A Woman of the World by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Ella Wheeler Wilcox >> A Woman of the World
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11 [Illustration]
A Woman of the World
HER COUNSEL TO OTHER PEOPLE'S SONS AND DAUGHTERS
By
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1904
Fourth Impression, April, 1910
Contents
TO MR. RAY GILBERT, _Law Student, Aged Twenty-three_
TO MISS WINIFRED CLAYBORNE, _At Vassar College_
TO EDNA GORDON, _During Her Honeymoon_
TO MISS GLADYS WESTON, _Who Faces the Necessity to Earn a Living_
TO CLARENCE ST. CLAIRE, _Regarding His Sister's Betrothal_
TO MISS MARGARET RILEY, _Shop Girl, Concerning Her Oppressors_
TO MISS GLADYS WESTON, _After Three Years as a Teacher_
TO A YOUNG FRIEND, _Who Has Become Interested in the Metaphysical
Thoughts of the Day_
TO WILFRED CLAYBORN, _Concerning His Education and His Profession_
TO MISS ELSIE DEAN, _Regarding the Habit of Exaggeration_
TO SYBYL MARCHMONT, _Who Has Learned Her Origin_
TO MISS DIANA RIVERS, _A Young Lady Contemplating a Career as a
Journalist_
TO NANETTE, _A Former Maid_
TO THE REV. WILTON MARSH, _Regarding His Son and Daughter_
TO MRS. CHARLES MCALLISTER, _Formerly Miss Winifred Clayborne_
TO MRS. CHARLES GORDON, _Concerning Maternity_
TO MR. ALFRED DUNCAN, _Concerning the Ministry_
TO MR. CHARLES GRAY, _Concerning Polygamy_
TO WALTER SMEED, _Concerning Creeds and Marriage_
TO SYBYL MARCHMONT, _Concerning Her Determination to Remain Single_
TO MRS. CHARLES GORDON, _Concerning Her Sister and Her Children_
TO MRS. CHARLES GORDON, _Concerning Her Children_
TO Miss ZOE CLAYBORN, ARTIST, _Concerning the Attentions of Married Men_
TO MR. CHARLES GORDON, _Concerning the Jealousy of His Wife After Seven
Years of Married Life_
TO MRS. CLARENCE ST. CLAIRE, _Concerning Her Husband_
TO YOUNG MRS. DUNCAN, _Regarding Mothers-in-Law._
TO A YOUNG MAN, _Ambitious for Literary Honours_
TO MRS. MCALLISTER, _Concerning Her Little Girl_
TO MR. RAY GILBERT, _Attorney at Law, Aged Thirty_
TO THE SISTER OF A GREAT BEAUTY
TO MRS. WHITE PEAK, _One of the Pillars of Respectable Society_
TO MARIA OWENS, _A New Woman Contemplating Marriage_
TO MRS. ST. CLAIRE, _The Young Divorcee_
TO MISS JESSIE HARCOURT, _Regarding Her Marriage with a Poor Young Man_
TO MISS JANE CARTER, _Of the W.C.T.U_
To Mr. Ray Gilbert
_Late Student, Aged Twenty-three_
Were you an older man, my dear Ray, your letter would be consigned to
the flames unanswered, and our friendship would become constrained and
formal, if it did not end utterly. But knowing you to be so many years
my junior, and so slightly acquainted with yourself or womankind, I am
going to be the friend you need, instead of the misfortune you invite.
I will not say that your letter was a complete surprise to me. It is
seldom a woman is so unsophisticated in the ways of men that she is not
aware when friendship passes the borderline and trespasses on the domain
of passion.
I realized on the last two occasions we met that you were not quite
normal. The first was at Mrs. Hanover's dinner; and I attributed some
indiscreet words and actions on your part to the very old Burgundy
served to a very young man.
Since the memory of mortal, Bacchus has been a confederate of Cupid, and
the victims of the former have a period (though brief indeed) of
believing themselves slaves to the latter.
As I chanced to be your right-hand neighbour at that very merry board,
where wit, wisdom, and beauty combined to condense hours into minutes, I
considered it a mere accident that you gave yourself to me with somewhat
marked devotion. Had I been any other one of the ladies present, it
would have been the same, I thought. Our next and last encounter,
however, set me thinking.
It was fully a week later, and that most unromantic portion of the day,
between breakfast and luncheon.
