“Now there’s something wrong when we’ve come to this, and the wrong does not lie with these people but with those they imitate––Gorgeous Girls, new-rich with sickly consciences and lack of principle and common sense; and these Gorgeous Girls in turn take their styles, slang phrases, and modes of recreation, as well as theories of life from the boldest dancer, the most sensational chorus girl––and it’s wrong and not what America should be called upon to endure. 169 And it all reverts back in a sense to you busy, unprincipled, yet conscience-stricken American business men who write checks for these Gorgeous Girls––and the heathen in Africa––and wonder why golf doesn’t bring your blood pressure down to normal––when your grandfather had such a wonderful constitution at eighty-four! Don’t you know that get-rich-quick people always pay a usurer’s interest on the suddenly accumulated principle?”
“Keep on,” he said in the same surly tone.
“And when I go downtown and view the weary, unwashed females and the overly ambitious painted ones, people in impossible bargain shoes and summer furs; fat men in plaid suits and Alpine hats; undernourished children being dragged along by unthinking adults; stray dogs wistfully sniffing at passers-by in hopes of finding a permanent friend; tired, blind work horses standing in the sun and resignedly being overloaded for the day’s haul; fire sales of fur coats; candy sales of gooey hunks; a jewellery special of earrings warranted to betray no tarnish until well after Christmas; brokers’ ads and vaudeville billboards and rows upon rows of awful, huddled-up, gardenless homes with families lodged somewhere between the first and twelfth stories––the general chasing after nothing, saving nothing and, saddest of all, the complacent delusion that they have achieved something well worth while––it makes me willing to earn and learn as I do.”
“Don’t leave me in the quicksand. What can we do about it?”
“Make that sort of American woman realize that she is more needed in the home and can accomplish more with that as her goal than in any other place in 170 the world. You don’t know all my dreams for the American woman––don’t you think that this Gorgeous Girl parasitical type is a result of the Victorian revolt? Too late for themselves the Victorian matrons said: ‘Our daughters shall never slave as we have done; they shall be ladies––and have careers, too, bless their hearts.’ The Victorian matrons were emerging from the unfair conditions of ignorance and drudgery and they could realize only one side of the argument––that all work and no play made Jill quite a stupid girl.
“But we must grasp the other side of the matter––that all play and no work make her simply impossible; that culture and self-sufficiency can go hand in hand. The American woman really is––and must continue to be––the all-round, regular fellow of the feminine world. Then she will not only teach a great and needed truth to her backward European sisters but she will produce a great future race. American women have tried frivolity in nearly every form and they have worked seriously likewise; they have intruded into men’s professions and careers and in cases have beaten men at their own game. They have successfully broken down the narrow prejudice and limitations which the Victorian era tried making immortal under the title of sentiment––but after they have had the reward of victory and the knowledge of the game, why not be square, as they really are, and do the part the Great Plan meant them to do? Be women first––let the career take the woman if need be, but always thank the good Lord if it needn’t be.”
“And to think you have been working for me,” Steve said, softly.
“I know that culture and enjoyment of life may be yoked with so-called drudgery. I know, too, that women are retiring not in defeat but with honour and victory in its truest sense when they step out of business life back to their homes. Nor are they empty-handed like the Victorian matrons; but with the energy of tried and true warriors, the ballot in one hand, the child led by the other, they are in a position to right old wrongs, for they have won new rights. They will be able to put into practice in their homes all they have gleaned from the sojourn in the world; the ill-given service of unfitted menials will disappear, as will waste and nerve-racking detail.
“And love must be the leavener of it all––with all her progress and her ability, trained talents and clever logic, the American woman must not and will not renounce her romance––for it is part of God’s very promise of immortality.”