WOMAN OR LADY?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 27 December 1913, Page 4

WOMAN OR LADY?

iji'-n die-' j does ikvibe*6.<yb^'iiii''^ecoiiie>a lady? This interesting gUe&ion is raised in a letter'to a London journal, which, doubtless in a moment of haste, had casually described as a woman one who in dying left £17,000 behind her. An indignant relative drew attention to the matter, and urged that the term "woman" was an improper description of one whose friends had held "good positions in Stratford-onr Avon." It is very sad. "Set- there are men and women with good claims to be entitled ladies and gentlemen, whose bank accounts fall far short of £17,000. Money, however, has nothing to do with the master. In all essentials, a man who earns his bread on the footplate of an engine may be a gentleman; a woman who scrubs floors for* a living may be a lady. The true lady and the true gentleman are they who possess a fragrance of thought, and habit, and manner" which humble circumstances only make the more conspicuous. The in-, cident illustrates'* the narrow meaning that has become attached to the: word woman which poets and philosophers have long since used to denote all that is highest and best in humanity.