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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (July 19, 1890)
WEST SHORE. 903 There are gifts and gifts, and there are too many gifts. Therefore, it is wise only to accept and trust the gift which you are sure is innocent and not bestowed for any purpose whatso ever save a delicate desire to give pleasure and express respect ful admiration. Do not forget that a good deal of money may lose itself even in a bouquet in these days when the plumbers' consciences are offset by the florists'. Do not be under even the daintiest obligations to any man. Be independent. Even if you are betrothed do not let your lover' spend too much money upon you. He may do it freely and cheerfully may wish to lavish gifts upon you but, at the same lime, if you very gently but firmly decline to receive them, explaining that' you will think just as much of him without them, and that you prefer to have him save bis money, you will rise still higher in bis estimation. It may be " jolly good fun "as I have heard young women say to impose upon young men in the way of gifts, confectionery, fbwers, entertainments, etc., but it is so coarse and unwomanly, and the young woman who so maneu vers iu the end loses respect and attention, if no more. Niggard ly young men are detestable ; but there are many who while be ing free and generous yet appreciate due consideration for their not always too full pockets. Ida Lewis, keeper of the Lime rock light house, in the New port, Rhode Island, harbor, is the only female light house keeper in the country, and the last one that will be given a light, although no light on all the coast gains so high a report from the government inspectors as hers. Miss Lewis has a six-roomed house, and her spare time is occupied in housekeep ing and in sewing and reading. Miss Lewis has raved fifteen lives, and is the only woman in America to whom the gold life-saving medal has been awarded. She has also been given three silver medals and has received many gifts, both valuable and simple, in recognition of her bravery. No woman can read of the noble acts of such a woman without feeling that exquis ite, almost painful, thrilling of heart aud soul which Francis Key Scott must have felt when " The Star Spangled Banner " burst from him, to live as long as America lives. A good housekeeper is a blessing to her husband or to any other person whose lot is cast with her ; but from the fussy and fidgety housekeeper, Good Lord, deliver us 1 Her sharp eyes see every speck of dust upon your boots; she keeps the sun light out, lest it fade something ; the air, lest it ruflle a curtain ; the children, lest (hey break something. If you move a book the quarter of an inch, she replaces it; if you sit in a rocking chair, she keeps you on the ragged edge by eying the piano or some other article of furniture ; if you move your chair a hair's beadth, the instant you arise she will replace it. It is one thing to be sensibly neat, and another thing to be agonizingly neat; and I know women who make their husbands, their . children, their friends, and even themselves miserable by their mistaken notions of housekeeping. There are few women who know how to take leave in an agree able manner. They i ise, and their hostess must rise also ; and very often she must stand while they ray fifty things that should have occurred to them before, or have been repressed if coming to mind after the hostess has risen. Stay half an hour if you wish, stay all day if you mutt, say anything nd every thing your good sense or bad sense prompts you to say, but when you start to go, got An exasperating and wearisome leave-taking will efface all pleasant memories of an otherwise agreeable call. Even that brilliant woman, Madam de Stael, did not know when to go. Emelie Tracy Y. Parkhurst, manager of the Pacific Coast Literary Bureau, is one of the western women who have won deserved recognition. Possessing rare talent and inheriting strong executive ability, she makes a success of whatsoever Bhe undertakes. Besides her management of the literary bu reau she is now organizing a woman's press club, furnishes designs for Christmas cards and brochures, contributes prose and verse to numerous periodicals, and cheerfully lends a help ing hand to others. Mrs. Parkhurst is slight and frail looking and only twenty-seven years of age. She is a contributor to West Siiom. I was glad the other day to see a picture of Rhoda Brough ton, the English novelist. She has a good, strong, bright face, does not look like a woman who could draw such a character as Nell Lestrange, in " Cometh Up As a Flower; " or Lenore, in "Goodbye, Sweetheart:" or, least of all, that inimitable Be linda, in the novel of the same name. Her novels may not be wholesome for young girls to read ; but no one can read them without laughing and crying and loving Rhoda Brough ton. Have you ever noticed how few people stand squarely on their feet? One woman runs her boots down at the heel; another puts all her weight on one foot and puts out the other in an aimless, one-sided fashion ; another leans against a chair or a door or anything that is convenient; but very few, indoed, stand erect, with their shoulders back and their weight borne evenly by both feet, yet this is the only way to acquire a grace ful carriage and insure a well developed figure. I like the gcod, old-fashioned word " sweetheart." " Lover," "fiance," " bethrothed," "intended," and all the rest of them are very well in their way ; but there is no word so sweet, so pure, sd tender, so trustful as " sweetheart." When a man can look into a woman's eyes and breathe that word to her, and ask his God to bless her, she may be very sure that he loves her purely. The only Harvard college prize open to competition by both men and women is the Sargent prize of $100 for the best metrical translation of some assigned ode of Horace. The prize has been carried off this year by a Harvard young woman Miss Helen Leah Reed. It is almost superfluous to add so Boston people probably think that most of her life has been spent in Boston. The delicate nostriled, flaming eyed, quivering thorough bred is many and many a time bound down to the plow. A good thing for her, you say ? Well, perhaps, yes ; but it crushes her fine spirit, and wears out her life, even though it can never lower that something which throbs within her and holds her above other horses. An old German woman living in Florida wrote recently to a Seattle real estate firm that she owned an orange grove consist ing of sixty acres, fifty of which were swampy lake, and would like to exchange it for a prominont corner and building in Seat tle. Talk about the business capacity of men I Mrs. Harriet Beecher Slowe is seventy-eight years old . She is ktill in a feeble state of health, and is carefully watched over by her daughters at her Hartford home. If you are subject to the " blues," the chancel are strong that it is not because nobody carol for you, but because you care for nobody on earth but yourself.