554 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



In escaping vital experiences, the woman can at least recognize the fact 

 that she also escapes the anxieties and troubles that are inseparable 

 from family life. She will probably be lonely; but, on the other hand, 

 wlien she wishes it she can be alone. In writing to a friend, who had 

 lost his little daughter, Cicero says that all men would wish children 

 were it not for the anxiety that they inevitably bring. 



To put it more positively, the celibate woman retains her freedom 

 of action. Through study, travel, art, science or society, she may 

 reach a degree of self-realization not always attained by her sister 

 who marries. Into her work she can carry much of the enthusiasm and 

 devotion which, as wife and mother, she might lavish on husband and 

 children. 



The desire for service, which lies so deep in the nature of all good 

 women, can often be more fully realized in a life of personal freedom 

 than in one of marriage. At least there may be a different realiza- 

 tion of very great value to the individual and to society. Such women 

 as Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony and Jane Addams have brought 

 gifts of service to mankind far beyond what they would probably have 

 given in their own homes. Each of these women probably recognized 

 her personal loss; but many devoted wives and mothers have also recog- 

 nized their loss through inability to enter into the wider service of 

 public life. Unto no mortal is it given to live all the possibilities of 

 life. 



l')ut more im]ini'tant than any of these compensations we have named 

 is the power we all possess to live life vicariously. Our real living is 

 never in the mere possession and use of things, but in what we think 

 and feel about them. Lower animals live in facts; man lives in his 

 ideas and ideals. All of life's values must be found on the way; when 

 we arrive we are always in danger of becoming unconscious and so 

 losing what we came to get. 



This is why art and literature have always had to find their 

 characters in the struggling classes, the poor and the rich. The smug 

 middle classes and the comfortably rich have the facts of existence; 

 but they do not know it. The universal contempt of those who know 

 for such unconscious living finds expression in the terms bourgeoise, 

 Philistines and bromides. 



On the other hand, struggling and self-conscious groups always 

 attract and interest us. Bohemia is poor; it lacks the facts of prop- 

 erty; but it has the most alluring of all festivals and immortal ban- 

 quets. Who, that has a soul as well as a stomach, would not turn from 

 a banquet of facts at twenty dollars a plate, with dull unconsciousness 

 of life in the people, to a group of dreamers and wits with very modest 

 Jarr-. and twenty-dollar talk at table? 



Locke's Beloved Vagabond lost all the facts of life, fame, money, 



