CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Prof. Juan E. Reyna 
 
Cornell University Library 
 arV1022 
 
 Woman's worth and worthlessness. 
 
 3 1924 031 166 659 
 olin.anx 
 

Ml^ 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924031 1 66659 
 
WOMAN'S WORTH 
 
 AND WORTHLESSNESS. 
 
WOMAN'S WORTH 
 
 AND WORTHLESSNESS. 
 
 THE COMPLEMENT TO 
 
 "A NEW ATMOSPHERE." 
 
 By GAIL HAMILTON^ bi^ejt^. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 1872. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
 
 Harper & Brothers, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 A,^i36,^ 1 
 
P RE FACE. 
 
 I HAVE called my book " The Complement to a New At- 
 mosphere," to remove, if possible, the misapprehension of 
 those who have given it the honor of their attention as it 
 has appeared from week to week, and who have been dis- 
 turbed by what has seemed to them a change of views. 
 
 Strictly speaking, it is impossible to obtain, and insolent 
 to undertake to present an adequate idea of any subject or 
 object without changing one's views. We are directed by 
 very high authority to walk about Zion, and go round about 
 her, not stand still and stare at her from one point. I sup- 
 pose Zion looked very different seen from the Mount of 
 Olives and the Fount of Gihon, but it was Zion all the while. 
 
 Change of views involves more or less change of opin- 
 ions — is, indeed, made for the purpose of forming opinion. 
 Looking but casually at Woman Suffrage, I regarded it with 
 indifference. From a careful survey, I can not regard it 
 but with apprehension. The more closely I scrutinize it, 
 the more formidable seems to me the revolution which it 
 implies, the more onerous seem the duties which it imposes. 
 I feel, also, ever more and more vividly, that 
 
 " It is not ours to separate 
 The tangled skein of will arid fate ;'' 
 
 and many things which once I would have attributed to 
 cold-blooded malice I would now attribute to partial growth, 
 to imperfect adjustment, and so find it easier to hate, up- 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 root, and cast away the sin, and yet love the sinner — if he Is 
 not too hateful ! But of any change important enough to 
 be spoken of — supposing any change worth speaking of— 
 I am unconscious. I know that I have never swerved a 
 hair's breadth from my belief that the only way out of our 
 estate of sin and misery is the slow growth of individual 
 excellence, and that it is in the home, in the family — more 
 sacred than any church, the only divine institution — that 
 this excellence must be chiefly nurtured. 
 
 Whether such a belief assigns to woman a commanding 
 or a subordinate position in the world's economy I must 
 leave to the judgment of my readers. 
 
 Gail Hamilton. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEn FACE 
 
 I. THE STATE OF NATURE. 9 
 
 II. THE STATE OF [FRENCH] GRACE 24 
 
 III. FALLING FROM GRACE 45 
 
 IV. THE PURSUIT OF THE FORTY THOUSAND 64 
 
 V. THINGS NEEDED AND THINGS WANTED 90 
 
 VI. WOMEN AMONG THE PROPHETS II6 
 
 VII. DISABILITIES 134 
 
 Vin. SERFDOM 154 
 
 IX. SERVILE OCCUPATIONS '67 
 
 X. HOME TRAINING '^° 
 
 XI. FEMALE SAGACITY IN POLITICS 19' 
 
 XI L PRESS- WORK. 
 
 205 
 
 XIII. REPRESENTATIVE REFORM 237 
 
 XIV. THE NECESSITY OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE 246 
 
 XV. EXEMPTION OR IMPOSITION 264 
 
 XVI. THE ATTITUDE OF MEN 272 
 
 XVII. RESULTS 276 
 
WOMAN'S WORTH AND WORTHLESSNESS. 
 
 THE STATE OF NATURE. 
 
 " My dear," I said to my friend Hassan the Turk — Has- 
 san is not his real name ; but circumstances, into which a 
 generous public will not, I trust, peer too closely, have made 
 an alias grateful — 
 
 " My dear," I said, 
 
 " I shall go 
 To Professor Blot." 
 
 " My dear," he replied, limping promptly after me, but in 
 
 most un-Gallic guise, 
 
 " I think you better not 
 Go near Professor Blot." 
 
 "Why should I not?" 
 
 "Why should you?" 
 
 A door was open, as the missionaries say, and I walked in. 
 
 " You men — " 
 
 " Now then. All hands on deck !" 
 
 " From time immemorial men have been talking about 
 the noble art of cooking. You have descanted on its im- 
 portance to the material and spiritual interests of society. 
 Without a knowledge of it, a love for it, a skill in it, no wom- 
 an could long retain her husband's love or the sovereign- 
 ty of her home. The education that omitted it was but a 
 synonym for inadequacy, not to say uselessness. If a girl 
 could not bake a loaf of bread or boil a pudding, she was a 
 
 A 2 
 
lo Woman! s Worth 
 
 failure, however lovely or accomplished. You have wailed 
 Jeremiades over female ignorance, and then, taking heart 
 of disgrace, you have broadened out into Jeremiades over 
 American ignorance on this point. You have set against it 
 the tact, toothsomeness, and economy of the French kitch- 
 en. In short, you have moralized and demoralized, in sea- 
 son and out of season, and all to no purpose ; for how can 
 people learn when there is none to teach ? According to 
 your own showing, we are a nation of barbarians in all that 
 relates to the cuisine ; and of what use is it for the blind 
 to be led by the blind ? But here is a chance for you to 
 prove your sincerity. Here comes a high-priest of the mys- 
 tery. He is not only a man, but a Frenchman. He is the 
 exponent of the highest civilization of the cooking-stove. 
 AVe may, as it were, lay our hands upon its mane. All that 
 is known we may know. Stand by your principles now. 
 Since knowledge comes, do not let wisdom linger. Elec- 
 tioneer for Professor Blot. Encourage or admonish every 
 woman to attend his lessons. We can not always drink 
 from the fountain-head of knowledge ; but when the foun- 
 tain-head bubbles up at our own door, a dollar a ticket, what 
 doth hinder that we drink our fill ?" 
 
 " I hinder. I forbid the bans." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " Yes, I. In the name of my domestic peace, which is 
 threatened, I protest." 
 
 "Why, herein is a marvelous thing." 
 
 " That you should spoil a horn in the futile ambition to 
 make a spoon ?" 
 
 "But the horn is good for nothing." 
 
 " That is the beauty of it. Your great charm is that you 
 are of no use. Your ignorance of every thing which no 
 gentleman's library should be without is truly appetizing. 
 One never knows where your absurdity will crop out next ; 
 
and Worthlessness. 1 1 
 
 curiosity is, therefore, always on tip-toe, and life worth living. 
 Now go and make yourself a useful member of society, and 
 you will spoil the whole. Useful members of society are al- 
 ready as the frogs of Egypt for multitude. Do not you turn 
 into one !" 
 
 " But the true woman, my dear — " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, my dear. If you are dissatisfied with 
 your place, and wish to hire out as cook in a genteel fami- 
 ly, I will give you a character ; but if you wish to live a ra- 
 tional life, pray you keep clear of all these utilities. A hard 
 fate thrusts them upon some of our fellow-mortals; but 
 Heaven has mercifully, exempted you, and has given you, 
 moreover, a rare advantage by endowing you with a brilliant 
 inaptitude for every thing useful. Any body can do every 
 thing ; but for doing nothing, and doing it with ingenuity, I 
 don't know your equal. The consequence is that you are, 
 if not always an agreeable, at least an available companion. 
 One is sure of you. But go and waste your substance in 
 riotous living under Professor Blot's management, and the 
 spell is broken. You will be forever having an eye on the 
 larder. You will be greedy of receipts, and, instead of eat- 
 ing your meat with gladness and singleness of heart, you 
 will be fretting about the way it is cooked. For Heaven's 
 sake, my dear, spare my old age this pang, and let us trust 
 to Providence for the few years that remain." 
 
 Providence has done well by us, it must be confessed. 
 When we set up housekeeping we did it under the auspices 
 of a sweet, gentle, innocent widow just out of the House 
 of Correction, who recorded her vow that she never would 
 drink again, and in a spasm of benevolence we took her 
 in. Unfortunately, we soon began to suspect that her res- 
 olution was more comprehensive than at first appeared. 
 She had apparently resolved not only that she would never 
 drink again, but that she would never eat, nor be the cause 
 
12 Woman's Worth 
 
 of eating in others. Her supplies were of the scantiest. 
 The whole house had a gaunt look. Even the cat moaned 
 in her sleep. Our pretty widow was gentle. She was sweet. 
 She was sensitive. But we were starving, and she had to go. 
 Next came Miss Gilbert's career. Miss Gilbert was pro- 
 foundly respectable and highly recommended ; but wages 
 were not her object so much as a situation in a pious fam- 
 ily. I would have preferred to pay wages. Unhappily, piety 
 never was the strong point in our family. I was not uneasy 
 about myself, but I felt that I could not answer for my friend. 
 He maintains that if a man is just, cheerful, helpful, and 
 good-tempered, his fellow-man has no right to demand any 
 further proof of his religion. All the rest lies between the 
 soul and its Maker. He thinks that while promiscuous re- 
 ligious talk is not absolutely incompatible with religion, it is 
 a strong indication of its presence in microscopic propor- 
 tions, if not its entire absence, and that exactly in corre- 
 spondence with the depths of one's" inner experience is re- 
 luctance to display it indiscriminately. I need not say that 
 in these extraordinary whims he receives no countenance 
 from me. So far as talking is a test of piety, I trust I shall 
 never be found wanting. On the strength of my virtue, I 
 ventured to introduce Miss Gilbert upon the scene. She 
 was a stirring,.energetic woman, and what is called in some 
 quarters an active Christian, and we could make but little 
 headway against her. The momentum with which she went 
 to evening meetings was appalling. We creep out to even- 
 ing meetings ourselves sometimes after a modest sort, but 
 with her it was a crusade. The thaws of the opening spring 
 working on country roads had no terror for her. The deep- 
 er the mire, the hotter her zeal. She seemed to think there 
 was a virtue in floundering through these sloughs of de- 
 spond. The sprinklings and splashings of mud stood her 
 for a sort of baptismal regeneration. She made no scruple 
 
and Wortklessness. 13 
 
 of letting us know that she considered us cold and dead, ec- 
 clesiastically speaking. In fact, her piety was so highly fla- 
 vored that I thought Hassan would have stoned her, and I 
 bowed her out of the house. She was an excellent woman, 
 and we would contribute liberally toward sending her on a 
 mission to the Cannibal Islands. 
 
