25rd June.
Tue sex problems that threatened to revolutionize domestic bliss a little while ago have been thrown into temporary shade by that latest of all fashionable crazes, bicycling. Therefore it is especially interesting to note that an article in the Humanitarian for May raises the question as to whether the New Woman actually exists, and suggests that she is instead merely a figment of the distorted imaginations of a few modern authors. he writer argues truly that we never really meet in every-day life those terrible unsexed creatures against whom Ouida and Mrs. Lynn Linton are perpetually hurling invectives; creatures who, fortunately, are like Frankenstein's Monster in that they torture mainly their unhappy creators. In spite of these formidable beings, however, the world seems to wag very much in the same old way in which it has proceeded for centuries, 'I'rue, the Clu Maurier type of woman is undeniably gaining ground; modern girlsarepre-eminently daughters of the Gods, but the increased physical proportions and radiant beauty to which we are becoming daily more accustomed are probably only the outward visible signs of a corresponding growth of soul and mind, But the awful shrieking sisterhood, with which pen and pencil have made us too odiously familiar, does it exist elsewhere than on paper and canvas? Are its members really rampant among us, dragging along a Juggernaut car of death and damnation to all that is gracious and sweet and womanly, and throwing the bombs of their bitterness and spite amongst the enfeebled ranks of their arch-enemy the tyrant man We hear a great deal of these repulsive beings, but have we, hitherto, met them in the flesh, at all events outside a music-hall? As the Zumanitarian says, they can no more be regarded as true types of any order of English woman than that fine flower of civilisation, the modern masher, chappie, or johnnie can be considered a fair type of a nineteenth century Englishman, It is the so-called new fiction alone that has done so much to foster the idea that there actually is growing up in our midst a detestable being, born of morbid corruption and physiological ignorance, to be hereafter known and recognised as the New Woman. This repulsive creature, did she really exist, would be an ideal daughter of the equally imaginary Decadence, She revels in revolt and intolerance; and delights in nothing so! much as eternally picturing a corrupt humanity as diseased physically as she herself is mentally. She is a fruitful source of contagion; and the recital of her hypocritical. theories and supposed mission, panders to vicious minds in a way that is probably more dangerous and enticing than actual immoral writing.
In the world of literature, undoubtedly, she enjoys a promising career at the present moment; but, in all probability, as a living breathing reality, she will soon be acknowledged not to exist. The world is beginning to see that the brave fearless women who are coming to the front to-day from every direction are not of this type. They claim a place by man's side, not as usurpers, but as. fellow-workers; _as help-meets, not as hindrances. We have divine authority for extolling Mary, the searcher after troths, above Martha, the fussy housewife; and without jeering at female domesticity, we claim that even ordinary housework is usually far better done by the women who bring thinking minds tobeer upon it. No greater mistake can be made than to cramp a woman entirely within the narrow limits of a home; if this is done, how can anything else be expected of her but a personality as narrow as her prison Hers will not be the life that develops a strong faith, a great courage, high nobility of character, and a firm belief in all things great and holy. Rather will it beget pettiness and ennui, and end in slow but sure degradation, When the real New Woman—the creation, not of a prurient fiction, but of a glorious truth—comes into her kingdom, we shall near no longer echoing through the centuries that pathetic cry of Andrea del Sarto's to his beautiful but unsatisfactory wife "Had you given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, Tand you!"
Instead, it will be that triumphal note of gratitude sounded by another husband, and recorded by him as a grateful tribute to his own ideal marriage "T am named and known by that moment's feat, There took my station and degree So grew my own small life complete, As Nature obtained her best of me; One born to love you, sweet
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.