Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/29

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Cost of Modern Sentiment

sent to occupy; she ate food which no servant would be asked to eat; she associated with young women whom no servant would accept as equals and companions. But, as she had voluntarily relinquished comfort, protection, and the grace of human relations between employer and employed, she accepted her chosen conditions, and tried successfully to better them along her chosen lines. The reader is made to understand that it was as unreasonable for the benevolent lady—who had visions of a trim and white-capped parlor-maid dancing be fore her eyes—to show "disappointment and disgust" because her overtures were rejected, as it would have been to charge the same lady with robbing the girl of her "day of maidenhood," and her "little souls unborn," by shutting her up in a factory. If we will blow our minds clear of generous illusions, we shall understand that an emotional verdict has no validity when offered as a criterion of facts.

13