 Norah appeared next — happy Norah — who came confi- 
 dently asserting that she could do all sorts of work. Could 
 she cook ? No. That was one accomplishment she missed, 
 but she could do every thing else ; and cooking — she pro- 
 nounced the 00 like 00 in boot — coooooking she could learn. 
 Norah's crowning fault — and faults she had like Caroline 
 Helstone's curls, in picturesque profusion — but her master- 
 piece was ingenuity ; a too vivid imagination. She impro- 
 vised blunders with far more ease and rapidity than we 
 could counteract them. We tried to head her off", as farm- 
 ers say of their cattle ; to let conjecture run on before, and 
 ascertain and prevent the mischief she would determine, but 
 to no purpose. Her fertile brain outstripped us all. Who 
 can keep pace with a mind that douses the spider, crock and 
 all, into the dish-water every time it is to be washed .■■ Fare- 
 well, Norah ! Fare well if you can, oh families who in all 
 coming time shall give your household gods into her keep- 
 ing ! credulous families who open your hearts to her latest 
 declaration that she is a good plain cook ! A fine girl 
 was Norah, red-cheeked, brawny-armed, never sulky, with a 
 shoulder for every wheel, but inscrutable in all her ways. 
 
 How shall I speak of Rushy — Rushy the imperturbable ; 
 the innocent child who came to us in tatters ; a little neg- 
 lected waif, receiving every fate with a sublime serenity that 
 might have sprung from, fortitude or from insensibility. She 
 never told her love or hate, but took praise or censure with 
 equal immobility, smiling as brightly and chatting as brisk- 
 ly after the one as after the other. She was formed for lit- 
 
14 Woman's Worth 
 
 erature and society. Her mind was superficial and un- 
 trained, but active and intense. She fastened upon novels, 
 newspapers, magazines, and memoirs with the avidity of 
 famine. She waited at table arrectis auribus. She compli- 
 mented the entertaining guest by pausing midway between 
 table and door, dish in hand, head turned, mouth open, eyes 
 fixed upon him, unable to leave the room till she had heard 
 his sentence out. She washed dishes with a slow circular 
 sweep, her face over her shoulder to catch every movement 
 going on outside. And, notwithstanding her leisurely mo- 
 tion, she touched nothing which she did not tear. Her own 
 dress was a curious freak of cohesion. The skirt was rip- 
 ped till it hung in festoons from the waist ; and we amused 
 ourselves by computing the number of miles of torn cloth 
 that would be amassed by one who should collect her rents. 
 But she, in her great content, never seemed conscious that 
 her gown was torn, and when the fact was forced upon her 
 from without, she darned, and patched, and botched after a 
 random zigzag sort exquisitely painful to the average New 
 England mind. She washed floors to some merry mental 
 tune that sent the soap-suds dancing up the mop-board and 
 the wall-paper in the liveliest manner imaginable. She 
 leaned out of the window with the utmost nonchalance at 
 important culinary crises, balancing herself on the sill, and 
 accosting the boys of her acquaintance with unaffected can- 
 dor and simple good-will. We loved Rushy. As a study, 
 she was invaluable. In good nature, she was inexhaustible. 
 Alas ! so were not her employers, and we parted. 
 
 Through friendly intervention succeeded then a brief in- 
 terregnum, during which we had recourse to advertisements 
 — not making, but answering them. Ever before our eyes 
 flitted some ideal Scotch, German, or English girl, faithful, 
 friendly, efficient ; such a servant as one so often meets in 
 stories of English country houses ; but they never appeared 
 
and Worihlessness. 
 
 15 
 
 in the advertising columns. Each morning, as we opened 
 the daily paper, hope sprang eternal in the human breast, 
 but only to spring back again. There was no lack of wom- 
 en — middle-aged women, widows of twenty-five, twenty-eight, 
 thirty ; young widows, ladies of refinement, ladies of culture, 
 ladies who wanted situations in a small family ; housekeep- 
 ers, to whom a good home was more an object than high 
 wages — but they were sure to end with the fatal words, 
 "Widower preferred." Fatal to us, for neither my friend 
 nor myself was a widower, and we knew no legal way of be- 
 coming so. It was one of those arbitrary and unjust dis- 
 qualifications which, like sex or color in the question of suf- 
 frage, no merit can remove. Remonstrance was useless ; 
 remedy there was none ; what could we do in a market 
 where the demand for widowers was always brisk ? I asked 
 my friend why he supposed that class of employers was so 
 attractive. He replied that it was probably owing to the 
 combined influence of lovely woman and grief. Man in his 
 native state, he observed, was a wild animal. Lassoed, 
 tamed, and trained by his wife, he became a useful domestic 
 beast, but at the cost of his trainer, who sank under the ar- 
 duousness of the task. Grief for her loss still farther sub- 
 dued and chastened him, rendering the soil, as it were, mel- 
 low, and fit for cultivation ; so that a man who had loved 
 and lost was more malleable — to change the figure again — 
 than he who had never loved at all. 
 
 Very just reasoning, I admitted ; and added farther that 
 in him who had loved and lost was this advantage over him 
 who had loved and not lost. She who goes to the latter 
 finds another woman in the case. This woman, this living 
 wife, while she does not make the pies, is yet constantly put- 
 ting a finger in them, which is worse. And a man is a great 
 deal easier for a housekeeper to get on with than a woman. 
 He has not eyes for every crumb on the carpet, every roll 
 
1 6 Woman's Worth 
 
 of lint under the stove, every layer of dust behind the sofa, 
 every stain on the spoons, every waste in the pantry. He 
 never knows exactly how far a cup of sugar will go, or. how 
 much twelve and a half cents will buy. If he is only fed 
 and starched in a general way, he never suspects any thing 
 is the matter. Yes, I do not wonder that widowers are pre- 
 ferred. I should prefer them myself. 
 
 Still we went on wildly answering advertisements, stating 
 our requirements and appliances in such terms as might 
 seem seducing to the advertising mind, till I think there can 
 hardly be a corner of this great republic to which our house- 
 hold belongings (so many stories, so many rooms, furnace 
 in the cellar, chimney that does not smoke, sunshine in the 
 kitchen all day, pump in the sink, six hens and a cat — I 
 know it like the multiplication table) have not penetrated. 
 But to no purpose. Once we thought we had caught her. 
 A woman appeared without any patent predilections for 
 widowers. We sent out six hens and a cat after her by the 
 next mail. We never heard from them again ; but on. the 
 following day the advertisement appeared with the append- 
 ed condition that she wished a situation in a genteel family ! 
 This was the most unkindest cut of all, and we ceased to 
 haunt the journals. 
 
 For we went into the kitchen ourselves. I say we, for 
 my friend had small faith in my unassisted reason. I would 
 have preferred to be alone. When you are trying experi- 
 ments, or meditating doubtful devices, or balancing between 
 opposing systems, few things are more disturbing than a by- 
 stander, an over-see-er. I would have liked to order him 
 out of the kitchen ; but he had so much at stake in the 
 result, and I knew so little of the processes, that the meas- 
 ure seemed hardly justifiable. It promised to be, on the 
 whole, more satisfactory to give him a retainer, as you might 
 say, and take it out in having him handy to lay the blame 
 
and Worthkssness. 17 
 
 of the failures on, particularly as he was enjoying a short 
 space of leisure, and it would not be possible to keep him 
 off. 
 
 Should any person read this on whose hands time hangs 
 heavily, who seems to himself to have exhausted the re- 
 sources of interest, let me respectfully invite him to repair 
 to his own kitchen, and attempt, as our late beloved Presi- 
 dent used to say, to run the machine. He will, as the poet 
 sings, feel himself new-born. He is the centre of a nev/ 
 order of things. Bread and beef, which have always been 
 to him a momentary and disconnected fact, suddenly take 
 on a history that stretches back into a remote and thrilling 
 past. The savory steak of the breakfast-table, which he was 
 wont to consider a self-evident proposition, represents only 
 the last step of a long process of thought, is the crowning 
 close of a series of scientific experiments. At the same 
 time, nothing more forcibly strikes the contemplative mind 
 than the uncertainties of the kitchen. You are constantly 
 surprised to learn, from painful observation, that like causes 
 do not produce like results. Mathematics and chemistry 
 are fallacious. I remembered some delicious rye muffins I 
 had once eaten in a friend's house. I sent for the receipt. 
 I followed it — one pint of sour milk, one pint of rye flour, 
 eggs, and such things. What happened ? Plump, light puffs 
 of muffins such as I had eaten in a foreign clime ? No. A 
 panful of little, flat, wrinkled, shrunken, and still shrinking 
 dabs, which, on opening, proved to have been transmuted 
 into rye hasty-pudding. Withered old crones without, molt- 
 en lava within. I scalded my mouth trying to swallow one 
 or two of the worst ones out of the way before my friend 
 came down. There were some pretty bad ones left. Has- 
 san is a good-natured creature, and he grappled with them 
 manfully, but he did not seem to make much impression on 
 the plateful. I told him I was sure he could eat more if he 
 
1 8 Woman's Worth 
 
 would give his mind to it — just set up a little resolution ; but 
 he said he had made a remarkably good dinner at the Farm- 
 er's Club the week before, and really was not hungry. Aft- 
 erward I recollected that I had left out the eggs ; but it 
 would have made no difference if I had put them in. There 
 needs something more than eggs to heal the breach between 
 a muffin and a volcano. Drop- cakes were next tried. Drop- 
 cakes are a household word in our clan. The memory of 
 the oldest inhabitant does not go back to a time when drop- 
 cakes were not a familiar friend, and I knew all about them 
 — molasses, and rye meal, and flour, and so forth, and dip 
 your hands in warm water before you make it up into cakes. 
 I did every thing precisely in the appointed way, and the 
 mess runs through your fingers faster than you can take it 
 up. Unstable as water. I stood in despair contemplating 
 my ten outstretched fingers, daubed and draped with em- 
 bryo drop-cake, and looking for all the world like web-feet. 
 " Spoon it out," said Hassan, laconically ; and I spooned it 
 into the pan, making a collective noun of it instead of the 
 regular plural, which was its legitimate character. After 
 ten minutes in the oven, it had not changed a shade. I at- 
 tempted to turn it, in order to get it into a hotter part of the 
 oven, and perhaps I tipped it the least in life, as the best of 
 cooks might, when out flopped near half of it, rolling down 
 the stove to the floor. Hassan brightened up visibly, and 
 said it was rightly named ; there would be plenty of it left. 
 When we came to eat it we found there was. Perhaps I had 
 forgotten the proportions, but the ingredients were correct. 
 Determining to remember both next time, I studied the re- 
 ceipt for Indian cake till I had learned it by heart. It col- 
 ored my dreams. I used to wake up in the night repeating 
 it — one cup of flour, two cups of Indian meal, four table- 
 spoonfuls of cream, one table-spoonful of sugar, four table- 
 spoonfuls of flour, two cups of cream, one cup of flour, and 
 
and Worthies sness. 
 
 19 
 
 forth came a flat, rough, unrisen cake, cracked in every di- 
 rection, and ridged, and hard — it was like eating raw corn. 
 
 " Suppose we forswear these side-issues, and try regular 
 bread," said my friend. 
 
