The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-01-18

points IN doctrine may De little ndZy
along the edges. but she knows what 1t
means to love God, and your neighbor
as yourself She has been the main
stay of hospitals and asylums, and be-
nevolent societies. l honestly believe
that nothing but her unconquerable
prejudice In favor of good works and
plain, wholesome religion. has kept the
church many u time from degenerating
into a theological debating society, and
talking Christianity clear out of sight.
This Is no small service. 1t Is all the
more remarkable as coming from per-
son who is alleged to have a compara-
lively small mind.
81 will admit. for the sake of argu-
ment. that the Departing Woman has
her limitations. prejudices. and peculi-
arities Bat / will not consent to call
them faults. Many of them. as for in
stance. her views in regard to mice, are
endearing, although. or perhaps be-
cause, they are not altogether reason
able. Some. like her Inability to keep
accounts--her own, l mean, for she
often shows amazing skill in keeping
those of other people-can do no great
harm as soon as we recognize
them. And others, such as her
unaccountable fondness for read
ing aloud. her tirmiy-rooted opin-
ion hat the shortest way to every
mans heart Is through his stomach and
her invincible tendency to give a per-
sonal turn to all conversation, while in
themselves things not conformable to
philosophy, are yet in their ultimate
and undersigned results. highly bene-
flcial and productive of much pleasure.
So that. upon the whole. we may con-
s,ls I,nt t.,,,p, ,,,1
culiarities of the Departing Woman
have added to the joy of life and iIS-
creased the gayety Of nations.
ut must, for instance, be conceded
that she is absurdly subject to the
Caprices of fashion. All men say so.
But somehow she manages to Subjugate
them all in turn to her feminine quality.
She may wear wings on her shoulders.
or hang wire cage from her waist. or
carry II hump on her back, but through
all these quaint DISCUSSES she looks like
herself. For the one thing that the De-
parting Woman has not desired is-to
be mistaken for a man. She Is open to
compliment and in spite of what the
doctors of psychology have said about
its necessary effects. she can digest 1t
without injury. She is capable of re-
out falling into the insolence of q ty-
old fashioned taste in the matter, which
is quite unlike the preference attributed
to the Coming Woman. The Departing
Woman has not been pleased by cour-
tesies offered to her person In dispar-
agement of her sex. She would rather
be referred to as a woman than praised
for the accidental symmetry of her foot,
or the exceptional perfection of her
mathematical; faculty In short, she
has the singular humor of not caring
to be regarded as a freak of nature.
even for the sake of becoming a miss
ing link in the chain of evolution to-
ward a new order of society. She has
her own little vanities, of course, per-
haps almost as many of theEa as her
husband or her brother: but they ap-
pear like humilities by comparison with
the grandeur of her fixed idea that there
is no quality in the world quite so wor-
thy Of reverence as that which belongs
to her alone-the quality of wOmanli-
ness.
II
"The worlds literature would be a
blank without the figure of the Depart
ing Woman. She has been the central
point of fine ambitions, the prize of
noble conflicts, the guiding star of
heroic hopes. She peoples the palace of
imagination with her presence and all
the temples of true fame echo with her
name. What were the Greek drama
without Antigone and Iphigenia? or the
poetry of the Renaissance without
Beatrice or Laura? or Shakespeare S
stage without Perdita and Juliet, Cor
della and Desdemona? or modern flc-
tion without Ellen Douglas and Flora
McIvor and JEANNE Deans, withOu.
Lady Esmond and Lorna Doone and Ro-
mola and Lucy Desborough' And what
are all these shapes of loveliness and
vital power but forms of her who has
inspired mans best efforts since time
began, his counterpart, his other self,
not like to like, but like in difference
the Departing Woman? For my part,
| am sure that the best thing that we
can do is to pray that she may not de-
part after all. She has done 80 much
for us that we should be lost without
her. Let her stay with us and she will
have a better chance than ever before.
Set her up in another kind of type, IL II
must be, but let her keep the same
meaning. And, merciful Heaven, for
bid that she should ever lose her in
scription which she has carried on her
heart since it began to beat-'but yet a
woman"
IL
HOUSEHOLD SUGGESTIONS:
To exterminate red ants in a cupboard
place in 1t an earthen dish containing a
pint of tar, on which two quarts of hot
.t,.l lxp LAa ya1