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"By refusing social recognition to women whose private characters are disreputable, she is shutting herself off from alluring friendships with sopranos, contraltos, tragediennes, skirt-dancers, music-hall singers, and many other brilliant and fascinating creatures whose presence at her house could not fail to make her entertainments interesting to her guests. All these women are sought out and cherished by Mrs. Webb Johnston.

"The old adage that there are other ways of killing a cat than choking her with cream, comes pertinently to mind in this connection. Conscience is apt to be a tyrant if deliberately overridden, but it may be hoodwinked with comparative complacency. Mrs. Sherman remains true to her principle of excluding meretricious characters from social intercourse with her guests, but she reserves to herself the right of passing on the evidence. Seeing that she had read Madame Bovary and Anna Karénina, was she not amply qualified to detect immorality at first blush? That seemed to be almost an essential attribute of a modern woman with social ambitions.

"The occasion for putting into practice this prerogative was not far to seek. The arrival from Europe of one of the most brilliant of the galaxy of foreign actresses brings her heart into her mouth. She reads eagerly everything which the newspapers have to say about her, and naturally finds nothing there suggestive of impropriety. She buys and scans photographs, and these merely serve to heighten the ideal estimate which has shaped itself in her mind. She refuses to entertain sundry rumors which have reached her to the effect that the lady in question has been successively maintained by a French marquis, and a Russian banker, and was at present reputed to be on unduly intimate terms with the famous leading man of her own troupe. To the person who has confided to her these whisperings she answers, 'I don't believe a word of it,' and then adds, significantly, 'Wait.' The person is a man, and he shrugs his shoulders. But her soul is jubilant in its faith and in the hope that at last she has found a way to compete with Mrs. Webb Johnston.

"On the day when the actress arrives in town Mrs. Sherman goes to see her. The meeting is by appointment at ten o'clock in the morning, and lasts more than two hours. They come down-stairs together with the mien of happy sisters. Mrs. Sherman's face wears a seraphic smile. Her carriage is in waiting, and in it they are driven to her home for luncheon, and on the same evening cards are issued for an after-theatre supper-party as a preliminary announcement of impending festivities. She sends for the man who told her the rumors, and in a triumphant tone says, 'My friend, your stories are untrue; I have been to headquarters. I have seen her and asked her, and she has assured me, with tears in her eyes, that they are a wicked falsehood – a malicious, baseless slander.'

"'Surely,' says the man, 'she ought to know,' and then he shrugs his shoulders again, a caustic act which, though done as a friend, provokes Mrs. Sherman to anger, and puts a chasm between them.

"On this day the cat is killed, and yet the cream is saved. True to her principles, Mrs. Sherman still bars her doors against the wanton, yet never fails to convince herself that she is an infallible judge of virtue. If there are rumors and whisperings in advance, she invariably takes the bull, or, more accurately speaking, the heifer, by the horns and puts the inquiry. The answer settles the matter. It becomes a veritable 'open sesame' to her entertainments and her friendship. She shows herself in public with her arm, metaphorically and literally, around the waist of women whom all men know to be unchaste and living in violation of social laws. They kiss and talk poetry and art and philosophy, and her face gleams with the consciousness of new importance and the realization of her ambition.

"Mrs. Sherman has now reached the point where she feels that she can fairly regard herself as the most busily progressive woman of her community. She has a finger in every pie, literary, artistic, philanthropic, educational, and what not. She is always in a hurry, and she does nothing thoroughly. Her ideas jostle against each other in their promiscuity, and become all jumbled together in her consciousness. Her time is so occupied that when she is doing one thing and talking to one person, some other thing or person is in her mind, though her social skill often enables her to conceal the fact. Her life is one continuous series of kaleidoscopic sensations and emotions without system or result. She is ostensibly a leader, but her leadership suggests only ceaseless activity and indiscriminate, superficial posings and vanities. Her nerves are kept in a constant state of tension by breathless comings and goings, her digestion perpetually tried by the viands of festivities. Nor is her conscience satisfied. A vague unrest pursues her still, torturing her by insinuations of her own utter futility, yet goading her on to fresh efforts. She presently becomes a wreck morally, mentally, and physically, though she preserves a bold front to the world, until one day the news is flashed upon a busy public that she has died suddenly from 'heart failure' following an attack of pneumonia. The physician in attendance shakes his head when asked to give assurance of her recovery. He possesses an instinctive knowledge that she has kept her vitality keyed up to concert pitch by antipyrine, phenacetine, and the other drugs to the use of which modern progressive women are addicted. And so no more of Mrs. Alexander Sherman.

