Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-03-10
CAN WOMEN THINK7


OF the Question.
The most striking paper in recent issue
OF the UnirrrSul Rsrjcw is entitled, "Ou a
Certain Deficiency in Womeu,' and writtcu
by Miss Fletcher the author of "kismet'.
"Nestiga,n ~ and one or two other delightful
stories, who walls her identity under the nom
dc plumc of George Fleming. The problem
proposed in this paper is Have women q
capacity for serious uhiuldugV-a question
of which the writer plainly espouses the
negative side. And the one great reason
for their failure, she alleges, is one so tuu
of force, of uuerriug insight and of actual
truth that it is impossible TO deny it-the
reason that women are practically never
alone. "ln the present writer's eyes, she
says, "that disability consists almost entire
ly in the feminine inCapacity or radical dis
inclination (the word matters littlc) for Sc
rious concentrated and continued thought
And this again derives IN a great measure
from the crowded life, the gregarious hab-
its, the shecp-hlle falling and hating oi
educated women Whether 1t is imposed
on them or accepted by them, the result, so
far as art and morals are concerned, re
mains the samen There is n depth OF sig
nifcance in this. To woman in what Is
! conventonally known as good society the
love of solitude Is utterly unknown. ShN Is
Chaperoned and escorted and companionod
till she has not only no clear idea OF her
own identity, but no very clear identity OF
which to have an idea. To achieve this re
suit Is, under circumstances that very ire
queutly occur, a tax that becomes serious
burden materially as well as a constant clog
mentally. A man may betalIe himself to
any place or resort he plCascs, be spccta-
tor of its life, and yet retains, If he likes, the
personal solitude of the prinGval wilder
| ness; but if a woman would go to the
| mountains to the sea, to the Clty--anywhere
she will-she must have at least woman
companion with her in the guise OF chaper-
one, friend or maid.
Otherwise she will require at best a
reputation for eocentricity, and, at worst,
something even less desirable. And thus
she never tastes the sweets of solitude
She never knows the silence of her inspra-
tions. "There is scarcely one man in
thousand" says Miss Fletcher, "who, at
some time in his life, has not felt and in
dulged the impulse to step out from the
rank and file of his familiars and his con
temporaries, and envisage his own nature
stripped of its forms and surroundings; not
man worthy of the name but has searched
for and found himself has hewn out his
conviction and wrestled, like Jacob
through the long nights of his youth, witt
the sten-browed angel of some revela
ton And all this implies voluntary soil
tude it implies an impassioned interest III
the impersonal and continuous habit of the
mind And are such things, then, finally
denied to the largest half of our adul
population?" As society goes, they are
and 1t is hardly an extravaganza to say tina
this denial of individual freedom Is Tho
most jnimical influence to womCu's intel
lectual achievements. To woman living
without members of her own family thi
unwritten law becomes a severe tnanca
tax In at leasthalf the affairs of her h,'
she must duplicate her expenses. When
ever she takes her walks abroad, so Il
speak, she must invite a lady companion
and, as her companion is her guest, sh'
must be entertained, both in the sordl'
matter of bills paid, but in what is Otter
! more-in giving her time and energy to he
guest. Thus she is severely Handicapped
for intellectual work. She is cabnei
crbbed, confined. She can command n
, conditions for serious thought. And
"without serious thought behind 1t
serious habit of thought'-as Georg
Fleming well says, "talent of which Tn
world is full lowers to the meresJ monkc
trick Of the imagination; thing plia0ie
fashion, at once reigning over and dc
pendent upon the idlest whims of tn
dayn