 But we were no better off. We had a written receipt, word 
 for word. Every thing was timed and measured with astro- 
 nomical exactness. Begin at noon with yeast and water. 
 Then yeast, and flour, and water, and rise till night. Then 
 more flour and water, and rise till morning. Then knead 
 and bake. This in general ; but the particulars filled three 
 pages of a sheet, which I pinned to the kitchen clock above 
 the kitchen table, and prepared to follow slavishly. I did 
 follow slavishly till the ingredients balked. The very first 
 installment of flour and water refused to rise. Night set in 
 on a contumacious sponge that was not all a sponge. Per- 
 haps it had risen the thousandth part of an inch. No one 
 could afiirm it had risen at all. It looked a little scaly at 
 the top, and that was the sole sign of activity. It stood till 
 morning. Still it groveled. We both eyed it in silence ; I 
 stuck a knife in. The flour seemed to have settled, and 
 there was a layer of water above it. 
 
 " That, I take it," said my friend, " is a very good illustra- 
 tion of the figure which our earth made before the third day 
 — before the waters under the heaven were gathered togeth- 
 er into one place, and the dry land appeared. Life is only a 
 wheel within a wheel. Every macrocosm has its micro- 
 cosm." 
 
 I was very sure, I said, that there was such a thing as 
 bread griddle- cakes. 
 
 "What man has done man may do," he rejoined, solemn- 
 ly. " If you can make griddle-cakes out of that muddle, 
 you had better do it at once, for nothing short of divine de- 
 crees could evolve bread." 
 
 " I wonder how griddle-cakes are made," I half solilo- 
 quized. 
 
20 Woman's Worth 
 
 "With yeast-cakes tijat will not up." 
 
 " But how to cook them ? They are not baked, I imagine. 
 Exactly." 
 
 " Humanly speaking, they must be cooked on a gridiron." 
 
 " Grid-griddle-cakes. Gridiron. Yes, if there is any thing 
 in etymology." 
 
 The gridiron always hung by the stove. I took it down 
 and surveyed it. 
 
 "What is going to prevent the dough from dropping 
 through the bars ?" 
 
 " What prevents the flame from getting through the wire 
 netting of Sir Humphry Davy's safety-lamp ?" 
 
 " The interstices are vory much smaller than these." 
 
 " So are the particles of flame very much smaller than 
 those of dough. Here is the formula. As fire is to unleav- 
 ened bread, so is Sir Humphry's lamp to a gridiron. Let 
 us have it mathematically," and he whipped out pencil and 
 paper. 
 
 " Fire : W. B. : : S. L. : Grid. There. What can one ask 
 more in a world of uncertainty?" 
 
 " My dear, Euclid himself would never convince me that a 
 griddle-cake could be baked on a gridiron. You run up 
 stairs and bring me down the Unabridged. A sudden heat 
 might form a sudden crust, but nothing can prevent the sur- 
 face from being ridged, since it would not reach the heat till 
 it had fallen through on the stove ; and if it were ridged, it 
 would be a waffle, and no griddle-cake." 
 
 " Gridi-roii (i-run)," he came down reading from the big 
 dictionary in his hands, "[W. greidiaw ; It. greadaim, to 
 heat, scorch (just as I said, my dear), roast, and iron. See 
 Griddle.]" 
 
 " There ! now see griddle." 
 
 "Griddle. Griddle— oh! yes. Griddle is the fellow. 
 W. greidell, from greidiaw, to heat, singe, scorch. A pan, 
 
and Worthlessness. 21 
 
 broad and shallow, for baking cakes. So much for going 
 to head-quarters." 
 
 " Oh ! and a handle to it. I have seen it dozens of times, 
 only I did not know it was a griddle. Now, where have 
 I seen it ? We must just hunt it up, and the problem is 
 solved." 
 
 But it was no easy matter to hunt it up. I looked every 
 where I could think of. So did my friend ; but as he only 
 looked where I had gone before, he did not forward matters 
 much. 
 
 " Now," said the calmer of the two, at length, sitting down 
 with a philosophical air that was akin to despair, " what is 
 the use of going about in this random sort of way .' When 
 Leverrier had a planet to discover, he did not jerk his tele- 
 scope all over the sky at once. He calculated where it 
 ought to be, and then found it quietly." 
 
 " Certainly," said my friend ; " let us evolve from our mor- 
 al consciousness the natural habitat of griddles, and then 
 push our researches in that field. To begin by exclusion, it 
 would not be in the china-closet ?" 
 
 But just then I happened to catch sight of it on the nail 
 where I suppose it had hung for generations, and we made 
 the griddle-cakes. I draw a curtain over the scene that fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 " I am afraid," says Hassan, carelessly fingering my pa- 
 pers, " that you are putting too fine a point on it. You will 
 be considered as drawing a long bow. No one will think it 
 possible for a New Englander to attain to this state of hea- 
 then ignorance even by trying." 
 
 " I am glad of it," I answered. " We hear of people who 
 have so strong a love for falsehood that they would rather 
 lie on a twelve-months' note than tell the truth for cash, and 
 I suppose you think I sliall come into that class. But, on 
 the contrary, it only showS that one may know so much, that 
 
22 Woman's Worth 
 
 he will not be believed even when he confesses ignorance. 
 See the virtue of a good reputation !" 
 
 Women, so far as they have come under my observation, 
 have little skill in teaching the art of cooking, even when 
 they can practice it with very admirable results. Their di- 
 rections are confused and contradictory, vague and. inade- 
 quate. They begin, perhaps, intelligibly enough, but at the 
 critical point you put a vital question, and are told, " Oh ! 
 you must go by your own judgment." They apparently do 
 not know, or do not remember, that judgment is the result 
 of knowledge, and that the very reason why you have re- 
 course to them is that you have no judgment to go by. Or 
 they will give you a detailed and elaborate receipt, which you 
 painfully transfer to your note-book, and are smitten with 
 consternation and despair by the closing remark, uttered as 
 coolly as if it did not deal the death-blow to your hopes, 
 " But, after all, every thing depends on the bake !'' 
 
 To be sure, the inexperienced craft generally strikes a 
 snag before reaching the baking point ; but of what avail, I 
 ask, is the nice selection of ingredients, and the nice adjust- 
 ment of quantities, if selection and adjustment are alike lia- 
 ble at the last moment to be baffled by the " bake ?" All 
 the juice has oozed out of your mince-pies, giving you a 
 kitchen odorous of spices, but leaving you only the ghost of 
 your Thanksgiving pies, because you had "too quick an 
 oven ;" while your sponge-cake hollows itself into an ocean- 
 bed of heaviness because you had " too slow an oven.'' But 
 how can you stay in an oven long enough to find out wheth- 
 er it be quick or slow ; and who shall draw the line between 
 quickness and slowness? You presently learn the exist- 
 ence of the difference, for the quick oven scorches and 
 spoils its prey, and the slow oven depresses and demoral- 
 izes it ; but the knowledge comes too late, and wisdom lin- 
 gers. Why do we not have thermometers connected with 
 
and Worthkssness. 23 
 
 our ovens, and reduce a snap judgment to a mathematical 
 certainty ? 
 
 Let me put forth suggestions with caution, for our own 
 stove is a victim to misdirected ingenuity. The damper 
 stuck a little, and my friend Hassan, who believes nothing 
 human to be foreign to himself, worked upon it till it stuck 
 fast, and we had to take out the funnel whenever we wished 
 to turn the damper — which was not a modern improvement. 
 Then the blacksmith came and mended it; but Hassan 
 could not let well enough alone. I heard a clanking of 
 chains one morning, as if Sing Sing had been let loose upon 
 us. It was Hassan leading in a man with a string of damp- 
 ers on his arm — a new invention ; something that was to dif- 
 fuse the airs of Paradise through the whole house. The 
 stove drew perfectly at the time. It had a damper simple 
 of construction and manageable by a child, but because, far 
 back in the pluperfect tense, there had been a slight im- 
 pediment in its speech, this elaborate machine was to be 
 introduced into our artless old funnel. Wondrous feats 
 were promised. It was going to send the flame here and 
 the smoke there, the heat round a corner, and the smells up 
 chimney. It was put in, and would, I dare say, have been 
 harmless enough, if it could have been let alone ; but an in- 
 genious hand was constantly twiddling it, by way of experi- 
 ment, and filling the room with smoke. One day, when I 
 had the field to myself, I hired the blacksmith to take out 
 the damper, leaving the handle in. It answered admirably. 
 My friend twiddled on, amusing himself, and inconvenien- 
 cing no one. 
 
24 Woman's Worth 
 
 II. 
 
 THE STATE OF [FRENCH] GRACE. 
 
 It was at this epoch that Professor Blot came over the 
 horizon. I caught at him with the gasp and grasp of the 
 drowning. Hassan, as I have said, at first violently op- 
 posed any recourse to him ; but, supported by a firm faith 
 in my inherent and inalienable incapacity, he presently with- 
 drew his opposition. In fact, after a while, he rather en- 
 couraged the Blot scheme, seeming to think the addition of 
 a French element to native inaptitude would lend it a pi- 
 quancy which it had hitherto lacked. 
 
 So all in the pleasant summer weather I went to town to 
 hear Professor Blot. The neighborhood took kindly to the 
 adventure, though evidently mistrustful of this armed inter- 
 vention from a foreigner. Every face that saw me go by 
 wreathed itself in smiles ; yet in the calm still hour, by the 
 moon's pale beams, I sometimes question whether they were 
 not in part smiles of incredulity. " Want to learn how to 
 make one more puddin' !" said my friend the forester, 
 meeting me on my winding way. 
 
 "Can this Blot fellow tell us how to get somethin' to 
 cook ? that's the point," asked my friend the captain ; but 
 that was not my affair. I assisted at the lectures with note- 
 book and spoon, according to directions. I looked, and list- 
 ened, and tasted. It was marvelous. Every thing happen- 
 ed. Nothing failed. Nothing went uncooked. Nothing 
 collapsed. Nobody was anxious. It was that plump, yofe 
 French cook. She gave a caressing pat, a dextrous dab, 
 a spirited stir, and every atom melted into its place and 
 became a viand. Some of us loftily sheathed ourselves' 
 
a7id Worthlessness. 
 
 25 
 
 in nonchalance, and tasted with a nil-admirari air. Should 
 a haughty world suppose that we had not as good things ev- 
 ery day at home ? Others of us were crushed to the dust, 
 and admired indiscriminately. A woman at my elbow went 
 into raptures over the joint which there had not been time 
 completely to roast. 
 
 "Ugh!" said the professor, shrugging his shoulders in 
 disgust ; " that ees not half done !" I was vexed that she 
 should have made such a display of American ignorance to 
 a foreigner, though I should not myself have known it was 
 underdone if he had not said so ; and I, on the principle 
 that a fault confessed is half atoned for, remarked, depreca- 
 tingly, "Alas ! we are such barbarians in this country that 
 we don't know when our food is cocked and when it isn't." 
 