"Of course," continued Josephine, "it was not strictly necessary to kill her. The constitutions of some progressive women seem to be proof against anything. But the chances were in favor of her death. And if the poor thing had lived, what hope was there for anything but a vapid old age, haunted by visions of her decreasing notoriety? And the strangest part of all is that when I began with her I felt hopeful that she would amount to something. The laws of evolution are not to be trifled with, however, even by the wives of philosophers."

To A Modern Woman with Social Ambitions. IV

I feel confident that my correspondent, Number 4, a wife thoroughly happy in the wedded state, will appreciate that there was nothing personal in Josephine's portrayal of Mrs. Alexander Sherman's career. It seems to me that it presents, more clearly than any arguments or words of mine could do, the perils of egotism and superficiality, and that I need not further indicate to my correspondents that to do a little of everything and nothing thoroughly, to be so eager for individuality or notoriety that one is ready to be led instead of to lead, and to discard social canons on the plea of liberty or superior feminine acuteness, will produce a nervous, emotional, gibbering type of character adapted to cause Madame de Staël or Madame Récamier to turn in her grave. Neither you, Number 4, nor Number 5, the radiant, able-bodied spinster, haughtily unconcerned about love and lovers, need fear any detriment to your souls or to your social progress as a consequence of doing some one or two things well, and of refusing to sacrifice your self-respect to the urgency of cheap substitutes for refinement and elegance. Certainly, thoroughness and delicacy of thought and sentiment are essential to the modern woman who would be socially effective in the best sense.

Let me here state that I am entirely conscious that it is not a prerequisite to earnest living to be socially effective at all. One can pursue one's occupation, be it house-keeping, school teaching, scientific philanthropy, or novel writing without taking any part in what is known as society, and still be respectable and worthy in character. Yet if every woman were simply to eat her three meals a day, sleep, be affectionate to her family, reasonably charitable, and do her daily task, the world would lose much of its vivacity, color, and æsthetic interest. As the world is at present constituted the greater mass of human beings, both male and female, are shut off from participation in society in its narrower sense. Their means, their manner of living, and their tastes confine them to very simple or else to very coarse social diversions. Hence we are accustomed to read in the newspapers of "society people," as a term of reproach indicating that portion of the population which cultivates the social or æesthetic side of nature in its leisure hours. The demagogic force of the term is derived from the undeniable existence of a surface element of society, which has been and is still apt to conduct itself in such a manner as to subject itself justly to the charge of frivolity and extravagance. But the unthinking extend its application to the cultivated and intelligent many, who in all countries constitute the best force of the community. Society in this better sense must always exist, and, although the woman who holds herself aloof from it may not be distinctly culpable, there can be no question that those who succeed in participating in the social interests open to them, without neglecting or allowing them to obscure sterner pursuits, live finer and more serviceable lives than those who pass all their hours of relaxation by the chimney-corner, either because they fancy that essential to comfort or because they choose to despise what they call, with a virtuous inflection, "society."

This may sound elementary, but I present it as a premise to which is to follow. You, my correspondents, are ambitious to progress socially, yet doubtless you are not altogether impervious to the seductive suggestion that social interests are hollow and unprofitable. For instance, I feel sure that you, Number 5, the radiant, able-bodied spinster, haughtily unconcerned about love and lovers, feels the pressure of the times, and would regard the life of a Madame de Staël or a Madame Récamier, however brilliant or picturesque, as at variance with modern theories of social utility. I hear you making some such representation as this, which is merely an enlargement of the letter you wrote me: "Here am I, a young woman of some means, without family responsibilities or other demands upon my time. I have no prejudice against marriage; indeed, I earnestly hope to meet some day, some man who will love me and whom I may love, and whose wife I may become; but as I am no longer so young as I was once, being nearly thirty, I have no intention of bothering my head about the subject further, and so put it aside as a contingency. I have no special talent; that is, I never could accomplish anything unusual with my voice, my pen, or a brush. I have taken, and I do take, a strong interest in charitable enterprise and investigation. I belong to philanthropic societies, and it has more than once occurred to me to join a college settlement and live among the poor. I have friends who do that; but I do not feel a special fitness for the work. Nor am I sure that, however valuable that experience may be as a form of loving service to the people one hopes to influence, it can be other than episodic and limited to the individuals who are conscious of the need or of the inspiration. I am painfully aware of the dissipations and vanities of fashionable people, in many of which I have taken part myself, and have no desire to be merely a frivolous devotee of social amusements. And yet I feel sure that the social side is no less genuine in its claims upon us than any other. It seems to me that I might interest myself socially, but I am puzzled by the intricacies of the situation. It is so difficult to be democratic in one's sympathies and yet maintain the old standards of elegance and refinement. To be socially effective one ought to be in touch with modern social tendencies and yet be true to the finest instincts of aspiring womanhood. What can one do to realize this?"

