The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-06-03

First we ought to clearly perceive
what woman is, as man has made her
And to do that we must not take her
modified, as she generally is, by a
thousand other conditions than mans
viii, but select her where his passion,
his tyranny, his self1shness, and his
idolatry combined have fashioned her
into a paradox and a problem that
fascinates and perplexes and then
damns him.
a few years ago the younger Dumas
wrote a book (only known to the Amer
ican public through an inadequate
translation and an offensive dramatic
Tersion) which had for its moral the
peril and punishment Of woman who
never receives anything from man but
the idolatry Of his sensibilities. 1t was
a powerful and brave exhibit of the
Venus worship Of our day, and it pic
tured unerringly what the effect Of
that worship is upon the character of
woman
Tolstoi and Bourget have thrown
some side lights upon the same sub
lect, and now comes a book written by
z. +. Benson, which takes up the
theme and presents us with stark
photograph of the utterly conventional
mans woman as she has been de-
veloped and ripened under his idola-
trous sensibility.
.'DODO."
This woman is known to current lit
erature as 'Dodo." She is recogniZa-
bic to all men who have some expert
ence Of life as it is at present lived in
the centres of civilization. She is a
common monstrosity fabricated by man
ard worshipped by him.
One is a r119Znd IN sion and how
many men prefer her in her successive
stages Of wantOnnesS and imbeciliJy to
the normal woman that has withStood
his ftattery and his folly. But, as Du-
mas points out, it all springs from the
iGolatry Of her person. On this side
men have been insane since Solomon
poured his wisdom into the lap of the
Shulamite woman. 1t is not a noble
madness, for il springs from the senses
and destroys its object.
Dodo is a type of woman who appeals
entirely TO the animal man She has
brains enough to know that it is the
easiest and the most profitable appeal.
InSunctiVely she understands that there
is something in the masculine NATURE
that IS specially susceptible to physical
comeliness in a woman; that all men
are more or les possessed Of this sus-
cepdbility; that it is allied 10 their
vital, not their intellectual, natures,
and Is in some sense a, Vestige of their
primal condition, when nature could
effect her race purposes through their
eyes. She is naturally indolent, heart
less, eapricious, selfish and shrewd.
But she is beautiful, volatile, graceful
and crafty.
THESE women abound along al ! the
lower levels Of life. They swarm at
the stage doors: they shed their ephe-
neral charms in the dance halls; they
mingle with the bellies and matrons on
Z HA4 80 IL tn ~ FL
shine them in apparel as they outrank
them IN the possession of chic, or
charm, which, in the purely masculine
vocabulary, means the ability to arrest
attention by physical means.
These orioles of the pave may at
any time become the sirens of society;
all they need is the patience and the
opportunity. They have a marvellous
ductility. They viii shed their cafe
chantant manners as the garter snake
sheds his skin, if the game is big
enough. Hundreds of examples may
be cited Of beauty and ambition com
ing together in one bodice to the eN-
clusinn OF everything else and then
Phryne began to put on the airs of
Hypatia, and the late supper at the
restaurant is abandoned for the state
dinner.
ARTS OF THE SEX.
In every case the success was de-
pendent on one thing, and that was
that man, such as she knows him.
would forego everything else in a wo-
man for the possession of physical
beauty From g rll ID she has been
taught this by ali IN. She has seen
man lean from his respectable chariot
where his wife was seated to lust
after her with his eyes. She had ex-
perimented with her magnet on all
grades Of propriety, only 10 find that
none was safe from her attractivenesS.
She mas learned that her ignorance
was no drawback SO long as she did not
beuay it. OF had the fitness to cover
It up with innocent vivacity; that i'm
6ecility itself could be made charm
Ing" if enc had the right-colored hair,
and stupidity passed over to the irresti-
bic by a turn of the wrist or the right
hirt of a skirt.
In brief, she became aware in the
course Of her experiences, that man
had one set of susceptibilities upon
which his judgment never intruded
and that these susceptibilities once
given full rein, increased as all his
other natural and useful functions de-
clined- He was quite willing to suffer
in silence. 10 vince in public, to assent
10 extravaganza, to groveI even, if she
only consented to remain ravishing.
She never could have learned this
astonishing lesson if man had not
sought her out and turned over to her
Instructive apprehension, with unac-
countable candcr and carelessness. all
that was weakest and most ignobIe in
his makeup.
She is then content to go to school
to his debility, so to speak On his
side there is always, perhaps, an in
clination to betrayal least, that is
her suspicion. On her side there shall
be an equivalent-it is the determine
ton TO beguile.
Thus is the conflict of sex in that
domain where principle is confused
with appetite, ana men and women re-
sort TO the cunning of the serpent or
the tigress under the establishments
and mockery of sentiment.
The author Of 'Dodo" has placed
upon paper with marvellously repel-
liant accuracy this woman in her high
est flight 1t has been done before bv
Lever and Thackeray and Dumas and
Hugo. But never before has it been
done so ruthlessly and with such a
clear implication that she is man
product and that he likes his handi-
work.
There could be no excuse for this
elaborate setting forth of q beauty
whose conversation exhaGsts like her
embraces; whose rattle-brained vi
vacity is but one removed from the
studied gayety of the dance-house CO.
quette, if it were not that we are pre-
scented with what it is man makes of a
woman when he prefers to have her
female fetch, and we thus get
plainly set before US in cold type the
double iniquity of sex debasement.
which in life never troubles the reflec-
r-.-+ L.