As I look back on my life and try to draw wisdom from my mistakes, I see some things clearly and one is that it is impossible for a woman like me to enjoy the close friendship of an attractive man without danger. No matter how honorable he is or how sincere the woman is, there will be danger. The only casewhere there is no danger is where there is no physical attraction. I might have been safe enough with some anemic saint, but not with one who had pulsing red blood in his veins—certainly not!
Here is a characteristic episode written before I married Julian, during those months of hard struggle in New York:
“Last night Kendall Brown talked to me like an angel.
“'I'll give you a case in point, Pen,' he was saying. 'A beautiful woman like you, an exquisite, lithe creature is sitting on a sofa under a soft light, leaning against pillows—just as you are now; and a man like me, a poor adoring devil, a regular worm, is sitting at the other end of the sofa looking at this woman, drinking in her loveliness, thrilling to the mysterious lights in her eyes, the caressing tenderness of her voice and all the rest of it. This man wants to reach out and take this woman in his arms—draw her to him—press his lips to hers. But he doesn't do it, because—well, she wouldn't stand for it. Besides, it isn't right. Perhaps she is a married woman. Perhaps he is married.
“'Now what I want to know is why this chap can't behave himself and regard his fair friend as he would an exquisite rose in a garden—somebody else's garden. Why can't he say to himself: “This woman is one of God's loveliest creatures, but she does not belong to me. I can look at her, I can rejoice in her beauty, but I mustn't touch her or try to harm her.” Why can't he say that to himself? Isn't it a wickedthing for a man to crush and bruise and destroy a lovely flower, to scatter its color and perfume just for a wayward impulse?'
“I shall never forget the earnestness, the tenderness in the eyes and voice of this harum scarum poet whose record in women conquests makes a rich chapter in the annals of Greenwich Village. At this moment he was quite sincere, or thought he was. There were tears in his eyes.
“And what did I do? I rose from my pillows and said, with a little laugh and toss of my head: 'Very pretty, Kendall, you ought to make a poem of it.' Then I went over to the victrola and set it going in a fox-trot, one of my favorites. I was restless and began to move about slowly to the music while Kendall watched me with a different light growing in his eyes. I wore a clinging white house garment—I suppose I was at my best.
“'Let's dance it, Pen, just gently so as not to disturb the folks downstairs,' he said. So we danced the fox-trot and my hair brushed against his cheek—he really dances very well for a poet.
“After he had gone I sat thinking of this for a long time, puzzled about myself and about Kendall. This afternoon I saw him again as I was passing through the Brevoort Café. He came up to me, smiling, and drew me aside.
“'Don't you see what a little faker you are, Pen?' he laughed. 'It's just as I said, you are none of you on the level, you pretty women. Why did you set that victrola going last night and tempt me to—to—yesyou did, you know darn well you did. Why did you let your cheek brush against mine? Come, be honest, if you can. You're laughing, you adorable little devil—you expected me to kiss you.'
“'Impertinent!' I said. 'You do yourself too much honor, sir.'
“'I say you expected me to kiss you.'
“'No.'
“'Liar!' He wrinkled up his nose amusingly.
“I suppose I was a liar. I did expect Kendall Brown to—well—not to kiss me necessarily, but to make it perfectly clear that he wanted to. It was a ridiculous and unnecessary bit of posing on his part to act as if he did not want to. The French have a saying that a pretty woman always expects a suitor to know justwhento be lacking in respect.”
I quote from my diary without comment another significant conversation that took place during the early months of my widowhood. How I resented, at this time, any suggestion that I was inclined to venture too near the sentimental danger line!
And yet....
“Tonight I had a long talk with Kendall Brown on the same old subject—what is a woman to do who longs for the companionship of a man, but does not find it?
“Kendall always says disconcerting things, he isbrutally frank; but I like to argue with him because I find him stimulating, and he does know a lot about life.
“'The trouble with women like you, Pen,' he said, 'is that you are not honest with yourselves. You pretend one thing and end by doing something quite different; then you say that you never intended to do this thing. Why can't you be consistent?'
“'Like men?'
“'Well, at least men know what they are going after, and when they have done a certain thing, they don't waste time regretting it or insisting that they meant to do something else.'
“'You think women are hypocrites?'
“'Yes.'
