Just now it is the health and nervous system and
moral tone of the modern woman that are causing
concern to the souls of the serious prophets of the
century — prophets, that is, who take themselves
seriously, as prophets always do, and imagine that
their denunciations and predictions will have more
effect upon the tides of human life than Mrs. Parting-
ton's broom had upon those of the Atlantic. "Wo-
man is becoming a pubhc character," they all wail
in chorus; "and the fierce light of publicity will fade
and wither all her womanliness and the sweet virtues
of the hearthstone, while her peace and balance of
mind and vigor of health will be shattered in its
storms."

That a striking and almost revolutionary change



WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE 119

in the work and place of woman has taken place within
the last thirty-five years is obvious to the dullest eye
— just like the change that has taken place in the
working habits and surroundings of man since the
discovery of steam and electric power. The vast ma-
jority of men no longer perform their entire day's
work and round of tasks within rifle-shot or shouting
distance of their hearthstone, or in a workshop which
is a room in the house, or its annex or lower story.
Home has become for the man of to-day, we are
told, merely a place in which to eat and sleep; indeed,
according to some cynics, a place to go to after all
the other places are shut. And now it looks as if a
full half of womankind were about to follow man's
example in finding their work outside of the home.
