The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1903-06-25

and, yet the NUMBER OF tnOSe VINO WOuiu
prefer to be spoken of and addressed az
"women," rather than as "ladies," has
been steadily increasing for the past twen-
| ty years and this increase, / think l am
safe in saying, has been In liked ratio to
our progress as people IN cultivation and
refinement. | venture to account TINS an
| unfortunate state of things, since lady"
is a word which the language cannot lose
without sore impoverishment End one for
which the vocabulary OF every day inter-
| course has no synonyms.
Lady" be it observed, is title, not a
| generic word, necessarily covering ell the
| members of one sex; and as a title 1T be-
longs only to those, who have a night to
| claim it. Now, who are they who, in
| point of fact, have right to claim it! In
monarchial countries there is no difficulty
| in finding an answer to this question. In
England, for example, the Heralds' Of
| flee, to which such matters are intrusted,
can and viii give you definition IN black
and white, clear-cut lad unmlstakable. A
lady" by English law, may be the wife of
man above the rank of knight and below
| that of duke. The title also belongs to the
| daughters of noblemen not below the rank
of earl and is given by courtesy to the
wives of knights
Let that pass for England but what of
ladyship In America, where no such sharp
| divisional lines are drawn by the pencil OF
| authority! Here, thank God, we have a
much worthier definition Of the word and
more satisfactory Interpretation OF the
| thing. Ladyship, under democracy,
means and can mean only one thing,
womanhood at its best Not all woman
! hood is womanhood at it's best any more
| than all manhood is al'.ood at Its best
would that it were. And what are the
characteristics of womanhood at its best?
| What are the tokens by which 1t IS au-
thenticated? We cannoc greatly differ in
| Orfp 171,nT ~
characteristics dignity is one, gentleness is
another, fortltude is a third and SYM
pathy completes the cluster. 1t were UNI
| reasonable, OF course, to expect the full
ness OF each one of these four traits in
any single personality, no matter how rich
| ly endowed by Inheritance or carefully
matured by training And yet it is beyond
| question that some tincture OF each one
| must be found present IN woman before,
under democratic conditions, her claim to
ladyship can be accounted valid
Dgnlty-there are a thousand imita-
but how wholly admirable is the genuine
| article, what IAN excellent thing In wom-
AMI Not by aping dignity do we become
| dlgnljied. Aloofness is not dignity, hau-
teur IS not dignity, stiffness is not dignity,
| pompoUs manner and a brocaded style
| or speech-these are not dignity. True Dig
| nifty Is not of ice, it is of fame. A certain
delicate and fiery nimbus which circles the
sanctuary of personality to safeguard it
| from intrusion and encroachment. Their
dignity" exclaims an old Hebrew pro-
pnet, giving Us the whole thing In a nut
shell, their dignity shall proceed of them
selves" Dignity Is reconcilable with all
| forms OF occupation. even the most men,
tai. 1t consorts with many qualities, al
though with vanity it is reluctant to walk,
and, with immodesty it will have nothing
to do. Immodesty Is the sin against pro-
portion, ats very name SO signifying, and
as the philosophic emperor remarks in his
| meditations, There is a proper dignity
and proportion to be observed in the per-
torrance of every act of life" Hence to
do anything out of measure and in excess
IS undlgnihed.
Then as to gentleness, our second attri-
butte OF womanhood at its best, what shall
we say of gentleness? Can we saw any,
thing better or truer than that it is the
child, the direct offspring of dignity. The
truly dlgnlhed can scarcely be thought of
as the .ungentle, for here again tha5 ques-
ton of proportion comes in, and rough
ways and boisterous talk stand se.f-con-
afford to spare out of the daily intercourse
OF he as woman's gentleness. And this is
only the more true the noisier the world
becomes. With life punctuated for us by
the ,shr1eks of steam whistles, the rattle
OF the chariots of iron and the strokes of
"a iu@nAei VI sonss, now restIuI, now
healthtui, how reinvigorating are the ac-
cents of gentleness! All, my dear young
friends, whatever else you forget to be,
remember to be gentle. An anxious fear
in the hearts of many thoughtful people, a
fear which personally do not share but
OF which 1t IS Just as well to take note, is
that out of all this contemporary struggle
OF woman for complete independence,
tins duplication on her part of as much of
mans work as is imitabie, there may come
eventually an impairment of the worlds
total stock OF gentleness. Let us be misers
here. The tide of this sweet grace is never
at the flood. There is no peril of any over
flow. We need to treasure every drop
there is.
As to fortitude, [ chose the word with
care, wishing to mark off from courage in
general that special form of this virtue
winch has found frequent and splendid Il
lnstration in the annals of womanhood.
Courage OF the sort which qualities one Ito
drink delight of BATTLE" to head storming
parties and to volunteer on forlorn hopes
is not expected of women, and, for that
matter, IS not so common among men az
men would ike to have it thought, but of
that other and more praiseworthy fearless
ness, which, Without the excitement of con-
hict, Is able patiently to suffer, persistent
ly to endure. in this Christlike virtue, it is
posslble-it has ten thousand times been
shown to be possible that women should
excel: With the aroma Of this virtue
wholly absent no woman's character even
so much as approximates perfection
but 1T Is not enough to be able uncom-
plainingly to suffer-have we learned to
suffer with? That is what sympathy means
suffering with"-remember that sympa-
thy won the last of the four blossoms we
set out to twine into our wreath 1t does
not matter how well bred woman may
be In other respects, it does not matter
how varied her accomplishments. intellect
ual or artistic, if tender heartedness, the
power to enter quickly and deeply into the
feeling of others, if this be wholly absent,
it is idle to talk about charm" it simply
is not there. 1t is this insistence upon
sympathy, as a necessary ingredient of
true womanhood that renders the Chris
tan type so infinitely superior to the old
classic type whether or maid or matron.
That a woman can look on composedly at
a bull fight is the opprobrium of Spanish
civilization, but there was time when
not in one corner of the Mediterranean
exclusively, but all over the Latin world
women called ladies could both tolerate
and even fercely delight in the shedding
of innocent blood.
What has chanoad al +b;s2 0cl,, 80