WOMEN AND HAPPINESS.
" WOMEN in their nature are much more gay and joyous than men," said Addison. "Their' spirits are more light," he goes on ; "vivacity is the gift of women, gravity that of men." Addison, of course, spoke for his own time, and no doubt he truly recorded what he saw. The diaries and letters of the period give us the same impression. The ladies of his day were "sprightly," their charm was "variety." their vice frivolity. But Addison seems to mean his words to apply to women in general. There is no sound of hesitation in them ; he evidently thinks they will be accepted as a truism. Would they be accepted in the present day without challenge ? We think not, and yet we believe that they contain a measure of truth. Undoubtedly, however, we should no longer turn to the writings of women in confirma- tion of his dictum. There is a melancholy tone in literature jest now, and in women's writings it is very strongly marked. This fact, however, seems to illustrate a phase of thought rather than reflect human nature. The pens of women, have
been captivated by a kind of philosophy which they could never have evolved, and which gives little scope to their natural ability. It is outside the power of the imagination to conceive of a feminine Swift. That great morose genius could have no parallel in the opposite sex.
But setting aside feminine writers, and looking round among one's ordinary acquaintance, are not the women more light-hearted than the men ? Surely they are. For one thing, ' they have to appear to be; and . the habit of content can be cultivated. Who in the world would show any sympathy to an habitually depressed and pessimistic woman ? She may be so lucky as to find one of her own sex who will continue to feel affection for her, but she will not find one of the other. If her melancholy be united to some force of character, she will be called a scold and a nagger. If she is merely weak and fretful, she will be disliked and disregarded, or at best considered a hopelessly selfish person. Men will not put up with melancholy iu women, and on the whole it is perhaps a good thing for the new generation that they will not. It is no argument to say that women have to put up with this disagreeable quality in men. All experience shows that the laws of compensation— of compensation in character—act differently upon the two sexes. A man's character seems to be made up of more items than a woman's, and each single one has less weight. A woman has seldom any virtue able to balance a really bad fault, and how rarely we find a serious fault at all in the character of an essentially good woman. It is easy, we admit, to exaggerate the difference between the sexes, but women bare one peculiarity in their characters which is all their own. It testifies to the moral height of their common attainment, and to the depth of their possible degradation. They are not forgivable.
No doubt the root of content and discontent lies not in circumstances but in temperament, and no training can ever altogether preVail over a tendency. Some women, like some men, are born to look, be it ever so secretly, upon the dark side. For ourselves, however, we do not believe the apparently greater happiness of women to be entirely a matter of self- control. It is as natural to a woman to adorn herself with cheerfulness as with ornaments. It belongs both to the graver and the lighter side of her nature; it is part of her self-respect and part of her vanity. Her cheerful countenance may witness to a real heroism—it often does—or it may come of something less noble. It may be the outcome of her instinct to make her household happy, or of her instinct to attract admiration to herself. But whether she belongs to what Addison culls "the more valuable portion of the sex" or not, if she cares at all for the impression she creates she will no more be melancholy than she will be slovenly. The less " valuable " portion may be capable of no courageous effort to keep up the hearts of those they love, but they too will express pleasure to give pleasure and get pleasure back, and so contrive their own happiness. What Goldsmith said of the French applies to many inferior women :—
" They please, are pleased; they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem."
Moreover, in discussing happiness it is not possible to put situation and circumstance quite out of account, and we think that the life of an ordinary woman makes more for cheerful- ness than that of a man. She has fewer ambitions, and they are less likely to be thwarted. Her life has fewer possibilities Of disappointment and of disillusionment. Of course, if she marries badly it means more; on the other band, the vast majority of marriages are moderately happy, and it is only an abnormal woman who does not love her children, and her children make a far larger part of her life than they do of her husband's. So many men are embittered by professional ill- success ; by the constant grind of work they do not like ; by the never-ceasing burden of money anxiety ; by rubbing shoulders all day long with persons who are unsympathetic to them. A man's recreation and his daily toil are not inex- tricably mingled as are the labours and delights of a woman, and it is not infrequently the case that hard-worked men have very little recreation at all. In the nature of things, men's pleasures are po'sitire ones,, and are nearly always more or less expensive, requiring sometimes more money, more health, or more time than they have to give. However tired a man may he, he is always bored by doing nothing. Now the ordinary, woman is very well pleased without any positive
Measures. Her work is very rarely distasteful to her. The care'of her children and her home is always intermixed with Measure, and it is an undoubted fact that, lacking the safety- i•slve of a home of her own for her energy, she will in the majority of cases throw herself into other work with a fervour which is complete evidence of the delight she derives from it; and we believe that more women break down from doing unnecessary work than ever break down from seeking unnecessary distraction.
One source of women's happiness is to be found, we think, in their love of detail. They enjoy every detail social life. They love the minutiae of their work. rimy do not love it as a man loves his, for the sake of an end. They look close at what they are doing, and they do not look forward. They take pleasure in their children as they are. A defect, even though it be a serious one, destroys their pleasure in them far less than it destroys that of a man. They are not constantly oppressed by the thought of what that defect will mean in the future. If a woman is by nature apprehensive, her fears apply for the most part to little things. If a man is apprehensive, be fears when'the fit is upon him the dadele of heaven and earth. For women time goes a little slower. They take pleasure in each jewel of that mosaic which makes up happiness, and are not fretted because the pattern is not complete. Of this quality they have, no doubt, the inevitable defects,—much brilliance, little grasp, and a tendency to frivolity. They are apt to fritter away their lives and minds on little things; they become engrossed with the details of play as well as the details of work. Men, no doubt, have more opportunities of keen pleasure than women have; but these opportunities are short- lived. The happiness of the moment they are less fitted to take. The difference between the sexes in this particular niight, we believe, be thus summed up : a man is happy whenever be has anything to make him happy, but a woman is happy whenever she has nothing to make her unhappy.
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