Search Light Letters Part 4

_Mrs. Sherman._ It is a hard life, I'm sure. But--but, if I'm not impertinent----

_Visitor (interrupting)._ You're going to ask how I came to take it up as a profession. Yes, it is hard; but I glory in it _(proudly)._ I'm not ashamed of it. It's a progressive life, too. But it is a little discouraging at times _(sadly)._ You have such a lovely home, Mrs.

Sherman; elegance without ostentatious display; taste everywhere without extravagance. I should so like to describe it.

_Mrs. Sherman._ Oh, but you mustn't. Were you ordered to--er--write about me?

_Visitor._ Yes, dear lady. You are to be one of a series--"Half-hour Chats with our Progressive Women," that's the t.i.tle.

_Mrs. Sherman._ Have you--er--been to see any one else?

_Visitor._ Yes, and they all felt as you did at first (she enumerates the names of three or four other modern women with social ambitions).

_Mrs. Sherman._ And did they all consent to talk to you?

_Visitor._ Every one, and they all gave me their photographs.

_Mrs. Sherman (faintly)._ Photographs? You don't mean that you wish a photograph? That would be too dreadful.

_Visitor (soothingly)._ You wouldn't wish to mar the completeness of the series. People like to see those who talk to them.

_Mrs. Sherman._ But I have nothing to say to them.

_Visitor._ Leave that to me. You have spoken already. Everything about you speaks--your face, your personal belongings, your household usages. While I have been sitting here I have observed a host of things which talk eloquently of your ideas, your principles, and your tastes. Just the things the public thirst to know about a woman like you. Leave it all to me. I will write it out and send you the proof, and, if it isn't just right, you can alter it to suit yourself (_blithely_). And the photograph?

_Mrs. Sherman_. Must I?

_Visitor (firmly and boldly)._ Public people think nothing of that nowadays. It's a matter of course. You would have had a right to feel offended if I hadn't included you in my article. You wouldn't have been pleased, would you now, to see interviews with other progressive women, and your face and personality excluded? Just look at it in that light. It is disagreeable to me to intrude and force my way, and invade privacy, but I have a duty to the public to perform, and from that point of view I count on you to help me.

_Mrs. Sherman._ Perhaps I ought. Er--would you like it now?

_Visitor._ If you please.

(_Mrs. Sherman goes upstairs and returns presently with a choice of photographs._)

_Visitor._ They are both exquisite. I choose this one for my article, and, if you don't object, I should like so much to keep the other for myself as a memento of this delightful interview. May I, dear lady?

_Mrs. Sherman._ If you wish it.

_Visitor._ Thank you. And there is one thing more. Please write your name on both. An autograph adds so much to the value of a photograph whether it be for the public eye or the alb.u.m of a friend.

_Mrs. Sherman (resignedly)._ What shall I write?

_Visitor._ Oh, anything. "Yours faithfully," or "Very cordially yours," are very popular just at present. Thank you so much. And I do hope to meet you soon again. If I should happen to give a little tea at my rooms for Mr. Hartney Collier, the actor, later in the winter, I shall take the liberty of sending you a card. You would like him so much. And now, goodby, dear lady. _Exit._

I have given this conversation without the various comments and interjections made either by myself or Josephine during the course of it. To have set them forth would merely have served to mar the sequence of the dialogue. After announcing the departure of the visitor, there was a little pause and my wife regarded me almost pathetically.

"Poor thing!" she murmured, brus.h.i.+ng away the semblance of a tear with her pocket-handkerchief. "I am sorry for her. I can understand just how it happened."

"For which of the two are you sorry?" I asked.

"I meant for your woman. But I'm sorry for them both. It almost seems like fate. The whole thing is disgusting, but the times are to blame.

The public encourages the reporter and the interview, and when a woman is told that she is progressive, and that it is her duty to make herself felt still more, I can imagine her being goaded into it if she is the sort of woman your woman is. I suppose you think I've ruined her. I didn't mean to; I merely gave her her head, and that's what she did. I will hand her over to you now, and you can do what you like with her."

