viewed some of our modern garden-parties? Would our Laureate have gone there for the counterparts of his Elaine "the lovable," the gentle Enid, the gracious Isabel, or even to shadow forth Princess Ida and the coming race of "sweet girl graduates," who in other ways were to usurp the functions of discrowned man? If the Venusian poet could have projected his vision to our day, can we not imagine him ceasing from his Phyllises and Pyrihas, his Licymuias and Lalages, and over a goblet of Cæcuban or choice Massic launching new iambics against the young ladies of to-day, who at fashionable gatherings are to he seen careering wildly round a grass-plot, or scampering at top-speed toward a pair of males brandishing broomstaves, a spectacle for gods and men ? Well might he have exclaimed with a new import "Quo fugit Venus," how béit he would scarcely have needed to add " Quove color decens, quo motus?" Or, again, can we for a moment imentally associate with such unfeminine pastimes as we have been considering, any of the types of that Shakesperian" beauty making beautiful old rhyme," which have charmed the souls of generations of men and women? We say emphatically, no; and can but echo the words of the immortal sonneteer

"For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise."

:

Place aux dames by all means, but then, dames in their place. In plain commonsense, to what conclusion do our criticisms tend, in respect of outdoor recreation suitable for girls and women? Clearly to this, -that the sex should avoid any pursuit or diversion which necessarily involves violent running. For, pace the shade of the swiftfooted Atalanta, running, we submit, is not the strong point of woman. She can swim, she can dance, she can ride all these she can do admirably and with ease to herself. But to run, nature most surely did not construct her. She can do it after a fashion, just as the domestic hen will on occasions make shift to fly; but the movement is constrained and awkward-may we say it without disrespect? a kind of precipitate waddle with neither grace, fit ness, nor dignity. No. We dare say, in the present-day zeal to reform everything and everybody, a multitude of enterprising

hands would, were it possible, be only too ready to re-form woman; but fortunately this is beyond them.

We

Happily the mischief so far has not gone very deep, for the mannish leanings of our female folk are as yet, we think and hope, confined to a limited social circle. But it is a circle with influence, from which those below take their leaven; and we should regret to see a taste for masculine romps spreading among the young women of the middle classes. have no desire to set up as censors of the incomparable sex in any walk of life; but the conviction that some among our countrywomen, both mothers and daughters, have gone astray in this matter of female recreations, must be our excuse for the foregoing remarks. Those remarks have been made with the more freedom in that we are satisfied the great majority of women will be heartily with us. Nay, we believe many of the young ladies themselves, led in this direction more by fashion than their own inclinations, would on reflection acknowledge the force of what we have said.

But, having addressed ourselves by way of protest in certain particulars to adult women, we naturally make a distinction. If grown-up young gentlewomen confine their playing of racing or rough games to a family party, or to a very intimate coterie of friends, our objections will lose much of their weight; though still we should hold to our guiding principle, that no female can in any situation afford to disregard the figure she may cut to others, even en famille. And we would rather see this principle carried to the verge of prudery, than neglected and " pooh poohed," from a quasi masculine notion of independence. It is, however, against her participation in what are essentially male sports and male sports only-when in the publicity of fashionable entertainments-that we have been remonstrating. As to schoolgirls up to a certain age, we of course except them from any prohibition of the kind. Practically, they may play at what they please, the dears,-run, jump, roll, leap frog, tug the " tug of war, bene placito, along with brothers and boy. mates, if only the maternal eye can be kept away from them for any odd half-hour in the day!

There is yet to be dealt with another aspect of the modern mannish maiden,

apart from her recreations, and it is a seious one for contemplation. Have we not noticed within the last few years a change in the demeanor of "society" girls toward the other sex? How shall we define it? A kind of brusque audaciousness in conversation, with a soupçon of slangy chaff an affectation of assuming to know more of what is what than their mothers and grandinothers were ever permitted or supposed to know. Do they not often go perilously near the border-line which convenance prescribes shall not be overstepped? We do not mean this last in the sense in which it is alleged, and truly, that our ancestresses of the last century thought it no shame to call a spade a spade, and when young demoiselles of sensibility and vivacity used to sigh over the misfortunes of a Clarissa Harlowe, or divert themselves with the adventures of Tom Jones and Sophia Western. It is something quite different from that that the present race of young women affect. It is rather a total want of sentiment that prevails. In former days the sex were wont to appeal to men from their softer, gentler, weaker side. Now, it is the reThey appear to aim at meeting inen on their own platform, and consorting with them as like to like,-from a man's standpoint rather than from a woman's. A girl nowadays will unabashed chaff her male partner, rally him, amuse him, in his own coin, in his own manner, and in the way he would her. This is what we understand as the female mannishness so noticeable in the beau monde of to-day, and, we may add, so unlovely. It is forgotten that what a man desires in a woman is contrast, not a caricature of himself.

verse.