That is, I believe, a clear presentation of your state of mind and its dilemma. Having read of the vicissitudes of Mrs. Alexander Sherman, you have probably a more distinct idea of what you ought not to do; but would have a right to argue that a mere warning loses half its force unless a substitute be supplied. To begin with, you are correct in your assumption – you see I credit you with a considerable intelligence – that if you hope to be effective you must not be content with mere aristocratic elegance. That is a requisite which will gain you a standing within certain narrow limits, and if cleverly cherished, may bring you a surface reputation which the society newspapers will vie with each other to enhance. The acquirement of mere fine ladyism is going on actively in our society, and though it has not turned the heads of so many American women as its opposite, superficial democratic smartness, it seems too apt to fill the breasts of its votaries with a pleasing self-satisfaction, which no suggestion that the gift is not original serves to disturb. It is a product of and inheritance from the older civilizations, and in its most precious but not its exaggerated form, is absolutely essential to the most highly evolved womanhood. A fringe of our people in the North and in the South, and latterly in the West, has always insisted on and cultivated it, generally with much credit, and has thereby evoked the taunt that they were out of sympathy with the institutions of the country. That has been far less true than demagogues would have us believe, but there has been enough truth in it, and there is still enough truth in it to put our well-bred class – "society people," as they are called – on their guard against themselves. There is certainly nothing essentially American in conventional fine manners and in the conventional social tone which people of breeding the world over cultivate, and where these are the possessor's chief or only title to superiority, and are worn as such, there is room for the sneer that he or she is not an American at heart.

During the last twenty years our population has been passing through a period of awakening in regard to the usages of civilized countries, with the result that the public point of view has been astonishingly readjusted. The people are, so to speak, tumbling over each other in their haste to adopt Old World social customs, and the paragrapher who tells us that the wife of the Chief Magistrate wears blue novelty silk waists to the theatre, made by one of her familiar friends, makes a point of assuring us that the dressmaker in question is herself "a leading society woman." Our public press is rife with society cant and society gossip, and justifies the practice on the plea that the plain people are absorbed in the contemplation of the doings and the dresses of those whom they know only by hearsay, even as an Englishwoman will run the risk of apoplexy in order to catch a passing glimpse of her sovereign. Of this appetite for social tittle-tattle, the wealthy class seems disposed to take every advantage, pluming itself on its new importance to the point where it is constantly trying to devise some new extravagance or inanity.

But this is not the spirit of the United States, nor are these the best Americans. Our nation is strange in this respect. We wear our faults upon our sleeves, or rather we suffer a surface population to belie us in various walks of life. That is the reason why the foreigners who come over here and try to amass the materials for a book in a few months fail to understand us as we really are. They are led by superficially prominent indications to believe many things which are true only of a limited portion of the population, and they fail to perceive the sturdiness of character, the independence of view, and the social charm which distinguishes a large and constantly increasing portion of the American people, who are neither extravagant plutocrats nor vulgar republican braggarts and despisers of civilized practices.

During the early years of our history as an independent nation, the imitators of foreign and civilized usages, the well-bred people of our country were, as I have indicated, regarded as out of sympathy with the population at large, and there was a certain justification in the charge; for though there was no conscious slur on the part of these students of manners, they were at fault in that they failed to manifest or to take an interest in that energy, originality, and freshness of mental vision which was known as Americanism. Blatant and mortifying as this national tendency was in its exaggerated forms, it was a genuine indigenous product typical of the native character. Chastened and subdued in New England, and assuming outrageous expression on the prairies, it was the real manifestation of our entity as a new departure from the peoples of Europe. Hence it was natural that those who were shocked by or felt no kinship for this trick of the blood should be looked at askance. Among those who claimed in their own hearts social prestige it was long the fashion to shrug their shoulders over the raw eccentricities of their fellow-countrymen, which, as revealed both in public affairs and during European travel, were often startling to precise taste and wofully suggestive of the boaster. Yet those very traits in their truer expression have been the vital force of the people, and give us our savor as a nation. Not to possess them is to be without the characteristics of an American.

The experience and events of fifty years have served to soften the eccentricities and tone down the unconventional manifestations of the national spirit. Although the prairies and the halls of Congress still afford occasional rampant types, the great body of the people is eager, as I have indicated, to adopt cosmopolitan usages. But the salt of the native character remains undiluted in the blood of the people, and marks them as genuinely as ever, though they have learned to avoid some of the exuberance of language and look which made foreigners smile, and their sensitive countrymen blush when they met them in the picture galleries of Europe.

