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A Woman of the World: Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters, a non-fiction book by Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
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To Mrs Charles Gordon |
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_ _Concerning Her Sister and Her Children_
It seems to me no one is fitted to give such unbiased counsel regarding the training of children as the woman of observation, sympathy, and feeling, who has none of her own. Had I offspring, I would be influenced by my own successes, and prejudiced by my own failures, and unable to put myself in your place, as I now do. A mother rarely observes other people's children, save to compare them unfavourably with her own. I regret to say that motherhood with the average woman seems to be a narrowing experience, and renders her less capable of taking a large, unselfish view of humanity. The soldier in the thick of battle is able to tell only of what he personally experienced and saw, just in the spot where he was engaged in action. The general who sits outside the fray and watches the contest can form a much clearer idea of where the mistakes occurred, and where the greatest skill was displayed. I am that general, my dear friend, standing outside the field of motherhood, and viewing the efforts of my battling sisters to rear desirable men and women. And I am glad you have appealed to me while your two children are yet babies to give you counsel, for I can tell you where thousands have failed. And I thank you and your husband for reposing so much confidence in my ideas. I think, perhaps, we had better speak of the postscript of your letter first. You ask my opinion regarding the chaperon for your sixteen-year-old sister, who is going abroad to study for a period of years. Mrs. Walton will take her and keep her in her home in Paris, and Miss Brown also stands ready to make her one of three young girls she desires to chaperon and guide through a foreign course of study in France and Germany. You like the idea of having your sister in a home without the association of other American girls, until she perfects herself in French, but you are worried about Mrs. Walton's being a divorced woman. Miss Brown, the spotless spinster, seems the safer guide to your friends, you tell me. I know the majority of women would feel that a single woman of good standing and ungossiped reputation was a safe and desirable protector for a young girl. The same majority would hesitate to send their girls away with a divorced woman. But as I remarked in the beginning, I have stood outside the fray and watched similar ventures, and I have grown to realize that it is not mere respectability and chastity in a woman which make her a safe chaperon for a young girl,--it is a deep, full, broad understanding of temperaments and temptations. Had I a daughter or a sister like your sweet Millie, I would not allow her to live one year under the dominion of such a woman as Miss Brown for any consideration. Why? because Miss Brown is all brain and bigotry. She is narrow and high, not deep and broad. She is so orthodox that she incites heresy in the rebellious mind of independent youth. She is so moral she makes one long for adventure. She would not listen to any questioning of old traditions, or any speculative philosophizing of a curious young mind, and she would be intolerant with any girl who showed an inclination to flirt or be indiscreet. Your sister Millie is as coquettish as the rose that lifts its fair face to the sun, and the breeze, and the bee, and expects to be admired. She is as innocent as the rose, too, but that fact Miss Brown would never associate with coquetry. She would class it with vulgarity and degeneracy. Miss Brown is a handsome woman, but she has no sex instincts. She does not believe with the scientist, "that in the process of evolution it is only with the coming of the sex relation that life is enabled to rise to higher forms." She believes in brain and spirit, and is utterly devoid of that feminine impulse to make herself attractive to men, and wholly incapable of understanding the fascination that Folly holds out to youth. She has never experienced any temptation, and she would be shocked at any girl who fell below her standard. She would carefully protect Millie from danger by high walls, but she would never eradicate the danger impulse from her nature by sympathetic counsel, as a more human woman could. Mrs. Walton is a much better guide for your sister. She ran away from boarding-school at seventeen, and married the reckless son of a rich man. She had a stepmother of the traditional type, and had never known a happy home life. She was of a loving and trusting and at the same time a coquettish nature, and she attracted young Walton's eye while out for a walk with a "Miss Brown" order of duenna. The duenna saw the little embryo flirtation, and became very much horrified, and preached the girl a long sermon, and set a close watch upon her actions. There was no wise, loving guidance of a young girl's life barque from the reefs of adventure. It was homily and force. The result was, that the girl escaped from school before six weeks passed, and married her admirer. He was fifteen years her senior, a reckless man of the world, even older in experience than in years. He proved a very bad husband, but his young wife remained with him until his own father urged her to leave him. She was quietly divorced, and has lived abroad almost ever since, and holds an excellent position in the French capital, as well as in other European centres, and she is most exemplary in her life. Mr. Walton is now an inmate of a sanitarium, a victim of paresis. I can imagine no one so well fitted to exert the wisest influence upon Millie's life as Mrs. Walton. There is a woman who has run the whole gamut of girlish folly, and who knows all the phases of temptation. She knows what it is to possess physical attractions, and to be flattered by the admiration of men, and she has passed through the dark waters of disillusion and sorrow. She would be the one to help Millie out of dangerous places by sympathy and understanding, instead of using sermons and keys. She would mould her young, wax-like character by the warmth of love, instead of freezing it by austere axioms. Miss Brown would make an indiscreet young girl feel hopelessly vulgar and immodest; Mrs. Walton that she understood all about her foolish pranks, and was able to lead her in the better paths. Miss Brown prides herself upon never having lost her head with any man. Mrs. Walton is like some other women I have known, who have made mistakes of judgment. She lost her head, but in the losing and the sorrow that ensued she found a heart for all humanity. There are women in this world whose cold-white chastity freezes the poor wayfarer who tries to find in their vicinity rest and comfort and courage. Other women cast a cooling shadow, in which the sun-scorched pilgrim finds peace--the shadow of a past error, from which spring fragrant ferns and sweet grasses, where tired and bleeding feet may softly tread. Mrs. Walton's life casts the shadow of divorce on her pathway, but it is only the warm, restful shadow of a ripening and mellowing sorrow. Do not fear to have Millie walk in it. It will be better for her than the steady glare from a glacier. I find I have said so much about your sister that I must reserve my counsel about your children for another letter. Your postscript was brief, but pregnant with suggestion, and called for this long reply. I shall write you again in a few days. _ |
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