"Well, if we are, who's to blame?" rejoined Eleanor, spiritedly. "Now,
Carley Burch, you listen to me. I think the twentieth-century girl in
America is the most wonderful female creation of all the ages of the
universe. I admit it. That is why we are a prey to the evils attending
greatness. Listen. Here is a crying sin--an infernal paradox. Take this
twentieth-century girl, this American girl who is the finest creation
of the ages. A young and healthy girl, the most perfect type of culture
possible to the freest and greatest city on earth--New York! She holds
absolutely an unreal, untrue position in the scheme of existence.
Surrounded by parents, relatives, friends, suitors, and instructive
schools of every kind, colleges, institutions, is she really happy, is
she really living?"
"Eleanor," interrupted Carley, earnestly, "she is not.... And I've been
trying to tell you why."
"My dear, let me get a word in, will you," complained Eleanor. "You
don't know it all. There are as many different points of view as there
are people.... Well, if this girl happened to have a new frock, and a
new beau to show it to, she'd say, 'I'm the happiest girl in the
world.' But she is nothing of the kind. Only she doesn't know that. She
approaches marriage, or, for that matter, a more matured life, having
had too much, having been too well taken care of, knowing too much. Her
masculine satellites--father, brothers, uncles, friends, lovers--all
utterly spoil her. Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle
class--which is to say the largest and best class of Americans. We are
spoiled.... This girl marries. And life goes on smoothly, as if its aim
was to exclude friction and effort. Her husband makes it too easy for
her. She is an ornament, or a toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage. To
soil her pretty hands would be disgraceful! Even f she can't afford
a maid, the modern devices of science make the care of her four-room
apartment a farce. Electric dish-washer, clothes-washer, vacuum-cleaner,
and the near-by delicatessen and the caterer simply rob a young wife of
her housewifely heritage. If she has a baby--which happens occasionally,
Carley, in spite of your assertion--it very soon goes to the
kindergarten. Then what does she find to do with hours and hours? If she
is not married, what on earth can she find to do?"
"She can work," replied Carley, bluntly.
"Oh yes, she can, but she doesn't," went on Eleanor. "You don't work. I
never did. We both hated the idea. You're calling spades spades, Carley,
but you seem to be riding a morbid, impractical thesis. Well, our young
American girl or bride goes in for being rushed or she goes in for fads,
the ultra stuff you mentioned. New York City gets all the great artists,
lecturers, and surely the great fakirs. The New York women support them.
The men laugh, but they furnish the money. They take the women to the
theaters, but they cut out the reception to a Polish princess, a lecture
by an Indian magician and mystic, or a benefit luncheon for a Home for
Friendless Cats. The truth is most of our young girls or brides have
a wonderful enthusiasm worthy of a better cause. What is to become of
their surplus energy, the bottled-lightning spirit so characteristic
of modern girls? Where is the outlet for intense feelings? What use can
they make of education or of gifts? They just can't, that's all. I'm
not taking into consideration the new-woman species, the faddist or the
reformer. I mean normal girls like you and me. Just think, Carley. A
girl's every wish, every need, is almost instantly satisfied without the
slightest effort on her part to obtain it. No struggle, let alone work!
If women crave to achieve something outside of the arts, you know,
something universal and helpful which will make men acknowledge her
worth, if not the equality, where is the opportunity?"