The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-07-29
GOOD FELLOW GIRLS
And What Ella Wheeler Viii
cox Thinks of Them.
CASE OF ALICE MOFFETT
Is the Text for a Discourse
on Lovers Suicide.
CASE OF ALICE MOFFETT

But when we read the life OF this young
woman OF twenty-four, with it's stage
struck aspirations, it's craving for public
fly and it's fitful fitting through the b.
hemian haunsts of Paris, we might as well
say Alice Moffett committed suicide be-
cause she had undermined her moral ma
ture and lost hold OF the principles which
make character.
1 do not wish to assert that this dead
girl was immoral in the sense in which
that word is generally understood.
Morality does not consist in chastity
alone nor immortality in the loss Of it.
There is a high ideal Of womanhood
which includes all the virtues. This ideal
Is founded on self-respect. Modesty-the
modesty which makes it impossible to be
vulgar or to associate with vulgarity-is
one of the cornerstones.
The woman who loses this ideal, how
ever talented, wealthy or ambitious she
may be, usually steers her lifeboat out Of
the course and strikes the rocky reefs
somewhere in her'voyage.
Miss Moffett evidently lost her ideal Of
true womanhood before she found and lost
her ideal of manly perfection.
Had this not been so, she would never
have attained such prominence in the
Bohemian quarters of Paris, and she
would never have emulatedi the unfortun-
ate Bettina Girard in the slipper act.
When a young woman of twenty-three
IS known as "the best fellow in the Latin
quarter Of Paris she is pretty sure to be-
come the subject for startling headlines
in the American press befoDe many years.
- Do f- o11wns
to study or work or amIEse themselves
have the same idea which many country
girls entertain who go 20 New York for a
career. They think 1t is quite the proper
thing to be known as "Bohemians" and to
do things which they would never think OF
doing at home.
This is a great mistake I'm New York;
and it is a greater one in Paris.
In New York we have libertines and
roues, Of course, who are ready to put an
evil construction upon every free action Of
a young woman, but they are the excep-
ton.
OF course. the independent American girl
has done much to educate them in the
last ten years regarding the intermediate
class, and they are beginning to wonder
IL it Is possible for a girl to possess all the
virtues of the convent maiden and all the
abandon of manner of the grisette. But
they have not fully answered that ques-
ton to themselves, and, unfortunately, a
large number of our girls have, like Miss
Moffett, made such disastrous efforts to
illustrate what American independence
means abroad that the question is still
very undecided one in the mind OF the for
eigner. The association with such men
for an unprotected girl is full OF dangers.
There Is a. sort of moral miasma which
she breathes constantly. They encourage
her to think low; they ridicule her when
she thinks high. They expect her to de-
generate They initiate her into the
ealmsr of liquid Illusion.
when a girl who is her own chaperon
likes champagne" said New York bach
elor to me, 1--WE can see the finish of her
career at glance. 1t is almost invariably
the same-only some reach the end a little
more rapidly than Others"
"Yet you urge her to drink IT," said,
''and laugh at her If she refuses"
Eyes, merely to test her strength. But
in our hearts we are glad when she re-
fuses it. Glad for her, even If We lose
little amusement"
And you show your admiration by drop
ping her acquaintance" I added.
YES. but that IS all the better for tho
| girl, is It not?" he asked, and OF course /
knew it was.
Miss Moffett, according to reports, Joined
| the other good fellows" in a good
time" The good fellows" applauded and
/ opened more bottles, many for which her
own money paid.
She hrted with music and the drama and
art and craved publicity with an ever
| increasing fever OF mind. She scattered
her forces in a half dozen directions, and
achieved nothing in anything. She had
| lost her power Of concentrated purpose.
! and she had destroyed the bloom of fresh,
! wholesome girlhood before she met The
| Man.
! She was "a good fellow" but not high
minded woman.
Just what cause she had TO love Leon
/ cavallo so deeply We do not know. The
Man says. Il never knew her.
| The girls letters indicate that an attach
ment had existed between them. This
passion may have been wholly upon her
! side She may have been Historically
! imaginative. and drink and drugs may
/ have aided her delusicn. / do not know
that she used drugs. but I judge her by
| the women 1 have known who raced
| through life on the same high way.
After being a good fellow" for few
months among the Bohemians, sleep has
to be induced by perfectly harmless pow
/ der" which a reliable physician pre-
/ scribes.
In a few years the private sanitarium or
/ Bellevue or the Morsue receives the good
/ fellow"
| Love goes where Il is sent. believe this
old saying to be true. But when a woman
IS in fun'possessi1 n Of her highest qualities
! love does not stay where IL is not well
come.
| The best lovers never commit suicide.
Even in loves anguish they find a rap
ture that makes life worth the living
| Unrequited love Is a spur TO the strong.
/ death blow to the weak Cnreouited
! love made Petrarch a gseat poet: but it
| makes 4 smaller souled man a drunkard or
1 suicide.
/ Love goes where It + sent, but suicide
| comes where Il is induced.
Miss Moffett induced the suicidal mood
by years OF wrong living. by false stand
ards OF pleasure and by unwholesOme
craving after publicity. She was like hun
dreds Of other women in our land today.
whose ambitions outrun their industry and
/ overbalance their tal-nts.
She was disappointed in three separate
avenues Of art before she received her dis
appointment In love. And without doubt