“'If women are hypocrites, if women are afraid to tell the truth about sentimental things, it is because you men have made them so,' I replied with feeling.
“Kendall answered good-naturedly that he held no brief for his own sex, he acknowledged that men treat women abominably—lie to them, abandon them, and so on; but he kept to his point that women create many of their troubles by drifting back and forth aimlessly on the changing tide of their emotions instead of establishing some definite goal for their lives.
“'Women yield to every sentimental impulse—that is why they weep so easily. Watch them at a murder trial—they weep for the victim, then they weep for the murderer. Half their tears are useless. If women would put into constructive thinking some of the vitalpower they waste in weeping and talking they could revolutionize the world.'
“'Could they reform the men?' I retorted, but when he tried to answer I stopped him. What was the use? I knew what he would say about this, and I really wanted to get his ideas on the other point.
“'Come back to the question,' I said. 'Take the case of a well-bred woman surrounded by stifling, conventional influences of family and friends, who sees lonely years slipping by while nothing comes that satisfies her womanhood. She may have money enough, comforts, even luxuries, but she longs for the companionship of a man. What is she to do?'
“He answered with his usual positiveness:
“'She must take the initiative. She must go after what she supremely wants, just as a man would, using her power—I assume that she is reasonably attractive. She must break through restraints, and drive ahead towards the particular kind of emotional happiness that suits her. That is what God created her for, to achieve by her own efforts this emotional happiness. If she wants it enough she can get it. We can all of us do anything, have anything on condition that we want it enough to pay the price for it. The price is usually the elimination of other things that interfere.'
“'Suppose a woman wants a husband? Suppose she is forty—and not rich? Do you mean to say she can get a husband?'
“Here my poet, blazing with conviction, leaned towards me, pointing an emphatic forefinger.
“'I tell you, Penelope Wells, it is possible for any reasonably attractive womanup to forty-fiveto get a reasonably satisfactory husband if she will work to get him as a man works to make money. She can't sit on a chair and twirl her thumbs and wait for a husband to drop into her lap out of the skies like a ripe plum. She must bend destiny to her purposes. She must make sacrifices, create opportunities, move about, use the intelligence that God has given her. The world is full of men who are half ready to marry—she must turn the balance!
“'Listen! If I were a lonely woman yearning for matrimony I would pick out one of these eligible males and make him my own. I would make him feel that the thing he wanted above all other things was to have me for his wife. How would I do this? I would study his desires, his needs, his weaknesses; I would make myself so necessary to him—as necessary as a mother is to a child—that he couldn't get along without me. I tell you it can be done, Pen, by the resistless power of the human will. The trouble with most of us is that we don't want things hard enough.If a woman wants a husband hard enough she will get him—nothing can prevent it!'
“I smiled at these fantastic views, although I admit, that we women ought to be more masters of our fates than we are. In my own case I suppose it would have been better if I had left Julian of my own volition, because it was right to leave him, instead of waiting for an automobile accident to separate us.
“'Please be sensible, Kendall,' I protested. 'Giveme thoughts that apply to the world as it is, not extravagant fancies. You know perfectly well that there are thousands, tens of thousands, of fairly attractive women in all classes of society, especially in the wage earning class, who have no chance to marry the kind of man they wish to marry. Besides, there are a million more women than men in American. They can't all get husbands, can they? There aren't enough men to go around. And there are other thousands of wretched women tied to husbands who will not consent to a divorce. What are all these unhappy women to do?'
“'Can't they get along without men?' he laughed.
“'Can men get along without women?' I answered, rather annoyed. Kendall saw that I was serious and changed his tone.
“'Let me get this straight, Pen. If a woman longs for the companionship of a man—you mean the intimate companionship? You are not talking about platonic friendship?'
“'No, I mean the intimate companionship.'
“'And she cannot marry? Then what is she to do? Is that what you mean?'
“'Yes.'
“'Ah! Now we come to the heart of the discussion. You want to know if there are cases where self-respecting women enter into irregular love affairs and never regret it? Is it possible for a woman to break the moral law without suffering disastrous consequences? Are there cases where a girl or a woman yields to thedesperate cry of her soul for a mate without degradation and without loss of her self-respect? Can such things be? Do you want my honest opinion?' The poet's eyes challenged me.
