New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-07-12
LITERARY LADIES.
THEIR RECENT DINNER, WITH BRIEF NOTES
ON wOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WRONGS.


1t is just possible that dinner of ladies who are
not literary might prove equally attractive
We however, of the inferior male sex, are hardly
called upon TO have an opinion. Men were not
asked TO this feast; il was entirely feminine Or
as least, female II was the third of its kind, and
q veracious chronicler tells us that some thirty
five novelsts and journalists of the gentler sex
were gathered at well-known restaurant. / as
sumcx,hat the chronicler was woman; or should
say literary lady? ! wish TO call them what
they wish to be called, but they are already nu-
merous enough TO have a dissenting minority
though minority of only one. Mrs. E. Robins
Pennell, who, "to prevent the committee from De-
coming proud, rose to object to what she called the
snobbish title OF literary ladies, and hoped 1t
might be altered NEXT year TO writing women
The veraciOus chronicler does not say now uls
suggestion received.
Not all tie names Of this fair company are
familiar to the general public: to the general
public, PERTAINS. none of them are. The general
English public has but limited knowledge OF
names eminent in journalism, and its acqualnt-
ance with literature with the producers or
literature is never wide. When they read that
Mrs. L. T. Meade took the chair for the second
year in succession, they might ask. not rudely
Who is Mrs. L. T. Meade? and the number OF
people who could answer the question would not
be large. Mis-. Emily Crawford would, l hope
be better known; certainly she is known where
anything is known about journalism. Another
name sure of recognition in America. if not here
is that Of Mrs. Frank Leslie, who was, says the
chronicer blaze Of diamonds, and recited
Joaquin Miler's poem on Woman: not on Ladies'
literary or other Known, too, in America. is
Mrs Louise Chandler Moulton, who spoke in the
name of many American guests present. Mrs
Moulton seems to have owned herself astonished
20 find this dinner such gay and amusing enter
tanment She does not say whether she was as
tOnished because il dinner of ladies only,
or because 1t was dinner Of literary ladies' nor
is It said whether her confession well received
by the company. Miss Adeline Sergeant, who
spoke for Fiction, Miss Everetta Lawrence. who
did the same for the Drama Miss Helen Zimmern'
Miss Jane Cobden Miss Mona Card, who seem
neither to have proposed nor responded to any
toast-alI these ladies have titles to fame, yet
somehow none of them, nor all of them together,
are believed TO emhOdy sufficient force to move
the world from its present point.
There are living women whose highest word
would be heard on two continents at least. But
perhaps they are not literary ladies. and so were
not entitled to be present at this feast. And the
great deal-can any one imagine Mrs. Browning,
or George Eliot or Georges Sand. collecting to-
Cether at the Criterion TO eat dinner, and make
speeches. and drink toasts in coffee, and send an
account Of their proceedings to the next mornings
newspapers? 1t is not thing easy to i'm
agine nor is it easy TO take serious view OF
such efforts as these to put the two sexes on an
equality. Among all the rights of women, real or
imaginary, existing or demanded the right not to
go to public dinner is one of the most precious.
And these literary ladies wantOnly finging
it away. They seem to have tolerated men at
their banquet only as walters, and then only
while the rites were purely conventional. Later
In the evening the walters were banished for " it
appeared that a wel-known publisher had sent
box of cigarettes which were handed round, and
after a little hesitation and search for matches,
several ladies began to smoke" To that point
has the emancipation of women now reached.
It must be admitted that this banquet flied no
great place in the public mind perhaps for the
reason above suggested. 1t is, except in one
paper, reported with extreme brevty not re-
ported at all. 1t has not even served as a text
to those who sit in the seat of the sooner 1t
masses unnoticed | should be misleading my
readers If / gave them the notion that the Incl
dent which / am describing at second hand was
believed by any important section of society to be
itself important. Still. it did occur, and it
shows we'll enough the tendency of the wom-
ans rights agitation, or one tendency of 1t,
lust as Miss Jane Cobden's efforts to get into
the London County council showed anOthcr ten
dency Politics, whether municipal or imperial
do not content the female agitatOr. Nothing will
content her short of the successful assertion of
her claim to do whatever men do; or TO do what
ever she cares to do regardless of the fact which
she cannot alter, that she is a woman. / suppose
she would alter that too, if she could.
Meantime, they have to listen once more while
one of their own sex tells them home truths in
the pages of THE Nineteenth Century" Mrs.
Lynn Linton has long been known as an opponent
of the claims of a little minority of her sex to
unsex themselves and the majority. She is, if
anybody is, in good sense, a literary lady;
and now that have got so far as TO use this
term in the singular, others than Mrs. e. Robins
Pennell may see how odious it is. l will not say
how vulgar because. whenever that word is used,
our friend the Eminent Emigrant seems TO think
it meant for him, and ii distresses me that he
should think SO. He has other duties than to
be the champion of vulgarity, though perhaps none
which seem TO him more urgent. So instead
of vulgar let us say common. Mrs. Lynn Linton
entities her paper The Wild Women" Do the
Literary Ladies think it would have been more
effective title. or more civil if she had chosen
10 call it The Wild Ladies'? She does not seem
to have had the Literary Ladies of the Criterion
in mind. This is the first of a series and she dis
cusscs the Wild Women Politicians; not as
Writers. Herself writer and a writer OF unusual
gifts. Mrs. Linton would be the last 10 decry liter
ature or the author; even the female author.
She has, among other things, the gift Of plain
speech, and Of going straight TO the mark Being
a woman. she knows what her less sane sisters
most dislike. knows their weak points and per .
haps knows how to say what will set them shrek.
ing their loudest. Size not indeed the first
10 make the discovery that what the wild women
most abhor is being women. Bat in making her
point, Mrs Linton uses a freedom of speech which
a man might not care 10 use. Their disdan is
for the duties and limitations imposed them
by nature Marriage in its oldfashoned aspect
us the union of two lives, they repudiate as
onesded tyranny; and maternity, for which. after
all, women primarily exist, they regard degIa-