What is the immediate result? The "male thing," as the charming little Lilia dubbed him, may be tickled, diverted, conceded to, in this way; but does he respect the concessor the more, does she win his liking, draw his admiration, on these lines? He may vote his fair friend, in his modern argot," ripping good fun" (an expression once reported to us as overheard in this connection); but what about his inmost feelings toward her? She may, to be sure, in not a few cases retort of the modern young gentleman, -does he possess any feelings worthy of her consideration ? What of his selfishness, his vanity, his utter lack of the old-fashioned courtliness to women, which at the present mo

ment survives chiefly in middle-aged or elderly gentlemen? No doubt arguments might be bandied to and fro as to cause and effect, action and reaction, in this matter, which would fill many more of these pages.

But now, how is this access of mannishness in our female associates to be accounted for? We fear the reason is to be sought in the rather strained social conditions which obtain in the upper classes of this our day. In these classes the disproportion of the sexes is gradually growing greater by reason of the deportation of the men to foreign parts in the ever-increasing heat of competition. In the survival of the fittest, thousands of young men, gently born and bred, have to go to the wall, and disappear out of society at home, whereas their sisters remain in the parental fold to jostle and crowd one another out in the haunts of Vanity Fair. What follows? Why, this a sort of rough competitive struggle on the part of the redundant sex for popularity with the other, and a casting about for the best means to compass this end. Thus does the maiden fondly imagine that by imitation of the man's manners and modes of thought, she can level up to him, and so contrive

"To lift the woman's fall in divinity Upon an even pedestal with man: forgetting the while that

"Could we make her as the man, Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this,

Not like to like, but like in difference."

Such, we venture to suggest, is a possible explanation of the set of the wind latterly in the unfeminine direction we deplore; which has given to girls, and not a few women, mannish manners, mannish talk, mannish amusements. The tendency is one we cannot but deem as unwholesome for the woman, as it is certainly unrefining and hardening to the man. In proportion as she departs from the old and true ideal in her attitude toward him, so does he become more exacting, more indifferent, more casual,' as the stock phrase goes, toward her. Few that read these lines but must have heard the oft-echoed complaint of mothers and daughters alike, in respect of the scant deference, the freeand-easy tone, the neglect of the little courtesies, the undisguised air of condescension, exhibited by our modern bache

66

97

lors to the youthful spinsters they may chance against in the social circle. Of course, as we have already noted, these remarks are put forward with limitations. As there are men and men, so are there women and women; and notwithstanding these vagaries in a few, the great heart of British womanhood, we are satisfied, beats true enough. Still, there is a danger, where fashion sets its seal to anything, however extravagant.

We have reserved to the last a word upon what is apparently the latest develop ment of women's mania to masquerade as men-their taking to smoke tobacco. If the voluminous correspondence which has recently appeared on this subject in a London daily paper, and other periodicals, is to be believed, one would have to take it that this habit, permitted to men on sufferance, has spread like an epidemic among the other sex. Has it then really come to this, that after racking our brains over the interrogatory, "Is marriage a failure, we are asked to discuss seriously such a question as "Should women smoke?'' It would seem so, when arguments are gravely advanced defending the practice among the weaker sex, albeit the pleas set up are of the flimsiest-just such as might be expected from the advocates of su detestable an innovation. One knew that certain classes of women abroad smoked, and a phenomenal lady-smoker in this country might be encountered once or so perchance in a lifetime. But beyond this, one thought the uses of tobacco were confined to smoke-dried old beldams, gypsy-women, and suchlike females of the lowest grades. We are told, forsooth, that some women and girls have irritable nerves, and require soothing with tobacco : that smoking conduces to companionship and conviviality between the sexes, and helps to break down the inconvenient oldfashioned partitions that divide them : that women have as much right to smoke as men. And to clinch the matter with the unanswerable dictum of fashion a Transatlantic correspondent, claiming some knowledge of our Upper Ten," commits herself to the amazing statement that, "in the highest society in England, smoking among women has now become as universal as among men. We hear further of young ladies confessing, without shame or confusion of face, indeed with a certain maidenly pride, to occupying themselves

66

in the personal coloring of meerschaum pipes!

