Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/143

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THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN.
137

ing like a heavy borrowed article. The charm of being, of simply being one's self, apart from having a "mission" or "views," is lost in the zeal with which women are seizing upon the new fields of usefulness thrown open to them.

Every one must be or want a definite something. Two instances may serve as illustrations. The wife of a literary man, herself a writer, came to this country, and was dined and lunched. What does she want?" asked the earnest women. "Nothing!" was the indignant reply of her society friend. Again, a sculptor went back to Rome and told how he had called to see a certain lady because he liked her, when, on his third visit, she asked, welcoming him, "Is there anything I can do for you?" — "As if," he said, "a man could not see a Boston woman without her wishing to aid him. Can't they just be themselves, and let us like them, and not eternally have objects, views?"

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