Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-05-14
Over Praised Virtues.

Sometimes it must occur to even the
most casual observer that good women
are often the victims of their own vir-
tues, and that many of the prcceptS lald
down for their guidance are more honored
in the breach than the observance. Take.
for instance, the old adage that what Is
worth doing at all is worth doing well
That apparently unassailable maxim mas
slain its thousands, and sent its tens OF
thousands to insane asylums and santa
RUINS.
A woman brought up in that faith feels
1t nothing short of a crime TO baste q
thing up, if she can put out her eyes ana
get a backache putting in little; close
stitches. though the basting might ans
wer every purpose just as well. she con-
siders it her duty to make burnt oiter-
ing of herself over the kitchen stove pre-
though she knows perfectly well she
might save herself. and they would be
better off. If she gave them plain food
to eat. She grows old before her time
sweeping, busting. and polishing up her
over-clean house. but she despises the
woman who gives her house cleaning "a
yet between the two the latter. has the
truer philosophy of life. There IS an ART
of sighting work. well as doing 1t,
that is worth learning.
Then there is patience. Patience is uni
versally believed to be a good woman :
long suit. A reasonable amount of it is,
without doubt. highly to be commended.
but ii is virtue that is easily overdone.
Truth compels one to admit that woman
patience is at the bottom of a good many
of the crying evils of the day. 1t is never
the patient mistress who has good ser
wants. 1t is the woman whose eagle eye
is going to see every neglected duty, ana
who is going to raise Cain about it,
who gets her table cloths put on straight
and her beds swept under. Ii is the pa
tient friends who can be counted on TO
forgive. who do have to exercise that viz
tue seventy and seven times. The impa-
tent woman who isn't going to be put
off with any old thing is treated with re-
spect and doesn't have anything to for
give. 1t is the patient woman, moreover.
who is responsible for nine-tenths of the
drunken husbands. 1t is the fact that
there are no patient husbands who sit up
with sanity smile to let drunken wives
into the house at unseemly hours. ina,
keeps women in the paths of sobriety and
deCency.
Another thing is unsefishness. Vol
umes have been written to exploit this
crowning virtue of wOmanhood Ro-
nance and poetry hold it aloft as the bea-
con light towards which the entire sex
should struggle. Yet there has been more
useless suffering and idiotic self-sacriice
committed in its name than for al other
causes in the world combined. The per
fectly unSelfish woman is the instigator
of selfishness in Others. The ideal unset
fish wife makes a tyrant of her husband
before he knows it. She is always will
ing to give way without word, and ne
lets her do it. She is always anxious Tor
him to have the best of things. and he
takes them. 1t is the woman who has a
proper degree Of selfishness. and who as
serts and gets her share of the good
things of life. that remains her husband :
companion and friend. The unseltish
mother is the one who drops out of her
set in society to rock her babies to sleep
who, when her children are older goes
in a shabby turned frock to let her girls
have real lace and bangles, and who
stays in the kitchen to serve the meals
instead of sitting at the head Of her own
table. OF course. such devotion, such an
geic self-sacrifice, makes her the object
Invariably her children despise her. No
one ever saw a perfectly unselfish moth
or whose children didn't have contempt
for her. 1t is the selfish mother VINO has
good and admiring children. The truth is
that there are many good qualities that
we need to season life, but we want to
use them with forbearance and Judgment.
Salt is Il necessity. but too much of 1t
ruins dinner.-New Orleans Picayune.