Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-11

which," The volume is a collection of
quotations from different poets setting
forth their views Of woman. Long be-
fore poets wrote, as a creation high au-
thority pronounced woman good, and
that it was better for man to dwell in
her company than alone. Neither angel
nor devil, she is simply woman with
woman Is fraIlties aud a woman s viz
tues. She is mans best companion or
his most successful tempter, a contra
diction and mystery, but still wo-
man and chosen by infinite wisdom TO be
his companion. This much by way of
preface.
That she occupies, and has occupied
since the beginning, prominent place
in history of the race no student will
DENY, and that her influence is waning
no observer will admit. An article by
Mrs Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, published
in the North American Review, August
has excited widespread interest and
occasIoued much debate. In the New
York Herald of Sunday Marion Harland
comes to the defense of the modern
society woman in well directed logic.
Each of these writers stands on
too high pedestal for shafts of
low censure to touch them, and it
must be that the story of the shield and
its two sides is repeated. The first strong
point made by Marion Harland is that
granted, as Mrs. Phelps does, the prog
ress of the race and the existence mani
fold of evidences of superior civilization,
also q conoeding that the people of the
Ninteenth century on the whole lead bet
Ter lives, fail to warrant the CONCLUSION
Dv Mrs. Phelps that a sense OF personal
modesty has not kept pace with this ad-
vance. 1t is pertinently asked, do men
gather figs of thistles or grapes OF thorn
bushes?
The charge Marion Harland makes,
and is sustained throughout the entire
article, as she takes up one by one the
indictments, is that Mrs. Phelps has
brought trailing accusatIon'i through
hearsay testimony and has assumed
premises that have no real existence.
One point in Mrs. Phelps article de-
serves to bring down the righteous wrath
of every wife. 1t is that there is a dis
tinguishing expression in the eyes of
maid and matron. Is marriage school
that robs woman of chasteness in thought
and look, is to be a wife to lose woman s
chiefest ornament, are the Chances of a
matron to be read as those of q oourte-
san? Fie; let not a woman say it,
Further, because n young girl, fear
less of soul, clean of heart and pure i'll
life looks into the eyes of q man frankly =,
trustfully, does she put on an embold-
ened front and does native modesty no
longer abide with her? Let no woman
say it!
When the race was created male and
female, it was that wise purpose might
be observed To this effect this woman
was endowed with graces of body, heart
and mind, (these are put in the natural
order, whether men admit il or mott and
IN obedience TO instinct woman exhibits
these graces.
Think you the Tyrolese peasant girl
with her bodice decollette, her tunic
short and her shapely legs latticed with
CAV ribbons, as she winds her sinuous
body in the dance, advancing and elud-
ing until finally her partner catches her
and in his arms they join in mad whirl to
rapid music, has thought of evil? To her
the dress is picturesque, the dance in
spring, and when love comes his temple
10 rs pnre as that of her more precise
sisters.
Custom regulates costume and largely
creates what is called taste, hence the
woman accustomed from childhood to
seeing full dress any idea of its immod-
esty is an awakening, and she has barred
neck and arm because of custom, and
has danced thoughtless of harm, and
whether she is to be better woman be-
cause of knowledge of evil is question.
1t was not so at the beginning.
The whole resolves itself into this, was
woman as the Hebrew scriptures teach
created for manor has she an indIvidu-
ality separate from him. II for woman,
il is true in sense more binding than
upon man, that she is her brother s
keeper, then she should be early taught
his vulnerable points, and trained to
self abnegation and constant watchful-
ness, that she in no wise tempt him above
what he is able.
1t may be safer for him, if not for her
self, that when she steps into young
womanhood she recognize the pit into
which she has fallen and the mire by
which she is encompassed. But do
mothers of daughters admit this? Are
they willing to train their daughters for
An arena similar to that into which
Christian maidens were flung to crafty
their Roman prosecutors? To be wise as
serpents and harmless as doves is no
easier for girlhood than for maturity +,
and to simulate even innocence scarcely
warrants commentator.
Says one, ave must take the world as
II is and not as we would have it. - This
is, doubtless, true, and admitting this, it
is granted to be wiser in women to avoid
as far as is possible all in dress and de-
meanor that would subject them TO the
criticism of the uncleau. The world
still demands that Caesars wife be above
suspicion, but though she be chaste IS
Dian she cannot hope to escape it, par
ticularly if she INDUCES in the least lati-
tude.
That these are fostering sores in social
life no candid person denies, but the pro-
test is against women surgeons who call
in the world to see them use scalpel and
caustio. If this putridity must be e1-
posed let men have the loathsome task
and let woman use the better surgery
that strives TO heal from the inner by
pleasing ana does it in quiet and retire.
ment, excluding light and air. II is not
charged that Mrs. Phelps has not done
this III days past, but this departure from
her usual mode is to be deplored. Evil
exists, but let il be once admitted that
mankind IS progressing in civilization
and in all which the word conveys, it
follows that there must be an aggregate
of individual virtue III social life sufficient