The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1893-10-04
Useless Women.

Nowhere outside of an old fashioned no.
nance is there Il spot in the world where
the incapable woman can today maintain u
foothold. In the leisurely three volume
novel, dear to our grandparents, Arabella
and Acknowledgements, pallid timid, sub
missive creatures-faltered and gasped and
tainted gracefully in their chairs at the
slightest excuse for such behavior. To
swoon with ease was regarded as a proof of
elegance and as a distinctive line marking
the difference between the milkmaid and
the lady born and bred Possibly the tight
lacing then in vogue aided the lady in her
ability to perform this part of her role to
the satisfaction of the spectators, who were
usually within the receding vision of the
fainting and fragile being, whose delicate
nerves were proof against neither terrors
by night nor shocks by day.
Frankly, we doubt whether the old nov
elists were quite fair in their portraiture of
the current life of their times We find
Jeanie Deans able to undertake long,
difficult and every way arduous Journey
reaching its end as fresh and hearty and
full of purpose and courage as at the be-
ginning, her beauty not marred by hard
ship and loss Of rest. Mary, queen of Scots
was able to sit for hours in the saddle, no
cavalierof her period riding harder or faster
or more bravely than the bold and beauti
full queen. The famous women who made
the court of France splendid during sue
cessive changes and revolutions were not
frail, die away creatures of ghostlille hucs
and willowy outlines. They were substan-
tial flesh and blood women, equal to all
the dangers and perious adventures which
were often their portion.
Recalling ne much harder conditions of
housekeeping of the times of our grand
mothers and of their mothers before them
we are impressed with the fact that tie
women who surmounted successfully so
many obstacles must have been made of
really tough fiber. The modern appliances
which give us everything for our tables in
highly condensed and beautiful forms,
ready for use, with the minimum of prop
aration, were then unknown. They pound
ed the pepper and pulverized the sugar
and rolled the salt So far from having
electric lights to command at the touch of
amysterious knob they had not even luci-
fer matches The fire had to be kept in by
strenuous care, and sometimes one went to
her neighbors to borrow handful of fire
with which to light her own. Nothing was
easy. Everything required hard, persevel-
ing and unremitting labor, so that we may
well believe that the women of that elder
day were far from being incapable
Once upon Il time, too, there was in the
air a general impression that the women of
our southern states were II languid, indo-
lent set Of people seldom aroused to effort,
accustomed to much personal service and
never expecting nor expected to fare on
anything less dainty than the roses and
lilies of life. They lie still and are fanned'
would have been the phrases used to de
scribe them by some of that outer world
beyond the magnolia and the crepe myrtle,
the cotton bloom and the tasselcd corn of
the beautiful and mysterious southern land.
This impression has been demonstrated
over and over to have been entirely and
completely a mistake. Southern women
seldom had the opportunity to be specially
idle or luxurious. Their large households
developed iii them n rare talent for admin
istration. They had to care for a crowd of
grownup children in the persons of their
servants-people mprovident and irrespon-
sible, who depended on the house mistress
as on a mother, and when the war was over
and times had changed for them our south
ern friends displayed of what stuff they
were made. Eminently capable, wherever
tried they have shown that they can take
care of themselves admirably.
Incapable women may for the brief sea
son of youth, while the seashel color tints
the rounded cheek and the beaute de diablc
beams in the bright eyes, win passing
tribute from thoughtless men. But the
women who wear we'll must know how tC
meet emergencies, how to order and to see
their orders obeyed, how to hold themselves
in calm composure, whatever tempests are
abroad. -Hdrper'S Bdzar.