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Page 76
"Carley, how you rave!" exclaimed her friend. "What has gotten into you
lately? Why, everybody tells me you're--you're queer! The way you insulted
Morrison--how unlike you, Carley!"
"I'm glad I found the nerve to do it. What do you think, Eleanor?"
"Oh, I despise him. But you can't say the things you feel."
"You'd be bigger and truer if you did. Some day I'll break out and flay you
and your friends alive."
"But, Carley, you're my friend and you're just exactly like we are. Or you
were, quite recently."
"Of course, I'm your friend. I've always loved you, Eleanor," went on
Carley, earnestly. "I'm as deep in this--this damned stagnant muck as you,
or anyone. But I'm no longer blind. There's something terribly wrong with
us women, and it's not what Morrison hinted."
"Carley, the only thing wrong with you is that you jilted poor Glenn--and
are breaking your heart over him still."
"Don't--don't!" cried Carley, shrinking. "God knows that is true. But
there's more wrong with me than a blighted love affair."
"Yes, you mean the modern feminine unrest?"
"Eleanor, I positively hate that phrase 'modern feminine unrest!' It smacks
of ultra--ultra--Oh! I don't know what. That phrase ought to be translated
by a Western acquaintance of mine--one Haze Ruff. I'd not like to hurt your
sensitive feelings with what he'd say. But this unrest means speed-mad,
excitement-mad, fad-mad, dress-mad, or I should say undress-mad, culture-
mad, and Heaven only knows what else. The women of our set are idle,
luxurious, selfish, pleasure-craving, lazy, useless, work-and-children
shirking, absolutely no good."
"Well, if we are, who's to blame?" rejoined Eleanor, spiritedly. "Now,
Carley Burch, you listen to me. I think the twentieth-century girl in
America is the most wonderful female creation of all the ages of the
universe. I admit it. That is why we are a prey to the evils attending
greatness. Listen. Here is a crying sin--an infernal paradox. Take this
twentieth-century girl, this American girl who is the finest creation of
the ages. A young and healthy girl, the most perfect type of culture
possible to the freest and greatest city on earth--New York! She holds
absolutely an unreal, untrue position in the scheme of existence.
Surrounded by parents, relatives, friends, suitors, and instructive schools
of every kind, colleges, institutions, is she really happy, is she really
living?"
"Eleanor," interrupted Carley, earnestly, "she is not. . . . And I've been
trying to tell you why."
"My dear, let me get a word in, will you," complained Eleanor. "You don't
know it all. There are as many different points of view as there are
people. . . . Well, if this girl happened to have a new frock, and a new
beau to show it to, she'd say, 'I'm the happiest girl in the world.' But
she is nothing of the kind. Only she doesn't know that. She approaches
marriage, or, for that matter, a more matured life, having had too much,
having been too well taken care of, knowing too much. Her masculine
satellites--father, brothers, uncles, friends, lovers--all utterly spoil
her. Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle class--which is to say
the largest and best class of Americans. We are spoiled. . . . This girl
marries. And life goes on smoothly, as if its aim was to exclude friction
and effort. Her husband makes it too easy for her. She is an ornament, or a
toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage. To soil her pretty hands would be
disgraceful! Even f she can't afford a maid, the modern devices of science
make the care of her four-room apartment a farce. Electric dish-washer,
clothes-washer, vacuum-cleaner, and the near-by delicatessen and the
caterer simply rob a young wife of her housewifely heritage. If she has a
baby--which happens occasionally, Carley, in spite of your assertion--it
very soon goes to the kindergarten. Then what does she find to do with
hours and hours? If she is not married, what on earth can she find to do?"
"She can work," replied Carley, bluntly.
"Oh yes, she can, but she doesn't," went on Eleanor. "You don't work. I
never did. We both hated the idea. You're calling spades spades, Carley,
but you seem to be riding a morbid, impractical thesis. Well, our young
American girl or bride goes in for being rushed or she goes in for fads,
the ultra stuff you mentioned. New York City gets all the great artists,
lecturers, and surely the great fakirs. The New York women support them.
The men laugh, but they furnish the money. They take the women to the
theaters, but they cut out the reception to a Polish princess, a lecture by
an Indian magician and mystic, or a benefit luncheon for a Home for
Friendless Cats. The truth is most of our young girls or brides have a
wonderful enthusiasm worthy of a better cause. What is to become of their
surplus energy, the bottled-lightning spirit so characteristic of modern
girls? Where is the outlet for intense feelings? What use can they make of
education or of gifts? They just can't, that's all. I'm not taking into
consideration the new-woman species, the faddist or the reformer. I mean
normal girls like you and me. Just think, Carley. A girl's every wish,
every need, is almost instantly satisfied without the slightest effort on
her part to obtain it. No struggle, let alone work! If women crave to
achieve something outside of the arts, you know, something universal and
helpful which will make men acknowledge her worth, if not the equality,
where is the opportunity?"
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