in
America; but there are no women of leisure in the same circle. They hold
their social position on condition of "an establishment," and an
establishment makes them working-women. One result is the constant exodus
of this class to Europe, where domestic life is just now easier. Another
consequence is that you hear woman suffrage denounced by women of this
class, not on the ground that it involves any harder work than they already
do, but on the ground that they have work enough already, and will not bear
the suggestion of any more.

THE EMPIRE OF MANNERS

I was present at a lively discourse, administered by a young lady just from
Europe to a veteran politician. "It is of very little consequence," she
said, "what kind of men you send out as foreign ministers. The thing of
real importance is that they should have the right kind of wives. Any man
can sign a treaty, I suppose, if you tell him what kind of treaty it must
be. But all his social relations with the nations to which you send him
will depend on his wife." There was some truth, certainly, in this
audacious conclusion. It reminded me of the saying of a modern thinker,
"The only empire freely conceded to women is that of manners,--but it is
worth all the rest put together."

Every one instinctively feels that the graces and amenities of life must be
largely under the direction of women. The fact that this feeling has been
carried too far, and has led to the dwarfing of women's intellect, must not
lead to a rejection of this important social sphere. It is too strong a
power to be ignored. George Eliot says well that "the commonest man, who
has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between
a lovely, delicate woman, and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference
in their presence." At a summer resort, for instance, one sees women who
may be intellectually very ignorant and narrow, yet whose mere manners give
them a social power which the highest intellects might envy. To lend joy
and grace to all one's little world of friendship; to make one's house a
place which every guest enters with eagerness, and leaves with reluctance;
to lend encouragement to the timid, and ease to the awkward; to repress
violence, restrain egotism, and make even controversy courteous,--these
belong to the empire of woman. It is a sphere so important and so
beautiful, that even courage and self-devotion seem not quite enough,
without the addition of this supr