Leonard Merrick

“ I am engaged in very necessary and very noble work—and work, moreover, that is essentially woman's province; if the way our sisters dress provokes impure thoughts, it is for us to tell them so, and insist on a reform. Do you suggest that the movement should be headed by men?"
"I suggest that there should be no movement at all."
"You would allow the evil to flourish unchecked?"
"The only evil exists in the minds of the meddlers."
"That is the merest fudge. As a man of the world you know very well that it is." ”

“ After supper some the company adjourned to the parlor, where one of the young women strummed a selection from "The Belle of New York"—and Pauline spent the evening weeping in her bedroom.
She went to see her parents on the morrow, and proposed that her father should take Barry into partnership.
"The place is impossible," she explained; "we cannot hope to exist on twenty dollars a week! I think the least you might do, papa, is to pay Barry five thousand a year." ”

“ We are working to remove temptation from the path of young men; I am lecturing on the evil influence of women's dress—the ordinary costumes that one sees in any drawing-room. You can understand that it would be grossly inconsistent of me to protest against elbow sleeves if my husband continued to bring out plays in which girls expose their limbs in short skirts? ”

“ Barry Gardiner of Chicago, wife of the well-known dramatist, and the president of the newly formed League for the Suppression of Impropriety, has opened a campaign against ladies' 'elbow sleeves,' which she declares are full of danger to the purity of the young men of the land. ”

“ It is an implanted instinct in your sex to dress something or somebody; in the nursery you dressed dolls; in different circumstances, you would now dress children; as it is, you want to dress other women. Indulge the natural inclination with artistry—design models! ”

“ She looked a trifle embarrassed.
"I dress like this now," she said; "all the women of the League do."
"I saw something about your League in the paper on board the train," answered Gardiner. "You know, Pauline—but we'll talk about that by and by! Well, dearest, the show went fairly well in London, and I've a commission that's going to mean money. ”

“ She's making America mighty unpleasant for us; I'm afraid to pick up a comic paper nowadays—and her mother proposes to reside permanently in Paris. I cannot quit Chicago myself—it is considerably rough on a man to be left a grass widower because his daughter's husband is unable to control her. ”

“ As a man of the world I know very well that the 'movement,' as you call it, provokes precisely the kind of thoughts that you are eager to suppress. And, anyhow, I resent my wife's getting up in public and talking about these things. ”

“ Well, you'll admit that the normal woman has no devouring aim to lengthen her neighbor's sleeves? You have never had anything to do worth doing, that's your trouble—your father is a successful business man, and he brought you up to a life of leisure. ”

“ Your father has promised me a berth in his office; he has been very liberal, considering that I haven't an atom of business training—he's going to start me at twenty dollars a week. In a boarding-house we can manage comfortably on twenty dollars a week ”