The Tinder-Box

angerously volatile state of it; and occasionally people, especially of opposite sexes, try to administer it to each other in that form, with asphyxiation resulting to both hear

wonder and sore amazement, as well as breathless interest. I know, because I am one, and have just been waked up by the gyrations of the cyclone; and I'm deeply confounded. I

me pack up my graduating thesis, my B.S., and some delicious frocks, and go off to Paris for a degree from the Beaux Arts in Architecture, we would be caught up

ons with his honest eyes and booming voice discreetly muffled to accord with the moonlight and the quiet places around the deck. I may never ge

dear, and you'll have to sparkle when your time comes," he warned me, as

glad he didn't know about it then. He may have to suffer from it y

e, and I am not surprised at all that that positively creative thesis of yours on the Twentieth Century Garden, to which I listened to-night, procured you an honorable mention in your class at the Beaux Arts. The French

r. Indeed, I sometimes think she is the real spine in my back that was left out of me, and of its own strength got developed into another and a finer woman. She became captain of my Freshman soul, at the same time she captured the captaincy

in a little pool I should call it, out of even sight and sound of the current of events, we have been here in your own land engaged in the great work of the organization and reor ganization which is molding the destinies of the women of our times, and those that come after us. That is what I want to talk to you abou

ille that awakened me to this-this whirlwind that seems to be bot

fore Jane got to me. She might have left me there doing little things like making speeches before the United States Senate and running for Governor of

ution that seems all of a sudden to have revoluted from nobody knows where, and I have been generally indignant over things whether I understood them or not, and I have felt that I was being oppressed by the opposite sex, even

hing that made me feel life in my veins again was the unholy rage I experienced when

cally he is perfectly beautiful in an Old-Testament fashion. He lives in an ancient, rambling house across the road from my home, and he is making a souvenir collection of derelict women. Everybody that dies in Glendale le

was bound out to him until my twenty-fifth year or marriage, which is worse, has kept me from Glendale all these four years since father died suddenly while I was away at college, laid up with the ankle which I broke in the gymnasium. Still, as mu

limes. I feel that it is something I will have to go on with some day, and the devil will have to pick up the chips. Polk is the kind of man that ought to be exterminated by the government in sympathy for its women wards, if h

at intervals for breath I hurled out plans for his demolishment. I wish now I had been more conservatively

cribe, but you will accomplish it. However, many mediocre women have proved their ability to attend to their own fortunes, and do good business for themselves; but your battle is t

t find any man at all," I ventured faint-heartedly, but

ly write this, but the memory of the wonderful though fanatic light in Jane's eyes makes me able to scrawl it-"that you feel the mating instinct in you move towards any man, I charge you that you are to consider it a sacred obligation to express it with the same honesty that a man would express the same thing to you, in like case, even if he has shown no sign of that impulse toward you. No contortions and contemptible indirect method of attack, but a fearless one that is yours by right, and h

the arm of the chair on

s and had their lily-white hands kissed by cavalier gentlemen in starched ruffles, out under the stars that rise over Old Harpeth, th

acred vocation of bearing the race, I shall proceed, as I have told you, to choose five other suitable young women to follow your example, and furnish them the money, up to the sum of a hundred thousand dollars, after having been convinced by your experience. Be

million dollars all thi

rror, "And the men will hate it-and me.

ld Dickie as we stood against the rail of the ship and watched the waves fling back silvery radian

flame that lig

iew with Polk Hayes look lik

themselves of showing their preferences. Then only can they be sure that their unions are from real preferences and not compromises, on the part of their wives, from lack of other choice. Of course, a woman's pride will make

n who still wants the cling of the vine. A true vine would never want-or be

t such a thing across, Jane," I said, with a preflash of some of the things tha

ose glorious tonic looks, issuing from my backbone in her back. "The ultimate woman must be superb in

lenced w

choose, with every chance of happiness, in the smaller cities of the South and Middle West," said Mary Elizabeth gently, and somehow the tears rose in my eyes, as I th

oposing to some foolish man, who is of no importance to me, himself, or the world in general, down in Glendale, where they have all known me all my life, and would expect anyth

eyes on me, I felt that I was being besought by all the lovers of all the future generations to tear down some sort of awful barrier and give them happiness. And it was the thought of the men that was most appealing. It takes a woman who really likes them as I do, and has their good reall

ar Lord-I say it devoutly-indeed I do!-will help that poor ma

rpeth Valley, for at least two seasons all around. I shall work at my profession whole-heartedly, take my allotted place in the community, and refuse to recognize any difference in the obligations and opportunities in my life and that of the men with whom I am thrown, and to help all other women to take such a fearless and honest attitude-if Glendale blows up in con

e, in her crispest and most business-like tone of voice, though I could see she was

n to Glendale, as soon as I st

ightly like trying to produce a modern Don Quixote, feminine edition, and my cheeks are flaming so that I wouldn't look at them for worlds. And to write it all, too! I have always had my opinion of women who spill their souls out of an ink-bottle, but I ought to pardon a nihilist, that in the dead of night, cold with terror, confides some awful appointment he has had m

we have always had, and haul them over the edge, but we must not do it any more without letting them know about it-it isn't honest. Yes, women must solidify their love into such a concrete form that men can weigh and measure

ent I have undertaken? Please, God, let a good man be in Glendale, Tennessee, who wi