It was a Bagby recital, and you sought me out as I was listening to the
music, and caused me to leave before the programme was half done. You
were no longer under the dominion of Bacchus, though Euterpe may have
taken his task upon herself, as she often does, and your manner and
expression of countenance troubled me.
I happen to be a woman whose heart life is absolutely complete. I have
realized my dreams, and have no least desire to turn them into
nightmares. I like original roles, too, and that of the really happy
wife is less hackneyed than the part of the "misunderstood woman." And I
find greater enjoyment in the steady flame of one lamp than in the
flaring light of many candles.
I have taken a good deal of pride in keeping my lamp well trimmed and
brightly burning, and I was startled and offended at the idea of any man
coming so near he imagined he might blow out the light.
Your letter, however, makes me more sorry than angry.
You are passing through a phase of experience which comes to almost
every youth, between sixteen and twenty-four.
Your affectional and romantic nature is blossoming out, and you are in
that transition period where an older woman appeals to you.
Being crude and unformed yourself, the mature and ripened mind and body
attract you.
A very young man is fascinated by an older woman's charms, just as a
very old man is drawn to a girl in her teens.
This is according to the law of completion, each entity seeking for what
it does not possess.
Ask any middle-aged man of your acquaintance to tell you the years of
the first woman he imagined he loved, and you will find you are
following a beaten path.
Because you are a worth while young man, with a bright future before
you, I am, as I think of the matter, glad you selected me rather than
some other less happy or considerate woman, as the object of your
regard.
An unhappy wife or an ambitious adventuress might mar your future, and
leave you with lowered ideals and blasted prospects.
You tell me in your letter that for "a day of life and love with me you
would willingly give up the world and snap your fingers in the face of
conventional society, and even face death with a laugh." It is easy for
a passionate, romantic nature to work itself into a mood where those
words are felt when written, and sometimes the mood carries a man and a
woman through the fulfilment of such assertions. But invariably
afterward comes regret, remorse, and disillusion.
No man enjoys having the world take him at his word, when he says he is
ready to give it up for the woman he loves.
He wants the woman and the world, too.
In the long run, he finds the world's respect more necessary to his
continued happiness than the woman's society.
Just recall the history of all such cases you have known, and you will
find my assertions true.
Thank your stars that I am not a reckless woman ready to take you at
your word, and thank your stars, too, that I am not a free woman who
would be foolish enough and selfish enough to harness a young husband to
a mature wife. I know you resent this reference to the difference in our
years, which may not be so marked to the observer to-day, but how would
it be ten, fifteen years from now? There are few disasters greater for
husband or wife than the marriage of a boy of twenty to a woman a dozen
years his senior. For when he reaches thirty-five, despair and misery
must almost inevitably face them both.
You must forgive me when I tell you that one sentence in your letter
caused a broad smile.
That sentence was, "Would to God I had met you when you were free to be
wooed and loved, as never man loved woman before."
Now I have been married ten years, and you are twenty-three years old!
You must blame my imagination (not my heart, which has no intention of
being cruel) for the picture presented to my mind's eye by your wish.
I saw myself in the full flower of young ladyhood, carrying at my side
an awkward lad of a dozen years, attired in knickerbockers, and
probably chewing a taffy stick, yet "wooing and loving as never man
loved before."
I suppose, however, the idea in your mind was that you wished Fate had
made me of your own age, and left me free for you.
But few boys of twenty-three are capable of knowing what they want in a
life companion. Ten years from now your ideal will have changed.
You are in love with love, life, and all womankind, my dear boy, not
with me, your friend.
Put away all such ideas, and settle down to hard study and serious
ambitions, and seal this letter of yours, which I am returning with my
reply, and lay it carefully away in some safe place. Mark it to be
destroyed unopened in case of your death. But if you live, I want you to
open, re-read and burn it on the evening before your marriage to some
lovely girl, who is probably rolling a hoop to-day; and if I am living,
I want you to write and thank me for what I have said to you here. I
hardly expect you will feel like doing it now, but I can wait.
Do not write me again until that time, and when we meet, be my good
sensible friend--one I can introduce to my husband, for only such
friends do I care to know.
To Miss Winifred Clayborne
_At Vassar College_
My dear niece:--It was a pleasure to receive so long a letter from you
after almost two years of silence. It hardly seems possible that you are
eighteen years old. To have graduated from high school with such honours
that you are able to enter Vassar at so early an age is much to your
credit.
