Contrary Mary

Does this sound fantastic? To whom else would I dare write such a

thing, but to you? But you will understand. I feel that I need make

no apology.

Coming now to you and your work. I can bring no optimism to bear, I

suppose I should say that it is well. But there is in me too much of

the primitive masculine for that. When a man cares for a woman he

inevitably wants to shield her. But what would you? Shall a man let

the thing which he would cherish be buffeted by the winds?

I don't like to think of you in an office, with all your pretty woman

instincts curbed to meet the stern formality of such a life. I don't

like to think that any chief, however fatherly, shall dictate to you

not only letters but rules of conduct. I don't like to think of you as

hustled by a crowd at lunch time. I don't like to think of the great

stone walls which shut you in. I don't want your wings clipped for

such a cage.

And there is this I must say, that all men do not need wives to toast

their slippers or to serve their meals piping hot, or even to smooth

the wrinkles, although I confess that there's an appeal in this last.

Some of us need wives for inspiration, for spiritual and mental uplift,

for the word of cheer when our hearts are weary--for the strength which

believes in our strength--one doesn't exactly think of Juliet as

toasting slippers, or of Rosalind, or of Portia, yet such women never

for one moment failed their lovers.

My Cousin Patty says that work will do you good, and we have great

arguments. I have told her of you, not everything, because there are

some things which are sacred. But I have told her that life for me,

since I have known you, has taken on new meanings.

She glories in your independence and wants to know you. Some day, it

is written, I am sure, that you two shall meet. In some things you are

much alike--in others utterly different, with the differences made by

heredity and environment.

My little Cousin Patty is the composite of three generations. Amid her

sweets and spices, she is as domestic as her grandmother, but her mind

sweeps on to the future of women in a way which makes me gasp.

Politics are the breath of her life. She comes of a long line of

statesmen, and having no father or brother or husband to uphold the

family traditions of Democracy, she upholds them herself. She is

intensely interested just now in the party nominations. A split among

the Republicans gives her hope of the election of the Democratic

candidate. She's such a feminine little creature with her soft voice

and appealing manner, with her big white aprons covering her up, and

curling wisps of black hair falling over her little ears, that the

contrasts in her life are almost funny. In our evenings over the

little white boxes, we mix questions of State Rights and Free Trade

with our bridal decorations, and it seems to me that I shall never

again go to a wedding without a vision of my little Cousin Patty among

her orange blossoms, laying down the law on current politics.