 "Alas, mees," responded the unhappy professor, " that 
 ees too true." 
 
 I did not expect so ready and unqualified an assent. 
 
 One could but pity the man who had not only to teach, 
 but create a public opinion to receive his teachings ; who 
 had not only to concoct his viands, but to train our palates 
 to appreciate them. I concealed my ignorance as carefully 
 as possible ; but it is useless to deny that to backwoods 
 eyes and ears, not to say nose and mouth, some of his 
 modes and results were at least uncommon. I copied with 
 exemplary docility directions to pour white wine on chicken, 
 but I saw in my mind's eye the demure gravity with which 
 my neighbors would receive such an announcement. Un- 
 resistingly I chopped up mushrooms with every other dish ; 
 but I thought of my friend the forester swinging his axe on 
 the strength of the toad-stools he had eaten, and I fancied 
 that even Hassan would suspend, naso adunco, that little 
 bunch of see-sawn-ing which seemed to pepper every dish. 
 But I yielded to no misgivings, and carried home my note- 
 book in triumph at the close of the lectures. My friend dis- 
 
 B 
 
26 Woman's Worth 
 
 played a languid curiosity as to my opinion. I told him I 
 thought Professor Blot was a good cook, but that he did not 
 understand French. At least his pronunciation was differ- 
 ent from that to which I had been accustomed. He asked 
 me if I had possessed myself of the general principles of 
 cooking. I said I thought I had. He begged me to repeat 
 them. I replied that the fundamental requisite to good 
 cooking was a French cook. He said the knowledge of 
 that fact alone was worth the whole price of the lectures. 
 "Go on." I added, ".S? monumentum, qumris, in spice" and 
 handed him my note-book. He slowly turned the leaves, 
 held the book right side up, wrong side up, and diagonally 
 in succession, and asked where it began. I answered, on a 
 venture, that it began at the beginning, of course. He said 
 a man would have to stand inside a mill-wheel in motion to 
 read it. I was obliged to admit that it did need an editor. 
 There was a great quantity of valuable material in an undi- 
 gested state, with an inexhaustible amount of bay leaf and 
 garlic scattered through it. 
 
 " It begins at the beginning, does it ?" said my friend. 
 " Let us, then, begin there." And he fastened upon the in- 
 side of the first cover, and read, in a monotonous, inexpress- 
 ive, unintelligent tone, 
 
 " ' Bay leaf at druggist's. 
 
 '"Every dish look at once in a while to see how it goes. 
 
 " ' Chicken when one horn — ' " 
 
 " It is not horn," I interrupted. 
 
 " What is it, then ?" passing me the book. 
 
 "It looks like a horn," I said, after a silent contemplation, 
 "but it must mean hour." 
 
 He read on : 
 
 " ' Two stalks parsley half onion — 
 
 " ' Stuck in it. 
 
 " ' One or two cloves half bay leaf-^ 
 
and Worthlessness. 27 
 
 'Skim it.' Skim what? 
 
 "'Half tea -spoonful butter h — ty [Humpty-dumpty — I 
 .could make nothing of it myself] — flour mix together a lit- 
 tle juice and stir to melt and mix — take off" onion cloves and 
 bay leaf — odd mixture.' I should think it was !" 
 
 "Add mixture !" I explained. 
 
 "Add what mixture ?" 
 
 " Why, the mixture you have just been making !" 
 
 "Add it to what?" 
 
 " To the mixture you had been making before you began 
 this. Why, the chicken !" 
 
 " ' Little lemon-juice — shake. 
 
 " ' One yolk with — no, into — beaten — into bestow — into 
 vesture — ' What is that word ?" 
 
 I studied it attentively, but was unable to decipher it. 
 
 " Never mind," I said ; " go on." 
 
 " Your chicken seems to have come to an end, my dear." 
 
 " Oh no ; there must be more. He can't end in that 
 yolk." 
 
 " No ; he more naturally begins there. Still, if I were 
 called upon to pronounce an opinion on this particular 
 chicken, I should say that by the time he reached this stage 
 he was no chicken !" 
 
 In hot pursuit of the missing chicten we turned page 
 after page, but the only vestige of his creation was an en- 
 try of — 
 
 Fricassee chicken entree. 
 
 Wash — put in toast-pan — just cover with cold water 
 salt cover the pan. 
 
 This certainly was not the original fowl, but a distinct and 
 subsequent individual, while the cabalistic marginal note 
 was quite unintelligible. There was nothing for it but to 
 take high moral ground at once, and assume that the chick- 
 en was off" the stage before the yolk was brought on. That 
 egg was broken into some other dish. 
 
 
28 Woman's Worth 
 
 " Yes," Hassan said ; " that last shake probably finished 
 him prematurely. What next ?" 
 
 " To explain precisely how this hop, skip, and jump came 
 about. In the beginning. Professor Blot wrote the whole 
 dinner on the blackboard. Then he cooked it on the range. 
 We had consequently to make history and to write history 
 at one and the same moment, and were constantly darting 
 from point to point. When it was time to put salt in the 
 pudding he made a note of it ; and immediately there was a 
 bay leaf to be stuck in an onion," and we turned the page 
 and made a note of that. Then, before you had fairly seen 
 how a bay leaf would look in an onion, you were directed to 
 put butter in the pudding ; so you dropped your bay leaf, 
 and turned back to the pudding again. Thus you were kept 
 ever on the stretch. Is it any wonder if you sometimes fla- 
 vored the pudding-sauce with parsley, or scattered sugar on 
 the roast.'' It is certainly some such mistake which sent 
 that yolk on its wanderings. Find now a definite programme 
 for a regular dinner. There are plenty of them. Here is 
 one that looks systematic. Read that straight through." 
 
 " ' Riz au lait. 
 
 " ' Fish caper sauce. 
 
 " ' Beef piquante sauce. 
 
 "'Croquettes.' (A game dinner certainly.) 
 
 " ' Potatoes k la Franyaise. 
 
 " ' Plat au beurre. 
 
 " ' Petites bouch^es a la creme. 
 
 " ' Pie.' (How that one little English word shines among 
 all these foreign folk, like a good deed in a naughty world !) 
 
 " ' Creme pltissi^re.' Is that all ?" 
 
 " Now you will find a page devoted to each one of these 
 dishes. Somewhere. You must look till you find it." 
 
 " Sure enough. Here is — 
 
 " '.'Fish caper ^auce.' 
 
and Worthkssness. 29 
 
 " Let us see, said the blind man. 
 
 " ' Set on fire just cover with water — always put a table-s 
 vinegar to a pound of (boil) fish — salt caper sauce — j table-s 
 butter — same flour — i gill warm water on fire — stir salt and 
 pepper to taste — a little water in which fish has cooked — 
 caper in sauce just before serving.' 
 
 "That is certainly very direct and intelligible. I like 
 that — especially capering in the sauce. It reminds one of 
 bucolics : and in the vats of Luna this year the must shall 
 foam round the white feet of laughing girls. A New En- 
 gland housewife dancing in the fish-sauce must make a 
 sauce piquante. 
 
 " ' Potatoes entremet h, la Fran9aise fillets.' What is fil- 
 lets ?" 
 
 " Fillets ? Curl-papers ? It has a familiar sound, but I 
 do not at this moment recall its kitchen range." 
 
 " Potatoes in curl-papers. They must be lady-fingers." 
 
 " There was something in curl-papers, if it was not pota- 
 toes. I think it was mutton-chops. Read on. Perhaps 
 the sequel will show." 
 
 " Here, again, we seem to come to an untimely end." 
 
 I instituted a personal investigation, but could discover 
 no clew. The thread was broken off short. 
 
 " When I was in the middle of one of the most interest- 
 ing dishes — " 
 
 " Then the sauce was not the only thing you capered in !" 
 
 "While I was lost in contemplation of the simmering and 
 steaming, I suddenly awoke to the fact that a caterpillar was 
 creeping over my dress. I struck him off with my note-book 
 into the aisle, but with unparalleled resolution he kept con- 
 stantly heading my way, so that I was forced to divide my 
 already overstrained attention between the cooking and the 
 caterpillar, and had no sooner jotted down one item than 
 I dropped pencil, took up parasol, and poked back caterpil- 
 
30 Woman's Worth 
 
 lar. I assure you the intense mental effort gave me a head- 
 ache. Those unfinished potatoes mark the spot where that 
 caterpillar thrust his head in. Every gap you may fill up 
 with caterpillar." 
 
 " Charge the deficit, then, to him. Here is a page of 
 what seem to be general directions : 
 
 " ' Never use soda sal c of t c pepper (here) parsley for 
 fish and chicken. 
 
 " ' Plants easily grown. 
 
 " ' Veal must be overdone. 
 
 " ' Broth — stir again — spoonful of gravy. 
 
 " ' All kinds of fat strain — 
 
 " ' And put in stone jars.' 
 
 " This is somewhat unintelligible to me, but I suppose 
 you understand it ?" 
 
 " Y-e-s. But here is a long, fair page, that looks as if it 
 would run smooth. ' Broth !' That is an important matter. 
 Professor Blot puts broth into every thing." 
 
 " ' Three lbs. lean beef — must be fresh never more than 
 2 oz. bones with lb. meat — no bones best put it in soup-ket- 
 tle or sauce-pan — ' " 
 
 I could not help interrupting the reading to announce a 
 discovery. There is a species of large dipper in family use. 
 We always called it Ursa Major. It was interesting to learn 
 from Professor Blot that it was a sauce-pan. One is famil- 
 iar with sauce-pans in literature, but it is delightful to know 
 that one has a personal acquaintance with them. Ah ! la 
 belle chose que de savoir quelque chose I 
 
 But when I defended from the dictionary, which is one of 
 our most important kitchen utensils, my life-long impression 
 that all pans were milk-pans, broad and shallow, and that 
 nothing with a handle could properly be called a pan, Has- 
 san immediately quoted warming-pans and the Panhandle 
 of geography against me ! 
 
and Worthkssness. 31 
 
 " Go on," I said, seeing he was disposed to trifle. 
 
 " ' Cover with 3 qts. cold water — set on good fire in about 
 \ hour boil — then remove kettle don't boil much — skim 
 scum.' (That apt alliteration's artful aid reminds me of a 
 Magazine story named ' Snip Snap.') ' If it has boiled un- 
 aware gill cold water and skin \ middle-sized carrot \ as 
 much turnip i leek small onion with 2 cloves stuck in it 2 
 stalks parsley i celery i bay leaf salt and pepper keep sim- 
 ming — ' " 
 
 " Simmering," I corrected under my breath, too much 
 pleased at so long a run of smooth sailing to break it for 
 any slight deviation. 
 