I indulged in a good-natured laugh over your request for my advice
regarding a college course. You say, "I remember that I once heard you
state that you did not believe in higher education for women, and,
therefore, I am anxious to have your opinion of this undertaking of
mine."
Now of course, my dear child, what you wish me to say is, that I am
charmed with your resolution to graduate from Vassar. You have entered
the college fully determined to take a complete course, and you surely
would not like a discouraging or disapproving letter from your auntie.
"Please give me your opinion of my course of action" always means,
"Please approve of what I am doing."
Well I _do_ approve. I always approve when a human being is carrying out
a determination, even if I am confident it is the wrong determination.
The really useful knowledge of life must come through strong
convictions. Strong convictions are usually obtained only on the pathway
of personal experience.
To argue a man out of a certain course of action rarely argues away his
own beliefs and desires in the matter. We may save him some bitter
experience in the contemplated project, but he is almost certain to find
that same bitter experience later, because he has been coerced, not
enlightened.
Had he gained his knowledge in the first instance, he would have escaped
the later disaster.
A college education does not seem to me the most desirable thing for a
woman, unless she intends to enter into educational pursuits as a means
of livelihood. I understand it is your intention to become a teacher,
and, therefore, you are wise to prepare yourself by a thorough
education. _Be the very best_, in whatever line of employment you enter.
Scorn any half-way achievements. Make yourself a brilliantly educated
woman, but look to it that in the effort you do not forget two other
important matters--health and sympathy. My objection to higher education
for women, which you once heard me express, is founded on the fact that
I have met many college women who were anaemic and utterly devoid of
emotion. One beautiful young girl I recall who at fourteen years of age
seemed to embody all the physical and temperamental charms possible for
womankind. Softly rounded features, vivid colouring, voluptuous curves
of form, yet delicacy and refinement in every portion of her anatomy,
she breathed love and radiated sympathy. I thought of her as the ideal
woman in embryo; and the brightness of her intellect was the finishing
touch to a perfect girlhood. I saw her again at twenty-four. She had
graduated from an American college and had taken two years in a foreign
institution of learning. She had carried away all the honours--but,
alas, the higher education had carried away all her charms of person and
of temperament. Attenuated, pallid, sharp-featured, she appeared much
older than her years, and the lovely, confiding and tender qualities of
mind, which made her so attractive to older people, had given place to
cold austerity and hypercriticism.
Men were only objects of amusement, indifference, or ridicule to her.
Sentiment she regarded as an indication of crudity, emotion as an
insignia of vulgarity. The heart was a purely physical organ, she knew
from her studies in anatomy. It was no more the seat of emotion than
the liver or lungs. The brain was the only portion of the human being
which appealed to her, and "educated" people were the only ones who
interested her, because they were capable of argument and discussion of
intellectual problems--her one source of entertainment.
Half an hour in the society of this over-trained young person left one
exhausted and disillusioned with brainy women. I beg you to pay no such
price for an education as this young girl paid. I remember you as a
robust, rosy girl, with charming manners. Your mother was concerned, on
my last visit, because I called you a pretty girl in your hearing. She
said the one effort of her life was to rear a sensible Christian
daughter with no vanity. She could not understand my point of view when
I said I should regret it if a daughter of mine was without vanity, and
that I should strive to awaken it in her. Cultivate enough vanity to
care about your personal appearance and your deportment. No amount of
education can recompense a woman for the loss of complexion, figure,
or charm. And do not let your emotional and affectional nature grow
atrophied.
Control your emotions, but do not crucify them.
Do not mistake frigidity for serenity, nor austerity for self-control.
Be affable, amiable, and sweet, no matter how much you know. And listen
more than you talk.
The woman who knows how to show interest is tenfold more attractive than
the woman who is for ever anxious to instruct. Learn how to call out the
best in other people, and lead them to talk of whatever most interests
them. In this way you will gain a wide knowledge of human nature, which
is the best education possible. Try and keep a little originality of
thought, which is the most difficult of all undertakings while in
college; and, if possible, be as lovable a woman when you go forth into
the world "finished" as when you entered the doors of your Alma Mater:
for to be unlovable is a far greater disaster than to be uneducated.
