On The Excessive Influence Of Womem.

"But of what consequence 1 Theres the rub . That inherent and ineradicable love of appearances , of which I have already spoken , and which causes a woman to prefer the look of things to the substance of them , steps in to settle the question . By

» consequence" she means visible power , influence , and consideration . She wishes her husband to be a considerable person . Would she rather that he was a member of Parliament , though of little parliamentary distinction , or a scientific man of

much true distinction , but little talked about and less rewarded ? Would she rather that he were an Under-Secretary of State or , in other words , a conspicuous upper clerk , or a poet—say , like Wordsworth or Shelley—the scorn of bis generation , though certain to be the delight of the next ? AVould she rather that her husband had written the ' Ode to the

Skylark' or were Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ? The question , alas ! requires no

answer . " Then see the consequence ! Women , through the excessive influence they now exercise , are perpetually assisting to lower the standard of the objects of life , and of the qualities which deserve admiration aud reward . Their practical dispositions tend

to banish all the nobler and less directly remunerative pursuits from existence , to circumscribe the sphere of man ' s energies , and to make him a vulgar athlete in a vulgar arena . Their natural instincts are all for the goodthe virtuousthe

, , domestic , but still the small . Their acquired social instincts are all for the magnificent but the mean , for the showy but the sordid . If you once get them to take an interest in a man ' s being something more than the exemplary bead

of a household , all they then want him to he is to be rich , conspicuous , and powerful . They are utterly indifferent to posthumous fame , and not much more concerned about contemporary fame , unless it happens to be synonymous with notoriety . They

would infinitely sooner that their husband ' s horse won the Derby than that he wrote ' Hamlet' or discovered Neptune . " It is not in the nature of things that the influence of women should have attained the proportion it has reached in our days without the consequences being mirrored m those three most faithful of reflectors ,

religious worship , literature , and the stage . Perhaps I tread on delicate ground , and show myself more of an old fogey than ever , when I express my distaste for those ecclesiastical fripperies which have of late years invaded the once plain ancl masculine ceremonies of the Anglican Church .

By a combination between women and certain ecclesiastical Epicenes , the vestments , the incense , the bowings and scrapings , the auricular confession , and the mystic dogmas of Papal worship are swarming around Reformed altarsandthanks to the

, , excessive influence of women , the church is being rapidly approximated to the theatre . " And in the theatre itself , what has the prevailing , the predominent influence of women done for us 1 It may be said that

it has purged the drama of coarse and offensive language , and , old fogey as I am , I cheerfully allow that it has had this excellent result . But whilst exrocising one devil it has let in a number of others , not so palpably objectionable , but more

subtly noxious . Our ears are no longer offended by foul language , but our eyes have seen , and still see , much that is scarcely calculated to edify , and which meets with no protest from women ; while our sense is insulted by paltry or sensational plays which our manly forefathers would have hissed off the boards . The heroic has

been driven from the stage , and the domestic and sentimental have usurped the ground it once proudly trod . The wars of kings , the clash of arms , the wrongs of a Lear , the tottering wickedness of a Macbeth , the jealous fury and tenderness of an Othello , the hearty laughter of a Falstaff , the incantations of witches and the frolics

of fairies , have been exchanged for the sorrows of a blacksmith , the peculations of a city clerk , the simpering of waitingmaids , the virtues of ticket-ofleave men , and the effete puns and horse-collar grins of inconsequent burlesques . The sentimental and the frivolous—these are truly

feminine states of mind—ancl the excessive influence of women has transferred them to the British theatre . People avowedly go to the theatre to have a " good laugh" or a " good cry . " That , as a great German critic has said , it is any part of the office of the drama " to purify by terror , " never enters the heads of feminine minds , which refuse 2 M 2