After the Storm

Time moved on, and Mrs. Emerson's intimate city friends were those

to whom she had been introduced, directly or indirectly, through

Mrs. Talbot. Of these, the one who had most influence over her was

Mrs. Lloyd, and that influence was not of the right kind. Singularly

enough, it so happened that Mr. Emerson never let this lady at his

house, though she spent hours there every week; and, more singular

still, Irene had never spoken about her to her husband. She had

often been on the point of doing so, but an impression that Hartley

would take up an unreasonable prejudice against her kept the name of

this friend back from her lips.

Months now succeeded each other without the occurrence of events

marked by special interest. Mr. Emerson grew more absorbed in his

profession as cases multiplied on his hands, and Irene, interested

in her circle of bright-minded, independent-thoughted women, found

the days and weeks gliding on pleasantly enough. But habits of

estimating things a little differently from the common sentiment,

and views of life not by any means consonant with those prevailing

among the larger numbers of her sex, were gradually taking root.

Young, inexperienced, self-willed and active in mind, Mrs. Emerson

had most unfortunately been introduced among a class of persons

whose influence upon her could not fail to be hurtful. Their

conversation was mainly of art, literature, social progress and

development; the drama, music, public sentiment on leading topics of

the day; the advancement of liberal ideas, the necessity of a larger

liberty and a wider sphere of action for woman, and the equality of

the sexes. All well enough, all to be commended when viewed in their

just relation to other themes and interests, but actually pernicious

when separated from the homely and useful things of daily life, and

made so to overshadow these as to warp them into comparative

insignificance. Here lay the evil. It was this elevation of her

ideas above the region of use and duty into the mere æsthetic and

reformatory that was hurtful to one like Irene--that is, in fact,

hurtful to any woman, for it is always hurtful to take away from the

mind its interest in common life--the life, we mean, of daily useful

work.

Work! We know the word has not a pleasant sound to many ears, that

it seems to include degradation, and a kind of social slavery, and

lies away down in a region to which your fine, cultivated,

intellectual woman cannot descend without, in her view, soiling her

garments. But for all this, it is alone in daily useful work of mind

or hands, work in which service and benefits to others are involved,

that a woman (or a man) gains any true perfection of character. And

this work must be her own, must lie within the sphere of her own

relations to others, and she must engage in it from a sense of duty

that takes its promptings from her own consciousness of right. No

other woman can judge of her relation to this work, and she who

dares to interfere or turn her aside should be considered an

enemy--not a friend.