To Edna Gordon
_During Her Honeymoon_
I am very much flattered that you should write your first letter as Mrs.
Gordon to me. Its receipt was a surprise, as I have known you so
slightly--only when we were both guests under a friend's roof for one
week.
I had no idea that you were noticing me particularly at that time, there
was such a merry crowd of younger people about you. How careful we
matrons should be, when in the presence of debutantes, for it seems they
are taking notes for future reference!
I am glad that my behaviour and conversation were such that you feel you
can ask me for instructions at this important period of your life. Here
is the text you have given me:
"_I want you to tell me, dear Mrs. West, how to be as happy, and loved,
and loving, after fifteen years of married life, as you are. I so dread
the waning of my honeymoon_."
And now you want me to preach you a little sermon on this text. Well, my
dear girl, I am at a disadvantage in not knowing you better, and not
knowing your husband at all.
Husbands are like invalids, each needs a special prescription, according
to his ailment.
But as all invalids can be benefited by certain sensible suggestions,
like taking simple food, and breathing and exercising properly, and
sleeping with open windows or out-of-doors, so all husbands can be aided
toward perpetual affection by the observance of some general laws, on
the part of the wife.
I am, of course, to take it for granted that you have married a man with
principles and ideals, a man who loves you and desires to make a good
husband. I know you were not so unfortunate as to possess a large amount
of property for any man to seek, and so I can rely upon the natural
supposition that you were married for love.
It might be worth your while, right now, while your husband's memory is
fresh upon the subject, to ask him what particular characteristics first
won his attention, and what caused him to select you for a life
companion.
Up to the present moment, perhaps, he has never told you any more
substantial reason for loving you than the usual lovers'
explanation--"Just because." But if you ask him to think it over, I am
sure he can give you a more explicit answer.
After you have found what qualities, habits, actions, or accomplishments
attracted him, write them down in a little book and refer to them two or
three times a year. On these occasions ask yourself if you are keeping
these attractions fresh and bright as they were in the days of
courtship. Women easily drop the things which won a man's heart, and are
unconscious that the change they bemoan began in themselves. But do not
imagine you can rest at ease after marriage with only the qualities,
and charms, and virtues, which won you a lover. To keep a husband in
love is a more serious consideration than to win a lover.
You must add year by year to your attractions.
As the deep bloom of first youth passes, you must cultivate mental and
spiritual traits which will give your face a lustre from within.
And as the mirth and fun of life drifts farther from you, and you find
the merry jest, which of old turned care into laughter, less ready on
your lip, you must cultivate a wholesome optimistic view of life, to
sustain your husband through the trials and disasters besetting most
mortal paths.
Make one solemn resolve now, and never forget it. Say to yourself, "On
no other spot, in no other house on earth, shall my husband find a more
cheerful face, a more loving welcome, or a more restful atmosphere, than
he finds at home."
No matter what vicissitudes arise, and what complications occur, keep
that resolve. It will at least help to sustain you with a sense of
self-respect, if unhappiness from any outside source should shadow your
life. An attractive home has become a sort of platitude in speech, but
it remains a thing of vital importance, all the same, in actual life and
in marriage.
Think often and speak frequently to your husband of his good qualities
and of the things you most admire in him.
Sincere and judicious praise is to noble nature like spring rain and sun
to the earth. Ignore or make light of his small failings, and when you
must criticize a serious fault, do not dwell upon it. A husband and wife
should endeavour to be such good friends that kindly criticism is
accepted as an evidence of mutual love which desires the highest
attainments for its object.
But no man likes to think his wife has set about the task of making him
over, and if you have any such intention I beg you to conceal it, and go
about it slowly and with caution.
A woman who knows how to praise more readily than she knows how to
criticize, and who has the tact and skill to adapt herself to a man's
moods and to find amusement and entertainment in his whims, can lead him
away from their indulgence without his knowledge.
Such women are the real reformers of men, though they scorn the word,
and disclaim the effort.
It is well to keep a man conscious that you are a refined and
delicate-minded woman, yet do not insist upon being worshipped on a
pedestal. It tires a man's neck to be for ever gazing upward, and
statues are less agreeable companions than human beings.
If you wish to be thought spotless marble, instead of warm flesh and
blood, you should have gone into a museum, and refused marriage.
Remember God knew what He was about, when He fashioned woman to be man's
companion, mate, and mother of his children.
