The New Penelope and Other Stories
and Poems.
THE NEW PENELOPE.
I MAY as well avow myself in the beginning of my story as that anomalous creature—a woman who loves her own sex, and naturally inclines to the study of their individual peculiarities and histories, in order to get at their collective qualities. If I were to lay before the reader all the good and bad I know about them by actual discovery, and all the mean, and heroic, attributes this habit I have of studying people has revealed to me, I should meet with incredulity, perhaps with opprobrium. However that may be, I have derived great enjoyment from having been made the recipient of the confidences of many women, and by learning therefrom to respect the moral greatness that is so often coupled with delicate physical structure, and almost perfect social helplessness. Pioneer life brings to light striking characteristics in a remarkable manner; because, in the absence of conventionalities and in the presence of absolute and imminent necessities, all real qualities come to the surface as they never would have done under different circumstances. In the early life of the Greeks, Homer found his Penelope; in the pioneer days of the Pacific Coast, I discovered mine.
My wanderings, up and down among the majestic mount-
