It will generally be admitted that women of homely
presence, clumsy in their gait, dowdy in their dress, and raucous in
their intonation, are much safer from the infliction of gallantries at
the hands or lips of mortal men than those whose attributes are more
pleasing; and it is safe to assert that many a male monster has been
rooted to his seat in street-cars by the coldly intellectual eye of
some not altogether able-bodied feminine person. The recent victories
all along the line of women over men in examination-rooms, and their
more or less successful ventures in the fields of law, medicine, and
newspaper enterprise, would be more appalling to man and encouraging to
the progressionists, but for the obstinate though obvious adhesion of
the great mass of woman-kind to the trick bequeathed to them by their
great-great-grandmothers of trying to look as well as they can. And
the terrible part of it is they succeed so wonderfully that
philosophers like myself are apt to find our ratiocinations wofully
mixed when we try to reason about the matter.
You remember, perhaps, that Josephine induced me earlier in our wedded
life to give a large party for her sister Julia? Within a year I have
submitted to a similar domestic upheaval on account of my elder
daughter, and I do not think that it can be said that I acquitted
myself in either case malignantly or even morosely.
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