14 ACTIVE AND LESS IMPASSIONED WOMAN. 



society. The household must be managed, drilled, 

 and made ready for social inspection. Society must 

 be encouraged and propitiated. The great public, 

 too, is kept in view ; its upper section must be 

 impressed and its lower section kept in order. 



If we follow her into the social circle everything is 

 changed. The rose tree is one of stems and thorns in 

 winter, and another of leaves and flowers in summer. 

 Home is her winter ; society is her summer. If the 

 door but opens and a visitor is announced the trans- 

 formation is instant. 



The less emotional woman is by no means given to 

 asceticism ; respectability and orthodoxy do not de- 

 mand it of her. The woman who is pictured here is 

 fond of movement, recreation, change. It matters 

 little whether the incidents of change concern her 

 condition here or her condition hereafter. If well- 

 to-do her busy day may open with a religious 

 service, and close with a comic opera; she is an 

 adept in combining the bustle of two worlds. She 

 delights, above all, to entertain her friends and to 

 be entertained by them. In society she finds not 

 only her work and her happiness, but her rewards 

 and consolations. If a son enlists, or a daughter 

 elopes, or a husband takes to alcoholic solace, society 

 tells her she has been a " faultless mother " and 

 a " devoted wife." She believes in society, and society 

 believes in her. 



In conversation, society's pattern woman (the pat- 

 tern woman is not oppressively clever) throws out 

 little or no light. If unconventional men and women, 

 taking life seriously, discuss some of its problems in 

 earnest words, she thinks " they talk too much ; " aud 

 society agrees with her. 



