FOR WOMEN FOLK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 203, 4 February 1915, Page 6

FOR WOMEN FOLK.

"BY EILEEN." """

" Eileen " will be glad to receive items of interest and .• value to women for publication or reference in this column.

PRAYER OF THE MOTHER. AFTER THE CHILDREN* HAVE GONE ' TO BED. (By Frank Crane). They are asleep, 0 God, and I am tired, and I want the hush of a halfhour with Thee. I want to bathe my soul in the Infinite, as workers, covered with dust and sweat, plunge into the. sea. Let my hot heart feel Thy cool vastiicss, my" muddy mind loose itself in Thy crystal wisdom, my bruised love be healed in the waters of Thy love, so sure, so calm and deep. Cod, I could not bear to be a mother another day if I thought I should be called to account for all my mistakes. 1 would never seek Thee unless I thought that Thou wcrt as forbearing and as love-blind as I am; but because my own children never come to me without my heart leaping to meet them, so I li-iirn to be very bold toward my Father which is in Heaven. I am all faults. My very love trips up my wisdom, and my care breeds worry, and my sense of expediency makes me disloyal to the truth. One Ir.is to be very grateful and good to be .1 mother. No one short of God Himself could be equal to it. But I love them, Cod; and in love I r'imb besid" Thy scat. Teach me Thine own wondrous skill and indirection, so that I may also learn to wait, cud to suffer, and, by long wisdo:n, to circumvent. I know it is of no avail to tell them anything. I know their little eye.-; are i sharp, and s"e my soul, and that they copy me. Therefore, make me good. . good in my deepest purpose, good in my I very desires. I Make me ::'.\ T want the;'.i to he. ! strong and true and great-hearted. j Save me from the irritation of little | things. Cive me the long vision, the j sense of perspective, so that I may 3 judge between essentials and non-essen- | tials. )Lct me he a real mother to my children, mending their souls and fancies !and helping weave their dreams, as well as attending to their bodies. Help mo to learn wisdom from their '!<,-:r humanities, the secret of trust in , Thee from their trust in me. And keep them from harm, and let them grow up sound and unspoiled And makes them always love, me.— Amen. > DO GIRLS FOOL THEMSELVES? (By Nancy Woods Walburn). "Of all the perfect ways to live, 1 certainly think this .Studio Club has them all beat," said Jane, as she glanced admiringly around for a last look at the ! large entrance hall as she left Cladys and Emma pass out and let the front door bang behind her as she joined them after a recent visit to an out of town student, who was stopping there. "Tc have a career with a capital C and come and go here as you like, and have the use of that dandy roof garden and everything—why, it would be just like a man's club! Oh dear; it must be really living!" she ended, with a deep drawn sigh. "Not so fast, Jane," laughed Emma. "Change your gear while I punch the tire of that new mental joy ride of yours. In the first place, if you are through studying and 'on your own,' you aren't supposed to live here. It's for your students." "Oil, well! I have a fascinating bachelor flat of my own —still better." flung back .lane, airily, undaunted by Emilia's literal statement. "It would be more, like Bohemianism, anyway; and I could have chafing dish suppers and "And soon get good and tired of it," put in Gladys. "Remember the girl who said the most she saw in Bohemianism was washing dishes in the bathtub " Jane laughed, despite herself. "Oh, yes! I know Ethel Payson. You know, . Emma," she continued, as they walked I slowly down Sixty-second street, toward the avenue, in the bright May sunshine, "she. said she fretted herself to pieces, aching to get away from home until she came here to visit her artist cousin. Said that cured her, and she never appreciated anything as much in all her life when she got home as her mother's big kitchen sink." "But," went on Jane, with a scornful sniff, "she was only on a visit. With her cousin it would be different, and the same way with me. Fancy anybody exchanging a real career for fifty kitchen sinks!" "You might follow a career, but never catch up with it," giggled the irrepressible Cladys. who ducked to dodge Jane's strong arm protest. "The thing that gets me most of all," remarked Emma thoughtfully, as they crossed over to the Park, "is how some girls like to fool themselves. If it is not about marriage, it's a career. Why such a lot of them think after they are married or out on thei; own hook they're suddenly going to be terribly changed in their tastes and everything, is more than I can see. If you don't like dish-wash-ing now, Jane, and you know very widl that you don't, why on earth do yon think in a minute that you would like it better if you had a flat? We are ourselves wherever we are." "That's easy!" cried Jane, not easilv downed "I've had no end of things, plans, my work and experiences—thrilling ones—to think over and plan and develop me as-er-er." she then added quickly, "as mv hands mechanically did tile menial risks. And you know," she went on with growing enthusiasm for her own argument, "von know what women's magazines say about the value of that!" '■Yes. and you sound about as logical as one." grumbled Chides, eross because she had just, seen a fac-sitnile of her own suit go by them as thev chose a bench near the nark entrance' and sat down. '■Humph! Your thrilling experiences develop you! T heard something at your beloved Studio Club that hits that in the eye. The speaker that day was Hie fmiesf. frail lit tic woman from the Prison Association, or sound himr. up in Connecticut, but she made me sit up and j take notice." "She sure must have been a wonder, flien." put in Jane. "She referred." went o„ Chulvs quickly, ignoring Jane's sarcasm, "to all this talk among art students and girls "oiierelly. about, Il„. value of 'thrilling experiences getting info temptation and being more or h-s Bohemian in evervfhing developing character. 'All. but it mars it. she said, and pointed out, that it surely developed and strengthened one's character much more to forego and combat temptation than to yield and get, f|„. so-called value of (he 'experience.' Jane looked serious. "T guess she's about right. After all it's a pretty big job in itself, to keep out of trouble' these days, Somewhere in one of her

books," she went on as if to justify herself, "(ieorge Elliot refers to embroidering something she or nobody else wanted as the solace of many an unhappy woman. Well, nowadays," she added, "no woman unhappy or dissatisfied takes it out in sewing—perish the thought!—but in talk, talk. Suffrage, talk, anti-talk, club talk, newspaper talk, or just private, prolonged wails. At last, so it seems to me, and I guess I've got the fever. Maybe my eiiih value to the world wouldn't pay i:iy room rent," she cndeit with a grimace. "But our cash value isn't everything [ and I haven't lost hopes of getting somebody to take me by some other." Suddenly she jumped up, "'There's cur 'bus," she exclaimed, "Hurry and let's get a top seat!" and away she bolted. THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM. One reason why marriage is so generally condemned by women writers, and volumes have been written by them on this subject, is because in its origin and linal working out it seems to be primarily a means for enforcing a man's exclusive property-rights in a woman's body and soul. Where a man looks at it in that light, we cannot blame a voman for experiencing a sense of resentment and shame, and no doubt there are millions of such cases. Marriage is a protection for the individual, whether man or woman, for the Church, for the State, and for the race. It is expedient and necessary not only to preserve the integrity of the home,' but all other institutions dependent upon it. More than this, it is the ultimate end of romance, the fulfilment of love, and the* highest form of sympathetic co-op-eration wo know of. Strange enough we do not find men writers inveighing against marriage, as an institution, and they are not clamoring for Free Love or Polygamy, or Free Divorce. It is the woman writers why do this. Nevertheless, there is occasion for some alarm in the fact th:it men are avoiding matrimony. The most common reason cited for this is the high cost of living, but lovo in a cottage is just as sweet and desirable as ever it was. The real reason, however, is, in all : probability, selfishness on the part of the man, who does not wish to give up his freedom, his pleasures, and h:s bachelor comforts and luxuries, in exchange for what to his mind is to say the least, an uncertainty. —John Horace, Lockwood.