Most significant among the changes which experience and time have brought to pass has been the development on the educational and social side. Always alive to the importance of general education, but unfortunately so proud of the maintenance of public schools that it was disposed to sneer at any learning not to be acquired at them, the American people – that portion of it which foreigners are so apt to overlook when they attempt to characterize us – is seeking to foster in a variety of ways the opportunities for higher learning, and wider intellectual intelligence. Within the last twenty-five years not merely an array of colleges and other educational institutions have sprung into existence, but with them an army of disciples whose clubs and classes and associations for the investigation and study of all the forms of learning from English literature to Sanscrit have given a new tone and stimulus to the social side of American life. An independent, but now generally respectful eagerness to learn has taken the place of an independent ignorance relying upon its own infallibility, which was often worn as a chip upon the shoulder. With it all has been manifest the same originality, independence, and energy of spirit which has been conspicuous from the first. This still serves to handicap as well as to promote progress, for it is apt to beget undue self-confidence and lead our new women and eager youth of both sexes to ignore the accumulated wisdom of older civilizations, and claim a special clearness of vision, the only basis for which is often half-digested superficial knowledge. But educational and professional life all over the country is being constantly enriched by more and more competent students and practitioners who stand not merely for what is best and most earnest in American life, but who typify the true American spirit. While the omniscient class in the population has become less assertive and more humble-minded, the class which was once politically proscribed in some sections of the country because it was cultivated and because it shrugged its shoulders in spite of its breeding, has undergone a transformation also. A large portion of it, always patriotic at heart so far as dying was concerned, has learned to recognize that it must live in sympathy with our republican institutions if it would not be regarded as an exotic, and that aloofness is akin to lack of patriotism. A fringe of vain and more and more extravagant and self-indulgent society exists in our large cities, especially in New York, which affects to claim social superiority to the rest of the population, and is indifferent to national progress and to the best public interests; but it is numerically small, and, except in the newspapers, a very unimportant factor of influence as compared with the already large and growing body of citizens over the country which is eager to live nobly and wisely. This right-minded and aspiring class represents the drawing together and amalgamation of the once seemingly hostile poles of opinion typified by the conservative, civilized, sedate, social aristocrats of the nation, and the independent, assertive, ignorant but truth-seeking sons and daughters of the soil. Each has recognized the justice of the other's criticisms, and as the outcome of a mutually amended point of view we have an earnest, intelligent, and interesting alliance, which insists on both fineness and strength of fibre as essential to progressive national character. The confines of this belt of good citizenship shade away into stiff or heartless conventionalism on the one side, and smart, obtuse, social perceptions on the other, but it is constantly widening and undergoing the refining process which results from the increasing intelligence of the contracting parties. By way of exemplification in matters feminine may be instanced the more and more frequent requirement by those in authority in women's colleges that applicants for the position of teacher should possess those evidences of gentle nurture which the world is accustomed to associate with the word "lady." Conversely one may point to the fact that originality, independence, and suggestiveness are no longer repulsed by the conservative, but welcomed as a leavening grace necessary to the development of a finer womanhood.

To the existence of this alliance I would call the attention of the modern woman with social ambitions – you, in particular, Numbers 4 and 5. For it seems to me that in its perpetuation and extension lies the best hope of society. It represents, of course, an involuntary approximation of contrary opinions, and has no definite corporate existence, like a woman's club, for instance. But the alliance is real, nevertheless, whether it be deliberate or not. Certainly the American woman who wishes to lead effectively and aspiringly can no longer be either of the insipidly fashionable or the smart, assertive, schoolma'am type. In her composition that eager, star-investigating spirit, which through all the phases of her brilliant but often nerve-harrowing evolution has distinguished her, must curb itself to the yoke of social refinement. On the other hand, the day has passed when the charms of mere convention, of graceful elegance fortified by nothing deeper than wit, or suppleness of mind, would rank the possessor among the leaders of society.

Imitation, therefore, of the witchery worn by the women of the French salons will, however successful, if it be limited to mere manners and mental accomplishments – the pyrotechnics of social adroitness – gain for the modern woman of ambition, be she discerning and honest with herself, only a sore conscience. First of all, let her be a lady – elegant, gracious, pure, and tender; but, last of all, let her be merely that and stop there, looking down with amiable superciliousness on the world outside the narrow limit hedged by the conventions of those who play at living, and fancy themselves the real world. It is becoming more and more easy in this country to be a fashionable fine lady, without audible reproach, for the class of mere society people is a growing one. Yet to those who are content thus to waste their lives, the difficulty of being recognized as anything but society persons is just as great as ever, for though the ranks of the alliance may seem to terminate on one side in their direction, there is a dividing chasm between them broad as is the difference between careless aristocracy and sympathizing humanity. On one side of this chasm live those whose vital interest is to be exquisite and to be entertained; on the other, those whose souls are bent upon the finest aspirations and hopes of the race. In the heart of this alliance between conventional culture and humanity the reforms, the enterprises, and the safeguards projected for the advancement of modern society are born, and here they find their truest champions.

