The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-08-23

you see, there are two sides to almost every
question.
They say there are no old maids nova
days. It's true that there are none i'm the
old sense. l have sometimes wondered
whether the queer old ringletted, straight
WASTED. comic-valentine type of old maid
ever really existed. To be sure / have a
vague recollection of having seen some
thing like her in the days of my early child
hood. but if the type existed it hasn't sur
vived. at least in outward semblance. But
many of the conditions that made life un-
beara bic to that depressed sisterhood actu-
ally have survived unto this day, though
the new woman is too proud to complain
or them. But just between OurSelveS-wel
L recall one of those little wailing lines of
Jean Ingelow's-lines which she had such
"A pathetic art of introducing. like genuine
childish cries of sorrow. Oh for once, let
me complaint For once let me confess to
a fellow-sister that We labor under a few
well-defned disadvantages--like the rest
of man and wOmankind, The solitary path
isn't all smooth and sunny. j may say in
passing that 1T might be smoother and sun
nier if il were really solitary.
1t isn't. The old maids obligations are
those that she can never escape: they de-
pend too absolutely upon her generosity
She could-possibly-deser the family ship
at any, moment. but her conscience will not
allow her. In order to be a real, comforta-
BILE old maid-in order TO gain the freedom
for which she has sacrificed the chances of
married life-she has to be brutality selfish.
Something always depends upon her. yet
her services are usually gratuitous and I'M
acknowledged. All claims upon life for
life's sake are denied to her Can she pos
sibly have needs, aspirations, loves and
longings? Why not? Ask married woman.
and she will look at you if you had
asked why she didn't give her pug dog a
card to the public library, No married
woman can quite convince herself that an
old maid is a human being. Why, what
can she live for, except to wait upon the
needs of the rising generation and its pro-
genitors? If she does anything else she is
less than ever human she has joined the
ranks of the presumably disappointed ones,
who care for humanity at large as an mad
equate consolation for having nobody to
care for in particular.
The unmarried woman is supposed 20 have
no Joys or sorrows of her own. in brief no
ego. She is impersonal being. She is
unpardonaby selfish If she sinks under the
eternal weight of the trobules of others.
her own? How good ii must be- sighed
an unhappy wife to me. TO be entirely free
from all care and sorrow."
ITO be WHAT" | asked with an unsuc
cessful attempt at fine sarcasm.
Entirely free. you must be, of
course. being unmarried.
So mucn for the sorrows Of life. AS 70
the joys | knew old maid who wrote
verses, aye. and published them. why,
it's love song," cried a married friend
standing as if raralyzed with the magazine
Y.
she stopped, and the pause was more elo-
quent than words. 'All purely literary, of
course said the writer, with a successful
attempt at sarcasm.
| once introduced "A young man to Kate
JoneS-you know. she is over thirty and
very charming. Afterward he treated me to
volumes of astonished EXPLANATIONS over
her state of sDinSterhood.
How can ii be when she's so attractive?
| don't understand it,,
IL never seemed to occur to him that he
talking TO a woman whose spinster-
hood. presumably, SURPRISED him not at ALL
/ meekly explained that Kate had had
lovers. which seemed to satisfy his sense of
the fitness of things. He hadn't thought Of
il beforel No one ever really thinks that
an old maid may have known the love of
man. unless she carries his portrait i'm a
black enameled locket and hangs a photo
graph of his tombstone over the mantle
piece.
| tell you Of these grievances because YOU
must have experienced them in some form
other. But, like me, you must remem-
Der the time when girl was considered an
old maid at twenty-five and when old maids
were out of the social running altogether
So we've fallen on better days and may pat
each other on our respective backs. At the
age of twenty-nine l was censured for
wearing n large beaver hat with long
feather after the fashion of the times.
could wear one now. or its corresponding
type. without comment, at the age Of
Goodness. what n long wall I've utteredi
Next time. perhaps, I'll tell you why were
happy.