The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1906-08-31

FEMININE GRAcEs THAT
CHARM MERE MAN


w
Ask five out of every ten girls today ir
just what they would prefer to be ad.
mired by their men acquaintances, ant
they will tell you as comrades. The idea
of charming by the arts and coquetries OF
tem1ninity does not at all suit the indie
pendent views of the twentieth century
girl. Equality is her w~atchword, and mere
man has no choice but to humor her fancy
and meet her as man to man." in the so.
cial as we'll as the business world.
1t is, of course, the inevitable outgrowtf
of the new woman policy, fostercd by the
athletic open air life which the girl of to.
day shares in common with her brothers
and developed by contact with the world
OF business. The woman w-age-earner is
now so much of a factor in the worlds
work that men a come to regard her
wholly without sentiment. She is a power
to be reckoncd with, and though most Of
her masculine ape would fam escape
the reckoning Il they could. they have
schooled themselves to yield 10 the in
evitable with a fairly good grace.
Men have so long considered comrade-
snip as one of their own special preroga-
lives that.they look with thinly yelled sus-
ptcson on the woman who tries to fitch 1T
from hem-or more accurately. to share
1t with them. From time immemorial it
has been a pet theory Of the world rnascu-
AH1S Ahal OLld ldChS lut csScllIldl elS-
ments that make for this ideal relation
ship. She can be an adorable sweetheart,
a loving wife, a devoted mother, even, m
somewhat rarer instances, a faithful
friend: but a com~rade-never! To be that
this, of course. being the mans view of
it-she must possess a well-balanced, logi-
cal brain, which no woman ever yet pos
sessed in common with an attractive per-
sonal.ty. She must be capable of a many
Eided and impersonal viewpoint-and
where Is the woman who can look at
things in more than one light, or who does
not consider all things in relation to her
self? She must be able to keep a secret
her friends secret, mark you. as wei, as
her %own-and, as everybody knows, that
Is a woman's weakest point; she must-but
what's the use-One could go on forever
and ever citing reasons why a woman is
utterly incapable Of attaining the mans
ideal of comradeship, but never a single
one In support of her claim thereto.
! To a certain extent the mans view is
justified by facts. 1t is harder for the av-
erage woman to lose sight of the sex ques-
ton than for a camel to pass through a
needles eye. She may have the most ex-
alted IDEAS In the world as to the pre-
eminence of the piatonic over all other va
rletles of love; she may regard the male
part of the Observation-Disclosures a
man and a brother. But all the same she
49, ~ II liz VI
Nidual portion of it represented by her
'conrade" fail to convey a neat compli-
ment-judiciously, of c-ourse-anent the be-
1omingness of her costume and her wv
general superiority to all other women in
Nhe world. Fancy u man complimenting
MS c1um on the color of his eyes, or the
beW:tchtng arrangement of his hair, or the
exquisite taste displayed in his choice of a,
lecktie! The skies would fall and the
hoods break loose in the cataclysm tina.
would inevitably follow.
/. There are, of course, feminine excep-
tions, to whom these observations cannot
be applied; but c%uriously enough, the ex-
ceptions are not the most popular candi-
dates for comradeship. The natural per-
verseness of man mak him steer con-
Fistently clear of the woman who in any
Hegree resembles himself. The short
haired, blue stockined eisterhood are his
particular aversion. The woman with the
logical brain, who can knock his pet argu-
ments into a cooked hat-and does 1.-THE
politely, but firmly declines to admit to
mis- friendship. The mannish woman,
whose skirts alone serve to distinguish her
from the noble sex she strives to emulate,
invariably prompts him to make a bee
line for the nearest corner. He dislikes
the woman who smokes, he despises the
woman who drinks, and he abominates the
woman who swears. He may DO each and
49, SA> ~ SAASSS AAiiiso 1AlAoS 0lAl Ao
doesn't care to see his own little vices
duplicated in his feminine friends. The
truth is that he never sees how objection
abe they are until some would-be comrade
Of The other sex makes the fact apparent.
Real comradeship between the sexes is
possible only mid the activities of life
in business and in athletics-in fact, wher-
ever existence is full and strenuous-men
and women can be comrades, because
there are few %loopholes through which
Cupid can creep in. Sentiment is one of
the luXuries of leisure. 1t is during the
Idle moments that love gets busy, and
when love enters the field comradeship
goes incontinently out.
The one man and the one woman who
have just found each other are too thor
oughly under the hypnotic spell for any
such commonplace relationship. Likely
as not they are absolutely unsuited to one
another-and everybody knows it but
themselves. Comrades? Hardly. Com
rades don't want to sit for hours at a
stretch gazing spellbound into each 9TH
er's soulful eyes, 1.-The world forgetting,
by the world forgot" They would rather
infinitely rather-be fighting shoulder to
shoulder in the thick of the fray, helping
and cheering one another in long marches,
keeping watch together over the campfire,
sharing rations and privations in common.
That is a mans idea of c~omradeship.
AAtS VIII 10 liz Hdll WHO accepts MN
as he is, without frills or ornamentation
of any sort; who expects no more of him
than he is able and willing to give; in
whose company he can slip off irksome
conventions; who can talk or be silent, ac-
cording to his mood, and who will stick to
him through thick and thin, though the
whole world beside be against him.
1t is wholesome, If not agreeable, for a
woman to know hat however keenly a
man may appreciate her companionship.
1t will not fill all his need. "A mans friend
ship IS so completely satisfying to the av-
erage woman that she finds it difficult to
grasp the fact that her friendship is not
equally satisfying to him, and when she
does grasp it the bottom falls out of her
universe at once.
But a man. in friendship or out of it,
lives his own life. He does not, as the
woman does. sink his whole existence in
his friendships. He is not always at his
hest-and he doesn't want to he. There
are times when primitive instinct gets the
better of his civilization, but he doesn't
want his woman friends to bark pack
along with him.. If they insist they in
Yallibiy fall from his esteem.
Thus the inmutablc laws CT sex lie ever
betweea the perfect comradeship of men
and women. There are women whom men
regard as good comrades''- but thcy are
the women who have read and accented