A Word to Women

by Mrs. Humphry

A difficult task.

A friend of mine, whose husband became a drunkard, told me that the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life was to remonstrate with him when he first began to drink too much. It was a clear duty, and she did it, but it required the summoning up of all her fortitude, as some who read these words may know but too well from their own experience. “When I began,” she told me, “my knees trembled, and at last I shook as if I had been in an ague. It was quite dreadful to me to speak to him, and yet he took it as though I were out of temper, and merely shrewish.” “And did it do any good?” I asked, and she told me that he was better for a few weeks, and seemed to be struggling against the love of drink, but that after a couple of months things were as bad as ever again.

Cowardice with friends.

I do not know any one possessed of sufficient moral courage to deal faithfully with their friends and relatives on the subject of objectionable little ways in eating or drinking, or in the hundred and one little actions of daily life. We endure silently the sight of excessively disagreeable habits rather than risk giving mortal offence. In fact, we are sad cowards. “How dreadful it is to sit opposite So-and-so when he is eating,” says one member of the family to another. “He ought to be told about it.” “Oh, I couldn’t! I simply could not,” is the instant reply, and the other echoes, “Nor I. Not for worlds!” And So-and-so goes on in his ugly ways, throwing food into his mouth as though the latter were a cave without a door, and everywhere he goes this lack of good manners makes people take a dislike to him. He certainly ought to be told of it; but who is to tell him?

A penalty of eminence.

If it is difficult in the home, what must it be in the case of the high ones of the earth, to whom all the world turns a courtier face? Some time ago I was asked to meet at luncheon a very great lady, one whom in my thoughts I had placed on a sort of pedestal on account of her beauty, her high place in the world, and her many sorrows. I was delighted, and eagerly accepted the invitation. The lady was beautiful still, in spite of her grey hair, but all her charm is spoiled by a habit of almost incessant snorting—no less vivid word will express it! At the luncheon table it was not only excessively pronounced, but additionally disagreeable. Romance had shone like a star in all my thoughts about this great lady until then, but the radiance died away on the instant and has never again returned—“Alles ist weg!” And such a trifle, too, after all! If only some one had dared to deal faithfully with that great lady there would be nothing to disgust or offend about her.

Glass houses?

We know ourselves so little that we should carefully cherish an acute distrust, and be ready to suspect in our own persons the existence of some flaw or imperfection for every one we detect in others. Perhaps it is an inward consciousness that we live in a glass house that makes us fear to throw stones.

Correcting the maids.

It is with a quaking heart that the mistress of a household remonstrates with her maids on any point in which they have failed in duty. It needs considerable moral courage to discharge oneself of this necessary task. One puts off the evil moment as long as possible, and meditates in the night watches as to the most feasible plan of getting it done. And very often the point is weakly abandoned. We cannot risk exposing ourselves to the “tongue-thrashing” in which some of the basement ladies are such gifted performers. A recipe for fault-finding.The safest way is always to mingle praise with blame, just as we hide a powder in jam. “You are always so very neat, Mary, that I am sure this cannot be neglect, but just a little bit of forgetfulness.” Or, “Your soups are generally so excellent, cook, that,” &c. This is a good recipe for fault-finding, and it works well, too, with our equals, though, of course, one has to be doubly careful in dealing courteously with so sensitive a class as servants.