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SOME
HINTS AND A KICK. "And now,
little in the
matter of cultivating cleanly habits, etc. Women are preached to
eternally on these matters and the men wholly neglected. It would be a
'new thought' to take to the men a little and might assist in making more of
them fit companions for the sweet and cleanly women they delight in
associating with. The absolute neglect of the masculine sex by writers on
these subjects causes them to think that nothing in the way of the
aesthetic is expected of them. It is a wrong to the men not to en-me and
make me his chum as well as his wife. Help courage them to aspire to a
common plane with woman in the matters of purity and cleanliness.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but no more so in the case of woman
than of man. It is time for equality to be recognized in this matter as
in all others." Carrie. It is funny
how many women squirm when reminded that it is they who set the pace in
the home! We are always longing for power and a field of effort, and
then when a 20th century prophetess arises and tells us we are all but
almighty, and shows us how to direct our almightiness to accomplish
results, we - well, we squirm. One would think some of us are a little bit
ashamed of the pace we have been setting, of the things we have been
accomplishing with our almightiness! You know, our first impulse when
we see an error in our own selves is to sound the trumpet and charge
upon the error in the other fellow. Is this why Carrie wants the men
scolded? Well, don't
they get scolded? What are their wives and daughters and sweethearts
for but to scold 'em or coax 'em into cleaner ways of living? No use
to talk to men as a class, about anything but politics. Don't you know
that Adam couldn't even taste an apple until Eve coaxed him? Adam is a
great theorizer; he will gaze at an apple and tell you that he ought
not to eat it, and why not; he will even amble long and wishfully
about that apple; but it takes Eve to wake in him the living impulse
to take it. Just so with matters of personal neatness. He knows - oh,
yes, knowing is his long suit! - he knows he "ought" to be neat; and he
thinks he wants to be; but unless Eve and the serpent come along he
hasn't the living impulse. And Eve must
not lose sight of the serpent, however far away the dove may fly. Eve
must use wisdom and tact, as well as example; if she would have Adam
accept her standard of cleanliness she must see to it that her example is
beautifully clean instead of painfully so. There are men who are
careless about their persons simply as a matter of relief from the painful
cleanness of their surroundings.
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