anything but the tarrying prince. To blame
them for this would be much like cursing Gibraltar for not getting out
of the way in a storm. They are the tools of the race, the chosen
mediums of Nature for the perpetuation of her beloved species. But the
fact remains--that is to say, in the vast majority of girls. There is,
as we all know, the hard-shell division of their sex who, even without
a gift, infinitely prefer the single and independent life in their
early youth, and only begin to show thin spots in their armor as they
approach thirty, sometimes not until it is far too late. But if you
will spend a few days walking through the department stores, for
instance, of a large city and observing each of the young faces in
turn behind the counters, it will be rarely that you will not feel
reasonably certain that the secret thoughts of all that vast army
circle persistently about some man, impinging or potential. And
wherever you make your studies, from excursion boats to the hour of
release at the gates of a factory, you must draw the same conclusion
that sex reigns, that it is the most powerful factor in life and will
be so long as Earth at least continues to spin. For that reason, no
matter how persistently girls may work because they must or starve,
it is the competent older women, long since outgrown the divine
nonsense of youth, who are the more satisfactory workers. Girls,
unless indifferently sexed, do not take naturally to work in their
youth. Whether they have the intelligence to reason or not, they know
that they were made for a different fate and they resent standing
behind a counter all day long or speeding up machinery for a few
dollars a week. Even the highly intelligent girls who find work on
newspapers often look as if they were at the end of their endurance.
It is doubtful if the world ever can run along without the work of
women but the time will surely come when society will be so
constituted that no woman in the first flush of her youth will be
forced to squander it on the meager temporary reward, and forfeit her
birthright. If she wants to, well and good. No one need be deeply
concerned for those that launch out into life because they like it.
Women in civilized countries are at liberty to make their own lives;
that is the supreme privilege of democracy. But the victims of the
propelling power of the world are greatly to be pitied and Society
should come to their rescue. I know that the obvious answer t