“'Yes, that is exactly what I want, I want the truth.'
“Whereupon Kendall Brown assured me that he has known a number of rather fine women, self-supporting and self-respecting, the kind of women who say their prayers at night and try to be kind, who, nevertheless, have hadliaisonsthat have not resulted in shame and sorrow or in any moral or material disaster.
“'Are you sure of this? How can you be sure?'
“'Because I have talked frankly with these women. Sometimes I was in a position where I could, and, anyhow, women tell me things. They know it is my business to study life, to glimpse the heights and depths of human nature. I would be a poor poet if I couldn't do that.'
“'And these women told you that they have never felt regrets?'
“'Practically that—yes; several of them said that they would do the same thing over again if they had to relive their lives. They have been happier, more efficient in their work, they have had better health, calmer nerves, a more serene attitude towards life because of these love affairs.'
“'I don't believe it,' I declared. 'These women lied to you. They kept something back. The thing is wrong, abominable, and nothing can make it right or decent. I would rather die of loneliness.'
“I shall never forget Kendall's superior smile as he answered me:
“'Oh, the inconsistency of a woman! She will not marry, she will not have anaffaire, yet she longs for the intimate companionship of a man. She wants to go swimming, but insists upon keeping away from the water.'
“I bit my lip in vexation of spirit.
“'Dear friend, don't be annoyed with me,' my poet continued with a quick change to gentleness. 'I didn't make the world or put these troublesome desires and inconsistencies into the hearts of women. Listen! I'll give you my best wisdom now: If a woman cannot marry and will not have a lover, then she must stop all stimulation of her emotions, she must put men out of her thoughts, out of her life and concentrate on something worth while that will not harm her. Let her take up the purely intellectual life, some cultural effort—history, art, municipal reform, anything, and absorb herself in it. Or let her follow the old path that has led thousands of women to peace of mind—let her seek the comforts of religion.' Then smiling, he added: 'You might become a missionary, Pen, in China or Armenia. I'll bet you'd be flirting with some mandarin or pasha before you got through.'
“Again I bit my lip, for I knew very well that the religious life would never satisfy me. If I entered a convent I should probably run away from it in despair. What a horrible situation to want to do right and long to do wrong at the same time!
“Kendall Brown must have read my thoughts.
“'There is one thing you self-pitying ladies must learn,' he went on, 'that is to play the game of life according to the rules. You can't have your cake and eat it. You can't amuse yourselves with fire without getting burned.'
“I was silent.
“'You must stop flirting with temptation—that's what you all do, you pretty women, fascinating women. You can't deny it.'
“'I do deny it,' I said weakly.
“'Oh come now! How about dancing—when a woman has a sinuous, clinging body and wears no corsets and—you know what I mean. Isn't that temptation?'
“'It's horrid of you, Kendall Brown, to suggest such things. Only a person with evil thoughts—'
“His eyes twinkled at me good-humoredly but I refused to be conciliated.
“'And how about the ancient and honorable practice of kissing?' he persisted. 'Of course it is not done any more, I realize that. No pretty woman in these austere days ever thinks of allowing a man to kiss her—except her husband, but—seriously, isn't kissing a temptation? Isn't it, Pen?'
“By this time my nerves were decidedly ruffled.
“'You are too foolish!' I stormed. 'I wish you would go home. I am tired of your ex-cathedra statements and your self-sufficiency.'
“'No,' he flung back, studying me with his keen gray eyes, 'you are tired of the truth.'”
With great diffidence I venture to say a word about the most perplexing and embarrassing question in the world:
Shall men be allowed to do certain things without any particular punishment or social condemnation, while women are punished mercilessly for doing these same things—things that men compel them to do?
The double standard!
Shall women try to change this standard, and, if so, in which direction—up or down?
Is it desirable that the weaker sex be given more liberty in emotional matters, or that the stronger sex be given less liberty?
I know that some distinguished women, great artists, stage favorites and others have succeeded brilliantly in spite of sex irregularities; but this proves nothing. These women succeeded because they had genius or talent, not because they were immoral, just as certain men of genius have succeeded in spite of an addiction to various evil practices. They would probably have achieved more splendid careers had they been able to conquer these weaknesses. Besides, we are considering what is best for the majority of men and women, not for an exceptional few.
