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For Woman’s Work.
SOME WALK ALONE.
To go alone! Some always do, nor find it easy
task
To struggle on from day to day, nor sympathy
to ask.
With none to clasp the wearied hand, with
words of strength and cheer.
When they essay to trenu ! ing walk beyond a
given sphere.
If confidence be gained to step across its broken
edge,
To find the hands that might assist restrength
ening the hedge.
To do their best, then fail and be themselves un
satisfied,
Is sad enough, but bitter when those loved the
most, deride.
When forced to bear a given load with stifled
plaint and moan,
Be chidden if the pressure «hows itself in look
or tone,
Is hard to bear, and poisonous makes what would
be harmless stings.
For thoughtful love is more to such than costly
offerings.
If one kind spirit fondly cared when souls are
struggling so,
To see the folded bud within, unto a flowergraw,
How many clos’d gems would expand into a
perfect bloom
That mid earth’ j rubbish falls to dust devoid of
all perfume!
Indifference has a bitter husk, contempt is
deadly food,
Yet some there are who offer naught but these,
and call them good.
Oh, soul, if thou must walk alone where others
walk with aid,
Be brave, there's something yet for thee beyond
this toilsome grade;
The path may be a weary one, but harp strings
now set wrong,
Before thou knowest it, may break into a perfect
song.
M. J. Meader Smth,
Fob Woman’s Work.
PERSPECTIVE AND RETROSPEC
TIVE.
£>.OMEWHERE in current literature
there recently appeared what claims
to be the “Soliloquy of a Selfish Man ’
—a bachelor, of course.—and h*takes
occasion to give his views on matrimony.
With all due allowance for the acknowl
edged standpoint, there is one paragraph
that seems to me most suggestive.
“It is next to impossible,” writes this
skeptic, “for a’man to say definitely,‘l
can be happy with such a woman for my
wife.’ I know sweet young girls who,
five years from their wedding day were un
tidy, coarse, negligent women, either
openly loving their children to the neg
lect ot their husbands, or openly indiffer
ent to both husband and children. This
sort of thing is frightful to think of. Mar
ried men in some cases seem to get used to
it, but it worries and kills the brighter
part of them.
“Ido not write altogether as anovice in
matters of the heart. I have been in love,
over and over again. Somehow, though,
I have always put off popping the ques
tion, until some other fellow had done it
on his own account. Os all these girls I
might have married, only one, now, as a
married woman, seems to answer the ex
pectations I had formed ot her. The real
ization of this makes me more and more
fond of my bachelor freedom and irre
sponsibility.”
“Rank heresy!” will cry every man
hater in christendom. “Abominable con
ceit I No wonder some poor women de
generate, with brutes for husbands. Wom
en are sensitive creatures; they need en
couragement, sympathy, affection. If they
do not make exemplary wives and moth
ers it is, of course, because they are denied
these. W e should not deign to notice the
contemptible cynicism of old bachelors
who cannot find any women silly enough to
put up with their" whims.” One who is
neither a bachelor nor a “man-hater,” and
therefore innocent of either extreme, may
be accredited with a degree of impartiali
ty. There is always another side to a
question. It seems to me that the plain
confession above quoted should not be ta
ken as mere cynie'sm, for it has truthful
force and serious import. A merited re
buke may come from the enemy’s side
Undoubtedly a woman’s wedding day is
the most fateful one of her life. Wedding
bells that ring the knell of maidenhood,
announce the most important epoch of her
existence. From the time she becomes a
wife, in some respects, she is essentially a
new being—with new interests, new aspi
rations, new hopes. There surely comes,
in time, a fuller maturity; the girl becomes
a matron, and marriage works the devel
opment. This is an established creed, but
the sequence is the unknown quality. I
have often thought that, if one could look
at a fresh young girl and foreshadow the
manner of matron she would make, mar
riage would not be quite such a “leap in
the dark.”
