The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-07-05

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heard OF the male head of family eircu
latlng damaging reports about har,-
working woman and trying to injure beg
Perhaps that was the new woman II l.
certainly not the kind, active, unselfsh
uncertain, coy and generous woman OF
soul and story, for that's the woman one
has always known.
Grant Allen knows about the fictitious
| new woman. So do some of the ether lat
ter day novelists. The Heavenly Aster''
and the "Yellow Woman and the 's.Su-
perduous Twins abound in tales Of her.
She is very handsome, terrible, frank,
overwhelmingly conscientious and highly
moral She has come, smoking and talk
ing Oh, how she does talk! She talks
all the time. She talks her rights into
existence and her wrongs out of being;
she talks morality down and a grander,
higher creed, which looks like immortality
and isn't-for she is very, very good-up;
she talks marriage away and free love,
which, beautifully talked and spiritually
and without its usual uncomfortable con-
cOmitants, looks lovely-into the house;
she talks religion into bubbles, each Of
which she airily pricks; she talks things
into mems heads which they ought never
have thought and common sense out OF
her own; she talks up and down and
round and in and out of every subject ex-
cept those which grew nearest her thoughts
by nature. Mary Abbott.
Pray, what is the new woman?
ga thing of shreds and patches, woven
In the imagination of newspaper para
graphers for the momentary entertain
ment of the casual reader
She has passed from the hands of the
newspaper Photographer to the leader writ
er, from the leader writer to the caricatur-
list, from the caricaturist to the magazin-
ist. Thus passed from hand to hand, de-
faced and disheveled in the process, she
now appears as the prey of the essayist
hard pressed for a topic and the novelist
short of a heroine and will soon find her
last resting place in that mausoleum OF
dead issues the quarterly review.
The new woman is, l repeat, a Pigment
of the Imagination, made of fads, foibles,
crochets, aspirations and tendencies, real
or unreal, all thrown together in a kaleidO-
scope and presenting n new combination OF
form and color at every turn of the instru-
meDt.
The real new woman as revealed in the
maiden and matron of the day viii be So
much like the woman that we I've known
and honored all our lives-thc woman glo
rified in tradition, in history, in poetry
and in the fine arts and idolized in every
home worthy of the name-that the aver
age man will never know that she is not
the same.
The sweetheart will be rs much in fash
ion century hence as she is today, and
with the witchery of her femininity she
viii then, as now, first bring man TO his
knees and then rejoice TO so hand in hand
with Kim through life.
The wife will continue to be the wife,
loving and beloved, cherished and cherish
ing forgiving and forgiven, sympathetic,
helpful, faithful unto death, and as rule
entirely too good for the man of her choice. |
The Madonna will never go out Of fash |
ion. Motherhood will ever be the crown |
most honoring and by all men the most |
honored. Cornelia, whose jewels were her |
will never cease to be an exem- |
plar and an Inspiration to her sex.
New woman indeed For my part do |
not believe in the current fiction. Let us |
be off with the old love before we are on |
with the new-and may that day be far |
Major Moses p. Handy.
The old woman and I have been such
good friends that the new woman does not
rouse my enthusiasm to any great or sud
den pitch. Most creatures in petticoats are
perfect, and, as perfection has no superla-
tive, j am unable to see how the old wom-
an can be improved upon. Yet, if perfec-
ton can be perfected, that / am sure, is
the new woman's mission. If l may be
pardoned personal illustration, no fewer
than five new women grace the home in
which l am still of more or less impor-
tance, and my fondest hope for them is
that they may grow UP TO be like their
mother
The new woman Will do well TO go on in
the way she has started, but let us hope
she makes sure of not going too far. The
vine should become stronger, healthier,
more self reliant, with deeper color, more
marked individuality, firIner roots and
more fragrant blossoms, but it should bea
vine still.
The new woman does well to learn really
% think, not merely TO think she's think
ng, and l am confident the more she does
'e;illy think the less she will talk about
What she is what she wants to do and 10
De as "a woman distinct and apart from the
of the race.
The new woman does well TO ride
wheel for health and pleasure, and to do
I'll things else calculated to strengthen her
body and relieve her of the weaknesses Pc
,uliar to her sex. Four-fifths of all sled-
cal practice is now among women, and if
he new woman does not reduce her ratio
Il least % per cent her newneSS may be
u faiiure.-Walter Weilman.