The age-herald., 1897-09-05
BY MRS. GEORGE C. BALL.
'

Ella Wheeler Wilcox is a most enter
 prising literary woman. She is always
 finishing a new excitement, fresh agi-
 tation, which sets people to thinking
 and talking, whether one approves her
 methods or rot. She has found the way
 to the hearts of the newspaper reading
 world, and her secret is simply that she is so thoroughly, so intensely human. No
 woman ever had any lasting influence for good or evil upon their fellow creat- ures, unless they possessed the power of getting close to human hearts. We call this gift by all kinds Of names, names manifold in their delicate shades of meaning, but after all, signi- flying that thsre is bond of sympathy that reaches from hsart to heart, giving us patience with the frailties and weaknesses of others because we are weak and frail, and also broad charity which reaches out to- wards the unfortunate and suffering, and desire to uplift and upbuild in every walk of life. But Ella Wheeler Wilcox makes egregiJus mistakes sometimes like all humanly- y-inclined people will do, and ofttimes these very blunders draw us nearer to the blunderer. Her latest ex- citement is a dissertation. upon the ex- travaSance of American women. She in- weighs against the habit of women to spend monay lavishly, and thoughtlessly, but softens the blow to feminine vanity by insisting that this indifference to the value of money is, in measure due to an ignorance of business affairs an the part of American wives. In this latter proposition Mrs. Wilcox is correct, but in her arraignment of women, she evil deI'ces woful ignorance of certain sec tions of the country. Throughout the south and west, and in New England as we'll the closest economy has been prac- ticed by the women. In all the details of household management, in the expendi- lures for dress, in the qualification of ar tistic and luxurious tastes it is ever and always the women of the family who exercise self-denial and resist the temp tation to be extravagant in order to make lighter and easier to carry the bur den which presses upon the shoulders Of husbands, fathers and sors. There are exceptions to this rule, of course Silly women who love clothes more than they love husbands and children, but they are rare and count for little with mankind generally.
 There are the fewest number of wo- men in any part of the world who would not willingly bring their tastes ard de- sires within the limit of their husbands income A man is seriously to blame when he does not bravely tell his wife of his financial cordition. In nine cases out of ten. if he will do this he will find his wife a very tower of strength in times of trouble, ready for any sacrifice and willingly, aye gladly. adjusting her expenses so that they will. accord with the size of his purse. Men do not con- fide in their wives sufficiently. Manysa good woman has bsen called extraya- gant because she was unconscious of the necessity for economy. Among the good things that Mrs Wilcox says about ex- travagance is this sensible advice to young people "The very lesson that every young person should be taught is that no lasting pleasure lies in having every whim gratified that there is no satisfaction in doing or having what costs any one pain, worry or sleepless- ness, to accomplish or bestow. To learn how to get the most pleasure and benefit out of the income we have with the least strain and pain to ourselves and others, is a valuable lesson to learn Unless we learn this; life is not worth living, even to such Croesus as Barney Barnato.
 There are TO middle -aged, no old women nowadays. Every woman attir5s herself as her individual taste suggests, some in older some in younger styles, and, in consequence feminine beauty is not regulated by the years, only by the fascination of personal charms. There Is no longer any etiquette as to dress, for women of advancing years. If woman fff,y-flve or sixty years oli desires to don white organdie gowns, worn over blue. green or heliotrope silk slips. she is en-