Amelia Barr - Maids, Wives, and Bachelors

Hence the importance of a girl finding out first of all what she wants to do with her education. For in this day she is by no means cramped in her choice; the most desirable occupations are open to her; she may select from the whole world her arena, and from the fullness thereof her reward. But if her object be a more narrow and conventional one, if all she wishes is to be loved and popular in her own small community, then – if she is wise – she will cultivate only such a happy arrangement of graceful, usual accomplishments as prevail among her class and friends. For a very clever woman cannot be at home with very many people. She is too large for the regular grooves of society; she does not fit into any of its small aims and enjoyments; and though she may have the kindest heart, it is her singularities only that will be taken notice of. If, then, popularity be a girl’s desire, she must not obviously cultivate herself, must not lift herself above her surroundings, nor lift her aspirations higher than the aims which all humanity have in common. And it is a very good thing for humanity that so many nice girls are content and happy with such a life object; for the social and domestic graces are those which touch existence the closest, which sweeten its bitter griefs and brighten its dreariest hours.

It would be foolish to assert that the American girl is without faults. Physically and mentally, she may stand on her merits with any women in the world; morally, she has the shortcomings that are the shadows of her excellences. Principally she is accused of a want of reverence, and setting aside for the present her faults as a daughter, it may be admitted that in general she has little of this quality. But it is largely the consequence of her environments. Reverence is the virtue of ignorance; and the American girl has no toleration for ignorance. She is inquisitive, speculative, and inclined to rely on her own investigations; while the spirit of reverence demands, as its very atmosphere, trust and obedience. It is therefore more just to say that she is so alert and eager herself that when she meets old men and women who have learned nothing from their last fifty years of life, and who therefore can teach her nothing, she does not feel any impulse to offer reverence to mere years. But if gray hairs be honorable, either for matured wisdom, extensive information, or practical piety, she is generally inclined to give that best of all homage, the reverence which springs from knowledge and affection, and which is a much better thing than the mere forms of respect traditionally offered to old age.

It is also said that the American girl is a very vain girl, fond of parading her beauty, freedom, and influence. But vanity is not a bad quality, if it does not run to excess. It is the ounce of leaven in a girl’s character, and does a deal of good work for which it seldom gets any credit. For a great deed a great motive is necessary; but how numberless are the small social and domestic kindnesses for which vanity is a sufficient force, and which would be neglected or ill-done without its influence! As long as a girl’s vanity does not derive its inspiration from self-love there is no necessity for her to wear sackcloth to humiliate it. We have all known women without vanity, and found them unpleasant people to know.

There is one fault of the American girl which is especially her fault, and which ought not to be encouraged or palliated although it is essentially the shadow of some of her greatest excellences – the fault of being in too great a hurry at all the turning-points of her life. When she is in the nursery she aches to go to school. When she is a schoolgirl, she is impatient to put on long dresses and become a young lady. As soon as this fact is accomplished, she feels there is not a moment to lose in choosing either a career or a husband. She is always in a hurry about the future, and so frequently takes the wrong turn at the great events of life. She leaves school too soon; she leaves home too soon; she does everything at a rush, and does not do it as well as if she “made haste slowly.”

But what a future lies before these charmingly brilliant American girls, if they are able to take the fullest possession of it! The great obstacle in this achievement is the apparently wholesome opinion that education is sufficient. But the very best education will fall short of its privileges if it be not accompanied with that moral training which we call discipline. Discipline is self-denial in all its highest forms; it teaches the excellent mean between license and repression; without it a girl may have plenitude of knowledge, and a lamentable want of sweetness; so that one only second rate on her intellectual side may be a thousand times more lovable than one who is first rate on her intellectual side, but lacks that fine flavor of character which comes from the expansion of noble inward forces, disciplined and directed to good ends.

Every one understands that no character, however intellectual, is worth anything that is not morally healthy; but morality in a woman is not in itself sufficient. She must have in addition all those charming virtues included in that word of many lights and shades and subtle meanings – womanliness; that word which signifies such a variety of things, but never anything but what is sweet and tender and gracious and beautiful.

Young women are proverbially fond of playing with edged tools, and of all such dangerous playthings a habit of promiscuous, careless letter-writing is the worst; for in most cases the danger is not obvious at the time, and the writer may even have forgotten her imprudence when she has to meet the consequences. The romance, the gush, the having nothing particular to do, the almost insane egotism which makes some young women long to exploit their own hearts, caused poor Madaline Smith to write those foolish letters to a man whose every good quality she had to invent, and who afterwards tortured her with these very letters into a crime which made her stand for months within the shadow of the gallows. She had not patience to await until the real lover came, and then when he did come these fatal letters stood between her and her happiness, and her fair name.

The very instinct which leads to constant letter-writing, goes with a constitutional want of caution, and therefore indicates a necessity for intelligent self-restraint. If young women, when writing letters, would only project themselves into the future and imagine a time when they might be confronted with the lines which they have just penned, many an ill-advised missive would go into the fire instead of into the mail bag. Indeed, if letters at all doubtful in spirit or intent were laid aside until “next morning” many a wrong would be left undone, many a friendship would be preserved unbroken, and many an imprudence be postponed and so uncommitted. If indeed a woman could say truthfully, “This letter is my letter, and if mischief comes of it I alone have the penalty to pay,” expansive correspondence might be less dangerous. But no one can thus limit folly or sin, and its consequence may even touch those who were not even aware of the writing of the letter.

The abuse of letter-writing is one of the greatest trials of the epoch. Distance, which used to be a protection, is now done away with. Every one cries out, and insists upon your listening. They write events while they are only happening. People unknown intrude upon your time and take possession of it. Enmities and friendships thousands of miles away scold or caress; one is exacting, another angry, a third lays upon your conscience obligations which he has invented. For a mere nothing – a yes, or a no – idle, gushing people fire off continual notes and insist upon answers. Now this kind of letter-writing exists only because postage is cheap; if such correspondents had to pay twenty-five cents for giving their opinions, they would not give them at all. It is an impertinence also, for though we may like persons well enough to receive from them a visit, or even to return it, it is a very different thing to be called upon to retire ourselves with pen and ink and note paper, and give away time and interest which we are not inclined to give.