s with her
neighboring housewives in her clothes, her good looks, her youth, her
husband, her children, her home, her housekeeping, her money,--vies with
her in folly as well as in wisdom. How much of the extravagance of women
(and here is a difficulty to be dealt with later) arises from rivalry
only the tongues of women could tell, but it is safe to say that the
greater part of it has this origin.

Jealousy and envy are harsh words, yet they stand for traits having a
great psychological value. Part of the impetus for effort rises from
these feelings, and an incredibly large part. Many a man who bends
unremitting in his effort has in mind some man of whose success he is
envious, or whose efforts he watches with a jealousy hidden almost from
himself.

Upon women these feelings play with devastating force. One may be
satisfied with what he has until some one else he knows gets more; that
is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of
the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it may be a righteous
sort of jealousy or envy. A woman, especially because she is a rival of
her fellow-woman mainly in small things, becomes acutely miserable when
she is outstripped by her neighbor and especially if she is passed by
her relatives and intimate friends.

Poverty is especially hard on those intensely ambitious for their
children. "They must have the education I did not have; they must have a
good time in life which I never had; I don't want them to be poor all
their lives like we are." Here is the woman who works herself to the
bone, yet is content and well save for her fatigue, if her children
respond to her efforts by success in study and by ambitious efforts of
their own. But if the struggling mother is so unfortunate as to have
drawn in Nature's lottery an unappreciative or a weak-minded child, then
the breakdown is tragic.

A poor man is much more apt to be philosophical about poverty for his
children than his wife is. He is willing to do what he can for them, but
he is more apt to realize what mother love is blind to,--that the
average child is unappreciative of the parents' efforts and takes them
for granted. The man is more apt to think and say, "Let them stand on
their own feet and make their own way; it will do them good." The mother
usually longs to spare her children struggle, the father rarely shares
this desire except in a mild way.

It may be that there was a time when classes were mor