two wives
of my acquaintance have persuaded their husbands that these higher things
are all-important. The home has been given up. In company with other
strivers after higher things, they live now in dismal barracks differing
but little from a glorified Bloomsbury lodging-house. But they call them
"Mansions" or "Courts," and seem proud of the address. They are not
bothered with servants--with housekeeping. The idea of the modern woman
is that she is not to be bothered with anything. I remember the words
with which one of these ladies announced her departure from her bothering
home.

"Oh, well, I'm tired of trouble," she confided to another lady, "so I've
made up my mind not to have any more of it."

Artemus Ward tells us of a man who had been in prison for twenty years.
Suddenly a bright idea occurred to him; he opened the window and got out.
Here have we poor, foolish mortals been imprisoned in this troublesome
world for Lord knows how many millions of years. We have got so used to
trouble we thought there was no help for it. We have told ourselves that
"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards." We imagined the only
thing to be done was to bear it philosophically. Why did not this bright
young creature come along before--show us the way out. All we had to do
was to give up the bothering home and the bothering servants, and go into
a "Mansion" or a "Court."

It seems that you leave trouble outside--in charge of the hall-porter,
one supposes. He ties it up for you as the Commissionaire of the Army
and Navy Stores ties up your dog. If you want it again, you ask for it
as you come out. Small wonder that the "Court" and "Mansion" are growing
in popularity every day.

That "Higher Life."

They have nothing to do now all day long, these soaring wives of whom I
am speaking. They would scorn to sew on a shirt-button even. Are there
not other women--of an inferior breed--specially fashioned by Providence
for the doing of such slavish tasks? They have no more bothers of any
kind. They are free to lead the higher life. What I am waiting for is a
glimpse of the higher life. One of them, it is true, has taken up the
violin. Another of them is devoting her emancipation to poker work. A
third is learning skirt-dancing. Are these the "higher things" for which
women are claiming freedom from all duty? And, if so, is there not
danger that the closing of our homes may lead to the crowding up of