Respect yourself in all those capacities, and regard the fulfilment of
each duty as sacred and beautiful.
Do not thrust upon the man's mind continually the idea that you are a
vastly higher order of being than he is.
He will reach your standard much sooner if you come half-way and meet
him on the plane of common sense and human understanding. Meantime let
him never doubt your abhorrence of vulgarity, and your distaste for the
familiarity which breeds contempt.
It is a great art, when a wife knows how to attract a husband year after
year, with the allurements of the boudoir, and never to disillusion him
with the familiarities of the dressing-room.
Such women there are, who have lived with their lovers in poverty's
close quarters, and through sickness and trouble, and yet have never
brushed the bloom from the fruit of romance. But she who needs to be
told in what this art consists, would never understand, and she who
understands, need not be told.
Keep your husband certain of the fact that his attention and society is
more agreeable to you than that of any other man. But never beg for his
attentions, and do not permit him to think you are incapable of enjoying
yourself without his playing the devoted cavalier.
The moment a man feels such an attitude is compulsory, it becomes
irksome. Learn how to entertain yourself. Cling to your accomplishments
and add others. A man admires a progressive woman who keeps step with
the age. Study, and think, and read, and cultivate the art of listening.
This will make you interesting to men and women alike, and your husband
will hear you praised as an agreeable and charming woman, and that
always pleases a man, as it indicates his good taste and good luck.
Avoid giving your husband the impression that you expect a detailed
account of every moment spent away from you. Convince him that you
believe in his honour and loyalty, and that you have no desire to
control or influence his actions in any matters which do not conflict
with his self-respect or your pride.
Cultivate the society of the women he admires. There is both wisdom and
tact in such a course.
Wisdom in making an ideal a reality, and tact in avoiding any semblance
of that most unbecoming fault--jealousy.
Let him see that you have absolute faith in your own powers to hold him,
and that you respect him too much to mistake a frank admiration for an
unworthy sentiment. Do not hesitate to speak with equal frankness of the
qualities you admire in other men. Educate him in liberality and
generosity, by example.
Allow no one to criticize him in your presence, and do not discuss his
weaknesses with others. I have known wives to meet in conclaves, and
dissect husbands for an entire afternoon. And each wife seemed anxious
to pose as the most neglected and unappreciated woman of the lot. With
all the faults of the sterner sex, I never heard of such a caucus of
husbands.
Take an interest in your husband's business affairs, and sympathize with
the cares and anxieties which beset him. Distract his mind with pleasant
or amusing conversation, when you find him nervous and fagged in brain
and body.
Yet do not feel that you must never indicate any trouble of your own,
for it is conducive to selfishness when a wife hides all her worries and
indispositions to listen to those of her husband. But since the
work-a-day world, outside the home, is usually filled with irritations
for a busy man, it should be a wife's desire to make his home-coming a
season of anticipation and joy.
Do not expect a husband to be happy and contented with a continuous diet
of love and sentiment and romance. He needs also much that is practical
and commonplace mingled with his mental food.
I have known an adoring young wife to irritate Cupid so he went out and
sat on the door-step, contemplating flight, by continual neglect of
small duties.
There were never any matches in the receivers; when the husband wanted
one he was obliged to search the house. The newspaper he had folded and
left ready to read at leisure was used to light the fire, although an
overfilled waste-basket stood near. The towel-rack was empty just when
he wanted his bath, and his bedroom slippers were always kicked so far
under the bed that he was obliged to crawl on all fours to reach them.
Then his loving spouse was sure to want to be "cuddled" when he was
smoking his cigar and reading,--a triple occupation only possible to a
human freak, with three arms, four eyes, and two mouths.
Therefore I would urge you, my dear Edna, to mingle the practical with
the ideal, and common sense with sentiment, and tact with affection, in
your domestic life.
These general rules are all I can give to guide your barque into the
smooth, sea of marital happiness.
It is a wide sea, with many harbours and ports, and no two ships start
from exactly the same point or take exactly the same course. You will
encounter rocks and reefs, perhaps, which my boat escaped, and I have no
chart to guide you away from those rocks.
If I knew you better, and knew your husband at all, I might steer you a
little farther out of Honeymoon Bay into calm waters, and tell you how
to reef your sails, and how to tack at certain junctures of the voyage,
and with the wind in certain directions.
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