Violets and Other Tales

								


    Whose lips curled scorn. But from a nook
A voice cried out, "Though he has slain
That which I loved the best on earth,

    Yet will I tend him till he dies,

    I can be brave." A woman's eyes
Gazed fearlessly into his own.


THIRD.


When all the world has grown full cold to thee,
And man--proud pygmy--shrugs all scornfully,
And bitter, blinding tears flow gushing forth,
Because of thine own sorrows and poor plight,
Then turn ye swift to nature's page,
And read there passions, immeasurably far
Greater than thine own in all their littleness.
For nature has her sorrows and her joys,
As all the piled-up mountains and low vales
Will silently attest--and hang thy head
In dire confusion, for having dared
To moan at thine own miseries
When God and nature suffer silently.

THE WOMAN.

The literary manager of the club arose, cleared his throat, adjusted his
cravat, fixed his eyes sternly upon the young man, and in a sonorous
voice, a little marred by his habitual lisp, asked: "Mr. ----, will you
please tell us your opinion upon the question, whether woman's chances
for matrimony are increased or decreased when she becomes man's equal as
a wage earner?"
The secretary adjusted her eye-glass, and held her pencil alertly poised
above her book, ready to note which side Mr. ---- took. Mr. ----
fidgeted, pulled himself together with a violent jerk, and finally spoke
his mind. Someone else did likewise, also someone else, then the women
interposed, and jumped on the men, the men retaliated, a wordy war
ensued, and the whole matter ended by nothing being decided, pro or
con--generally the case in wordy discussions. Moi? Well, I sawed wood
and said nothing, but all the while there was forming in my mind, no, I
won't say forming, it was there already. It was this, Why should
well-salaried women marry? Take the average working-woman of to-day.
She works from five to ten hours a day, doing extra night work,
sometimes, of course. Her work over, she goes home or to her
boarding-house, as the case may be. Her meals are prepared for her, she
has no household cares upon her shoulders, no troublesome dinners to
prepare for a fault-finding husband, no fretful children to try her
patience, no petty bread and meat economies to adjust. She has her
cares, her money-troubles, her debts, and her scrimpings, it is true,
but they only make her independent, instead of reducing her to a dead
level of despair. Her day's work ends at the office, school, factory or
store; the rest of the time is hers, undisturbed by the restless going
to and fro of housewifely cares, and she can employ it in mental or
social diversions. She does not incessantly rely upon the whims of a
cross man to take her to such amusements as she desires. In this
nineteenth century she is free to go where she pleases--provided it be
in a moral atmosphere--without comment. Theatres, concerts, lectures,