The record-union., 1896-06-14
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
BY MEMO.
(Copyrighted) }

W
a busy layman. The aim is to lead in an
optimistic way to better understanding
of life, its grandeur and responsibilities
Why not let our Thoughts wander
for a while around that creation-old
subject, woman? The difficulty is to be
moderate in our language, since we men
are apt to express ourselves regarding
the whole sex just according to whether
we have had faIteful or helpful expert
ence with one member of it. We are
so commercial in our training that we
make the grand mistake in this instance
o. judging the whole by a sample, the
fabric by a thread, the house by a splin-
ter. We sum her up individually just
as we feel, for from the fullness of the
heart, the mouth speaketh. To one she
is like Arctic ice, distant and abomi-
Eably cold; to another she is steel,
mOldable into a weapon of fate, an an
chor of hope or the lRarrowness of a
razor edge; or again she is a ruby
warm and lustrous; or mayhap Ito
| bring a sudden end to similes) she is
a jellyfish, so simple you think you can
| see through her, so yielding you think
you can mold her, and yet capable of
| bringing a smarting and hopeless ache
| into your heart that neither concen-
tration on other subjects nor years will
alleviate. But another Simle must
come forth; to an occasional one she is
| the very tonic of life; her intuition de-
tects the unworthy ambition, her frown
condemns it, her smile urges on to no
| BILE effort, her nod of approval energizes
| the tagging spirits, her gentle hand
| leads to the goal of victory over self
and over wrong.
But what thinks Memo while he
| scrawls this out almost illegibly and
| glances ever and anon at the scenery
| flying by the car in which she is trav-
| cling? The wheels seem to acquire a
| certain cadence in their sound as they
| pass over the fishplates. The clatter
| begins to form itself into syllables in
| the ear. There it is now. "Prod-i-gal.
prod-i-gal, prod-i-gal," and every mo-
ment of diverted attention strikes into
| the ear again "Prod-i-gal, prod-i-gal
prod-i-gal." Even the soulless train is
| thinking in concert with me, and coin
| gliding with my thoughts of woman as
| al sex and as a power in the world.
| A miSanthropic father one time
| brought up a son in entire seclusion
| from all womankind. When manhood
| approached he led the boy out through
| the world on a tour of observation and
| described to him the various creatures
! they met. AS they went, there came
| tripping along the path a sweet young
girl, swinging her hac and smiling from
| the very glee of existence. Father"
said the startled youth. what animal
is that?" My son. said the father
that is a very silly creature called a
goose. 1t is also dangerous" When this
mythical tour was completed the father
was curious to know which creature the
| boy would like to have for a pet. He
Instantly blurted out, Father, buy me
| a goose"
| AS surely as the planets revolve, as
| surely as the tides ebb and flow, as
sure as the influence of gravitation, the
man will seek the woman as his COM
Elemental portion. During his boyhood
| she is to him 'only a girl with a de-
cided tinge of superiority in the tone
| he uses. But gradually his eyes are
| opened and she becomes to him the
'.summum bonum,'' the highest good
| in life. Every thing that has been dear
| to him before fades into triviality eX-
cept as it recommends him in her eyes.
| He intercepts her path to catch a
| smile. If he wins it, he is raised into
| the seventh-heaven of delight; if it is
| denied him, he is plunged into despair
| wherein even mother and home and
life, all, have no value to him. Woman
| becomes therefore the motive force of
the world, with its multifarious indus
| tries and it's arts. The glorieS of pal
| ace are as naught to a man unless he
find a woman to rule therein; his tri-
| umphs in accomplishment are Dead Sea
| apples unless he can lay the trophies at
her feet; the ringing plaudits of the
| crowd are hollow mockery to him unless
| those thrilling sounds can reach the ear
| and flush the cheek of the woman whom
| he regards above all others. He be-
| comes as clay in her hands; she can
| mold his very character and trans
| form it in these moments of supreme
| desire; she can draw aside the curtain
| and show him a broader, nobler thought
of love than his, for beneath his chivalry
and his poetry too often animalism is
| strongly lurking; she can, if she WILL
let into his eager soul the higher
| thought that the law of supreme love
is not wild possession, but self-subju-
CATION Yet, with those opportunities
! at her command, with the yearning
| man, awake to his incompleteness,
| uuivering at her side, with the power
within her to uplift his thoughts, his
| motives, his ambitions, how number
less are the women who are mere CO.
| uuettes or shallow retailers of small
| talk, or who meet the man on his own
lower plane of thought.
|
There are the wheels again: prod
| i-gal, prod-i-gal, prod-i-gaL"
Instead of woman being the weaker,
| she is the stronger in that which con-
| stitutes real strength. Morals are
! greater than muscles. To her is COM
| mitted the moral conservation of the
race in curbing her lover, in gently in
| fuencing her husband, in setting right
standards before her children; or, if it
be that she have neither lover nor hus-
| band nor child, yet is her power not
| lessened to guide her less advanced
| sister, to be the trusted confidant of
| those who are perplexed and tending
| towards moral destruction, to come in
| to the lives of children whose mothers
have not the insight sufficient to guide
| their own. Feeble though woman's ap-
prehension of her power has been, yet
| were this world bereft of the constant
| leaven of her tendency upward and her
/ carrying of man with her, it would be
nothing but moral charnel house She
| is the block that prevents progress
| from slipping back again.
i