I have a friend, a public school teacher in Chicago,—Miss Jessie G——, who holds advanced views on these matters and admits that she herself has been a sex transgressor. She has never been sordid ormercenary, she has always believed that she was actuated by sincere affection, but the fact remains that she has had several affairs with men. She has broken the moral law. And while she professes not to regret this and insists that she would repeat these affairs if she had to live her life over again, yet, I have felt in talking with her that this cannot possibly be true.
Miss G—— has fine instincts, is fond of music, is proud of her profession and shrinks from the thought that she might be considereddéclassée; at the same time sheknowsthat on more than one occasion she has been treated coldly by men and women familiar with the facts of her life. For example, at summer hotels, in spite of her good looks and apparent respectability, she has been denied introductions to charming women who would disapprove of her behavior.
That hurts!
Even the bravest of our advanced women thinkers know in their hearts that they writhe under the pity or scorn of their sister women.
It is certain that a decent woman who enters into irregular relations with a man whom she loves must endure great distress of mind; her relations with this man are at best unsatisfactory. She accepts the disadvantages of wifehood and foregoes the advantages. She can see her adored one only with difficulty at uncertain times and places. She lives in constant fear of discovery. She is doomed to torturing loneliness for, in the nature of things, she cannot have her lover with her whenever she longs to have him, there must be days and weeks of the inevitable separation. Nordare she write to him freely, lest the letters fall into wrong hands. In no way may she reveal her love, the proudest treasure in her life, but must hide it like a thing of shame.
“My poor child,” I would say to such a woman, if I might, “remember that the hard test comes when things go wrong, when money fails, when beauty fades. Suppose your beloved falls ill. You cannot go to him, speak to him, minister to him on his bed of pain, though your heart is breaking. Even if he is dying, you can only wait ... wait in anguish of soul for some cold or covert message. You have no rights at his side that the family respect—hisfamily. Who are you? Are you his wife? No! Then you are nothing, less than nothing; you are the temptress,the mistress! You love him? Bah! Can such a woman love?”
Miss G—— once acknowledged to me that while she has enjoyed the companionship of superior men whom she would never have known but for her moral laxity, yet she has paid a heavy price here, since she no longer values the acquaintance of men in her own sphere of life. From two such men (excellent, average men) she has received offers of marriage that she refused because their society no longer satisfied her after that of others more brilliant and highly placed; but she might easily have been happy with one of these two, had not her ideals been raised to a level beyond her legitimate attainment.
I might present other difficulties that must be faced by a woman who says she is tired of the old standardsof virtue and will live her life as a man lives his, but I need not detail these difficulties. In her deepest soul every woman knows that the thought of a wayward existence is abhorrent to her better nature. She hates the double standard, she knows it has worked only evil in the world—it is a debasement of all that is noblest, a betrayal of all that is most beautiful.The double standard has done more harm to the human race than all the wars of history.
Women know this, but they are afraid to speak out, they are afraid to fight for their ideals, and passing years find men clinging to hideous sex privileges—one law of morality for men and another law for women.
I believe that American women could change all this, they could abolish the wicked double standard, as they have abolished saloons and houses of degradation, if they would face the facts of life instead of ignoring them. It is merely a matter of courage and organization. Suppose a hundred women in a single city should pledge themselves to bar from their homes and acquaintance notorious sex offenders—men offenders? And to question clean-minded men of their acquaintance, influential men, about these things and to get honest answers? And to have these answers openly discussed—perhaps in the churches? Why not? What are churches for except to fight evil?
What would the average man say to a woman whom he respected and trusted if she asked him to tell her, on his honor as a good citizen, whether he believes that the double standard is helpful or harmfulto the women of America? Helpful or harmful to the children of America? To the manhood of America? Whether he is glad or sorry to think of the effects that his double-standard pleasures have had upon American women? Whether he would wish his sons to follow in his double-standard footsteps? Whether he would be willing to give up his double-standard privileges, if by so doing, he could save ten American women like his mother or his daughter from destruction? Would he be willing to do that?Will he give his pledge to do that?
Think how such a leaven of decency and clean manhood might spread throughout the land! It might start a single-standard revival that would sweep the world.By the power of courage and faith and the love of God!
