Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-12-26

What George william Curtis says.

what George william Curtis says.
From Harper's Maraxine.
To be told that the lily is not the flower Of
vessals, but OF Venus, could not be more sur
prising than to be assured that the mannerless
sex IL not that Of the troubadour Rudel, but Of
the Lady Of Tripoh 20 whom be sang Such
suggestion Ii OF course but Q merry fancy.
Could any critic. however. inclined TO misogyny
seriously ailege Ill manners against the sex Of
Sydneys sister, Pembroke's mothera Yet this
IL precisely what has been recently done
But our Cato the elder does not permit man
truculently TO exal. himself by contrast with
discourteous woman. He expressly disclaims
the declaration Of the implication that man is
mannerly, while woman is not. In many men
he remarks indifference TO rudimentary courte-
sizes. but in many women gentle regard for
others which deserves even eulogy. The sum Of
the whole matter. nevertheless, is that the
average woman is more neglsctful of common
courtesy than the average man.
And no wonder. exclaims Cato the Younger
Tor the foolish foudness of man teaches her
discourtesy." If man, instead of giving her
his seat in the railway car and slavishly remov-
ing his hat in the elevator and acquiescing in
her tyrnnnical hat at the theatre insisted upon
his legal rights in bargain and required the
railroad company 70 furnish without evasion
the commodity Of seats for which il has been
paid and brought the manager 10 task for al
lowing one OF his customers TO steal what he
has sold to another, namely view Of the play.
tine world would tremble on the edge Of the
millennium of good manners
This terrible arraignment is q comprehensive
accusation of selfshness against the sex. But
it seems to be a generalization founded on a
local and restricted observation. IL is true Of
the woman Of many artists and critics. The
women Of Du Maurier, for instance. belong to
set, but they are not representatives of a
sex. Becky Sharp is no more typical woman
than Amelia, or SCOTS Rebecca. Major Dobbin
Is as much a type OF men az Lord Steyne.
Should our social censor sequester himself for
time in any remote rural community, il would
hardly occur to him to signalize the sex Of the
rural wives and mothers as the selfish sex. And
in town, although there are few heeting hours
OF hattered youth in which the beautiful and
fortunate Helen may tread on air and breathe
adulation until she feels herself a goddess vet
a newer and younger Helen is ALWAYS gently
pushing her from the throne. OF all seasons
that of blossoms is the briefest and the maturer
Helen, of whom the sex is composed. is not
hayward and selfish, is no longer uncertain,
coy and hard to please" but patient. self-sacri-
iicing and true.
! Man was self-convicted from the beginning.
Could there be more ineffable selfishness than
Adams plea in the garden? ''The woman whom
thou gavest 10 be with me, she gave me OF the
tree and did eat" Had Eve been of no finer
stuff than that she would have left him there.
But his craven answer at once revealed the es-
sential weakness that demanded the devoted
stay of unseltish consistency. We're women the
ever selfish Eve would have abandoned Adam
to himself, while she tripped to solitary pas
lures new. But the same quality that sustains
the secluded farmer and his household in the
hills supported the timid tiller of the first gar
den as the sword famed behind him over the
closing gate of Eden. IL Adam planned that
| Eve had lost him Paradise. does not every son
of Adam own that she has regained it for himl
The watchfGl traveller in city or
wherever his fate may guide, Is more struck by
l the general courtesy than the occasional dis
courtesy of the gentler sex. The observable
| phenomenon in city transit is the resoute, ag-
! gressive, conscious seifshness of man hiding
behind a newspaper. with an air of uncon-
seriousness designed to deceiye-that is. TO lie
| or braZening II out with an uneasy aspect of
defending his rights. This is the spectacle. and
not a supercillious assumption on the part of
| the shop girl The courteous refusal to take a
sea. or courteous acceptance of it is more
| familiar than the courteous proffer. Cato the
| younger suggested that ii is wrong that seats
| should not be provided, and holds that the
company should be compelled to furnish the
| accommodation for which il is paid. 1t il a
Daniel come to Judgment, a wise young judge;
but how shall it be done? Shall men keep their
seats until by sheer shame, and in def
erence to indignant protest, the com.
pany does its duty? But would
consciousness that the accommodation paid for
was not provided? Would they not arise rather
from the consciousness that it was peculiar
wrong that the gentler sex should be so incom-
NODDED? And. if SO, while the accommodation
lasts, what but the selfshness Of men devolyes
| it upon women? But if men should agree to
surrender their seats that women should be
first accommodated, is there any doubt that
| the wrong would be speedily righted? And to
| what would this be due but to the fact that the
| selfshness of men would insist upon the COM
| fort of which, while the accommodation lasts,
they deprive women?
| Indeed, if all men in crowded cars should
| resolutely keep all women standing the wrong
would not be righted. because women would
submit with unselfish patience, and because
corporations have no souls The better plan,
therefore, is that all men shall refuse to See a
| woman stand. because if men are really dis
| confOrted by their own courtesy they will conn
| pei redress.
In world turned topsy-turvy, where Cor
| della and Isabella and Juliet were mannerless,
| the other sex might be eulogized by distinction
as mannerly. Bus in this world is Philip SIDNEY
as truly the type Of the average man as JEANNE
Deans Of the average woman?