XV. OLD MAIDS.

It does not take a very long or wide experience of society to wear off the first surprise at some of its “words and ways,” and to teach one the folly of “getting mad” over what cannot be helped. Still there are some occasions when the original Adam within me gets the better of training, and one of them is suggested by the heading of this paper.

The very last time that I was at a reception ill fortune pushed me into a corner with a “gilded youth” who would not go away or let me do so; a pair of lovely eyes smiled amusement over his shoulder and a crisply sweet voice exchanged with me a word of greeting. Eyes and voice belonged to one of the most charming women of New York, more than thirty years old and unmarried.

“Oh, Miss So-and-so,” exclaimed my companion, looking after her and trying to find his mustache to pull. “Too bad she’s ‘Miss’ still, isn’t it? I should think that a nice woman like that would have found some one to marry her.”

“That’s what I am always saying of Mr. Timon, over there,” said I, glancing at a society man, perhaps forty years old, just passing us. “He is very rich, very handsome, agreeable, cultured and wide awake. I should think, before this, he would have found some woman to marry him.”

“Timon! Why, he could be married any day he chose!” exclaimed my artless companion. “The women are all wild after him! It is he that says no, not they.”

“And does it not occur to you that Miss So-and-so may be the one to say no literally and verbally, and to say it very often?” demanded I. “Why should a woman with ample income, pleasant family surroundings, wit, beauty and the choice of society in any part of the world, bind herself down to the companionship of a man who will probably weary her, possibly ill-treat her and never, by any chance comprehend her? Of course, if she chances to be in love with him, that is a different matter, for the world is well lost for love. But why cannot you men understand that very many women make a great—a very great sacrifice—in marrying any man at all, and that no woman receives anything more than she gives in marriage, and as a general thing, not so much!”

But is it not true? Do not all men, and alas, some women, speak of an “old maid” or one verging toward that condition in terms of pity, and, if she is at all attractive, of surprise?

Why cannot men understand that there are other pleasures in life besides that of worshipping them?

A bright woman, especially if well educated and traveled, generally has to keep a tight rein in talking to the average society man, or she will ride away from him, leaving him angrily humiliated in the rear. Or he will loftily adopt himself to her lower plane and instruct her, in a confused and elementary fashion, upon matters of which she has seen the “true inwardness” a long time before. It is really very seldom that she meets a man so thoroughly her equal or superior that it is a privilege for her to exchange ideas with him, and she is quite sharp enough to know that in married life there are a great many hours when a stupid man, or a groveling-minded man, or a conceited man, or a protoplastic man is about as agreeable a companion as the brutal ruffian chained for life to the educated forger, brought to the galleys by a mistaken use of advanced capacities.

No, don’t continue to say:

“Too bad she’s single still!” but change the formula to:

“Pity she never found any man worth accepting, when there are such hosts of them in the world.”