The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-09-26
THE BACHELETTE.
She Has Taken the Place of the Ono,
Much Dreaded "OId Maid.'


Much Dreaded "OId Maid.''
Editor WOmdn's Column. Morning Call:
There is progress all along the line. and
every living creature must move on" If,
at the beginning, enough of 1.-THE breath of
life was not 'breathed into" being, then,
like the dOdo, it must 90 on and serve here
after only to decorate the shelves of the
fossil-hunter. 1t would truly be pity
were any class belonging to half of the
human race left behind in this grand march,
but that is impossible, and so, while the
thorny single rose has blushed into the hun
dred petaed, and the sour crabappe mel
lowed into the golden Sweeting," the
crotchety, typical old maid has developed
into the self-respectiDg and respected
bachelette.
The time was when single woman, the
femme sole of the lawmakers, was supposed
to be single only because no one had asked
her to be otherwise; her eyes were dim, in
the popular picture with vain watching for
the coming man." who never came. Vine
gar was i'll her aspect and acid in her tenn
per, all soured from long waiting. If in
dependent in fortune she lived alone because
too diSagreeable to keep associates, solaced
only by the company of her cat whose claws
matched her tongue in sharpness. over
the tea cups" she was full of bitter gossip,
and her piece de resistance was the charac-
ter of her neigh6Or.
If poor in fortune, then, indeed, was her
fate sad one. She perhaps lived with q
married sister on sutlerance, where, in re-
turn for taking the children through the
measles, whoopiDg cough and two sets OF
teeth, to say nothing of all sorts of disagree
able drudgery which no one else would do,
she was given b re and mPager support.
Or, having no sister, she perh ps went in
Though the only half-opened door Of some
brothers house ana sat in the cold corner OF
the fireSide. where, in addition to the tasks
in her sisters family, she bore the tauntS OF
her SlStcr-ln-laW ana wore
HER CAST-oFF DRESSES.
Little account was made of the precious
unpail service, which could be bought in no
market of her patience and her self
sacrifice. On how many page has the
story -teller-may he be forgiven, because it
was sometimes trce-drawn the forbidding
silhouette.
Now. modern progress has changed all
this and, though few typical old maids still
exist, they are as scarce as white black
BIRDS
The bncheette of modern civilization is
woman who remains single for any one Of
many good reasons. She may be by nature
afflicted with the virtue Of consistency and
unable to forget the lover, who, too early,
went over to the majority" Shakespeare
says that ''men have died and worms have
eaten IHtll, BuG not LOT rove, DuU many
women always remember the eye that no
longer sees ana the hand that has lost its
cunning" Again, the bachellette may not
have found it possible to love any man, who
has happened to ask it of her-all men are
not adorable though some of them come
pretty near it-and she is not, in this age,
obliged to marry for home. She may have
n vocation. a talent, genius; IN short for
some good reason she chooses a single life
as man may choose, and SO becomes a
bacheette.
If independent in fortune she has her own
house, a "weel keepit," one. too where the
very lares and penates run the risk of hav-
ing their faces washed occasionally, and be-
comes the center OF gracious social infu-
enceS. She adopts child, some homeless
waif, or young sister, takes care of her old
mother, or manages an orphan asylum so
that there is no deficit at the end of the year
If poor, She still has her own home, where
the ire burns brightly on the heartn-no
more cold corDers-and there she compoSes
editorials for her brothers to read, designs
costumes, writes books, ants pictures,
chiSelS statues, and, when the time for sum-
mer rest comes, she fits to the mountains or
the sea; she runs over to Europe or crosses
TO the Yosemite
Possibly at the same time her married sis
ter and siSter-in-law
STAY AT HOME
And cook the dinners through the hot sum-
mer days, while the servant, who is also a
bachelette, takes her outing.
And so it is not such bad thing after ALL
this single blessedness. A prominent Judge
not hundred miles aMay-I suppress the
name and spare his blushes-once tod the
writer that 'if he were woman in this
wonderful modern world he would not
marry any man on earth, king or KAISER"
and a cultivated Engishman, travelling IN
America recently-probably duke in dis
guise-says that "the most delightful
feature of this breezy New World is the
| ady bachelors the bacheettes.
And just here if any purist cavil at this
name, let him turn to his dictionary and
forever after hold his peace" He will
there find that the English word bachelor.
derived from old French. bachelor or bache-
lier, originally meant young, single man,
and gradually grew to mean an unmarried
man Of any age. He will also find there
that bachelette is the exact, feminine, oppo-
site, meaning, originally, a young single
woman, now intended to mean a single
woman Of any age. So take notice. all We
men and women, who would be progress
i've, or who would rather die than be old
fashioned, that the form 'old maid" has be-
come obsolete, otherwise od-fashiOned. 1t
Is given over to the rude and uncultured,
who use it from ignorance or malice, which
is enough to make the well-br cast it
aside forever.
Do not, however. wander about through
what Dickens calls the decentralization
Office" to fnd a substitute, hating at the
maden-lady station, the single woman or
the femme sole, but take the goods which
the gods provide" through progress and
the dictionary-and, as when man is single
you call him the bachelor, so, when
woman is single, call her, as the writer
signs herself, THE BACHELETTE."
San Jose, Sept, 1899.