If

"Should a

All this, and much more of the same tenor, would be farcical, were it not, as we have reason to fear, partially true. But, we have neither space nor inclination to go further into this matter of women's smoking here. Nor are we careful to differentiate as between cigar and cigarette, meerschaum or clay pipe, in any such connection; nor yet to attempt to drag in nicotine, hygiene, or therapeutics, to make a point either one way or the other. the answer to the question, woman smoke?" is not self-evident to an average woman's apprehension and instinct, we should despair of ever convincing her. Whether this modern fungousgrowth of female smoking is the outcome of the hybrid tomboyism we have been lamenting in the sex, or is only cousingerman to it, we know not. We are rather inclined to regard it mainly as a phase or symptom of the same whimsical mimicry of men which for the moment is in vogue. And now, to have done with the atmosphere of women's smokingrooms, we will close this part of our observations with a quotation from one of the numerous weekly serials published specially for gentlewomen: "Even gentle and modest girls seem to be bitten with the craze for flattering the other sex by imitating their dress, following their pastimes, and adopting their vocabulary. Shirt-fronts, pins, hats, waistcoats, canes, are borrowed or adopted, and pass as articles of ordinary feminine attire. The habit of smoking is part of the same fashion." * These are the words of a ladywriter, whose remarks bave the right ring in them, and we fear they are but too true.

Little more remains to be said. If we have seemed in our observations to bear too hardly on any of our too hardly on any of our society" sisters, we humbly crave their pardon. We are of those who recognize to the full the manifold excellences of the gentler sex, their unquestionable superiority to man iu a variety of ways, and their capability to teach him many lessons in the best sense. But it is precisely because this is so, that we desire to see women remain women, and not aspire to be poor imitations of If there be a divinity which "doth hedge a king," surely there is a something

men.

*"The Lady," 17th October, 1889.

akin to divinity-born of her sweetness, her weakness, her lovingness-inherent in woman, be it the lowliest, which should hedge her in, and keep her wholly woman in her thoughts and occupations. And so long as she is content to be herself, with the idiosyncrasies and limits the Great Modeller has assigned to her, so long and no longer will she be in a position to claim the homage of her complement-man. It is not, however, the "unhealthy ideal of chivalry,' as a recent writer has been pleased to call it, that man wants, "a cross between an angel and an idiot, nor does he look for perfection in her.

"A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food' will suffice him, if she will but hold fast to her womanliness, and let it clothe her as a vesture. The ancient well-trodden path of womankind, fenced and guideposted, is, we are sure, the best and safest; neither are the last years of this nineteenth century, nor any years yet to come, going to show us a more excellent way.

You, matron and maiden of the present,

should alike throw all your weight into the scale against aught that tends to disturb the seemliness, the dignity, the attractiveness, the lustre, of your sex. So will you best help to maintain for the regulation and solace of mankind the true gynarchy. Thus, and thus only, can you hope to realize in this our day the noble aspiration of the sublime singer, "that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.' And such of you as may be at times tempted to think lightly of woman's powers and influence in the past, take for your comfort as our last words the utterance of the youthful Zorobabel in presence of a mighty Median monarch, his princes, governors, captains, and high officers. "O ye men, it is not the great king, nor the multitude of men, neither is it wine, that excelleth who is it then that ruleth them, or hath the lordship over them? are they not women? . . O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong? O ye men, are not women strong?"* Blackwood's Magazine.

THE wide pampa rough with long grass; a vast level disk now growing daik, the horizon encircling it with a ring as faultless as that made by a pebble dropped into smooth water; above it the clear sky of June wintry and pale, still showing in the west the saffron hues of the afterglow tinged with vapory violet and gray. In the centre of the disk a large low rancho thatched with yellow rushes, a few stunted trees and cattle enclosures grouped about it; and, dimly seen in the shadows, cattle and sheep reposing. At the gate stands Gregory Gorostiaga, lord of house, lands and ruminating herds, leisurely unsaddling his horse; for whatsoever Gregory does is done leisurely. Although no person is within earshot he talks much over his task, now rebuking his restive animal, and now cursing his benumbed fingers and the hard knots in his gear. A cuise falls readily and not without a certain natural grace from Gregory's lips; it is the oiled feather

* 1 Esdras, iv. 14, 32, 34.

with which he touches every difficult knot encountered in life. From time to him he glances toward the open kitchen door, from which issue the far-flaring light of the fire and familiar voices, with savory smells of cookery that come to his nostrils like pleasant messengers.

