The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-11-01
Modern Young women.

The latest contribution, says the New
York Tribune, to much discussed
questian is THE Young Woman in
Modern Life" by Beverly Warner. The
author has rushed in where angels
might well have feared to tread. and
mas Jared no worse and perhaps a lit
tie better than was to be expected
The young woman is in the way of
receiving more advice than the young
man which she conceives to be a graz
tultous attention" says DR.. Warner:
she wonders that man, vain man.
should be so self-deceived as to think
that he knows anything about her at
all above all that he seeks to counsel
her majesty as to her mind, her heart,
her soul, her habits or her thoughts"
And then he proceeds through two
hundred pages and nine chapters to do
that very thing, discussing the re-
sponsibilities, influence, occupations,
amusements and matrimonial affairs
or the young woman, with only mas
culine temerity.
A flavor of oldtime chivalry runs
through DR.. Warmers book which is
somewhat attractive, If not exactly the
quality to be looked for in an impartial
critic of the inexplicable sex.
Man is q poor creature at his best -
he says, but that woman is also a poor
creature he does not appear to suspect
The young woman of to-day he believes
to be the "fairest bloom of earth and
time" He exalts her upon a pedestal
and burns unmeasured incense before
her. Princes bow before my lady" he
says. Peasants are ennobled by her
smile. The fairest fields of the beauti-
full Old World take on new color as she
sweeps over them. Dull souls brighten
in her presence, tired hearts thrill with
fresh impulse and beat more hopefully
in the light of her eyes. From the hour
of her innocent babyhood. when lying
on the mothers bosom, she appeals to
the strongest and mightiest by the
compelling trust, of her baby stare un-
til, in the midday of her gracious wom-
anhood she turns the world about her
soft fingers, she reigns."
This glorious being DIR. Warner
holds responsible for very nearly every
thing that goes wrong in the world
and to her he gives the credit of the
greater part of what goes right She is
to reform society and the stage, to
check the secularization Of Sunday, and
even to safeguard the English language
against the inroads of slang.
THE woman's inspiration Is over us
ALL We creep or climb, as we have
been struck down or lifted up by femi-
nine indifference, love or hate. Upon
the common things of life she casts a
radiance, and over its sordid cares and
routine duties she throws a. glory"
Yet DR.. Warner does not know some
things about women: when we talk
of the awful glory of her youth" he
says, her capacity for happiness, her
influence for good, she is uncomfort-
ably aware of the daily disad-
vantages of her sex and youth.
She is not her own mistress.
She is under perpetual orders
to do this or do that, which she cam
not coordinate with her ideas of life.
The word don't is constantly ringing
in her ears, with the mournful and
monotonous insistence Of a one-stringed
lutte. The very nights and depths of
her royal dover of womanhood lay her
open to falls and bruises which men
never know. And through all the wom-
an must smile and hold in chains the
impetuous tumult of her often outraged
sensibilities, where a man would growl
softly in his beard and take himself
off.
1.-The young woman cannot take her
self with equal facility. She is most
often bound, as no man feels himself
bound, to her environment. She is
hemmed in by circumstances. Her
cage may be gilded, her food and water
of the best, her feathers of silver, and
vet the cage is there, and she is in it."