Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-12-21


| husband was not coming home, and that,
| Under those circumstances, no dinner was
| prepared at home. OF course, as the baby
wasn't big enough to eat, there was no
good reason why they should have a din
| ner, but somehow from her point of view
| OF my conservatism, a dinnerless home
Whetner allied with soapless poverty or as
the reasonable concomtant of a wife's
and mothers higher aims indicated to me
an elusive failure in the career of this New
| woman. did not go to dinner with her-I
Couldn't TO save my life I had to go off
by myself, and reflect that though the
| LORD made heaven and earth in six days,
he rested on the seventh, thus by precedent
estaplishlng for His creatures the right to
rest also.
The New Woman's Husband.
During the evening I met the New Wo-
| mans husband. The man who introduced
| me said to him: II suppose you are going
to assist tomorrow night, Dick?'
Assist what, where?" Dick echoed in a
helpless sort Of fashion
why, up at your house-your wife's re-
ception."
Didn't know one was on" said Dick
adding. addressing me. II and the boy
don't keep up with all the social and intel
iectual functions of the day. We usually
have a reception by ourselves at night on
the top floor, with matted milk, instead of
chocolate frappe for refreshments"
Poor Dick the man with me sighed
milk isn't his only refreshment. He has
got down to absinthe, while his wife is
looking up"
Then wondered If the triumphal car of
no New Woman has small seat some
where for her husband and her sons.
Inc next day 1 actually found one who
has her car built this way and dreadful
as II may sound, I want to tell you that
OF all the New Women to be decorated Is
the one with conscience-not an old-fash-
Toned conscience, which is uncomfortable
enough, goodness knows. but conscience
that remembering the injunctions of Moses
and all the prophets, is also ever mindful
Nordau.
That woman doesn't neglect her family,
she persecutes them with her strict adj
herence to their interests on scientific prin-
ciples. They are all so ham-strung and
handcuffed by hygienic laws that as surely
as L know human nature her boys when
| they're big enough to defy her will go
gorge themselves on deadly microbes just
because they've been cheated out of the
amount due their youth and as for her
how that man would skirnish for sinful
| little fool and make her the stepmother of
his oversainted sons!
What Some Women Don't Know.
can just fancy him roaming with Satan
up and down, the woald looking for a girl
who could truthfully answer mo- to all
these questions:
Have you a single idea about the re-
sponsibilities of a wife and mother?
Are you determined to do your duty at
any sacrifice of animal delight and crea-
ture comfort? IL po4i
Are you up in dietaries and the science
of nutrition?
Do you believe in any germ theory?
Do you tank three cigars day will give
me heart failure, and have you any notion
that kissing is unhealthy?
Not the least painful. feature of this
case is, the man is altogether likely to
become widower. His wife admitted to
ing her, yet she resolutely refused to act
on my suggestion and try to kill the con-
science.
found one New Woman who freely ad-
mitted that she is a failure. Yet to my
mind. as the admission of sin is the grea ter !
half Of repentance, so l think this New
Woman's confessed failure is the beginning
Of enduring success. She was all
around newspaper man before she got
married. Now she is nothing but wife
and mother'-absolutely nothing else she
says, and the degrade ton of her position
SO humans her she doesn't care who knows
that she knows she is failure. She doesn't
try to be anything else. She is a perfect
mush of concession to her husbands will,
its carriage on the street! She says
nothing matters now; that in marry
ing she was false to her higher nature,
and her only hope is death. She keeps
happy. and her husband. the insensible
clod, is not only happy. but thinks she Is.
! know better, now that she has told me,
but secretly. as l said at the beginning,
her future seems to me full of hope.
The New GRANDMOTHER.
But of all the New Women I saw in Bos
ton the New Grandmother was the rudest
shock to my belief in tradition and my
faith in any revealed knowledge of what is
a ms Ynn In No
This New Northumberland I am told
she represents large element of the New
Woman-this New Grandmother, as coon
as her good husband died. proceeded to
gather in his life insurance and travel
| around the world. That she was sixty-five
years old then and due to settle down IN
corner in a pretty cap and 'kerchief and
dress dolls for her grandchldren-that had
no effect whatever upon the delayed action
of her higher aims. She told me her hus-
band was a great baby, as most men are,
and that while, Of course she was sorry to
have the poor man die, for he really was
not calculated to get along even in heaven
without her to nudge him when 1t was
time to stir, yet she had thoroughly enjoy
ed the privileges his death had given her.
She had found her fate in Egypt, and was
now the happiest she had ever been in her
life, presiding over Woman's club de-
voted to the study of archaeology. Her
| daughter, with whom she lived, was also
president of woman's club and the daugh-
| ter's husband and two grls--the husband,
there was nothing left of him but an APP
proving smile, which Madam President,
whether the office spoke in the person Of
| his wife or mothersin-law, regularly re-
ceived, no matter what owas uttered. The
daughters-poor girls They We're inclined
| to regard themselves more failures along
| the line of the New Woman, but 1 could
see in them. how, IN the touching senti-
ment of tombstone poetry, their loss
others gain. Their intellectual parts had
necessarily atrophieds while they did house
work and other domestic ,duties-"Of course
mamma has no time for anything but the
club"-and when the human race advances
| as far as these girls girls there will be a
natural return to the original sphere of
/ woman. at. =
What One Girl Would Do.
The younger girl. with the outspoken habit
| of sixteen, said grandma was an awful
| guy" on bicycle and that Mamma made
her so everlastingly tired of the higher aims
of the sex that she would aim just as low as
| she could when she got the chance, just to
| give everybody rest and a new sensation"
| On the way home from Boston l read the
| story of the life of Russia's original New
| Woman. Sonya kovalevsky and haven't
| ol,Ia faa1 in oar,c in