 " ' For 5 hours — no boil for rich broth have 2 qts. water 
 poor 2 qts.' " 
 
 " You have not read that right. It can not be two quarts 
 for both rich broth and poor." 
 
 "Look before you leap to such a conclusion." 
 
 " It was the caterpillar," I said, after a prolonged exam- 
 ination. 
 
 "That is the most responsible caterpillar that ever 
 crawled. Well — 
 
 "'Two qts. water — no fat — no bones must be clean.' 
 How is that ?" 
 
 " My dear, you punctuate with your elbows." 
 
 " My dear, I follow your punctuation to the letter, to the 
 smallest Abyssinian quirk." 
 
 "But can you not see that, weary and worn, not to say 
 saturated and suffocated with savors, one's brain might be- 
 come a little muddled ; and can not you bring your reason 
 to the aid of your eyes ; and does it not stand to reason that 
 bones must be clean for soup, and that there must not be 
 any bones ?" 
 
 "Nothing easier. Hereafter, then, I follow my unassist- 
 .ed reason in punctuating your bones. 
 
32 Womaiis Worth 
 
 " ' Take off meat — put bottom paste for pie 4 oz. flour 
 and knead with 2 oz. butter — knead — ' " 
 
 " You are surely off the track again." 
 
 " Not in the least." 
 
 " Is there no dividing-line ?" 
 
 "If there is, it is equatorial and invisible." 
 
 " But do you not see that you have suddenly emerged 
 from the broth, and fallen plump into a pan of pastry .'" 
 
 " There is no way," he replied, slowly turning the leaves, 
 and looking up and down the pages with great solemnity — 
 " there is no way out of that broth except plumping into the 
 flour and butter." 
 
 Alas ! it was, as Professor Blot remarked, " too true." 
 After " put" came " bottom paste ■" and the page went on 
 from bad to worse in this random fashion : 
 
 " In crockery — 
 
 " Longer it keeps, always put — 
 
 " The quicker you cool it the — 
 
 "Then strain the broth and done." 
 
 Hassan suggested that it might be read like Hebrew, from 
 right to left. He b.uilded better than he knew, for by read- 
 ing it from bottom to top it was easy to unearth the mean- 
 ing. Some sudden emergency had deranged the ordinary 
 stratification, and interjected the trap rock of the pastry-pan. 
 Farther explanation it was impossible to give. However, 
 the broth was done. There was comfort in that. 
 
 Similarly it seemed as if a blight had fallen on all my 
 receipts. Professor Blot had cooked them through before 
 my very eyes, and I had watched them with an intelligent 
 interest, and transferred them to my note-book with consci- 
 entious fidelity ; but the trail of the serpent was over them 
 all. A hiatus, a disjointure, a confusion was sure to develop 
 itself at the vital points, and destroy the value of the whole. 
 And by as much as the important circumstance was left out, 
 
and Worthlessness. 33 
 
 the unimportant one was sure to be in. The particular in- 
 gredient necessary to round and perfect a dish was not to 
 be found ; but in letters of living light was sure to appear 
 the warning that roast beef and stuffed turkey must not be 
 served together ! As if people with our income were in the 
 least danger of suffering from a conjunction of roast beef 
 and stuffed turkey ! 
 
 " But you may have it h, la mode," added the notes, with 
 grim sarcasm. 
 
 " Soup," prescribes the same discriminating monitor, giv- 
 ing a bill of fare for a dinner — 
 
 « Soup. 
 
 " Radishes, sardines, melons, hors d'ceuvres. 
 
 " Fish on one end. 
 
 " Butcher's meat, chicken and game. 
 
 " Puree, with meat or fish. 
 
 " Vegetables. 
 
 " Dessert (cheese first)." 
 
 An unexceptionable dinner, no doubt, if one could com- 
 ttiand it. But what, save total depravity, could account for 
 the careful record of all these luxuries, and a total failure to 
 secure the simplest directions for the preparation of a single 
 dish ? 
 
 Were Professor Blot's • lectures, then, a failure ? As the 
 wise do not need them, if the ignorant can not assimilate 
 them, of what avail are they ? Of the greatest in the 
 world. Their moral uses are incalculable. They relieve 
 your imagination. They give you a certain confidence, an 
 acquaintance with modes of operation, a positive and com- 
 forting assurance that causes will produce effects. It is 
 possible — your own eyes bear you witness — for meats and 
 vegetables, fishes and puddings, to glide along parallel lines 
 harmoniously and majestically to the table. A raw, red 
 joint goes into the oven ; a crisp, delicate roast comes out. 
 
 B2 
 
34 Woman's Worth 
 
 " You might see the same thing at home," suggests the prac- 
 tical mind. But you do not see the same thing at home. 
 Nothing lures you to the sight. Very likely the sight is not 
 there, and if it be, you do not care to see it. You might as- 
 siduously frequent twenty kitchens without being sure that 
 you were not learning what a truer knowledge of the myste- 
 rious art will force you to unlearn. But good company, 
 novelty, immunity from grease-spots and burns, and, best of 
 all, a perfect confidence in the source of knowledge, make 
 these lectures both entertaining and instructive. You leave 
 them feeling that if you should ever be obliged to fight it 
 out on that line, you will know how to sight your guns ; and 
 this, of itself, is no small part of the battle. Your ideal has 
 a shape, your ambition a goal. You are not necessarily 
 master of arts, but you know in what direction to advance 
 in order to become one. Moreover, the processes are car- 
 ried on so neatly and sweetly that, you may say, children cry 
 for them. And this is a benefit whose value is not to be 
 spoken. Cooking wears so winning an air, it opens a field 
 for so much skill, it displays results so agreeable, that your 
 old repugnance changes unawares into interest, into admira- 
 tion, into impatience, and you burn to shoulder your crutch 
 and show how fields are won. 
 
 For example : 
 
 It is a very simple thing to break an egg. He who has 
 enthusiastically climbed up hay-mows, and across the great 
 beam, to rifle hens' nests, and come down with half a dozen 
 eggs in his pockets, and then forgotten them — ^he knows, to 
 his consternation, how easy it is to break an egg. But to 
 break it over the cake-pan, to break it in a regular equato- 
 rial line, without shattering the shell, and scattering the bits 
 in the sugar, or daubing your fingers with the stringy white, 
 is quite another thing. Of what nature, then, must be that 
 task which the cookery-books assign when, piling Ossa on 
 
and Worthlessness. 35 
 
 Pelion, they bid you beat the yolks and whites separately ? 
 It is like those sarcastic receipts for making hare-soup — 
 first catch your hare ; or for capturing birds — put salt on 
 their tails. You can beat the yolks and the whites well 
 enough when they are once apart, but how separate two 
 fluids inseparably mixed? Who shall say to the white, 
 " Come forth !" and to the yolk, "Keep back !" Who does 
 not know that by the laws of matter, when the shell is bro- 
 ken, the two fluids come gulping out together ? No. When- 
 ever a receipt talks in that wild way, the only resource for 
 weak human nature is to follow the example of the Scotch 
 divine in the presence of a scriptural difficulty — "Look it 
 square in the face and pass on." 
 
 But French skill laughs at human nature, and is a match 
 for universal law. That round-cheeked cook solved the in- 
 soluble. • With one white arm-sweep, like Juno on Ida — say 
 rather by one little peck outside, such as the future chick 
 would have made within, could he have been spared till his 
 set time was come — she smote the shell into two' little cups, 
 and, by pouring the yolk back and forth, divided as deftly 
 the yellow gold from the liquid crystal as the blue sea stands 
 divided from the burning beach. Of course, now you have 
 seen it done, you want to do it yourself. But be not rash. 
 Seeing is believing, but it is not doing. Shall I ever forget 
 how she snatched the whites from the Celtic scullion who, 
 at her directions, was beating them, but with that slow, awk- 
 ward, uncertain movement which belongs to the natural man ; 
 and how, with a preternatural swiftness not devoid of grace, 
 and dazzling to the naked eye, she whipped them into a 
 froth and foam, into a sea of lightness and whiteness, or ever 
 the surprised blood had faded from the Celtic cheek ? 
 
 So, though possibility is far remote from accomplishment, 
 Professor Blot seemed to throw a new light into the kitchen, 
 or, leaving out the adjective, he threw light upon the dark- 
 
36 Woman's Worth 
 
 ness hitherto visible. "All hope abandon, ye who enter 
 here," had appeared to me as fit a motto for the kitchen 
 door as for the one over which it was originally inscribed ; 
 but when I next passed into that loveless realm it was with 
 an enthusiasm and a buoyancy which had hitherto been a 
 stranger there. I was determined no more to creep timidly 
 along the coast, as in the days of my ignorance. Professor 
 Blot was a mariner's compass, in the confidence engendered 
 of which one could strike out boldly into the open sea. 
 
 " No more pottering with drop-cakes and rye muffins," I 
 said. " Professor Blot washed his hands of all such triviali- 
 ties. I shall plunge at once into the middle of things. I 
 shall undertake that most formidable of feats, 'a regular din- 
 ner.' Roast beef and plum-pudding. 
 
 " ' He either fears his fate too much, 
 Or his deserts are small. 
 That dares not put it to the touch 
 To win or lose it all.' " 
 
 " If my desserts were all that will be small," said my friend, 
 " I think I should be able to meet my fate undaunted !" 
 
 Professor Blot's cook had a scullion. I appointed my 
 friend my scullion. He stipulated for a salary. I refused 
 it, and offered wages small but sufficient, and capable of in- 
 definite enlargement according to increase of services. He 
 was accessible in point of price, but impregnable in point of 
 technicalities. What objection had I to a salary 1 
 
 It was too fine for the thing. 
 
 Not at all. It was peculiarly appropriate. Salary, sal, 
 salt, salt-money — money given you to buy your salt — ^your 
 necessary outlay ; thence money for your services. What 
 more fit than that money awarded you for kitchen-service 
 should be salary — salt-money ? 
 
 What's in a name ? " Sal, salt, salt-money," I said, " for 
 him who just earns his salt." He made a brilliant scullion. 
 
and Worthlessness. 37 
 
 I stationed him at the end of the table, intrenched behind 
 the cookery-books for purposes of reference, if memory or 
 judgment should fail me. AVe had an ample library of this 
 entertaining literature ; for, whenever there was an interreg- 
 num in our culinary kingdom, and it became necessary for 
 me to make a descent into the kitchen, I always signalized 
 my advent by the purchase of a new cookery-book. To 
 these must be added, in the present exigency, the undigested 
 mass of the notes of Professor Blot's lectures. 
 
 The experiment of the dinner was completely successful, 
 thanks to French tact and mother-wit. The beef stopped 
 at the precise point where continuance would have changed 
 completeness into superfluity. I do not mean to say that 
 there were no false steps. I do not mean to say that it was 
 an easy matter to get the dripping-pan out of the oven and 
 upon the table without spilling liquor or burning fingers. I 
 do not mean to say that when I would fain have turned the 
 meat over in the pan it did not slip from my hands and 
 splash the fat on my face and dress ; nor that, when I would 
 have basted it, the fat did not have a way of running outside 
 the pan instead of inside. " Basting it !" said my scullion ; 
 "you mean bathing it." 
 