It is not easy, however, my correspondents, to decide whether there lies greater danger for the modern woman with social ambitions in the allurements of mere fashionable society, or in the temptations to be smart, superficial, and common, which confront her at the point where the alliance shades toward the camp of democratic individuality. Here there is a second chasm; yet, like the sunken road into which the cuirassiers of Napoleon fell at Waterloo, it is not evident at first glance to those who, fired by the ardor of youth, but socially unenlightened, tilt at fame and world progress. The evolution of democracy having in the case of woman been supplemented by the enfranchisement of her sex, present conditions afford extraordinary opportunities for the exercise of her new-found liberty. So secure is her position, so welcome is her announced determination to readjust and regenerate the world, that humanity is prepared to give her her head and to applaud every sign of advancement.

But man, though thus encouraging and at heart keenly appreciative, is watching her closely, and there can be no question that if he has to choose between the old-time woman of convention – the exquisite, picturesque doll of society – and a monster who revolts at sex, sneers at sentiment, and administers the affairs of life on a dull, utilitarian basis enlivened only by knowing, mundane humor, he will prefer the doll, or, if she be out of the question, he will fight the monster. It would be St. George and the dragon again! Long has the idea which the poet put into words, been uttered with a sigh by our wives and mothers; yet with pride, too, and a secret joy in spite of the melancholy inflection. There are some women to-day who would throw off the yoke of this adage and enter the lists of life on the footing of a second-class man, proud of their swagger, and with the instincts of the wife and mother sternly repressed. Fortunately, to the woman of the alliance this new woman of democratic individuality is as abhorrent as she is to men. But it is not in her extreme type that she is as yet most dangerous, for admiration comes only by degrees. The danger lies in the failure to recognize the species in the bustling, chirping, metallic, superficial class of women which in some numbers, and with the wiry whirr of grasshoppers, infests the cities and towns of the republic to-day – women who have no reverence and no sentiment, no desire to learn for the sake of knowledge, but merely for ostentation – women who have not progressed as souls, but who have substituted coarseness for aspiration, and material "cuteness" for unsophisticated purity of thought and sentiment.

 
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence,
 

The modern woman with social ambitions must be essentially a modern woman. That is, she must recognize the justice of and sympathize with the aspirations of society for a broader humanity, and she must recognize and be a party to the responsibilities placed upon her own sex by the process of emancipation. Now, if ever, is the opportunity for woman to show what she is made of. If she is made simply of sugar and spice and all that is nice, as we are informed in the nursery rhyme, we shall have to accept her as she is, and put up with her delightful volatility and tender but unintellectual limitations. If, on the other hand, as the world is ready to believe, she is a star-seeking creature, who has been kept down, she will soon be able to give manifest signs of her ability to soar; and it is equitable to remind her that the burden of proof is on her. She cannot afford, distinctly, to be superficial. She must be thorough both in her investigations and her intuitions or she will amount to nothing, for it must be remembered that though man may be slow at intuition, he is capable in investigation. Every woman of the present day who becomes either an elegant voluptuary or an egotistical, metallic flibbertigibbet, furnishes one more piece of evidence for the edification of those who maintain that the mental constitution of her sex, save in its capacity for affection, is shallow. That is probably not the truth, but she should make the demonstration of the calumny more complete. Woman's authority over matters social is far greater than it has ever been. Not only as regards the social manifestations of society, but in the matter of the deeper problems of social living upon which the progress of society depends, her influence is becoming more and more a vital factor and force. If she is sincere, society will become both more earnest and more attractive; if she is simply seeking liberty at the expense of religion, purity, sentiment, and the fine things of the spirit, it were almost better she were again a credulous, beautiful doll, and remained so to the end of time. Clearly, the modern woman with social ambitions must not neglect to hold fast to the old and everlasting truths of life in her struggle toward the stars. Sympathy with and capacity to promote new ideas are essential to her progress, but only by allegiance to the eternal feminine, to the behests of love and motherhood and beauty of imagination, can the development of society on the lines of a broader and wiser humanity be effectually established.