The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-02-20
WHY AMERICAN WOMEN BREAK DOWN.
Too Much Striving After an Object That
Is Really Not Worth the Effort

| Too mucn STRIVING after an Object That
Is Really Not Worth the Effort.
| 1t has been frequently asserted that al
though our American women are fair in
their youth. they do not wear WELL that
their beauty departs early and at an age
when the English and French woman is in
her prime the American woman is faded
Her complexion has lost the soft flush Of
youth and has acquired neither deeper
and more perfect bloom nor that equally
beautiful statuesque pallor that comes
with matured years. She is wrinkled and
! looks careworn at an age when her Euro
! pean sister is at the height of her womanly
/ loneliness and often, before she is fifty, she
is a broken down old woman full of remi-
niscences of the past. This is especially true
of the woman of small income Among
farmers it is estimated that On the average
one husband outlives three wives
1t is impossible to estimate how much of
the nervous, restless energy exhibited By
such women, which surely and inevitably
saps their vitality. may arise from a tire
less ambition TO achieve certain social
distinction for themselves or their children
"a wish for something better than they
have known, not 4 puper heart or more
cultured mind, but a more stunning
parlor. How many women yearly give up
their lives for such shallow ends as thesel
The European woman as a rule makes
no attempt to rival neighbors with four
times her income The Frenchwoman by
her superior economy and tact makes
more elegant appearance and sets mora
refined table than an American woman
would on double the sum The very prod
igality Of nature in this broad land seems
to render the people prodigal of their
means. Economy that works spasmodic-
ally that saves at the spigot and lets out
at the bunghole." is certainly most miser-
able folly The women who practice, as
too many OF them do, petty economies,
which break down the health, and who
spend their strength with lavish hand
need the warning of the rough old proverb
1t is a woman's duty above all things, If
che is worker. to save her strength She
must systematic Der work. Haphazard
work is the hardest work. The stopping
and starting up again expends the greatest
energy of the machines. To make a sue
cess of any work in life. even of the simple
work of the housewife. one must not allow
the reirrs to drop. Rest must be taken, but
it must be systematic rest. What tires the
heart Is the continuous and erratic drudg-
ing from one thing to another.
A recent paragraph calls attention to
the case of a woman well known in the
working world who was barely saved from
brain fever by the most strenuous efforts
of her physicians Yet not long before
this she had said to her physician: II
worked fourteen hours day and yet rose |
Ill the morning refreshed after sleep. 1t is
only recently that | have not SleDtn The |
physician replied: 1.-THE very fact that
you felt no WEAKNESS from such protracted
and continuous work showed the amount
of vital force that you were daily expend- /
ing. Seven hours of steady mental labor /
are all that any one has right to expect"
New York Tribune.