The Washington times., 1894-03-20
The Hrtgf Being
JUST a Woman.

We are told, says the BazaT, that the Prin-
cess of Wales can design a gown; that we
owe to her the exceedingly high collars
and many of the other modes of recent years.
Not only can she design, but can fit and cut;
can rip her bonnet to pieces on occasion and
make it over; can take rs fine stitches as any
needle woman going; loves her embroidery,
her knitting; can even do up her laces for
want of any better occupation; and none OF
these occasional employments have allowed
ner to degenerate in her music. When we
hear of woman on the highest step OF n
throne doing all this. it does not seem alto
gether derogatory to girls position, be she
of the select inner world or not, to prepare
herself for the struggle of life by knowing
how to do these and other things.
The ups and downs of life in This country
are notorious In fact. they are growing no.
torious in other countries. too. This family
owns one-half the buildings in town, has
the income of wealth, adopts the Astor plan
of insuring itself. and a high wind and
spark from cigarette leave them TO earn
their living as they can. That family has its
all in manufactures, and a change in govern
mental policy beggars 1t. And the other
family has wealth in patent that is super
sedei by something superior. and leaves them
stranded And what is wealth for one man
is not wealth when divided among his half
dozen children. reared on the scale OF the
whole property. and not on that OF one sixth
of il, And so 1t goes.
We do not deny that the tendency of wealth
here, as everywhere, is to perpetuate itself, as
there are countless ways in which law and
custom may be circumvented. But, except
in comparatively few instances, the great
grandchildren OF rich people are not rich
themselves; and even when they are, contin-
gencies may arise that may give them all the
disadvantages of poverty. Shipwrecked on
a coral island. not the woman who could best
dance or dress or had the largest bank ac
count at home would be queen OF the hour,
but she who could make th9 best dish of
bouillabaisse, is best equal to the situation.
II il is desirable that a woman should de-
yelop not only every talent that she has, but
every fine and pleasant taste, by all means
let her do it: only she must remember that
her first talent of all is that of being woman.
and that the domestic arts, through the events
of her life that keep her much at home. are
urimarily woman's arts. 1t does not follow
that she must make bread all the time be-
cause she knows how to do so. or that she
must sweep a floor or dust a room or sew
straight seam because she can tell from eN-
perience how it should be done. But if she
does not know how to do these things. and to
direct others how to do them if need be, she
is by so much less woman. The science OF
home is tie first of all sciences: it makes all
other sciences possible. and it is something
that every woman should make her own at
the same time that she possesses herself OF
such of the other sciences as she will, no one
interfering with the other. For, until we
live wit hout bodies. it is to be confessed that
the arts which make the body comfortable
have also much 10 do with the growth of the
soul