Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/245

equable, and active temperament, there is nothing sweeter, happier or safer for the human being than Home, and the life which centres within it, and the duties concerning it which demand our attention and care. There is no need for women to wander far afield for an outlet to their energies. Their work waits for them at their own doors, in the town or village where they reside. No end of useful, kind and neighbourly things are to hand for their doing,—every day can be filled, like a basket of flowers, full of good deeds and gentle words by every woman, poor or rich, who has either cottage or mansion which she can truly call "Home." Home is a simple background, against which the star of womanhood shines brightest and best. The modern "gad-about" who suggests a composition of female chimpanzee and fashionable "Johnny" combined, is a kind of sexless creature for whom "Home" would only be a cage in the general menagerie. She (or It) would merely occupy the time in scrambling about from perch to perch, screaming on the slightest provocation, and snapping at such other similar neuter creatures who chanced to possess longer or more bushy tails. And it is a pity such an example should be thought worthy of imitation by any woman claiming to possess the advantage of human reason. But the Chimpanzee type of female is just now singularly en evidence, having a habit of pushing to the front on all occasions, and performing such strange antics as call for public protest, and keep the grinding machinery of the law only too busy. The Press, too, pays an enormous amount of unnecessary attention to the performances of these more or less immodest