 " Not at all. Who ever heard of meat being bathed ? 
 The original cow might be bathed ; but when the cow has 
 been reconstructed into roast beef, we baste her." 
 
 " When a cow has been reconstructed into leather she 
 may possibly be basted with a waxed end, but to drench her 
 with hot fat is a new use for a sewing-machine." 
 
 " There is no good in talking. I know it by mnemonics. 
 When Professor Blot spoke of it, I connected it at once with 
 basting a hem." 
 
 " And is there the smallest resemblance between basting 
 a hem and basting a joint t" 
 
 "No; that is why I remembered it." 
 
38 Woman's Worth. 
 
 " Very convincing. It must be basting, because it is ex- 
 actly the opposite of basting. Like the village of Gilmanton 
 Iron-works, so called, according to living tradition, because 
 there are no iron-works there." 
 
 " But, my dear, get the best — ^get Webster's, and see." 
 
 " Why have recourse to fallible man, when the light of un- 
 assisted reason is sufficient ? You admit that your word in 
 no sense represents the process. How with my word .' You 
 pour the hot fat over the meat. It is a bath. And what, 
 pray, is the name of thisjeceptacle.''" 
 
 " The dripping-pan, you mean ?" 
 
 " Why dripping-pan, if not because the liquid drops into 
 it — the liquid left of the bath ? What are the remnants of 
 basting ? Bits of thread. Your dripping-pan, then, ought 
 to be called a rag-bag. Your own words condemn you. 
 Philology is a swift witness against you. Discussion is fruit- 
 less. If you have bathed your meat enough, perhaps you 
 are ready to return it to the oven." 
 
 " Quite. Open the door. I think it is thoroughly basted." 
 
 I have said that Hassan was a brilliant scullion. He was 
 too brilliant. I often sighed for a little silent stupidity. We 
 read of the advantage of skilled over unskilled labor, and 
 the benefits to be derived from the universal dissemination 
 of letters. I should be sorry to be even remotely instru- 
 mental in putting back the hand on the dial-plate of prog- 
 ress ; but if there is any thing out of place, impertinent, and, 
 as housekeepers say, " trying," it is erudition in the kitchen. 
 Philology is a good thing ; but of what temper must that 
 mortal be made who can patiently bide a philological dis- 
 pute over a half-cooked joint with the clock galloping stead- 
 fastly toward the dinner hour ? What you want in the kitch- 
 en — in fact, what you want in all manner of service, is not 
 literature, not argument, but prompt, unquestioning, auto- 
 matic obedience. Those persons who, instead of doing 
 
and Worthlessness. 39 
 
 what you tell them, give you a thousand clever and ingen- 
 ious reasons for not doing it, may be very enlightened citi- 
 zens, and a constant proof and reminder of our superiority 
 to the ignorant and down-trodden masses of the Old World, 
 but they are very unprofitable servants. 
 
 The examples I have given are but a few out of many 
 cases in which my scullion marred an otherwise unexcep- 
 tionable career by the fruitless, ill timed, and pertinacious 
 display of intelligence. I shudder to think of the scenes 
 that will ensue should our great and glorious republic ever 
 reach that stage of intellectual development toward which 
 we are constantly and eagerly trying to advance her. 
 
 But we have not yet reached it, and I am therefore proba- 
 bly correct in assuming that it is not generally known that a 
 dripping-pan is broader than it is long, and the handles are 
 at the wrong ends. If you hold on by them you can hardly 
 avoid burning at least one of your wrists when you put the 
 pan in the oven. I thought at this time it had been out so 
 long it would not be hot, and that the meat had shrunk so 
 much in cooking it would not be heavy. So I undertook to 
 carry the pan to the stove, holding one end in both hands. 
 Alas ! I had miscalculated my strength and my endurance, 
 or else it was both hotter and heavier than I had anticipated. 
 I advanced in a straight line to the stove, is a stone goes 
 down a precipice, with ever-accelerated velocity, while the 
 dripping-pan seemed to be sliding with disastrous swiftness 
 down an invisible inclined plane. Hassan was at that mo- 
 ment, as Milton remarks, squat like a toad close at the oven 
 door, holding it open. He saw the ruin impending, caught 
 the danger in an instant, gave a flying leap into the air, and 
 barely escaped a lapful of meat and gravy ; for I missed 
 aim, and, instead of shooting my charge into the oven, dump- 
 ed it a few inches short, striking the ground a little to lee- 
 ward of my friend. Only one end of the dripping-pan rest- 
 
40 Woman's Worth 
 
 ed on the floor, as I clung with the grasp of despair to the 
 other, regardless of hot iron. Thus the meat, having glided 
 plump to the farther end of the pan, staid there, and only 
 the grease sputtered out upon the floor. " Call the cat," I 
 commanded, sententiously ; and Hassan was too grateful for 
 his hair-breadth escape to waste words ; so we three speed- 
 ily repaired damages ; and the cat, licking her paws with 
 deep content, congratulated herself that it is an ill wind 
 which blows nobody any good. 
 
 Simultaneously with the meat, I conducted a host of vege- 
 tables -to a harmonious end. It was like a novel with sev- 
 eral distinct plots, all tending to one conclusion. You go a 
 little way with one, and then take another. Peas, and beans, 
 and beets, and carrots, and radishes, and potatoes. The 
 scullion said he thought there were too many things on the 
 stove. I told him Professor Blot had things on the stove. 
 He questioned if roast beef took kindly to carrots. I said 
 that was not in the bond ; that Professor Blot had his stove 
 covered with sauce-pans, and, to do the same, we must have 
 the carrots. In preparing the radishes I had an impression 
 that the whole was not cooked. I asked the scullion if he 
 knew which part was to be cooked. He said he believed 
 radishes were not generally cooked at all. I said there was 
 standing-room on the stove for another sauce-pan, and our 
 radishes must be cooked. He said he would consult Mrs. 
 Putnam on that point. He did so ; but Mrs. Putnam pre- 
 served an unbroken silence, and we inferred it must have 
 been a poor year for radishes when she made her cookery- 
 book. In looking for the radishes we came upon the beets ; 
 and I was struck with a mild consternation at learning that 
 they must not be cut before boiling. I had carefully peeled 
 them all before putting them in the sauce-pan. Potatoes 
 were nicer to be peeled, and the question naturally arose to 
 the inquiring mind why not beets ? It is true, Professor Blot 
 
and Worthlessness. 41 
 
 forbade even to peel potatoes before boiling, as their nourish- 
 ment lies close underneath the skin, which should be re- 
 moved only by a sort of caressing urgency, and not rudely 
 severed with a Jcnife. But I have boiled potatoes from in- 
 fancy, peeling them first ; and if there is one point on which 
 I feel competent to hold an opinion, it is this. So I peeled 
 every thing but the peas and beans, and waited for the wa- 
 ter to boil. It is incredible how long it takes water to boil 
 when you are waiting for it. I asked the scullion if he had 
 ever heard of a kind of water that was impervious to fire. 
 He said he had heard of the next best thing— a letter that 
 would not burn ; or, he thought, this might be a lineal de- 
 scendant of the curse of Kehama: The water shall see thee, 
 and know thee, and fly thee, and the winds shall not touch 
 thee when they pass by thee. But it was not. It began to 
 sing presently, and then it began to dance, and then, obey- 
 ing Professor Blot's directions of" the first boiling," I thrust 
 in my tubers and legumes, all hard and untoothsome as they 
 were, and waited the wonderful chemistry of the fire. The 
 scullion said I should indefinitely postpone the dinner be- 
 cause I kept lifting the covers to look at the things. But 
 Professor Blot kept looking at things. It was an ecstatic 
 moment when they began to grow soft. It seemed hardly 
 possible that my feeble hands should have succeeded in 
 turning these hard, characterless, inert substances into fa- 
 miliar, delicious vegetables, each with its own individuality. 
 But that was what they did turn into, and with great rapidi- 
 ty, after they had once set about it. In fact, they all seem- 
 ed to have hit upon the same moment to be done and dish- 
 ed up. Besides, there was the table to set ; and at the last 
 gasp I recollected the gravy, and was torn with conflicting 
 emotions. With great presence of mind I clapped on a 
 spider of water, gave the scullion a bowl of flour-thickening 
 to stir, and told him to call me just before the water was go- 
 
42 Woman's Worth 
 
 ing to boil. He asked how should he know when the water 
 was going to boil. I said, tell by the clock. There are doz- 
 ens of clocks lying about the house, and as each runs on its 
 own account, when one is not striking another is, so we can 
 always know the time at any hour of the day or night. Pres- 
 ently he put his head into the dining-room door, and told me 
 to come and make the gravy. The water was bullatura — 
 about to boil. I went out and stirred in the thickening, 
 sprinkled on salt, and told him to keep stirring till it boiled 
 again, to make it thick. It was not long before he was pro- 
 truding his head through the doorway once more, and ask- 
 ing, with a strong Hibernian accent, " Does not gr-r-ase 
 make gravy ?" 
 
 " Grace ?" I queried. 
 
 " Gr-r-r-ase, mum." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " To look at it from a scientific point of view," he said, 
 relinquishing the Hibernian and assuming the professorial 
 manner, " is water the natural basis of gravy ?" 
 
 Now water is a great ingredient in our cooking. Hassan 
 often remarks that he does not know how we should get on 
 without a well to go to. If the milk falls short, there is al- 
 ways the pump handy. Certainly it was not for nothing 
 that we advertised a " pump in the sink." Still, conteriiplat- 
 ing this useful liquid as the fundamental idea of gravy, I was 
 conscious of an incongruity. I stirred it abstractedly, tak- 
 ing up a spoonful now and then, and pouring it back again. 
 " Seems as if it is not dark enough," I remarked, doubtfully. 
 " Perhaps it will boil down." 
 
 " It has been boiling up some time, if that has any thing 
 to do with it." 
 
 " Really, do you suppose it is gravy ? Why not starch ?" 
 
 " The event must determine." 
 
 "I wish you would just taste it." 
 
and Worthlessness. 43 
 
 " No, my dear ; fancy how stiff my manners would become 
 in case it is starch." 
 
 " Look at Mrs. Putnam." 
 
 " She hides, like Galatea, among the rushes." 
 
 " No directions for gravy ?" 
 
 "Not a direction, neither under meats nor miscellane- 
 ouses." 
 
 " See starch, then." 
 
 "The starch, too, is an eclipse." 
 
 " Very well," I said, with a sudden inspiration, and snatch- 
 ed off the spider. " What is not in the cookery-books shall 
 not be on my table. Gravies are universally admitted to 
 be unwholesome, and Professor Blot says no flour should be 
 put into gravy." 
 
