THE CELIBATE WOMEN OF TO-DAY 555 



the woman ; but who that has wandered across the pages of romance 

 with him does not envy him the keen appreciation of life, the realiza- 

 tion of its realities, the high and compelling ideal, even against the 

 background of poverty-stricken and often drunken facts. Jean Chris- 

 tophe lived all but his musical life vicariously. The woman he loved 

 was another man's loyal wife; his children were born from other men's 

 passions; his home was wherever he could feel the universe. He lived 

 without the material realizations of life; but who of us would not 

 desert unconscious wealth, houses and homes for such a conscious life? 



The poet Dante illustrates in his own life the relative value of 

 facts and dreams, of living life directly and living it vicariously, to a 

 singular degree. He was married and had a family of children, but in 

 all his voluminous writings there is no word of these facts of his daily 

 existence. In his early youth he fell in love with Beatrice; we know 

 very little about her; she married another man; and it is quite prob- 

 able that Dante never even touched her hand; but she led him through 

 Paradise. Since the poet's death, millions have read and have been 

 shaped by the "Vita Nuova" who have never even heard of the wife 

 and children who were the facts of Dante's life. 



If all this be true, then the modern woman who does not marry 

 need not feel that life is closed to her, that having been denied the 

 Garden of Eealization she must stand before the gates and weep. 

 "\Mien the angel with the flaming sword drove Eve out of Eden he 

 opened the world of work and varied experience to her. Gifted with 

 imagination and desire, she could create for herself new gardens of 

 perfection; and if they were less real than those she had left, they 

 were possibly more vividly realized than was the one where she had 

 slumbered away the days of happiness. 



Self-realization through vicarious living, this is the solution to a 

 celibate life for the individual. Joan of Arc gave herself to religion 

 and to her people. Madam Kovalevsky found at least relief for the 

 letters that did not come in the honors that were lavished on her 

 mathematical discoveries. Susan B. Anthony found her realization in 

 the ideal life that was to come to all the women of the world; her 

 sister, Mary Anthony, found a deep and rich realization in serving her 

 better-known sister, who was to her all that home means to most 

 women. 



Thousands of our teachers are truer mothers to their children than 

 are the mothers who bore them. In schools, libraries and social cen- 

 ters many fine women are to-day wedded to humanity; they are con- 

 ceiving new ideals of social justice and are giving birth to opportunity 

 for fuller living that shall bring conscious gladness to millions unborn. 



For themselves and for all the higher purposes of civilization such 

 lives may have great worth. Biologically thev are lost; for the little 