I have thought deeply about this, remembering what I suffered with Julian. It is terribly hard to tell the truth; a woman is filled with shame for herself and for her whole sex when she tries to tell the truth about the unfaithfulness of husbands.
How long shall a wife forgive? How much shall she deliberately ignore?
Many women say: “I would never forgive my husband if he deceived me.” Others say: “I would never forgive my husband if Iknewthat he had deceived me.” And still others say: “If my husbandmust deceive me, I hope he will never let me know it.”
The tragic truth is (as all women vaguely suspect) that thousands of devoted husbands, hundreds of thousands of average husbands have at one time or another fallen from grace. Julian used to say that if all the men in America who have broken the seventh commandment were sent away to do penance on lonely mountain tops, we should run short of mountains.
He told me also that a man can love his wife so sincerely that he would gladly die for her, yet, in a moment of temptation, he may be untrue to her. Julian was an impossible person, but other clean-minded men, including my dear Christopher, have told me the same thing.
The truth is that most men have never learned to resist sex temptation; they grow up with the knowledge that they need not resist temptation, which is the fault of society, as now organized, the fault of wrong teaching, of insincere preaching, of nation-wide hypocrisy.
I have come to see that women, so long as they have not set themselves as a body against this evil system (which they might evidently change if they would act together) have no right to complain of its inevitable consequences. Men will abandon sex excesses, as they have abandoned drinking excesses, gradually, through education, through reasonable appeal, through the resistless force of public opinion intelligently aroused and directed by devoted women. And in no other way!
Meantime, it is the duty of individual wives to be merciful, as far as they can, towards erring husbands.The cure lies often in more love from the wife rather than in less love.
To any tortured wife who knows or half knows certain things about her husband, I say this—“Dear friend, as long as you love him, forgive him. As long as he loves you, forgive him. Be patient—enduring. Make the hard fight against sensuality with your husband, but don't let him know you are making it. Make this fight exactly as you would a similar fight against alcohol or drugs.”
A woman must be on her guard, however, lest she hide under a cloak of forgiveness, some base motive in her own heart. Alas! I know, better than anyone, how easily we women can deceive ourselves.
There is an ignoble forgiveness that is based on love of material advantages—love of money. There are women who tolerate faithless husbands because they are too cowardly or indolent to fight the battle of life alone. What would they do if they left their sheltered homes? Who would provide comforts and luxuries? How would they dress themselves? How would they live? Shall it be by working? But they hate to work. They have never learned to work. It was partly as a defense against this woman helplessness that I took up trained nursing while Julian was still alive.
A still more degrading forgiveness is based on sensuality. There are women married to brutes of husbands who will endure every humiliation, surrendering all their fine ideals and high purposes rather than leave these coarse mates.
I first realized this just before I went abroad to nurse the soldiers. I had gone to the Adirondacks that summer for a rest, and one day on a motor trip I stopped for luncheon at a farm house, and there I recognized an old friend from my home town, Laura K——, who was to have had a brilliant musical career. It was she who had encouraged me to develop my voice; but I never could have been the great artist that Laura might have been. A famous impresario had judged her voice to be so fine—it was a glorious contralto—that he had offered to advance money for her musical studies abroad. He assured Laura that in three years she would be a blazing star on the grand opera stage.
That was the last I had heard of my old friend, and here suddenly I found her, married to a hulking mountaineer, half trapper, half guide. Here was my wonderful, burning-eyed Laura, who might have had the world at her feet, a farm drudge taking in summer boarders! How was this possible?
I spent the afternoon seeking an answer to this riddle. We walked out into the forest and talked for hours, but whenever I pressed for an explanation, she halted in confusion. Her mother was old and ill and—she did not wish to leave her. But, I pointed out, she had never spoken of this before, she had always cared supremely about her voice, about her great musical triumph that was to be. Was not that true? Yes, of course, but—the mountain air was so good for her mother. And she made other trivial excuses.
Finally, I got the truth as we were strolling homein the twilight and met her husband slouching along with a gun over his shoulder. As I caught his sullen, tawny glance and sensed his superb, muscular figure, I suddenly understood. He nodded curtly and passed on—this cave man!
“Thatwas the reason, Laura, wasn't it?” I whispered.
She looked at me in silence, biting her lips, and blushed furiously.
“Yes,” she confessed, “that was the reason.”
