On The Excessive Influence Of Womem.

that the evil mi ght be remedied if only the excessive influence of the ostentatious sex could be controlled . There is nothing women will not do for appearances . For appearance ' s sake they will endure excruciating martyrdom , whether of body or

soul , and they will compel every one whom they can influence to undergo like torture . How things look , not how things are , is their perpetual thought ancl anxiety . There is a noble ancl apathetic side to this characteristic , as indeed there is to all their

characteristics . Nearly all female faults are virtues carried to excess , or in a wrong direction , and , remember , I am not contending against the influence of women , which I believe to bo the best and most useful-thing in lifebut against their

ex-, cessive influence . 1 know no more lovely sight than to behold a frugal housewife , the contented consort of some poor man , putting the best face on what some people would call poverty , making the most of the situationmaking a little go a long way

, , and so comporting herself and so arranging her household affairs that none shall guess her anxieties or divine with what scanty materials she contrives to cut so

respectable a figure . That is the woman of whom the inspired writer said the price of her is m a pearl brought from afar . She is infinitely more priceless than all the pearls ever hung upon the neck of wealth and beauty . There are many such—Heaven bless them !—ancl the best of men will have

to kneel before them as in the presence of a superior divinity . But , when necessity is no longer the mother of invention , ancl their ingenuity in " creating an effect " is dictated merel y by a desire to shine and to outshine , then the virtue has toppled over

into vice . Corruptio optimi pessima est ; ancl the same woman who , had she married a poor squire , would have been leading a life of heroism by daily combating his narrow means and concealing his straits with judicious economy combined now and

then with a little pardonable pasteboard , having wed an easy-going plutocrat , becomes the vulgar instigator of opulent display , and devotes her days to a game of ill-bred brag , in which profusion and waste are the counters ancl the mortification of others the pool . " A direct and immediate consequence of the excessive influence of women , as

perceived in the aggravated ostentation and rivalry in parade which unquestionabl y mark the age , is the necessity it imposes upon men , in the character whether of husbands or of aspiring lovers , of dedicating their energies ever more and more to the acquisition of wealth . The bright

exceptions must not take offence because we state the rule ; and the rule is that , no matter whom they may love—and poverty , in spite of the Roman satirist , has not yet made men ridiculous in the eyes of women —girls marry the richest men that can be

found for them . Pretty girls are a standing premium upon the pursuit and acquisition of wealth . The richest man wins . AAliat a standard of life is thus set up for the ingenuous youth of the nation ! I have spoken freely and handsomely , I trust , of the naturally good instincts of women . But their most servile adulator

would not have the face to piretend that , among their many good and even great qualities , can be enumerated the cherishing of lofty ideals of life . The weak side of woman is want of imagination , which is necessarily accompanied with a corresponding indifference to things truly great ,

as distinguished from tilings good or things powerful . Left to her own instincts , woman is well content with a small , happy , narrow , cheerful , virtuous , hum-drum , domestic life . She demands nothing more from her partner than that

be shall be a kindly fellow , the husband of her hearth , the father of her children , a not over-worked bread-winner , a respectable citizen , in a word , a pattern paterfamilias . That is a good and unimpeachable ideal , but it is not a very wide or a

very elevated one . No longer left entirely to her own instincts , but subjected to the instincts acquired in the more complex conditions of an active and struggling society , she readily imbibes a wish that her husband shall become a person of some

consequence . " We think that our able friend , the writer , is here getting on very dangerous ground indeed , and putting forward some very questionable statements ! To deride womento complain of women because

, they seek to make home their great consideration , their ideal of happiness , is , after all , only worthy of a shallow writer or a profligate mind .