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قراءة كتاب The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 4 June 1906
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THE SCRAP BOOK.
| Vol. I. |
JUNE, 1906. |
No. 4. |
June,—BUNKER HILL—June,
1775. 1843.
Peroration of the Address Delivered by Daniel Webster,
June 17, 1843, at the Dedication of the
Monument That Now Marks the Scene of
the Famous Revolutionary Struggle.
We have indulged in gratifying recollections of the past, in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes for the future. But let us remember that we have duties and obligations to perform, corresponding to the blessings which we enjoy. Let us remember the trust, the sacred trust, attaching to the rich inheritance which we have received from our fathers. Let us feel our personal responsibility, to the full extent of our power and influence, for the preservation of the principles of civil and religious liberty. And let us remember that it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that can make men respectable and happy under any form of government. Let us hold fast the great truth that communities are responsible as well as individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor—no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. In our day and generation let us seek to raise and improve the moral sentiment, so that we may look, not for a degraded, but for an elevated and improved future. And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of country—and pride of country—glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is concerned—there shall rise, from every youthful breast, the ejaculation—"Thank God, I—I also—am an American!"
The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While.
Praise and Blame for American Women From Dr. Emil Reich—Earl Grey and Secretary Root Discuss the Relations of Canada and the United States—William J. Bryan Defines the Limits of Socialism—Rabbi Schulman Explains Certain Prejudices Against the Jews—William T. Jerome, Senator Lodge, and Norman Hapgood Criticize or Defend the Noble Army of Muck-Rakers—With Other Interesting Expressions of Opinion on Current Issues of the Day.
Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.
FEMININE RULE MAY DOOM OUR COUNTRY.
American Women Are Like the Spartans
in Their Desire to Dominate the
American Man.
Dr. Emil Reich has been lecturing to fashionable London on such universally fascinating themes as woman and love. According to the news despatches, so great has been the popularity of his talks that there have not been seats enough to accommodate his titled hearers, and at one lecture the Duchess of Portland sat on the floor. He has said of "Love and Personality":
Personality is always a mystery with its antithetically mingled elements in man and woman. Women have loved wrongly and known it, were perfectly aware of it—they only know also that they were helpless to avoid it; the desire of their lives has been gratified, something has happened.
What was there about George Sand, save perhaps pretty good eyes, to send such men as Alfred de Musset and Friedrich Chopin absolutely crazy? Nothing interesting about her—even her unattractiveness enhanced by her constant smoking. Yet she could inspire the "Prelude," which Chopin composed on seeing her approach in a garden in Minorca—the greatest piece of music ever compressed into a single page.
Goethe's Gretchen, the little bourgeoise, without apparent attractiveness, yet inspiring his mighty genius—what is this mystery of man and woman? The beauty of nations differs very much. The Latins are less beautiful than the Anglo-Saxons. The angularity of the North German woman is notorious; an uncharming person. Why? It has nothing whatever to do with race. The growth of the Hanseatic cities brought great wealth in North Germany; money-bags married money-bags; the result was a people of severely plain aspect. There are not many money-bags in America, although there are many money-bags in the hands of a few.
American Men Marry for Love.
The American is insulted if mention of dowry is made in his wedding arrangements. He marries because he loves the woman and she him. Hence, the American people have become exceedingly beautiful. Then the facilities for divorce presented in the United States are an important factor in the beautification process. Love is really at the bottom of it all—not money-bags or race, but love.
The French are always talking about l'amour, l'amour; but really there is no amour there at all—people generally talk most about what they haven't got or don't know. Yes, indeed, so rare is l'amour in France that it accounts for the decline in facial beauty of the French woman—not in movement, for in movement she excels the world, but in face. Rome and Greece were ruined by treating marriage as a matter of business.
Complementary to Dr. Reich's praise of the American woman's beauty is his criticism of her love of domination. In that characteristic he reads the doom of America. We quote his reasons from the New York American:
Nations differ in nothing so much as in their women. The French, English, or American woman is easily distinguishable. The American woman is totally different from the English woman. So is the French woman, though the difference in this case is not so intense; so is the German woman; so is the woman of Italy. The American woman, while differing from all her European sisters of to-day, bears a marked resemblance to the woman of ancient Sparta. The Spartans resembled the present-day Americans; the Athenians were like the English.
I do not blame, I do not praise; I only say, and I say emphatically, that the American woman is not womanly; she is not a woman. The whole of the United States is under petticoat government, and man is practically non-existent.
In America, woman commands man. Man does not count there. The last man that came to America was Christopher Columbus. To-day, man has no existence; he does not talk in the drawing-room, but is a dummy. The woman lives one life, the man another, and they are totally distinct from each other.
The Best Complexion in the World.
She is as new as a man born to-day is new; she is made up of restlessness and fidgetiness long before she is twenty-five. But she is very beautiful; she has the best complexion in the world—better than that of any European woman. She is also well built and handsome. You see fine specimens of the American woman in Kentucky and Massachusetts.
A few miles distant from the Athens of old—what would be but a short railway journey in these days—lay Sparta.