I am not sure what I really believe about this in my deepest soul. Thousands of women who long to do right will agree with me that it is a terribly difficult question to answer.
If this were an ideal world where men and women had been purified and spiritualized to a Christ-like loftiness of soul, one would say yes; but it is not. A loving wife does not wish her husband to confess to her his past transgressions, she takes him as he is and is happy to start a new life with him, turning over a clean page. She only asks that he be loyal and faithful in the future. And if she is ready to give him similar loyalty and faithfulness, if she has sincerely repented of any sinful act, is not that sufficient? Why must she risk the destruction of their happiness by a revelation that will do no good to anyone? Why must she give her husband needless pain?
And yet—
While the vast majority of women will agree that such feminine reticence about past wrong-doing is justifiable, the truth, as I have come to see it, is that, in so agreeing, women must subscribe to a creed of deliberate deception. A man marries a woman whom he believes to be virtuous, a woman whom he might refuse to marry if he knew that she were not virtuous. And this woman does nothing to disabuse him of his error. Is that right? She allows her husband to keep a certain good opinion of her that is not justified. No matter how excellent her motive may be, the fact remains that this marriage rests upon an insecure foundation, upon an implied falsehood. Thousands of plays and stories have been constructed on this theme, and they usually end unhappily.
Suppose a man who had been in prison should marry a woman who was ignorant of this cloud on his life, trusting to chance that his criminal record would never be discovered? The two cases are somewhat parallel. What would the woman say if she learned later that she had unwittingly married an ex-convict? Would she not prefer that he had told her the truth before he married her?
On the other hand it may be argued that a woman's sin, being presumably the fault of some man, may be properly expiated, in part at least, by some other man. But that does not dispose of the difficulty thata woman who conceals past indiscretions from her husband is condemned to live a lie.
One deception almost invariably leads to anotherdeception until a whole chain or net of equivocations, ruses, trickeries, is established with the hideous possibility of some shocking divorce scandal, possibly years later when innocent children may be the sufferers.
Even if such disaster is averted and the truth is never revealed, even if all goes well apparently through happy married years, yet the poison of deceit may work a spiritual disaster in this woman—such a disaster as overwhelmed me—or it may bring about a lowering of moral standards in a woman, a stifling of religious life, that will have sinister and far-reaching consequences.
The greatest need in the world today is the need of spirituality among women, for they are the teachers of the young.
As illustrating the frightful harm that may result from such a lack of spirituality in a woman, I quote from my diary the case of a great English lady whom I met while I was nursing in the battle region back of Verdun. She had come from London to be near her son, a magnificent soldier, the handsomest Englishman I have ever seen, who had been wounded in the Mesopotamian campaign and was now here for his convalescence.
“Lady Maude H—— G—— is a fascinating woman,” I wrote. “She must have been a great beauty in her day, and she seems to be a figure in the rich, smart London set. She speaks quite casually of being invited to this or that palace for a chat and a cup of tea with one of the princesses or even with the Queen. During hours that she spent at the hospital she talkedto me frankly and charmingly about many things connected with her boy and his future. She is worried lest some designing woman get him in her power, and one day she told me that she has arranged matters for Leonard so that he will be spared certain perils of this kind that might surround him in London. This excellent and brilliant mother has solved her son's problem—the sex problem—in the following extraordinary way, which proves, so she seems to think, her love and wisdom. She has arranged matters—goodness knows how—so that Leonard will be on excellent terms with two beautiful young matrons in her set and in this way he will not be vamped off by any unscrupulous chorus girl. These two beauties are to serve for the delectation of this young warrior until he can make a suitable marriage. What a commentary upon the morals and standards of high society!”
How can one explain such incredible baseness?
This woman is not an ignoble person. On the contrary she is kind and generous, full of the best intentions. She has simply reached a point in her selfish round of vanity and pleasure-seeking where she can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. Her soul is withered, starved, because it has been deprived of God's love and God's truth; yet the deterioration came gradually, no doubt, beginning with petty lies and compromises and evasions of responsibility. Ifshehad any past transgression on her conscience it is certain she never told her husband about it.