Will she be a gracious and sweet wom
aT ?—who can tell ? Os course it depends
on the kind of man she marries, some one
will argue. There are disastrous mistakes
in marriage that change a woman’s life
and nature, and yet, with all due respect
for the authority that says—
“As th* husband is th* wife Is”—
I sincerely believe there is no power
more potent to correct, to refine and en
noble a man’s character than the influence
of wife and home—and, with few excep
tions, when a man gives his love and hon
or into a woman’s keeping, that woman
has a power almost limitless; it is some
times cruelly misused. When there is
forced into a man’s soul the iron of bitter
disappointment in the woman he loves—
when the home ho has is not the home he
hoped to have—he is given one of the
sternest tests of character. Some men are
strong enough to bear the burden, some
how ; it will bend the stoutest shou’ders.
“Sad resignation” has come to others, as
well as Lydgate with his fragile Rosa
mond ; he had “taken the burden of her
life upon his arms. He must walk as he
could, carrying that burden pitifully.”
Yes, women need “encouragement, sym
pathy, affection ;” so do men. Some wom
en expect to receive more than they give.
The truth is they get “spoilt”; it is not
always the one with a “brute” for a hus
band who “degenerates.” Occasionally
“brutes” are made, not born. Have you
never hoard of the man who “might have
been somebody if he had married differ
ently?” We all realize the sad story of
blighted hopes revealed in divorce suits
and open estrangements. There are many
homes that pride and other considerations
hold together, but from which all the ex
uberance of joy has long fled. J ust “petty
trials,’’they might be called—a little selfish
ness, a habit of fault-finding that grows in
petulance and unreason, a disregard of an
other’s comfort—but when they dwell per
petually in a home, they are like “carting
cares” sap the life of love, and bring
unrest to the soul.
In the instances I have observed of
home life being thus marred, with rare
exceptions, the wife has been at fault; and
there has invariably come the conviction
that if she had done her part, things would
have been different. It is painful to see
the strange attitude which some women
take toward life; they appear blind to
their duties, and utterly unmindful of the
almost boundless influence they may exert
as wives and mothers. They need to have
a reckoning with themselves, and to hon
estly put some questions to their own con
sciences : “Do Ido all I can to bless my
home ? Do I do my part ? Is there not
something else I can do to make the rough
places smooth, to restore harmony to our
home?” If earnest self-communion should
bring enlightenment, they would be sur
prised to find what woeful failures they
are. “Eyes have they, but they see not.”
After some promising marriages, the
honeymoon soon wanes—fades forever—
not a glimmer left of the hopes that should
have been a part of the new life. As the
years go by,the chill of indifference settles
down on two hearts that have wilfully,
perhaps, or unwittingly, lost the best thing
life has to offer.
It is well for the conscientious wife to
sometimes think over the first days of love
making, and ask herself: “Am I really
the wife I meant to be? Am I just the
wife my husband hoped to have? Are all
his expectations fulfilled?”
It is well to read the old love letters
over, and compare the happiness anticipa
ted with that realized. Has there grown
from that long-ago girlhood, the best and
truest and sweetest woman you could have
made of yourself ? That is really the ques
tion, after all. • Have you done the best
with every faculty and power you pos
sessed ? If you are the woman your lover
saw foreshadowed in his sweetheart, you
have done well.
Alas, I have too often seen the trans
formation about which our bachelor cvnic
soliloquizes. A blithe young girl, full of
energy and good-humor, who might on
her wedding day have awakened naught
but good prophecies, is dismally disap
pointing after a few years of wifehood;
instead of a comely, cheerful matron, mak
ing her home pleasant and attractive with
thriftful industry, we find an untidy, in
dolent person, who seems to consider only
her ease; her children untrained and un
cared for, and her house possessing neither
godliness nor that wholesome quality that
is said to be next to it. Why is it that
some women become so coarse and negli
gent? It is not always those who are dis
satisfied with their husbands.
There is the woman who has intelligence
and many graces of person and manner.
She was a charming bride, and what a de
lightful home she might have made if her
temper was as sweet as the smiles she used
to bestow on her lover ? How could he
know that such a winning exterior con
cealed a selfish, narrow soul ? That the
pretty whims of his sweetheart, should, in
his wife, be exacting commands and cross
fretfulness ? That one who seemed so
amiable, should show so much unkind pet
ulance, and be so hard to please ? How
could a lover foresee such unexpected de
fects ?