The unsaddling over at last the freed horse gallops away, neighing joyfully, to seek his fellows; but Gregory is not a four footed thing to hurry himself; and so, stepping slowly and pausing frequently to look about him as if reluctant to quit the cold night air, he turns toward the house.

The spacious kitchen was lighted by two or three wicks in cups of melted fat, and by a great fire in the middle of the clay floor that cast crowds of dancing shadows on the walls and filled the whole room with grateful warmth. On the walls were fastened inany deers' heads, and on their convenient prongs were hung bridles and lassos, ropes of onions and garlics, bunches of dried herbs, and various other

objects. At the fire a piece of beef was roasting on a spit; and in a large pot suspended by hook and chain from the smokeblackened central beam, boiled and bubbled an ocean of mutton broth, puffing out white clouds of steam redolent of herbs and cummin.sced. Close to the fire, skimmer in hand, sat Magdalen, Gregory's fat and florid wife, engaged in frying pies in a second smaller pot. There also, on a high, straight-backed chair, sat Ascension, her sister-in law, a wrinkled spinster; also, in a low rush-bottomed seat, her mother. in-law, an ancient white-headed dame, staring vacantly into the flames. On the other side of the fire were Gregory's two eldest daughters, occupied just now in serving maté to their elders-that harmless bitter decoction the sipping of which fills пр all vacant moments from dawn to bedtime-pretty dove eyed girls of sixteen, both also named Magdalen, but not after their mother nor because confusion was loved by the family for its own sake; they were twins, and born on the day sacred to Santa Magdalena. Slumbering dogs and cats were disposed about the flour, also four children. The eldest, a boy, sitting with legs outstretched before him, was cutting threads from a slip of colt's hide looped over his great toe. The two next, boy and girl, were playing a simple game called nines, once known to English children as nine men's morrice; the lines were rudely scratched on the clay floor, and the men they played with were bits of hardened clay, nine red and as many white. The youngest, a girl of five, sat on the floor nursing a kitten that purred contentedly on her lap and drowsily winked its blue eyes at the fire; and as she swayed herself from side to side she lisped out an old lullaby in her baby voice.

Gregory stood on the threshold surveying this domestic scene with manifest pleasure. Papa mine, what have you brought me?" cried the child with the kitten.

66

"What has happened to put her out?" he asked.

"I can tell you, papa," cried one of the twins. "She wouldn't let me make your cigars to day, and sat down out of doors to make them herself. It was after breakfast when the sun was warın.

"And of course she fell asleep," chimed in Ascension.

"Let me tell it, auntie !'' exclaimed the other. "And she fell asleep, and in a moment Rosita's lamb came and ate up the whole of the tobacco-leaf in her lap.'

"It didn't!'' cried Rosita, looking up from her game. "I opened its mouth and looked with all my eyes, and there was no tobacco-leaf in it."

That lamb that lamb !" said Gregory slyly. "Is it to be wondered at that we are turning gray before our time-all except Rosita ! Remind me to-morrow, wife, to take it to the flock; or if it has grown fat on all the tobacco-leaf, aprons and old shoes it has eaten-"

66

Oh, no, no, no!" screamed Rosita, starting up and throwing the game into confusion, just when her little brother had made a row and was in the act of seizing on one of her pieces in triumph.

"Hush, silly child, he will not harm your lamb," said the mother pausing from her task and raising eyes that were tearful with the smoke of the fire and of the cigarette she held between her good-humored lips.

"And now, if these children have finished speaking of their important affairs, tell me, Gregory, what news do you bring?"

66

They say," he returned, sitting down an taking the maté-cup from his daughter's hand, "that the invading Indians bring seven hundred lances, and that those that first opposed them were all slain. Some say they are now retreating with the cattle they have taken; while others maintain that they are waiting to fight our

men.