The record-union., 1898-10-13
PRESENT DAY THOUGHTS.
BY G.. Grosvenor Dave.


Some words with women: There are
people who will buy a book because of
its cover, but they are no judges of
literature. The soul thoughts of the
great are nothing to such superficial
ones, unless decked out in colors that
catch the eye; as if one should tie a
shot silk petticoat around the ample
waist of the Venus de Milo in order to
make her a work Of art.
AS with books so with women, until
your sex is growing weary of being
measured by externals. Your pearly
teeth, cherry lips, ravishing eyes, fairy
form have been held up as desirable
until you must be tired Of such COM
ments. Albany rate if you are not, you
ought to be; for the man who proposes
to marry because of your form or your
eye lashes is only exceeded in foolish
ness by one individual, and that one
the woman who relies upon physical
beauty to hold a mans fancy forever.
Trashy novelists with a gift for adjec-
tives and a following of callow youths
or hardened sybarites are the chief Of
tenders. They seem to be in league to
blind themselves to the highest excel
ideal only in a fresh slip of girl. With
most chilling cruelty will they describe
crows feet and burrows and marks, if
they happen to sketch a woman of
twenty-five or thirty.
But let US be thinkful Not all men
are anovelists; and there yet remain a
residue who can bear with much less
"pearly'' and fairy and cherry and
good deal more good sense; of which
woman has a greater share at twenty
five than man, but even then none too
much
AS the rough rock contains the gar
net, SO there is divinity and dignity
about womanhood that is absolutely
Independent Of good looks. And it can
show forth whether the feet are sum-
moned to path that only one trav-
erses, or, to a broader way wherein two
walk in accord. But some of you yet
lull your higher senses to sleep by
seeking admiration and challenging
fattery. You have your reward and
it is a selfish one; for the men who
praise you to your face are apt to judge
the whole sex by your Stiffness and van
ity and shallowness.
Let me answer few questions as to
what you are and what you are not as
a sex. First, you are not men, and for
that geu may be. thankful; as most Of
us have erred from the way, while only
few of you turn aside Even your
fatal sWsnderings are often prompted
by the sunselfishness of your love; and
this is never, absolutely never, true of
man He will founder in the ditch of
passion and If perchance he drags
there, too, the one who could and would
save him, he often climbs out and she
too often remains Yes, you are not
men, and it is we'll; for we boast Of our
superior strength and are weak in di-
rectiohs where we expect you to be
strong. Imagine what a wild, orgie-like
world THIS would be if women were
slaves to impulse like the men.
Again, you are not men; for we can
forgive both men and women, but wo-
men as a class refuse forgiveness to
women. This extends to other things
beside moral lapses. I have known
many men deliberately try year after
year --to--heip another man overcome
drink; but the women who will go down
to the gutter. for another woman are
fewer than would seem possible Yet,
perhaps the whole of this tendency
should not be regarded as an evil; since
it seems with you to arise more from
impulse than deliberate thought: as
though you were all conscious within
of the need of making a departure from
the path so solemn a thing that others
will be deferred from leaving it by see
ing the hopeless faces of those who can
nevermore walk therein. But even
granting that it is an innate evolu-
tionary feeling, yet when applied to the
poor, woe-begone individual, it seems
horribly unjust And it probably is
What say you in relation to your sis
ter, if you answer Gains question?
Indeed, you are not men; for men
more quickly despair in affection than
you do. Like old, pampered Job, our
sex is too ready to curse God and die;
yours will bow to providential blow,
and then calmly and quietly try to ex-
plain it.
You are not as tickle as men. You
can love your ideal one after death and
until your death comes. Not many
men are thus loyal. The comfortable
aspects of home and their own help
lessness in keeping those aspects up ap-