We pray for our sisters who are leaving the ancient shelter of the home to earn their wage in the store and shop amid the press of modern life. Grant them strength of body to bear the strain of unremitting toil, and may no present pressure unfit them for the holy duties of home and motherhood which the future may lay upon them. Give them grace to cherish under the new surroundings the old sweetness and gentleness of womanhood, and in the rough mingling of life to keep the purity of their hearts and lives untarnished. Save them from the terrors of utter want. Teach them to stand by their sisters loyally, that by united action they may better their common lot. And to us all grant wisdom and firm determination that we may not suffer the women of our nation to be drained of strength and hope for the enrichment of a few, lest our homes grow poor in the wifely sweetness and motherly love which have been the saving strength and glory of our country. If it must be so that our women toil like men, help us still to reverence in them the mothers of the future. If they yearn for love and the sovereign freedom of their own home, give them in due time the fulfilment of their sweet desires. By Mary the beloved, who bore the world's redemption in her bosom; by the memory of our own dear mothers who kissed our souls awake; by the little daughters who must soon go out into that world which we are now fashioning for others, we pray that we may deal aright by all women.
Men are praying for women, and women are working for themselves. Commercial rapacity is tempered by women's tears, and the tender stories of the shop-girl that O. Henry wrote are more read to-day than they were in the author's lifetime. The newspapers are all agog with the "vice-probes," scandals, questions of eugenics, the menace of organised capital, the woman's movement. And they are not so because vice is more prolific than in Europe, or the race more inclined to fail, or the working men and working women more tyrannised over. They are so because this generation wishes to realise something of the New Jerusalem in its own lifetime. It may be only a foolish dream, but it provides the present atmosphere of America. It discounts the despair which on the one hand prudery and on the other rag-time dancing invite. It discounts the commercial and mechanical obsession of the people. It discounts the wearisome shouting of the cynic who has money in his pocket, and makes America a place in which it is still possible for the simple immigrant to put his trust. In the light of this passion, and never forgetful of it, I view all that comes to my notice in America of to-day.
IV INEFFACEABLE MEMORIES OF NEW YORK
First, the flood of the homeward tide at six-thirty in the evening, the thousands and tens of thousands of smartly dressed shop-girls hurrying and flocking from the lighted West to the shadowy East—their bright, hopeful, almost expectant features, their vivacity and energy even at the end of the long day. I felt the contrast with the London crowd, which is so much gloomier and wearier as it throngs into our Great Eastern terminus of Liverpool Street. New York has a stronger class of girl than London. Our shop-girls are London-bred, but your Sadie and Dulcie are the children of foreigners; they have peasant blood in them and immigrant hope. They have a zest for the life that New York can offer them after shop-hours.
The average wage of the American shop-girl is stated to be seven dollars (twenty-eight shillings) per week; the average wage in London is about ten shillings, or two and a half dollars.[1] I suppose that is another reason why our New York sisters are more cheerful. Despite the high price of food in New York there must be a comparatively broad margin left to the American girl to do what she likes with. The cult of the poor little girl of the Department Store is perhaps only a cult. For there are many women in New York more exploited than she. When the shop-girl sells herself to rich men for marriage or otherwise she does so because she has been infected by the craze for finery and wealth, is energetic and vivacious, and is morally undermined. It is not because she is worn out and ill-paid. If New York is evil it is not because New York is a failure. The city is prosperous and evil as well. The freshness and health and vigour of the rank and file of New York were amazing to one familiar with the drab and dreary procession of workers filing into the city of London at eight in the morning and away from it at the same hour in the evening.
Then the Grand Central Station, with its vast high hall of marble, surmounted by a blue-green ceiling which, aping heaven itself, is fretted and perforated and painted to represent the clear night sky. That starry roof astonished me. It reminded me of a story I heard of G. K. Chesterton, that he lay in bed on a Sunday morning and with a crayon mounted on a long handle drew pictures on the white ceiling. It was like some dream of Chesterton's realised.
For a long time I looked at the painted roof and picked out my beloved stars and constellations,—the planets under which I like to sleep,—and then I thought, "Strange, that out in the glowing Broadway, not far away, the real stars are hidden from the gaze of New York by flashing and twinkling and changing sky-signs in manifold colour and allurement. Every night the dancing-girl is dancing in the sky, and the hand pours out the yellow beer into the foaming glass which, like the vision of the Grail, appears but to vanish; every night the steeds prance with the Greek chariot, the athletes box, the kitten plays with the reel. These are the real stars and constellations of Broadway, for Charles's Wain is never seen, neither Orion nor the chair of Cassiopeia nor the Seven Sisters. To see them you must come in here, into the Grand Central Station."
But apart from this paradox, what a station this is—a great silent temple, a place wherein to come to meditate and to pray. It is more beautiful than any of the churches of America. How much more beautiful than the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, for instance. That cathedral will be the largest church in the world when it is finished, and, vanity of vanities, how much more secular it is than the station! It is almost conceivable that after some revolution in the future, New York might change its mind and go to worship at the Grand Central Station and run its trains into the Cathedral of St. John.