They have nothing to do now all day long, these soaring wives of whom I am speaking. They would scorn to sew on a shirt-button even. Are there not other women—of an inferior breed—specially fashioned by Providence for the doing of such slavish tasks? They have no more bothers of any kind. They are free to lead the higher life. What I am waiting for is a glimpse of the higher life. One of them, it is true, has taken up the violin. Another of them is devoting her emancipation to poker work. A third is Jearning skirt-dancing. Are these the "higher things" for which women are claiming freedom from all duty? And, if s0, is there not danger that the closing of our homes may lead to the crowding up of the world with too much of higher things? May there not, by the time all the bothers have been removed from women's path, be too many amateur violinists in the world, too many skirt dancers, too much poker work? If not, what are they? These " higher things," for which so many women are demanding twenty-four hours a day leisure, I want to know.
One lady of my acquaintance is a Poor Law Guardian, and secretary to a Labour Bureau. But then she runs a house with two servants, four children, and a husband, and appears to be so used to bothers that she would feel herself lost without them. You can do this kind of work apparently even when you are bothered with aherne. It is tie skirt-dancing and the poker work that cannot brook rivalry. The modern woman has begun to find children a nuisance; they interfere with her development. The mere man, who has written his poems, ainted his pictures, composed hi ladies, fashioned his philosophies, in the midst of life's troubles and bothers, grows nervous thinking what this new Woman must be whose mind is so tremendous that the whole world must be shut up, so to speak, sent to do its business out of her sight and hearing, lest her attention should be distracted.
NO MORE BOTHER, An optimistic friend of mine tells not to worry myself; tolls mo that it is going to come out all right in the end. Woman just now, he contends, is passing through her college period. The school life of strict surveillance is for ever done with, She is now the young Freshwoma: The bothering lessons over, the bothering school-master she has said good-bye to. She has her latchkey, and is "on her own." There are still some bothering rules about being in at 12 o'clock, and so many attendances each m at chapel. indignant. This interferes with her idea that life is to be one long orgic of self-indulgence, of pleasure. The college period will pass—is passing. Woman will go out into the world, take her place there, discover that bothers were not left behind in the old schoolhouse, wil arn that life has duties, respon ties, will take up her burden side by side with man, will accomplish her destiny.
Meanwhile, however, she is having a good time—some people think too good a time. She wants the best of both. She demands the joys of independence together with freedom from all work—Mavery she calls it, The servants are not to be allowed to bother her, the children are not to be allowed to bother her, her husband is not to be" allowed to bother her. She is to be free to lead the higher life. My dear lady, we all want to lead the higher life. I don't want to write these articles. I want somebody else to bother about my rates and taxes, my children's boots, whilst I sit in an easy-chair and dream about the wonderful books I am going to write, if only a stupid public would let me. Tommy Smith of Brixton feels that he was intended for higher things. He does not want to be wasting his time in an office from nine to six adding up figures, His proper place in life is that of Prime Minister or Field Marshal; he feels it. Do you think the man has no yearning for higher things? Do you think we like the office, the shop, the factory? We ought to be writing pastry, painting pictures, the whole world admiring us. You seem to imagine your man goes off every morning to a sort of City picnic, has eight hours' fun—which he calls work—and then comes home to annoy you with chatter about dinner.
It is the old fable reversed; mau said woman had netiiing to do all day but enjoy herself. Making a potato pio What sort of work was that? Making a potato pie was a lark; anybody could make a potato pie. So the woman said, "Try it," and took the man's spade and went out into the field, and left him at home to make that pie, The man discovered that potato pies took a bit more making than he had reckoned—found that running the house and looking after the children was not quite the merry pastime he had argued. Man wasa fool, Now it is the woman who talks without thinking. How did she like hoeing the potato patch? Hard work, was it not my dear Indy? Made your back ache. Itcame on to rain, and you got wet.
I don't see that it very much matters which of you hoes the potato patch, which of you makes the potato pie. Maybe the hosing of the patch demand more musal more suited to the man, Maybe the making of the pie may be more in your department. But, as I have said, I cannot see that this matter is of importance. The patch thas, to be hoed, the pie to be cooked; the one cannot do the both. Settle it between you, and, having settled it, agree to do each, your own work free from this everlasting nagging.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.