The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1901-01-24
TIE TIMES. RICHMOND. VA THURSDAY. JANUARY

to finish a religious romance, put MISS
Rives has no compliments 1or some o1
the most active of her SISTERS -! LIE
social and intellectual life OF Chlcaso.
Club women, she cannot aDfue. Clup
women she finds most intoleraple ana
not to be endured. Coming at once 10
the source of all thoughts, all passions,
all delights. she asks:
what can the Chicago club women
know about love? Nothing. l hold the
club movement in Chicago largely re-
sponsible for the great number OF di-
yorces in this city Chicago club women
are past the romantic age OF lie.
Thus from her safe palisades Of youth
and romantic fiction does Miss RiVes pop
away at the Chicago club women They
cannot love. They are too old to love.
They are just the right age for divorce,
however, and the club, the horrible club,
is responsible for it all; even, we sup
pose, for that unromantic maturity which
Miss Rives attributes to the Chicago
club women
With many eager assertions and sud
den congratulations does Miss Rives seek
to support her position. She is con-
servative, no friend of the equality OF the
sexes. q contemner of lntellectuallty IN
women, stickler for the cultivation and
expression of the emotional III tenlnlnity.
She insists, relying upon what statlstlcai
information we know not that huncreoS
of Chicago business men eat at least two
cold dinners a week, just because their
wives are out attending meetings that
last until candlelight." If this We're SO,
it, were a grievous fault, but trust
worthy census figures as to the NUMBER
of cold dinners in Cook county are nara
to come at And how does Miss Rives
know that thousands of Chicago club
women don't have to wait until dinner is
cold for husbands that don't come home,
,e their wives intellectual or non-intel-
lectual?
In Chicago, if Miss Rives has given it
heedful note, women, domineering Wo-
men, has risen from inequality with the
tyrant man to superiority to him:
I'm Chicago it is plain that the men are
relegated to u second place. In the
theatres the women sweep in ahead of
their escorts. The self-satistied matron
who wears great feather boa that looks
like a gigantic caterpillar moves down the
aisle with her husband following her. as
if she were her page
Here, evidently, is clear-eyed OBJ
server, who could found plausible the
DRY of inequality upon her studies Of
men and women going up or down
staircase. She sympathizes with the
patient and long-suffering' men, who are
.ssrinding out their lives to support their
families Sweet as such sympathy is
the poor martyrs to whom it is offered
will grin at it. What are they for, any
way? Still they deserve sympathy II 1t
be true that the club women become
so intellectual, or make themselves so
highly cultured that they are beyond
love- Sad is their state if that is their
state, but let us not trespass upon these
mysteries. We may be permitted to say,
however, that if the Chicago club wo-
men are lovc-proof, they are but victims
of the Chicago atmosphere as Miss RlveS
sees it. To her the city is mot suSges-
tive of love and romance. Its lnhabl-
tants can hardly be called sentimental.
The famous statesman who wrote Dear
Midnight of Love- will not agree with
this opinion.
It is necessary to show what Miss
Rives understands by the i'll effects Of
women's clubs upon the softer tissues of
the soul:
.'Ths women's clubs are a means of
eliminating love from the feminine tenn
permanent. Imagine the sensations of a
Chicago club woman who happens to be
kissed. Of course, 1 supposing that
she has met the ideal man and is en-
gagged. She has endowed this ideal man
with rare intellect and soul. The club
woman demands soul, first of all, in a
man. ! don't know exactly what she
means by this application of the word
soul but it is something that is usually
associated with anaesthetic musicians
and half-starved artists Well, when the
club woman is kissed she calmly recalls
the fact that kissing is an ancient GUS
tom, and that, like shaking hands. it is
a. perfectly proper salute. il she has
any emotion it is something to be scen-
titically analyzed. To her happiness is
merely a mental condition that many
slightly increase the number of heart
throbs a minute. Love is an intellectual
experience"
At this point we steal away on tiptoe,
with memories of the Wisconsin School
of Female Poets chanting in the brain.