It is a rule among women (with few exceptions) that idleness and uselessness make for selfishness andsensuality. Also for irreligion. These ultramondainesthink of God in an amiable, well-bred way—they approve of God, and they say their prayers in an amiable, well-bred way; but none of this avails to regenerate their lives or to combat the sensuality of their self-indulgent men. Nor does it save these women themselves from submitting to a social regime that is largely based on indulgence of the senses and the appetites.Il y en a, de ces femmes du monde, qui se conduisent d'une façon pire que les filles de joie.
As for myself I told my husband everything. I kept back nothing of my waywardness and sinfulness, my evil thoughts and desires. I admit that most men would not forgive a wife or a young bride who confessed to some sex transgression committed before her marriage. I also admit that the chances are against a husband's discovering such a transgression, if the wife keeps silent. It is apparently to the wife's advantage to keep silent; it apparently pays, in this case, to live a lie; but if deeper values are considered, if the sacredness of a woman's soul is taken into account, then a woman will see that she must confess, regardless of consequences. Alas, this is a very hard thing for the ordinary woman to do—the ordinary woman who is neither a saint on a stained glass window nor the heroine of a novel. But if she has the moral courage to confess her sin (knowing that life is given us for something else than temporary advantage), then, having cleansed her soul, she will be singularly blessed withpeace of mind, and will be given strength to bear whatever comes, even loneliness. Besides, there are men who know how to forgive. God knows most of them have need enough to be forgiven themselves.
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I dedicate to other women who may have done wrong, as I did, or who may be sorely tempted as I was, these thoughts that have comforted me—they have been like a consecration of my life. I have had them printed on vellum in a little red book no larger than a visiting card and so thin that I can slip it inside my glove. This is my talisman. I read these thoughts whenever I am wavering or discouraged, wherever I may be, in crowds or solitude, walking in the street, sitting in a car, and they always give me new heart and courage.
When I am weak or embittered, indolent, envious, I know that I can find strength through the performance of some loving act, however small. I can brighten the dullest sky with the sunshine of a little love. I know that sin and evil come chiefly from selfishness and sensuality. I can conquer selfishness by love. I can conquer sensuality by love. I can overcome all evil, all fear, all vanity, by love. There is no death, but the death of love. From which,Dear Lord, deliver me.
When I am weak or embittered, indolent, envious, I know that I can find strength through the performance of some loving act, however small. I can brighten the dullest sky with the sunshine of a little love. I know that sin and evil come chiefly from selfishness and sensuality. I can conquer selfishness by love. I can conquer sensuality by love. I can overcome all evil, all fear, all vanity, by love. There is no death, but the death of love. From which,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that pride is the worship of self: but humility is the worship of God. Pride leads to discontent, but humility in loving service (no matter how obscure) gives peace of mind. From all forms of pride,Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that pride is the worship of self: but humility is the worship of God. Pride leads to discontent, but humility in loving service (no matter how obscure) gives peace of mind. From all forms of pride,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that only harm can come to me from dwelling upon past mistakes, follies, sins. I cannot change these so I put them out of my thoughts and concentrate on the present, which is mine to do with as I please. From all vain regrets,Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that only harm can come to me from dwelling upon past mistakes, follies, sins. I cannot change these so I put them out of my thoughts and concentrate on the present, which is mine to do with as I please. From all vain regrets,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that right living comes only from right thinking. To do right under stress of law or custom while desiring to do wrong is to make a mockery of virtue. I must sincerely desire to do right. The forces of life-control must act from within me, not from without. From all hypocrisy and false pretense,Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that right living comes only from right thinking. To do right under stress of law or custom while desiring to do wrong is to make a mockery of virtue. I must sincerely desire to do right. The forces of life-control must act from within me, not from without. From all hypocrisy and false pretense,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that a woman cannot be virtuous if she longs for sensuality, or dallies with it, or dwells upon it in her thoughts, even though she refrain from any sinful act. Nor can a married woman be a truly virtuous wife if she yields to perverse revellings of the imagination which defile body and soul—even with her husband! From all defilements of love,Dear Lord, deliver me.
I know that a woman cannot be virtuous if she longs for sensuality, or dallies with it, or dwells upon it in her thoughts, even though she refrain from any sinful act. Nor can a married woman be a truly virtuous wife if she yields to perverse revellings of the imagination which defile body and soul—even with her husband! From all defilements of love,
Dear Lord, deliver me.