The world has fought step by step the elevation of woman from inferiority to equality, but at last she is being recognised as a potent factor in our civilisation.
The most marked change which has been made in woman's position during the last half century or more has been effected by higher education, and since the universities have thrown open their doors to her, she has been allowed, in many cases, to take the same courses that her brother does.
Still, the way has not been entirely smooth for educated and literary women, for the public press has too often frowned upon their efforts to obtain anything like equal recognition for equal ability. The literary woman has, for years, been the target of criticism, and if we are to believe her critics, she has been entirely shunned by the gentlemen of her acquaintance; but the fact that so many of them are wives and mothers, and, moreover, good wives and mothers, proves conclusively that these statements are not trustworthy.
It is true that some prefer the society of women who know just enough to appreciate their compliments--women who deprecate their "strong-minded" sisters, and are ready to agree implicitly with every statement that the lords of creation may make; but this readiness is due to sheer inability to produce a thought of their own.
It is true that some men are afraid of educated women, but a man who is afraid of a woman because she knows something is not the kind of a man she wants to marry. He is not the kind of a man she would choose for either husband or friend; she wants an intellectual companion, and the chances are that she will find him, or rather that he will find her. A woman need not be unwomanly in order to write books that will help the world.
She may be a good housekeeper, even if she does write for the magazines, and the husbands of literary women are not, as some folks would have us believe, neglected and forlorn-looking beings. On the contrary, they carry brave hearts and cheerful faces with them always, since their strength is reinforced by the quiet happiness of their own firesides.
The
fin-de-siècle woman is literary in one sense, if not in another, for if she may not wield her pen, she can keep in touch with the leading thinkers of the day, and she will prove as pleasant a companion during the long winter evenings as the woman whose husband chose her for beauty and taste in dress.
The literary woman is not slipshod in her apparel, and she may, if she chooses, be a society and club woman as well. Surely there is nothing in literary culture which shall prevent neatness and propriety in dress as well as in conduct.
The devoted admirer of Browning is not liable to quote him in a promiscuous company and though a lady may be familiar with Shakespeare, it does not follow that she will discuss
Hamlet in social gatherings.
If she reads Greek as readily as she does her mother tongue, you may rest assured she will not mention Homer in ordinary conversation, for a cultivated woman readily recognises the fitness of things, and accords a due deference to the tastes of others. She has her club and her friends, as do the gentlemen of her acquaintance, but her children are not neglected from the fact that she sometimes thinks of other things. She is a helpmeet to her husband, and not a plaything, or a slave. If duty calls her to the kitchen, she goes cheerfully, and, moreover, the cook will not dread to see her coming; or if that important person be absent, the table will be supplied with just as good bread, and just as delicate pastry, as if the lady of the house did not understand the chemicals of their composition.
If trouble comes, she bears it bravely, for the cultured woman has a philosophy which is equal to any emergency, and she does the best she can on all occasions.
If her husband leaves her penniless, she will, if possible, clothe her children with her pen, but if her literary wares are a drug on the market, she will turn bravely to other fields, and find her daily bread made sweet by thankfulness. She does not hesitate to hold out her hands to help a fellow-creature, either man or woman, for she is in all things womanly--a wife to her husband and a mother to her children in the truest sense of the words.
Her knowledge of the classics does not interfere with the making of dainty draperies for her home, and though she may be appointed to read a paper before her club on some scholarly theme, she will listen just as patiently to tales of trouble from childish lips, and will tie up little cut fingers just as sympathetically as her neighbour who folds her arms and who broadly hints that "wimmen's spear is to hum!"
Whether the literary woman be robed in silk and sealskin, or whether she rejoices in the possession of only one best gown, she may, nevertheless, be contented and happy.
Whether she lives in a modest cottage, or in a fashionable home, she may be the same sweet woman, with cheerful face and pleasant voice--with a broad human sympathy which makes her whole life glad.
Be she princess, or Cinderella, she may be still her husband's confidant and cherished friend, to whom he may confide his business troubles and perplexities, certain always of her tender consolation and ready sympathy. She may be quick and versatile, doing well whatever she does at all, for her creed declares that "whatever is honest is honourable."
She glories in her womanhood and has no sympathy with anything which tends to degrade it.
All hail to the woman of the twentieth century; let
fin de siècle stand for all that is best and noblest in womanhood: for liberty, equality, and fraternity; for right, truth, and justice.
All hail the widespread movement for the higher education of woman, for in intellectual development is the future of posterity, in study is happiness, through the open door of the college is the key of a truer womanhood, a broader humanity, and a brighter hope. In education along the lines of the broadest and wisest culture is to be found the emancipation of the race.
[The end]
Myrtle Reed's essay: Fin-De-Siecle Woman