After the Storm

The name of this lady was Mrs. Talbot. Irene met her soon after her

marriage and removal to New York, and was charmed with her from the

beginning. Mr. Emerson, on the contrary, liked neither her nor her

sentiments, and considered her a dangerous friend for his wife. He

expressed himself freely in regard to her at the commencement of the

intimacy; but Irene took her part so warmly, and used such strong

language in her favor, that Emerson deemed it wisest not to create

new sentiments in her favor out of opposition to himself.

Within a week from that memorable Christmas day on which Irene came

back from Ivy Cliff, Mrs. Talbot, who had taken a fancy to the

spirited, independent, undisciplined wife of Emerson, called in to

see her new friend. Irene received her cordially. She was, in fact,

of all her acquaintances, the one she most desired to meet.

"I'm right glad you thought of making me a call," said Mrs. Emerson,

as they sat down together. "I've felt as dull all the morning as an

anchorite."

"You dull!" Mrs. Talbot affected surprise, as she glanced round the

tasteful room in which they were sitting. "What is there to cloud

your mind? With such a home and such a husband as you possess life

ought to be one long, bright holiday."

"Good things in their way," replied Mrs. Emerson. "But not

everything."

She said this in a kind of thoughtless deference to Mrs. Talbot's

known views on the subject of homes and husbands, which she had not

hesitated to call women's prisons and women's jailers.

"Indeed! And have you made that discovery?"

Mrs. Talbot laughed a low, gurgling sort of laugh, leaning, at the

same time, in a confidential kind of way, closer to Mrs. Emerson.

"Discovery!"

"Yes."

"It is no discovery," said Mrs. Emerson. "The fact is self-evident.

There is much that a woman needs for happiness beside a home and a

husband."

"Right, my young friend, right!" Mrs. Talbot's manner grew earnest.

"No truer words were ever spoken. Yes--yes--a woman needs a great

deal more than these to fill the measure of her happiness; and it is

through the attempt to restrict and limit her to such poor

substitutes for a world-wide range and freedom that she has been so

dwarfed in mental stature, and made the unhappy creature and slave

of man's hard ambition and indomitable love of power. There were

Amazons of old--as the early Greeks knew to their cost--strong,

self-reliant, courageous women, who acknowledged no human

superiority. Is the Amazonian spirit dead in the earth? Not so! It

is alive, and clothing itself with will, power and persistence.

Already it is grasping the rein, and the mettled steed stands

impatient to feel the rider's impulse in the saddle. The cycle of

woman's degradation and humiliation is completed. A new era in the

world's social history has dawned for her, and the mountain-tops are

golden with the coming day."