As We Go | Page 9

literature? Answer me that. All the novels are written by, for, or about
women--brought to their standard. Even Henry James, who studies the
sex untiringly, speaks about the "feminization of literature." They write
most of the newspaper correspondence--and write it for women. They
are even trying to feminize the colleges. Granted that woman is the
superior being; all the more, what chance is there for man if this sort of
thing goes on? Are you going to make a race of men on feminine
fodder? And here is the still more perplexing part of it. Unless all
analysis of the female heart is a delusion, and all history false, what
women like most of all things in this world is a Man, virile, forceful,
compelling, a solid rock of dependence, a substantial unfeminine being,
whom it is some satisfaction and glory and interest to govern and rule
in the right way, and twist round the feminine finger. If women should
succeed in reducing or raising--of course raising--men to the feminine
standard, by feminizing society, literature, the colleges, and all that,
would they not turn on their creations--for even the Bible intimates that
women are uncertain and go in search of a Man? It is this sort of blind
instinct of the young man for preserving himself in the world that
makes him so inaccessible to the good he might get from the prevailing
culture of the leisure class.

THE ADVENT OF CANDOR
Those who are anxious about the fate of Christmas, whether it is not
becoming too worldly and too expensive a holiday to be indulged in
except by the very poor, mark with pleasure any indications that the

true spirit of the day--brotherhood and self-abnegation and charity--is
infusing itself into modern society. The sentimental Christmas of thirty
years ago could not last; in time the manufactured jollity got to be more
tedious and a greater strain on the feelings than any misfortune
happening to one's neighbor. Even for a day it was very difficult to
buzz about in the cheery manner prescribed, and the reaction put
human nature in a bad light. Nor was it much better when gradually the
day became one of Great Expectations, and the sweet spirit of it was
quenched in worry or soured in disappointment. It began to take on the
aspect of a great lottery, in which one class expected to draw in reverse
proportion to what it put in, and another class knew that it would only
reap as it had sowed. The day, blessed in its origin, and meaningless if
there is a grain of selfishness in it, was thus likely to become a sort of
Clearing-house of all obligations and assume a commercial aspect that
took the heart out of it--like the enormous receptions for paying social
debts which take the place of the old-fashioned hospitality. Everybody
knew, meantime, that the spirit of good-will, the grace of universal
sympathy, was really growing in the world, and that it was only our
awkwardness that, by striving to cram it all for a year into twenty-four
hours, made it seem a little farcical. And everybody knows that when
goodness becomes fashionable, goodness is likely to suffer a little. A
virtue overdone falls on t'other side. And a holiday that takes on such
proportions that the Express companies and the Post-office cannot
handle it is in danger of a collapse. In consideration of these things, and
because, as has been pointed out year after year, Christmas is becoming
a burden, the load of which is looked forward to with
apprehension--and back on with nervous prostration--fear has been
expressed that the dearest of all holidays in Christian lands would have
to go again under a sort of Puritan protest, or into a retreat for rest and
purification. We are enabled to announce for the encouragement of the
single-minded in this best of all days, at the close of a year which it is
best not to characterize, that those who stand upon the social
watch-towers in Europe and America begin to see a light--or, it would
be better to say, to perceive a spirit--in society which is likely to change
many things, and; among others, to work a return of Christian
simplicity. As might be expected in these days, the spirit is exhibited in
the sex which is first at the wedding and last in the hospital ward. And

as might have been expected, also, this spirit is shown by the young
woman of the period, in whose hands are the issues of the future. If she
preserve her present mind long enough, Christmas will become a day
that will satisfy every human being, for the purpose of the young
woman will pervade it. The tendency of the young woman generally to
simplicity, of the