eir order--women so rich in every womanly grace--hat we
are almost compelled to believe the unmarried women in our midst to be
the salt of the community.

At any rate, we are beginning to shift the blame and the obloquy of
the position to the old bachelors, where it rightly belongs; and this
is at least a move in the just and proper direction. For old bachelors
have no excuse whatever for their condition. If we omit the natural
and necessary exceptions, which are few enough, then pure selfishness
and cowardice must account for every other case. Their despised
old-bachelorhood is all their own fault. They have always had the
tremendous privilege of asking for what they wanted; and half the
battle was in that privilege. Men don't have wives because they don't
ask for them; and they don't ask for them because they don't want
them; and in this condition lie their shame and their degradation, and
the well-deserved scorn with which the married part of both sexes
regard them.

Men are also much more contemptible and useless in their celibacy than
are women. An old maid can generally make herself of service to some
one. If she is rich, she attaches herself to church work, or to art,
or to the children of brothers and sisters. Or she travels all over
the world, and writes a book about her adventures. If she is poor, she
works hard and saves money; and thus becomes an object of interest and
respect in her own set. Or she is nurse and helper for all that need
her help in her village, or her church, or her family. At any rate,
she never descends to such depths of ennui and selfishness as do the
old bachelors who loll about on the club sofas, or who dawdle
discontentedly at afternoon teas. An old maid may be troublesome in
church business, or particular in household affairs; but it takes an
old bachelor to quarrel with waiters and grumble every one insane
about his dinner menu. An old maid may gossip, but she will not bore
every one to death about her dyspepsia; and if she has to starve
others, we may be very certain she would never fall under that tyranny
of valets and janitors which are the "sling and arrows" of wealthy,
selfish old bachelors.

On the whole, then, the unmarried woman is becoming every year more
self-reliant, and more respectable and respected, and the unmarried
man more effeminate and contemptible. We look for a day, not far off,
when a man will have to become a member of some religious order if he
wishes a re