"Excuse me, Josephine. She is your creation. I shouldn't think of interfering at this stage. You have taken her in hand and you must work out her destiny for her."

"You mean let her work out her own destiny. That's all I was doing. I see your point; and, if you won't take her back, I'm willing to give her her head to the end. I'm interested in her, and I don't despair of her at all, in spite of the fact that you have washed your hands of her. I shall have to think a little before I give her her head again."

Hereupon Josephine a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of reflection. When she began to speak presently, her words and manner suggested the demeanor of a trance medium, or seer--as though she were peering into the abyss of the future.

"The interview appears, and her husband is less disturbed than she expects. He declares that the press portrait is an abomination and libellous, but he admits that the text is considerately done for a newspaper interview, and that, barring a few inaccuracies and a little exaggeration due to poetic license, she is made to appear less of a fool than she had a right to expect. This cheers and encourages her, and helps to allay the consciousness that the publication of her face and doings was purely a gratuitous advertis.e.m.e.nt. She firmly resolves that she will reform and live up to the description of her, and she resolves to devote herself to a more definite field of action.

Accordingly, after deliberation, she rejects the case of the blind, and decides to take up the problem of how to make humble homes attractive by simple art. She buys a complete edition of Ruskin, and writes to a half-dozen prominent men and as many women for the use of their names as a nucleus for a club to be known as "The Home Beautifying Society." A meeting is held, and she is elected President and a member of the Executive Committee, facts of which the public is duly informed by her pathetic newspaper admirer. There, philosopher, you see she is doing something serious already."

"You are incorrigible, Josephine," I a.s.serted.

"She means so well, poor dear," my wife continued with a genuinely worried air. "She fully intends to devote herself to that society and make it a success, and she does so for a few weeks. Indeed, she raises money enough to employ a superintendent, and through him to give an exhibition of a poor man's house as it ought to be furnished, and by way of speaking contrast a poor man's house as it is too apt to be furnished when he has money enough to furnish it gaudily. And then she helps get out the annual report, which mentions progress, and shows a balance of $1.42 in the treasury, which leads her to make the announcement that in order to insure the successful continuation of a movement calculated to serve as a potent aesthetic influence among the unenlightened, the liberal contributions made by friends must be renewed in the fall. And then, there are so many other things she has to do. Just listen, philosopher, to what the poor thing has become in less than a year since her life appeared in the newspaper, and tell me what she is to do.

-- 1. Second Vice-President of the American Cremation Society.

-- 2. Member of Text Committee of the Society to Improve the Morals of Persons Undergoing Sentence.

-- 3. Chairman of the Inspecting Committee of the Sterilized Milk a.s.sociation.

-- 4. Vice-President of the American Mothers' Kindergarten a.s.sociation.

-- 5. Life member of Society to Protect the Indians.

-- 6. Honorary member of the Press Women's Social and Beneficent Club.

-- 7. Member of the Forty a.s.sociates Sewing Bee (luncheon club).

-- 8. Third Vice-President of the Woman's Club, and active partic.i.p.ator in the following courses of original work arranged by the members of the Club:

(_a_) Literary Course for 1897-98. Shakespeare's Women. The Dramatists of the Elizabethan Period.

(_b_) Scientific Course for 1897-98. Darwin's Theory of Earth-worms. The present Status of the Conflict between Science and Religion. Recent Polar Expeditions.

(_c_) Political Course for 1897-98. The Tariff Bills of American History. The Theory of Bimetallism.

-- 9. Member of The Moliere Club. (Cla.s.s to read French plays one evening a fortnight.)

-- 10. President of the Home Beautifying Society. (Her pet interest.)

-- 11. To say nothing of dinner-parties, receptions, ladies' luncheons, the opera, concerts, authors' readings, and other more or less engrossing social diversions and distractions.

"There!" continued Josephine. "And this does not include the thought and worry she spends upon Mrs. J. Webb Johnston."

"And who, pray, is Mrs. J. Webb Johnston?" I asked.