 So that was happily settled. Only my scullion says he 
 shall never cease to regret that we did not let the mysteri- 
 ous substance go on and see what would come of it. 
 
 The pudding was a plum-pudding ; not an English plum- 
 pudding — for I have understood that in the arts of the table 
 the English are hardly less barbarous than ourselves — but 
 an American Thanksgiving plum-pudding, made the night 
 beforehand of bread, and butter, and milk, and eggs ; only 
 I left out the butter and eggs, because, if the pudding should 
 prove a failure, it would be a pity to lose them too j though, 
 as I observed to my scullion, it must be good, because there 
 were nothing but good things in it — a layer of bread, a lay- 
 er of raisins, a layer of sugar, and soak in milk overnight ; 
 the next day add more milk and bake it. It baked curious- 
 ly. It seemed somehow not to have passed the point where 
 bread ceases to be bread and becomes pudding. It was 
 not a homogeneous mass, but lay in regular strata — ^primary, 
 tertiary, old red sandstone — only the different strata were 
 not petrified, but the opposite — pap-ified, you might say, ex- 
 cept here and there hard places, a sort of trap rock. But 
 
44 Woman's Worth 
 
 the scullion said he liked the hard places. In making the 
 sauce I followed Mrs. Putnam, only putting water and flour 
 where she said wine and sugar, to diminish the loss in case 
 of failure. Every thing was very good, as it had to be, since 
 there was nothing in it but what was good. And the re- 
 mainder was made over into a custard-pudding next. day, 
 which looked far more like a custard-pudding than the plum- 
 pudding looked like a plum-pudding, which was encoura- 
 ging- 
 
and Worthkssness. 45 
 
 III. 
 
 FALLING FROM GRACE. 
 
 If I could be sure that only men would read these short 
 and simple annals of the poor, and if there were any way 
 by which men could be forced to read them, I would go on 
 indefinitely. Women in their daily life breathe airs all too 
 redolent of the kitchen-range, and one would not willingly 
 run the risk of adding the fatal straw to the camel's burden 
 by filling their literature with the fumes of roast and stew. 
 But if the men — the men who are so unwearied in pressing 
 upon women the claims of cookery, who never tire of telling 
 us that the way to a man's heart winds around his palate 
 — an elevated and doubdess sufiiciently accurate view of 
 masculine affection ; at least, if men do not quarrel with it, 
 women need not — could these men be doomed by some in- 
 evitable sentence to sit on a bench all day and read, or, still 
 better, hear read to them by their wives and daughters, what- 
 ever I should write on the subject, I should feel that I had 
 something still to live for. And oh ! with what ease could 
 I, and with what alacrity would I, draw out this linked sweet- 
 ness to twice, and thrice, and four times its present length, 
 and with what matchless ecstasy should I witness the writh- 
 ings of fatigue which it would cause ! No inquisitor gloat- 
 ing over the tortures of his heretical victim, no Nero fiddling 
 and feeding the fires of Rome, no spider watching with fierce, 
 still intensity his whirling lines dependent that bespeak an 
 entangled fly, should rise to a higher rapture of joy than 
 would. swell this exultant heart at being made the instru- 
 ment, in the hands of Providence of dealing out exact poetic 
 
46 Woman's Worth 
 
 justice to a generation of culprits ! How should each suc- 
 cessive experiment be portrayed with a more than pre- 
 Raphaelitic fidelity ! Nulla dies sine Unea ? Nulla hour, 
 nulla moment while passion stirs this mortal frame ! No 
 device, no attempt, no failure, even, without its page, not to 
 say its chapter. The cream toast that began so bravely 
 and ended so scaly and weakly should have its diagnosis 
 and its prognosis— whatever they may be — with an enthusi- 
 asm of detail. The cold sauce that was kneaded and knead- 
 ed, and that swelled and swelled till the mouse threatened 
 to become an elephant, should have its impartial history, 
 with all the causes that led to it, and all the results that 
 sprang from it, and all the things that might have happened 
 if the things that did happen had happened the other way, 
 according to the style of the most approved historians. Nor 
 should patience fail me to speak of that momentous day 
 when, smitten with ambition and high resolve, I bolted the 
 doors, lowered the window-shades, and boiled soft custard 
 into a residuum to which the most confirmed Swedenborgian 
 would be forced to hope there was nothing corresponding in 
 the spirit world, and then incautiously poured it into the 
 best glass pitcher, which immediately threatened to betray 
 its secret by cracking with appalling detonations, and which 
 was hastily bound roundabout with a strong cord hidden 
 under the decoration of red, white, and blue ribbon, to keep 
 the molten metal from oozing out, and how I wished after- 
 ward that it had oozed out, for there was too much to be hid- 
 den, and it was too bad to be eaten. What agonies I suf- 
 fered in convoying that custard from pillar to post to keep 
 it out of harm's and Hassan's way ! And no sooner was it 
 snuggled up on the top shelf of the most unfrequented closet 
 in Dan than you were sure to hear a pair of boots squeak- 
 ing around in that vicinity, and then some pretext had to 
 be invented to call them off, and give me a chance to trans- 
 
and Worthlessness. 4y 
 
 fer the prodigy to an equally undreamed-of cupboard in 
 Beersheba. If the Cardiff giant gave its depositors half the 
 trouble that my custard gave me, it must have been but a 
 sorry joke for them, for it is heart-rending to throw sugar 
 and eggs, like physic, to the dogs, and for the first few days 
 I had a lively hope that it might settle down into a market- 
 able commodity. 
 
 Still fixing with my glittering eye my wretched victims, I 
 would tell them the Tale of the Boiled Dish— as country 
 people love to call that dinner of herbs and stalled ox, old 
 and salt, prolific of perfumes lingering and pervasive like 
 musk, horresco referens, but dear to the bucolic heart. How 
 tough was the skin of the parsneps, and how one had to dig 
 to get it off. And what a dreadful noise the cabbages made 
 when one touched them ! 
 
 " And how many turnips would you have ?" I queried, in- 
 nocently, basket in hand, going down into I'lnferno to get 
 them. 
 
 " What is a turnip ?" asked the scullion, with an Indian 
 war-club, as it were. 
 
 To which, undaunted and free, I made answer : "A turnip 
 is a fusiform, napiform root, brassica rapa, depressed globose, 
 contracted into a slender radicle, radical leaves lyrate, cau- 
 line ones incised, upper entire, amplexicaul." 
 
 " There is no necessity for flinging all your early botany 
 at me," he said, somewhat abashed, fleeing when resisted, 
 after the manner of his kind. " I want to know how big is 
 a turnip." 
 
 " How long is a rope ? What are the solid contents of a 
 strip of pork ?" 
 
 This was a fair hit. He had made himself merry not 
 long before because I left orders with the butcher for a strip 
 of pork, which he considered equivalent to ordering a piece 
 of meat, or any other abstraction. He was a good deal 
 
48 . Woman's Worth 
 
 taikeii aback at being told authoritatively what I had indeed 
 learned only half an hour previous, and what, no doubt, the 
 larger number of my readers are living to this day in hea- 
 then ignorance of— that a strip of pork is a technical phrase. 
 I might — so intricate is the science of the kitchen — have 
 gone through life myself in Cimmerian darkness but for the 
 merest accident, turned to account by such an inquiring 
 and reflective mind as educed the law of the universe from 
 the fall of an apple. ~ 
 
 "You cut up pork into strips from four to five inches 
 wide," said my informant, with ill-concealed scorn, "and 
 that is ' a strip of pork' the world over." 
 
 " Oh ! the animal is served up in strips, then," trying to 
 look intelligent ; for it is as much as your life is worth not 
 to know every thing in presence of that most unrelenting of 
 tyrants, "a good housekeeper." 
 
 " No j only the middlings." 
 
 Worse and worse. 
 
 " The middlings ?" faintly, in hopes that some hint may, 
 unsought, be won that will throw a light on the middlings. 
 But none comes. 
 
 "And what, pray, are the middlings ?" 
 
 "Why, that is the middlings. The strips are the mid- 
 dlings. You ask for the middlings, and the' butcher will 
 say, ' How much do you want ?' And you say you will take 
 a strip." 
 
 " That is, the strips are the species, and the middlings the 
 genus ?" 
 
 " Fiddlesticks !", says your good housekeeper, who has 
 more wisdom in her own conceit, and more contempt for all 
 other accomplishments without her own than ten men that 
 can render a reason. 
 
 Full well you laugh with counterfeited glee, and return to 
 your, cochon, determined to exhaust this department of sci- 
 
and Worthkssness. 49 
 
 ence, now you are on it, so that you can henceforth hold up 
 your head in good society. 
 
 " But it seems that all pork is not strips and middlings." 
 
 " Of course not. There are the shoulders, and the leg, 
 and the. lard, and the leaves." 
 
 One:9.nd two you know by the light of unassisted reason. 
 Number three you see through a glass darkly. But you go 
 scrambling around in your mind to find what leaves can 
 mean as pertaining to swine. 
 
 And you have to ask, after all. 
 
 " Leaves ? Why, leaves comes out of the inside of the 
 spare-rib. There's nobody that knows any thing but knows 
 what the spare-rib is." 
 
 Of course you would be likely to inquire after this mild 
 hint. 
 
 " But that is not telling what leaves are." 
 
 " Leaves is what you try up for the lard." 
 
 "And the middlings is all besides these — all the Internal 
 Improvements ?" 
 
 " Yes. What you want to salt is middlings." 
 
 There it is again, you see. Nothing is said about salt till 
 the last moment, when you supposed your understanding 
 of the subject complete, and then suddenly a Dead Sea is 
 rolled in upon you. 
 
 And, as if this were not enough, ere yet the ink was dry 
 upon these pages, I made a call upon a friend high in offi- 
 cial and social position, and while we were deep in the dis- 
 cussion of fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, his 
 wife, one of those inveterate^ housekeepers before stigma- 
 tized, an excellent woman in every other respect, but con- 
 ceited and domineering to the last degree in point of house- 
 keeping, cut in with — 
 
 " There ! David has come. Now stop your harangue, 
 and go down with him and salt the pork." 
 
