COMING TO.
WHATEVER our dreams have been, we aro as a rule glad to wake. Whether we have been subject to nightmares or enchantments, we regain the familiar world with pleasure. All the sensations of life may be gone through while we aro what is called unconscious, except one. It is only in the real world that we find monotony, and on the whole mankind likes monotony. When the war is over it will seem to most of us who have remained at home to have been a bad or a good dream. Those to whom it has meant the loss of those they love, the loss of the means of liveli- hood, the loss of all their hopes in one sense or another, will inevitably wonder how, to any one, the remembrance of it can ever bo other than horrible. But it is impossible to go about London and not he struck by the look of happiness upon the faces, for instance, of the younger women, and impossible not to wonder what they will do when it is all over. Will they over eettle down any more ? Cam they ? How many women among one's own acquaintance can one count who, without completely altering their way of living, have been able to invest it with a now interest ? They do not look listless any more. They have an air of conscious success and good health. Take, for example, the person who, perhaps without ill-nature, we might call the Merry Miser. All her life she has found her recreation in a sort of organized economy. Housekeeping for her has meant producing for sixpence the same result as other people produce fm. ninepence. It is not a quality which finds approval in everyday life. If she has servants, they are sure to have disliked and despised it. If she has children, they have probably rebelled against it. Her husband, who ought to be grateful to her, has probably been more often irritated by such chceseparing as has come under his notice. If she is a sensible woman, she has put a curb upon her passion for thrift, and suffered pain silently when her relations waste the light and the notepaper or make up a good fire, or when the servants eat more than seems reasonable. She has not talked about the amount of time and trouble she expends upon what she calls "organization," and what other people call " fussing after details." Her favourite occupations, her predominant interest-, respectable and laudable as she has believed them to be, have had to be kept dark, and she has often felt injured in the past. She knows that the boys' schoolmasters dreaded her letters, that her daughters governess had a secret contempt for her, and t hat no one, not even the guest in her house, ever felt quite free. The poor whom she came across repelled her by their open-handed folly. She realized sadly that she could never get at them across the mass of broken rules and wasted pence which stood between them and her. Now everything is changed. She is in the right ; her friends are in the wrong. They como humbly to her for advice. She funds them talking all day long about the subjects which they snubbed her for recurring to. Her family are proud, not ashamed, of her ways. Shc has the habit of sparing. Dearth cannot take her by surprise. No one can impose upon her. For her the temptation of shop windows does not exist. She is accustomed to hesitate, to look twice at her money, to suspect imposture, to refuse to lend, to refrain from purchase, to live within the iron walls of a prearranged plan. " Now they recognize. my household statesmanship," she says to herself ; " now they see that really understood the faults of the poor." She is an example, not a laughing-stock. Truly life is worth living—if you will but think it out.
Then take the opposite extreme. Take the woman who has never felt that life at home could satisfy, her at .811. She detests housekeeping, scorns frugality, and sees no object in being what old-fashioned people called " within " when her husband is working all day. If her children are boys, she has probably sent them away early ; if girls, she is not very much interested in them. The world interests her, and social improvements interest her ; and ehe has worked hard, and perhaps very ably, at all sorts of semi- public jobs. If she belongs to one set of society, her aims may have been political ; if she belongs to another, they have probably been parochial. Perhaps she has been successful, but she has not been able greatly to enjoy her success. She has suspected that a large number of her acquaintances a little disapproved of her. Murmurs of a name which sounded like Mrs. Jellyby's have from time to time reached her ears. Other women have talked pointedly of their children before her, and have denied the keen interest which she knew that they at other times have displayed in public matters. Relations have been still more open in their criticisms. Her husband has seemed to her sometimes to side with them. Now she also is an example. Now no one feels quite easy R ho does not undertake some form or other of war work. They find, to their surprise, that the modern Mrs. Jellyby's children are not so badly provided for, and have taken no great harm in her (-meant absences. They revise their opinion of her, and copy her ie their measure. She can show them how to do a- great deal which they are now trying to accomplish. She is used to working with strangers, to avoiding friction, to keeping correct accounts, to " method " generally. In fact, she has had a business .training of a sort, and they have had none. They go to her hat in hand, and she fools for the first time in her life that she is wholly approved sad looked up to. She feels wonderfully happy. How pleasant is the atmosphere when one is a little raised above one's fellows!
