Page:Co-operative housekeeping.djvu/130

117 amuses him in the drawing-room,—always a subject, generally a servant, too often a sycophant and a slave." What is the matter with men, that they do not wish us to be noble, that they are not noble toward us? It is that they have no faith in the absoluteness of our sex. The "feminine," the "beautiful" in us constitutes our highest value to them. And seeing our modes of life so different from their own, they imagine that the secret of the charm is in this, and they cannot bear any suggestion of change. Then we ourselves must be softly brave against their prejudices and distrust; must insist that women can very easily combine the beautiful and the useful, the real and the ideal; must show them that, not so much the pursuit itself, but the manner of it, is feminine or unfeminine; must take care, above all, while we try to advance, that we do not throw aside, as some in the van too rashly have, the graces, the harmonies, and the reserves of gentle, traditional, adorable womanhood.

"Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new!" How profound are the words, and how women hate them! The feminine sphere that for ages stood so immovable beneath our feet, the mighty mechanical powers are rolling, rolling away from under us. In great part it is already gone, and sewing-machines, washing-machines, machines for every smallest office, are taking from us the little that is left of the old manual labour by which we once fed and clothed the world, and whose shadow we yet cling to so desperately. Crowding us together on the fast-lessening area, it would seem as though men were determined that women should have no longer a serious interest or an earnest occupation in the universe. But, in truth, a wider, freer, sunnier orb, that they themselves have created for us, is moving beside us, though all unseen by our timid and reluctant eyes. Their mills and factories by thousands heap up food and clothing for the world, but