The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-10-06
WOMAN'S FEAR OF MICE.
One of the Fair Sex Essays in Vain to Ac.
count for 1t.

| count for 1t.
AS woman, and trust a brave one,
lover of animals and a student OF
natural history. / ask the vexed ques.
ton in all seriousness, Why are women
afraid of mice? says writer. Why
should the sight q had almost written
the naIne) of tiny, harmless, graceful
little creature strike terror into the
stoutest hearts that beat in feminine
! breasts? Echo answers: ''Why?" The
| fear of mice is an hereditary curse, an
| inherited weakness, a fatal foe which
it is useless to combat, a foolish dread
of which we ought to feel heartily
ashamed, and yet it is 4 real and for
midable terror. 1t is never assumed
1t may be exaggerated by fit of hys-
terics or a succession of piercing screams
but the genuine peur faire fremir is
there all the same-and why? ! re-
member once reading a story about a
coterie of strong minded women who
gave series of lectures upon female
virtues, in an old town oily room.
One OF their numb Der was chosen to de-
liver a lecture on valor and selected for
But when the evening arrived and
she was discoursing upon the valor
Of her sex in general a mouse ran
across the platform and the lecturer
and her strong-minded sisters jumped
onto their chairs, clutching their petit
coats in a manner not altogether pic
turesque. But l maintain that the
IF haS hot 10
do with the lack of real bravery and
that Joan of Arc would probab bly, have
clutched her petticoats in precisely the
same manner.
mouse in the chamber of Marat
would, | believe. have deferred Char
lotte Corday from her dreadful pur-
pose; and the tail of one popping OPP
portunely from the carving of Tuilla's
chariot would have prevented her
from driving over her fathers corpse;
and / could cite many instances in
which mice might have changed the
history of the world. Who can doubt
that Cleopatra and the other swarthy
Egyptian beauties held the sacred cat
in special veneration on account of the
part he played in Kidding them of their
pet aversion? Everyone knows that if
a cat has a weakness it is for plump,
well-matured mouse, and puss has per-
haps, for this reason earned the affec-
lions, because the gratitude, of our SEX
The story of prisoner who was
cheered in captivity by mouse is fami-
liar to us all-but the prisoner was a
man. Equally familiar is the fable of
the grateful mouse which gnawed the
net, but again-the prisoner is said to
have been a lion, not a lioness. / be-
lieve there is mutual antipathy be-
tween them.
Most women have experienced the
You are sitting alone read
ing. playing, writing, painting Or work
ing. Suddenly you instinctively feel a
of horror of some evil infiu-
ence that is present but as yet unseen.
You lift your eyes. You behold, glid-
ing over the carpet towards you with
out noise, apparently without the
trouble of walking, a mouse. 1t stops |
it fascinates you. You drop your book,
your music, your brush, your needle, |
whatever it may be, but you make no
other sound. You feel your blood |
freeze and your limbs slowly paralyze,
your heart stops beating, your breath
ceases, a cold chill creeps over you. In
your imagination you feel the soft
touch of an army of mice running races !!
over your face and hands and making
nests in your back hair. You start to
your feet and then X |
we'll women take these things so diff
ferently. Are women afraid of mice |
simply because it is born in them?
There is no reason why we should be |
afraid of them. but the fact remains |
hat we are, and l have long since re-
signed myself to the fact as an evil for
which there is no remedy. London
Woman.