Again, if we turn to the new generation, to the children who have just stopped growing and finished their education, there is the discontented girl who has longed, with a longing she has never dared fully to admit, even to herself, for a little money. Her parents have perhaps lived quite up to their income, and have seen no sort of need of giving her anything for her pocket. • She has felt that the very servants had more to " play with " than she. Her craving for the ordinary means of a little innocent freedom of action, such as none of the men she lives among would consent to go without, belongs perhaps to the best part of her nature. Fite has probably never been able to give away a shilling, and on this account she has felt the doors of philanthropic occupation closed to her. Most " occupations " which offer themselves to young women are of a philanthropic nature. It is easy to laugh at many of them, but they do offer an absorbing interest and great opportunity for the relief of suffering to those who -have even a very little money to spend. Nearly all those who direct these institutions, be they the heads of great societies or merely curates, will assure their lieutenants that they need never give a penny, and that all their expenses will be paid ; but those who have ex- perience know better. Philanthropy with an empty pocket is a very irritating and often a very heartrending job. A young woman without money or of a very strong humanitarian bent will not take them up ; an idle girl can think all day of her own adornment. Very few well-to-do parents stint their girls in clothes, and insen- sibly the consideration of dress takes up more and more of their daughters' time and eats away their minds. But all this belongs to three years ago. These girls are fully occupied now, at work of real importance, and they are well paid for it. With money jingling in their pockets, they can do as they like in their " off " time. They are discontented no longer.
In English youth—among the women as much as the men—the feverish spirit of adventure is not uncommon. There are girls—a few only—to whom travel and danger are as the breath of life. Such are doomed, for the most part, to live as caged birds. We have all watched them in times of peace—attracted perhaps by something which may be compared to a cage-bird's song—and have been troubled by the sight of their restlessness. Nothing satisfied them. We have probably disliked them for the disturbance the very sight of them creates. They cannot work ; they cannot rest ; they are unhappy single and more unhappy married. If they perform the duties of life, they perform them against the grain. They take ill for no reason and kick against every prick. The blood of some adventurous forefather surges in their veins. A great flight of such have lately crossed the Channel and fulfilled their heroic destiny. Added to these we get a crowd of women who, while not displeased
with their situation and not sighing for any other, have yet intensely and for long wished for a change. They have smiled contempt- uously at the vagaries of suffragettes, and then for one passionate moment have wondered whether they could last out till sixty or seventy without ever being off duty, without a change of any sort. Men do not realize how. great is the scope of the ordinary masculine common round as compared with the ordinary feminine one.
When these last 'come to" they will settle .down excellently well. They desired only a moment's relief, and they have had it. In too many cases, needless to say, the " change " has been turned to tragedy ; but tragedy has not touched every home.
Tad army will come home—and the majority of men between forty and fifty have not been away. The discontented girls mill be a great problem, but we must remember that they will never have again the sense of hopelessness. They can work—their work is worth money—and with -the Colonies drawing nearer,to us they will for the most part find careers. What about the dangerdovers ? Will they settle down ? Never—but they have had their day. They will live and die not wholly dissatisfied. What about the Mrs. Jellybys and the Merry Misers ? They can never be chauged, but perhaps they will have been sweetened by a little approvaL What, again, of the thousands who followed painfully in their footsteps for a limited time ? Well, they will be subject to .a reaction. We shall be blessed with .a great many stay-at-home women, and irritated by a good many extravagant ones, for, a long time to come.
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