A wife should not presume too much on
WOMAN’S WORK.
the perfect deference that is so willingly
accorded her during the honeymoon; such
presumption will rudely dispel the glamour
of romance, for selfishness is its fell de
stroyer. Men are but human ; they like
to receive as well as give. It has been my
observation that she who gives most gen
erously the words and thoughts and ca
resses of love, is richest in devotion and
tender reverence from the man of her
heart. Some wives do not understand this.
Why should the spirit that ruled the court
ing-days ever leave wedded life ? Why
should not common-place, every-day exis
tence be enhanced by its beautiful pres
ence? and the love-story end only with
life ? If the woman who feels that she is
outliving all sentiment, and whose life is
getting to be so prosaic and disappointing,
would take a time of serious retrospection,
perhaps a reason might be found for the
disillusion. Have you lived up to the fair
perspective that delighted your lover’s
mental vision years ago ?
George Eliot somewhere expresses the
opinion that “* * • the unfinished ro
mance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems
sometimes cf feeble interest and signifi
cance compared with that drama of hope
and love which has long ago reached its
catastrophe.”
The one is life in its perspective, the
other the retrospective. The story leaves
its traces written on the face of her who
lived it. “Rosy cheeks and br’ght eyes’
will grow dim and faded, but the dearest
of stories written there will keep it lovely,
despite the ravages of time; On the fresh,
smooth cheek of girlhood, we cannot tel)
what the writing will be; if it is unlovely,
an unconquerable fate is not always to
blame. Oitentirnes if a woman wills, all
the sweet promises of youth may find ful
fillment, and some man, otherwise “selfish”
and cynical, will be the better for it. Fur
thermore, he may be won to the belief
that—
“To make a happy fireside clime,
To weans and wife,
That’s the true pathos and sublime
Os human life.”
Helen 0. Molloy.
"Bible Lamps for Little Feet,” Chas. B. Morrell,
M. D. Standard Publishing Company, Cincinnati,
O. Cloth, illustrated, 48 colored plates. Price, Jx.so.
This book is a new departure in the line of juvenile
literature. There are forty Bible stories cleverly
written and entirely undenominational. These sto
ries are illustrated by forty-eight colored plates that
are pictorially explanatory. For a handy helper
when the children need soothing and entertaining, it
is unsurpassed by anything in the market.
The C. H. &D. R. R. have issued a handsome
panoramic view, five feet Jong, of Chicago and
the World'sFair, showing relative heights of
the principal buildings, etc. Also a handsome
f (holographic album of the World's Fair build
ngs, either of which will be sent to any ad
dress, postpaid,on receipt of 10c. in stamps.’ Ad
dress D. G. Edwards, General Passenger Agent,
World’s Fair Route, 200 W. 4th St., Cincin
nati, O.
It may not bo generally known that the
original investigations in the Blue Ridge
region of Maryland made recently by Miss
Florence Bascom, have attracted great at
tention among geologists,and have changed
many opinions heretofore held on these
subjects. Since Miss Bascom took her de
gree of Ph. D. at the Johns Hopkins
University in June, she has received offers
from various schools and colleges in dif
ferent parts of the country, and lately has
accepted a chair in a college of Columbus,
Ohio. Miss Bascom is most interesting in
conversation, but is reticent about her
achievements and prefers not to talk
“shop” at all.
A. D A. W.
MEWMAN’S MANDRAKE LIVER PILLS CURE
11 Indigestion, Constipation and Sick Headache.
Purely vegetable. Never gripe By mail 25c. New
man, 17 Park St., Canandaigua,N. Y.
THE WORLD’S WASHER
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Write to-day. vk
C. E. ROSS, Lincoln, 111. * < *
A WOMAN’S SUOCESSg?g
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OCMR RHnto To C. W. Moulton, Buffalo, N.
qLIIU uUulwi Y., for a copy of “Too Much For
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I ADIES Who do writing forme at home make
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ifi
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ALL FREETO Ydu
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AMERICAN NATION, Box 1729, Boston, Mm
13