But you will note that Dame Nature swears this, and she is not a competent witness, as she had nothing to do with the little surgical episode when Brother Adam lost his rib. [Laughter.] Lord Lyttleton gave our sisters good advice, as follows:—
"Seek to be good, but aim not to be great,
A woman's noblest station is Retreat,
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight,
Domestic worth that shuns too strong a light."
Another English authority named "Howe," in his "Advice to Wives," says:—
"A wife, domestic, good and pure
Like snail should keep within her door,
But not, like snail, with silver track
Place all her wealth upon her back."
But who in these latter days would preach the heresies of those old-fashioned fellows to the hundreds of ladies present, plumed in all the titles and distinctions of the hundred and one woman's clubs of to-day, which they represent. Perish the thought!
Woman is being emancipated. She is enthroned in the sun, crowned with stars, and, trampling beneath her dainty feet the burnt-out moon, emblem of a vanished despotism that denied her the companionship of her husband, questioned her immortality, locked her up in the harem, or harnessed her to the plough. A hundred years from now, if she does a man's work, she will be paid a man's wages [applause], and some of us will not have to work for a living, but can go to our clubs in peace, take our afternoon naps, and be ready in the evening to get Mamma's slippers ready when she comes home from the office. [Laughter.]
But the problem for to-night is how to consider the various relations which women bear to us weak, frail men—as mother or mother-in-law, as sweetheart or wife. We are somewhat in the predicament of the green bridegroom at Delmonico's who said: "Waiter, we want dinner for two." "Will ze lady and ze gentleman haf table d'hote or a la carte?" "Oh, bring us some of both, with lots of gravy on 'em!" Oh, ye Knights! Take the advice of the philosopher who is talking to you, and be on the best of terms with your mother-in-law. [Laughter.] Only get her on your side, and you have a haven to fly to when all others fail to appreciate you, and when some one of the others feels appointed a special agent to tell you about it. Now, it isn't everybody that knows this, and I commend it to you. [Laughter.]
Some men are like the two darkies I heard discussing the question of what a man should do if he were in a boat on a wide river, with his mother and his wife, and the boat should sink, and he could only save one woman. "Johnson," said Billy Rice, "who would you save, yo' mudder or yo' wife?" Johnson thought and said: "Billy! I would save my mudder. I could get anudder wife, but where under the blue canopy of hebben could I get anudder dear old mudder?" "But look here, Billy! 'Spose you was in de boat, in de middle of de river, wid yo' wife and yo' mudder-in-law?" "Oh, what a cinch!"—said Billy. "And de boat," continued Johnson, "was to strike a snag and smash to pieces, and eberybody go into de water, who would you save?" "My wife, dar! my mudder-in-law dar! and de boat strike a snag?" "Yes!" "I would save de snag," said Billy. "I could get anudder wife, I might den have anudder mudder-in-law, but where under de blue canopy of hebben could I find anudder dear, thoughtful old snag?" [Laughter.]
It has been well said that "all a woman has to do in this world is contained within the duties of a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mother." She has sustained at least one of these relations to even the poorest of us; but I wonder if there is a man here to-night so miserably abject and forlorn and God-forsaken as not, some time in his life, to have been able to regard her in the delightful relation of sweetheart? I hope not. I would rather he had had a dozen, than no sweetheart at all. The most unselfish devotion we may ever know is that of our mother; a sweet affection is that of our sisters, a most tender love is that of our daughters, but the love and affection we all want, and without which we are never satisfied, is that of the sweethearts who reward our devotion—out of all proportion to our deserts—by becoming our wives and the mothers of our daughters. [Applause.]
It is not less the pleasure than the duty of every man to have a sweetheart—I was almost tempted to say, the more, the merrier—and the sooner he makes one of his sweethearts his wife, the better for him. If he is a "woman-hater," or professes to be (for, as a matter of fact, there is no such anomaly as a genuine "woman-hater" at liberty in this great and glorious country), let him beware, as I believe with Thackeray, that a "woman, with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. [Laughter.] Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power." As the poet—what's-his-name—so beautifully and feelingly and touchingly observes:—