“But, Professor,” I said, “they must believe in clubs as a medicine, as a stimulant in the case of a threatening mental chill—”
“Don’t be frivolous,” commanded the Professor; “my irony was incidental to the statement that all of this talk about the seriousness of women’s clubs is based on a misapprehension. In outward form the clubs are serious, and the theme, their ostensible raison d’être, almost justifies the misapprehension. When you see a batch of women setting in upon civil government, or mediæval pottery, or Sanskrit, or Homer’s hymn to the Dioscuri, or the Heftkhan of Isfendiyar, it is, perhaps, instinctive that the uninformed should jump to the conclusion that these women are serious, though a moment’s thought might suggest a wiser view. If women really took these things seriously they would not survive. The truth is that the French Revolution, and the Rig-Veda, and the Ramayana are all very amusing if you know how to go at them. If the physical culture classes took the exercises as seriously as the teachers I am sure the members would all break down. And it is the same way with the study of cathedrals or street-cleaning.”
I reminded the Professor of the lady I had heard of, who wanted to know at the club whether the Parliamentary drill then organizing was anything like the Delsarte movements, and of the other, who, at her first meeting, being appointed a teller, wanted to know what she was to tell. “I trust, Professor, that you will not take from me my simple, unquestioning faith in the earnestness of these light-seeking ladies.”
“Those instances,” smiled the Professor, “illustrate the first phase. You must not be misled by them, for they actually are confirmatory. You may discern in them the attitude of mind favorable to the feminine way of taking things lightly. A woman who asks why, never gets nervous prostration. It is when she gets above asking why that you may watch for shipwreck.”
“Well, Professor, all I can say is that you have left me in a state of miserable darkness as to women’s clubs. Surely there are vast misapprehensions somewhere.”
“There surely are,” admitted the Professor.
“But how do you explain them?”
“The women?”
“The clubs.”