Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1897-06-03
HOME READING.
THE INCAPABLE WOMAN.
Here is No Place for Her in RMS
Day and Generation.


AAeFc is No Place for Her in This
Day and Generation.
Nowhere outside of an old-fashioned
romance is there a spot in the world
where the incapable woman can today
maintain o foothold. In the leisurely
three-volume novel dear to our grand
parents, Arabella and Araminta, gentle,
pallid, timid, submissive creatures, fad
tered and gasped and tainted gracefully
in their chairs at the slightest excuse
for such behavior. To swoon with ease
was regarded as 4 proof of elegance,
and as q distinctive line marking the
difference between the milllmaid and
the lady born and bred. Possibly the
tightlacing then in vogue aided the lady
in her ability to perform this part of her
role to the satisfaction of the spectators
who were usually within the receding
vision Of the fainting and fragile being
whose delicate nerves were proof
against neither terrors by night nor
shocks by day,
Frankly we doubt whether the old
novelsts were quite fair in their por-
traiture of the current life of their
times. We find Jennie Deans able to
undertake q long, difficult and every
way artluous journey, reaching it's end
rs fresh and hearty and full of purpose
and courage as at the beginning, her
beauty not marred by hardship and loss
of rest. Mary, queen of Scots, was able
10 sit for Nours in the saddle, no cav
alicr of her period riding harder or
faster or more bravely than the bold and
beautiful queen. The famous women
who made the court of FrNace splendid
during successive changes and revolu-
tons were not frail, die-away creatures
ofghost-like hues andwillowy outlines;
they were substantial flesh and blood
women, equal to all the dangers and
pcrilous adventures which were often
their portion.
Recalling the much harder conditions
of housekeeping of the times of cur
erandmothers and of their mothers be-
fore them, we are impressed with the
fact that the women who surmounted
successfully so many obstacles must
have been made of really tough fiber.
The modern appliances which give us
everything for our tables in highly con-
densed and beautiful forms, ready for
use with the minimum of preparation,
were then unknown. They pounded the
pepper and pulverized the sugar and
rolled the salt. So far from having
electric lights to command at the touch
OF a mysterious knob, they had not even
lucifer matches. The fire had to be
kept in by strenuous care, and some
times one went to her neighbors to bor-
row 4 handful of fire with which to
light her own. Nothing was easy.
Everything required hard, persevering
and unremitting labor, so that we may
believe that the women Of that older
day were far from being incapable.
Incapable women may for the brief
season of youth, while the sea-shell
color tints the rounded check and the
beauty of health beams in the bright
eyes, win a passing tribute from
thoughtlcss men; but the women who
wear we'll must know how to meet
emergencies, how to order and see their
orders obeyed, how to hold themselves
in calm comrosure, whatever tempests
are abroad. The incapable woman was
never so much an anachronism as to-
day.-N. Y. Ledger.