confess that, never having seen a woman’s private diary (except those that have been published), we do not share the popular impression as to their tenuity implied in the question put to us.  Taking it for granted that they are full of noble thoughts and beautiful imaginings, we doubt whether the time spent on them could not be better employed in acquiring knowledge or taking exercise.  For the diary forgotten and left to the next generation may be as dangerous as dynamite.

THE WHISTLING GIRL

The wisdom of our ancestors packed away in proverbial sayings may always be a little suspected.  We have a vague respect for a popular proverb, as embodying folk-experience, and expressing not the wit of one, but the common thought of a race.  We accept the saying unquestioning, as a sort of inspiration out of the air, true because nobody has challenged it for ages, and probably for the same reason that we try to see the new moon over our left shoulder.  Very likely the musty saying was the product of the average ignorance of an unenlightened time, and ought not to have the respect of a scientific and traveled people.  In fact it will be found that a large proportion of the proverbial sayings which we glibly use are fallacies based on a very limited experience of the world, and probably were set afloat by the idiocy or prejudice of one person.  To examine one of them is enough for our present purpose.

     “Whistling girls and crowing hens
     Always come to some bad ends.”

It would be interesting to know the origin of this proverb, because it is still much relied on as evincing a deep knowledge of human nature, and as an argument against change, that is to say, in this case, against progress.  It would seem to have been made by a man, conservative, perhaps malevolent, who had no appreciation of a hen, and a conservatively poor opinion of woman.  His idea was to keep woman in her place—­a good idea when not carried too far—­but he did not know what her place is, and he wanted to put a sort of restraint upon her emancipation by coupling her with an emancipated hen.  He therefore launched this shaft of ridicule, and got it to pass as an arrow of wisdom shot out of a popular experience in remote ages.

In the first place, it is not true, and probably never was true even when hens were at their lowest.  We doubts its Sanscrit antiquity.  It is perhaps of Puritan origin, and rhymed in New England.  It is false as to the hen.  A crowing hen was always an object of interest and distinction; she was pointed out to visitors; the owner was proud of her accomplishment, he was naturally likely to preserve her life, and especially if she could lay.  A hen that can lay and crow is a ’rara avis’.  And it should be parenthetically said here that the hen who can crow and cannot lay is not a good example for woman.  The crowing hen was of more value than the silent hen, provided she crowed with discretion;