Feminist fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Just how large a part Jane Addams had played in the enlightenment of
Kate's mind and the dissolution of her inherent exclusiveness, Kate
could not say. Sometimes she gave the whole credit to her. For here was
a woman with a genius for inclusiveness. She was the sister of all men.
If a youth sinned, she asked herself if she could have played any part
in the prevention of that sin had she had more awareness, more
solicitude. It was she who had, more than others,--though there was a
great army of men and women of good will to sustain her,--promulgated
this idea of responsibility. A city, she maintained, was a great home.
She demanded, then, to know if the house was made attractive,
instructive, protective. Was it so conducted that the wayward sons and
daughters, as well as the obedient ones, could find safety and happiness
within it? Were the privileges only for the rich, the effective, and the
out-reaching? Or were they for those who lacked the courage to put out
their hands for joy and knowledge? Were they for those who had not yet
learned the tongue of the family into which they had newly entered? Were
they for those who fought the rules and shirked the cares and dug for
themselves a pit of sorrow? She believed they were for all. She could
not countenance disinheritance. Yes, always, in high places and low,
among friends and enemies, this sad, kind, patient, quiet woman, Jane
Addams, of Hull House, had preached the indissolubility of the civic
family. Kate had listened and learned. Nay, more, she had added her own
interpretations. She was young, strong, brave, untaught by rebuff, and
she had the happy and beautiful insolence of those who have not known
defeat. She said things Jane Addams would have hesitated to say. She
lacked the fine courtesy of the elder woman; but she made, for that very
reason, a more dramatic propaganda.
* * * * *
Kate had known what it was to tramp the streets in rain and wind; she
had known what it was to face infection and drunken rage; she had looked
on sights both piteous and obscene; but she had now begun--and much,
much sooner than was usual with workers in her field--to reap some of
the rewards of toil.
Soon or late things in this life resolve themselves into a question of
personality. History and art, success and splendor, plenitude and power,
righteousness and immortal martyrdom, are all, in the last resolve,
personality and nothing more. Kate was having her swift rewards because
of that same indescribable, incontestable thing. The friendship of
remarkable women and men--women, particularly--was coming to her. Fine
things were being expected of her. She had a vitality which indicated
genius--that is, if genius is intensity, as some hold. At any rate, she
was vividly alert, naturally eloquent, physically capable of impressing
her personality upon others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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