THE WELL MEANING WOMAN.

Observer, Volume II, Issue 40, 18 June 1881, Page 439

THE WELL MEANING WOMAN.

Of well-meaning women the types aye, I suppose, various, but between the Avell meaning women that I have known there has been such a strong family resemblance, that I am inclined to think that the types differ only superficially. My pet specimen of this class of being is not delightful to behold; she is tall and angular; she is not really old, but she looks pinched and wizened; her hair is dull and coarse ; her small eyes are lustreless, save when at times they acquire a kind of hungry glare, as of a wild, half - starved animal ; her face is like a hatchet, and her voice like a poisoned arrow piercing the brain. I discovered very early in our acquaintanceship that she busied herself with every one else's affairs. What right had Mr. T. of Parnell to take cabs in wet weather, and to have such a good coat to his back, and they with only two hundred to live on, and of course a family to come ? She should go to Mrs. T., and tell her just what she thought ofj

her husband; the sooner her eyes, poor little woman, "were opened to his disgusting seliishness, the better it would be. Mrs. Smith was flirting with Mr. Jones in a simply outrageous way. She would tell Mr. Smith ; that poor man should be duped no longer. Another unmarried young person was pelting herself just as hard as she could at the head of a perfectly \mresponsive young man ; yet another person lied, and a third drank too many nobblers. From the first I did not think her views charitable, nor did I in all cases believe in the wisdom of the steps she proposed to take. She was zealous for the good of mankind, overzealous, doubtless doing a great deal of harm sometimes, but meaning well, of that I and all that knew her were sure. When she told a would-be Auckland poet that if she were he, she should throw all he had written into the fire; when she morally flew at the throat of a popular musician because he had ventured to compose some music after the modern German style, I felt for the bard, I felt for the man of notes. She wished to save them the mortification of public failure; she might use harsh means, but she m cant well. This is what I said; it was what all who knew her said. Even some sweet souls, into whose sacred privacies whether of joy or sorrow, she strove to intrude, forebore mentally to strike her down, maintaining that she meant well. Among many memorable days in my life, one day stands out as specially memorable. It was

the day, when suddenly, without warning, without as far as I could see any reason in particular there flashed dazzlingly upon my moral sense the conviction, complete, irresistible, demonstrable, that the well-meaning woman did not mean well; that she was a scandal-monger, a liar, an impostor; that— unable to avenge herself on Providence for creating her with her face and body not only void of charm, but positively repulsive — she lavished on men and women that virulence which ferments with wonderful rapidity in a nature from the first self-centred and sour. Why had we ever accredited her with the one good point of at least meaning well, even if she were so hopelessly lacking in tact, so inevitably sure to do the wrong thing instead of the right thing, when she went to carry out what we thought her good intentions? The reason then was as clear to me as daylight. It was because she offended the eye; "it was because she lacerated the ear; because she outraged taste we could not believe that anything in shape of woman was totally without one vestige of grace of soul or body, that was why we had monstrously deluded ourselves and had left her the virtue of being a well meaning woman. There are women in the world, dear peace-makers, Heaven bless them ! There are sweet, tender compassionate women, who go about the world seeking for all such as are sick of heart, and doing all that lies in their power to heal them,

but they are not the women in whose favour the one thing that we can say till we know better is, that they mean well. Allegra.