLY REMEDY ?
WRITTEN FOR THE pIsPATcH.l

To Shirley Dare:
Since you wrote that article months sine
on the Apotheosis of Friendship, hav
wished often to write you with a freedom
which might be displeasing. Six months
have carried that article, read and re-rea,
it, and composed hundred letters to you
never written. Tonight freedom come
over me, and write as feel for once in n,
life. Why not? You are an utter strange
to me; shall never see you, especially if
send this letter. Who has not sometime
felt it would be the utmost luxury to la,
bare ones thoughts, to make confession t.
ones Maker, and for one hour to stand free
unconcefned of self and absolutely true t,
nature. That hour I mean to have.
1 write in a room at once a studio ant
dwelling, and have a roommate. Could yor
drop in am sure you would enjoy our sur
roundings. So much for who 1 am. Now, ir
all your counsels and exhortations or
beauty, why do you ignore the great agent
| for making women attractive? Why have
you not laid open the secrets of the lonely
lives women are compelled to lead for want
of little affection? 1 write advisedly in
both words, for little regard, only little
would change life for US often. You must
hear more history to comprehend the case.
was the breadwinner of the family for all
my youth, and too busy to think of loving
or marrying, and now find myself with a
strong feeling for my art and none at all
for marriage. I suppose 1 must say, to
avoid misunderstanding, that coarser ties
are utterly out of my world Of thought as
much as theft or murder. should as soon
think OF cutting my throat
THE GOOD MEN ARE ALL MARRIED.
In the first place, never see a man who
comes near my ideal of a lover or husband.
The honest, shrewd, intelligent men of good
tastes and warm feelings, who would attract
most women, are all mortgaged, j. e., mar
ried, and the idea of marrying and settling
down" creates in me an invincible repug-
nance. To have life, so full of rich posi-
bilities, resolve itself, as it does for most
married couples, into mere questions of
ways and means, giving teas and lunches,
and engaging nursery maids and cooks, is to
discrown it entirely. I could 60 to the wild
est ranch with husband who suited me,
and work for him; but it would be intelli-
gent working, fitting my strength to it, and
making the best and brightest of all condi-
tions, putting the necessary vulgarities of
life underneath, out of sight as far as pos
sible. My house should never carry
the odor of cooking dinners. let
me assure you. Dinners there should
be, and savory ones; but 1 would contrive
to keep them civil to fine senses, and 1 could
do it, too. Still it would cost the sacrifice
of all that have given my life to learn, to
marry now; and at 35 with weakened
strength one does not crave to take up the
heavy duties OF marriage. I am very COM
Portable in home and income as am, and
sure that it is best to stay so. But the alb
-solute friendlessness and loneliness of my
lot weighs like sentence of Siberian exile.
II anything, years have brought a serener
outlook, perception of motives which,
often petty and mean, are not always as
blamable as we think, or as treacherous as
they seem. If it were not for the chance
generosities one comes across like the moss
in the desert, fail to see how we could en-
dure life. 1t does not look brighter or easier
after two hours spent in a woman's circle,
where the undisguised spite is more tolerable
than the cordiality half put on, with crit
icism lurking behindit.
FRIENDSHIP OF WOMEN.
have tried to make friends with women,
but they go about picking up needles and
pins off the carpets when they are not busy
sticking them into people. The good ones
are so taken up with conventions and the
Pundita Ramabai of the Indian schools, they
have no time or thought for the solitary wo-
man in the next block eating her hesrt out
with loneliness in want OF human smile
or word of affection. Have you ever
known this famine of human nature so that
you were glad OF the veriest stray crumbs of
genialitv, grateful when the grocer gave a
cheerv good morning, or when the cozy
chambermaid chatted IN a kindly way as
she filled the pitchers atnight, or the bell
boy put on some unconscious touch of cour-
tesy as he took your messages?
I've lived on these crumbs for weeks and
months, when it seemed as if my heart was
dying within me for want of some gentle
goodwill, but l never found one of nv own
sex who could understand this. They all
thought it was love sickness, for want of
lover Good heavens! isn't there any kind
ness on earth outside of the love that ends
in matrimony? 1 call that the most selfish
thing in the world. The tepid thing people
know as friendship is too Laodicean to en-
dure, too weak cambria tea for slipping A
gown more becoming than your friends is
enough to disturb good feeling, and if hard
work for a dozen years has brought you
where you gain few dollars more than 9TH
ers, you are made to suffer for it. How
often 1 have been told after days work
which exhausted soul and body, "you earn
1 did not get it by sewing or working in a
hot kitchen. The kitchen would not be hot
or vulgar if I had to work there, and would
set my brains to work to gain as much re-
ward for my labor as have now.
WHEN MAN COMES IN.
If a man comes into the atmosphere.
friendship flies like the crystals |
which seek the iarthest point from each |
other. have tried giving up all the gen.
tlemen to them, but that didn't seem to work |
either. One was baited for superiority. Or |
if I found really brilliant, inter-
esting woman, whom one could meet |
with pleasure, three times and the
fourth one was not up to the mark, |
it was all over. Because you were not
bright one evening, therefore you had come |
to the end of your resources, and were not |
worth cultivating. I tried then, to make
lady writers. that the less men and women
have to do with each other, except in the
way OF marrying, the better, which puts in
tercourse on very low footing. At least
the experiment was not insipid, for had |
trouble enough to keep frogpond healthy.
Mys friends, half of them held my
Indifference to matrimony immoral,
,loaking some vicious bent of mind, or gave
me credit for pretense. The frankest treat
nent could not keep any man whose pres
suce gave half an evenings pleasure from
counting me as one of his conluests, and he
was surest to feel SO when his detects of
opinion or manners were hardest to tolerate.
Lads of 20, whom I liked because torsooth
10 appearance of lovemaking would hold in
heir case, ncied that "the old maid was
liter them," a way Of putting the matter
which laid the ghost of preference or pleas
ire in their bright, wild spirits. Did ad-