 C 
 
so Woman's Worth 
 
 Meekly he bowed his head, as only a man can who has 
 been thoroughly subdued by a long course of domestic dis- 
 cipline, and murmured, helplessly, 
 
 " Is there any thing except the pork to be salted ?" 
 Here I pricked up my ears, determined to distinguish 
 myself by interposing some casual remark to show my lady 
 that I was well " up" on the subject ; but my budding am- 
 bition was instantaneously frostbitten by her branching off 
 into a disquisition on sausage-meat, which had not been 
 dreamed of in my philosophy. Thus ever, when you fancy 
 yourself to be nearing the summit of your aim, do hills on 
 hills and Alps on Alps arise. And after sausage-meat come 
 souse, and head-cheese, and pig's feet, and haslet, and what 
 not, till you feel yourself trampled under foot of a whole 
 herd of swine. Now, if these things are done in a green 
 tree, what shall be done in a dry ? If there is so much to 
 be known about the most despised of all the animals that 
 are admitted to a gentleman's table, who shall fathom the 
 depths of science wherein fish, flesh, and fowl of good re- 
 pute lie pickled ? Yet, unless you know all these things, you 
 are no housekeeper — you have "no faculty." It is not 
 simply to roast your meat, but to understand the moral na- 
 ture, so to speak, of the beast whence it is taken — all the 
 special fitnesses of its special parts for special uses — all its 
 special needs in point of preservation — all the adaptations 
 of its times and seasons to the revolutions of the earth on 
 its axis and the stars in their courses. Thus the good house- 
 keeper must, like Lord Bacon, take all knowledge to be her 
 province. She sees, as did Cicero, that all the arts which 
 pertain to humanity have, as it were, a common chain bind- 
 ing them to her kitchen stove. Yet so unequal are the ways 
 of justice and the demands of our artificial society, that she 
 who hesitates in a single one of these arts is lost ; while Mr. 
 Henry Ward Beecher, by his own confession, wipes the dish- 
 
and Worthkssness. 51 
 
 es with a newspaper when his wife is away, and Professor 
 Blot, as these eyes have seen, tosses them on a sofa without 
 washing at all. And no dog barks. 
 
 That severe virtue which presides over the American 
 newspaper finds a noble exercise of its powers in the follow- 
 ing paragraph, which appears in an eminently religious 
 newspaper : 
 
 " Many young ladies in our day look on kitchen-work as 
 so much drudgery, to be shunned whenever possible. It 
 may possibly inspire some of them to better thoughts to 
 know that the royal family of England consider excellence 
 in this department as an important womanly virtue. An ex- 
 change says : 
 
 " ' But Queen Victoria, the highest gentlewoman in the 
 land, did, down to the lamented death of the prince, pay 
 daily visits of inspection to her kitchen, pantry, confection- 
 ery, still-room, and was proud of and did herself show those 
 rooms to her visitors when staying at the castle ; and, car- 
 rying out the recognized principles of female duty, model 
 kitchens were constructed at Windsor and Osborne, where 
 all the princesses, from the eldest downward, have passed a 
 portion of each day in acquiring a knowledge of the various 
 duties of domestic economy in the management of a house- 
 hold. In their model kitchen the princesses have daily prac- 
 ticed the art of cookery, and also confectionery in all its va- 
 rious branches. There is a small store-room adjoining each 
 kitchen, where each princess in turn gives out the stores, 
 weighing or measuring each article, and making an entry 
 thereof in a book kept for the purpose; besides which the 
 princesses make bread ; and that is not all — they have a 
 dairy where they churn butter and make cheese.' " 
 
 After so signal a rebuke, it can not be expected that the 
 evil in question will ever again show its head. If the royal 
 family of England count kitchen-work an important woman- 
 ly virtue, that settles the question. No American young 
 lady can henceforth consider it drudgery. And how charm- 
 ing is the logic to which the impulsive but inconclusive fe- 
 
52 Woman's Worth 
 
 male mind is here treated ! Queen Victoria pays daily vis- 
 its of inspection to her kitchen and pantry, therefore Ameri- 
 can young ladies should love to work in theirs. Queen Vic- 
 toria is proud of her rooms, and does herself show them to 
 her visitors — arduous toil ! Therefore American young la- 
 dies must delight to bake, and brew, and scrub. 'Tis as like 
 as my fingers to my fingers. 
 
 And the princesses, too — virtuous creatures — have model 
 kitchens, in which they work a portion of each day. But 
 pray, now. Messieurs Censors of American young women, 
 what occupies these exemplary princesses in their toy kitch- 
 ens ? Do they, let us say, rise betimes in the morning, shake 
 down the coal-stove, sift the ashes, bring in the kindlings, 
 build the fire, pump the water, put on the tea-kettle, broil 
 the steak, toss the omelet, bake the corn-cake, make the 
 coffee, set the table, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, polish 
 the stove, trim the lamps every morning of the three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five? Conscript fathers, do you not know 
 perfectly well that what these young princesses do is simply 
 to play at work ? They take the kitchen just as they take 
 music — in lessons. They have their model kitchens and an 
 array of well-trained servants, and are instructed in the cul- 
 inary arts by skillful teachers ; and they amuse themselves 
 and gratify their friends by practicing occasionally what they 
 have learned. There is no more resemblance between their 
 kitchen-work and the kitchen-work of the great majority of 
 American households than there is between their embroid- 
 ery and the slop-making of the needle-woman who sews for 
 dear life fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. It is not 
 necessary to be an inmate of kings' palaces to know this. 
 The light of nature teaches so much. Do not presume so 
 far upon the fatuity of your young countrywomen. It hurts 
 you, and does not amuse them. There is not a girl in Amer- 
 ica who would not be willing to do all the housework that 
 
and Worthkssness. 53 
 
 Queen Victoria and her daughters perform, if she could do 
 it from the same motives and with the same machinery. 
 
 We have heard a great deal from time to time of the do- 
 mesticity of English ladies of birth and breeding. Many 
 is the duchess, and countess, and baroness who has gone 
 down the columns of the American newspaper into her kitch- 
 en and store-room to give orders, and keep accounts, and 
 supervise her household arrangements, and who has conse- 
 quently been held up as an example to the negligent house- 
 keepers of our own unhappy land. I never did put any 
 great faith in these stories ; and here comes an Englishman 
 in the London Daily News to help mine unbelief. He is 
 traveling in America, and, speaking of the " residents of 
 most of the three-window stone houses" in New York, he 
 says : 
 
 " If she [the wife] has a carriage, she drives in the Park 
 in the afternoon ; and in the evening she either receives vis- 
 its at home or visits at the house of some friend. She gen- 
 erally is her own housekeeper, and she occupies herself far more 
 with housekeeping affairs than an English lady in the same 
 social position. 
 
 " Cooks here receive about twenty-five dollars a month ; 
 and, on the whole, dinners are better than with us. This is 
 mainly due to the wives themselves frequently visiting the kitch- 
 en, and having some knowledge of cookery." 
 
 I spare my gallant countrymen all comment upon this 
 simple statement, choosing rather to leave them to their own 
 awakened consciences and detected guilt. And, such is the 
 depravity of the masculine human heart, and such its un- 
 scrupulousness in the use of means, that if we were as fa- 
 miliar with English newspapers as with our own, we should 
 doubdess find the Catos of the English press just as for- 
 ward as our own in shaming their countrywomen with the 
 domestic virtues of their transadantic sisters ! 
 
54 Woman's Worth 
 
 Housekeeping with well-trained, or at least weil-disposed 
 servants, is the only way of life tolerable to an adult Chris- 
 tian ; but any woman who enjoys housekeeping with only 
 her own self for maid-of-all-work discovers thereby some 
 radical organic defect. It is well enough for a short time, 
 while the exhilaration of the novelty lasts ; and even after 
 the exhilaration and the novelty are over, a little of it is 
 wholesome for the future conduct of life. Indeed, I think 
 no one who has not some practical acquaintance with it, not 
 in its holiday garb, but in its working dress, is ever quite 
 master of the situation. To go down into the kitchen after 
 breakfast, to have Mary bring you all the ingredients for 
 your cake or your dessert, and after the dainty work is done 
 leave the "clearing up" for her — this is occasionally an 
 amusement. But you need to feel the iron enter into your 
 own soul, to bear the responsibility of the whole day, to see 
 the awful regularity with which the breakfast-hour, and the 
 dinner-hour, and the supper-hour come, and the awful ir- 
 regularity with which the breakfast, and the dinner, and the 
 supper rise up to meet them, to watch all the niceties of 
 mixing and baking, and then to front all the horrors of pots, 
 and kettles, and spiders, and skillets — in short, you need to 
 experience the numberless vexations and the irritating fa- 
 tigues in order to know what service to exact of your serv- 
 ants, what completeness to expect, what shortcomings to 
 forgive. 
 
 Some of the reproaches wherewithal we reproach our fore- 
 fathers — meaning in this instance our foremothers — are di- 
 rected against customs which, I am persuaded, have their 
 rise in this dreadful and fearful burden of housework. We 
 have all ridiculed or denounced the farm-houseSj open on 
 the kitchen side, but solemnly shut up as to the best rooms ; 
 and we — those of us who are men — write essays and deliver 
 lectures to show how much better and more cheerful it is 
 
and Worthkssness. 
 
 55 
 
 to throw open the whole house to the free play of sun and 
 breeze. I regret to admit that I have joined in these short- 
 sighted diatribes myself. I desire to make public recanta- 
 tion, and do hereby declare and affirm that, so far from de- 
 nouncing the custom, my only wonder is that women who 
 perform their own house-work do not shut up their houses 
 altogether and live in the barn-chamber. Who would not a 
 thousand times rather eat his meat with gladness and sin- 
 gleness of heart on a haystack, and serenely toss the frag- 
 ments down to the stalled ox below, than roast the stalled 
 ox himself and eat him in never so gorgeous a dining-room, 
 with the dishes to wash and the floor to sweep afterward ? 
 For, in the first case, the stalled ox would be a cheerful and 
 soothing companion, in the other an irritating and inexora- 
 ble tyrant. While you were devouring his body, he would 
 be devouring your soul. 
 
 It is simply impossible — listen now, I pray, all knights of 
 high and low degree, marching along, thousandscore strong, 
 great-hearted gentlemen singing this song of woman's sphere- 
 icity — it is simply impossible for any woman to do the work 
 of her household and make her life what a woman's life 
 ought to be. This is a rule that admits of no exception 
 and no modification. The machinery of the family is so 
 complicated and so exacting that one woman can not have 
 the sole charge of it without neglecting other and equally 
 important matters. The duties which a woman owes to so- 
 ciety, and to the moral and spiritual part of her household, 
 are just as imperative as those which she owes to its phys- 
 ical comfort. And if she alone ministers to the latter, the 
 former must be neglected, and the latter will hardly be thor- 
 oughly accomplished. I know all about our noble grand- 
 mothers. I have heard of them before. I think we could 
 run a race with them any day. But if we can not, whose 
 fault is it ? If the women of to-day are puny, fragile, degen- 
 
56 Woman's Worth 
 
 erate, are they not the grandchildren of their grandmothers 
 — ^bearing such constitutions ais their grandmothers could 
 transmit ? It was the duty of those venerable ladies not 
 only to be strong themselves, but to see to it that their chil- 
 dren were strong. A sturdy race should leave a sturdy race. 
 It was far more their duty to give to their children vigorous 
 minds, stalwart bodies, healthy nerves, firm principles, than 
 it was to spin, and weave, and make butter and cheese all 
 day. We should have got along just as well with less linen 
 laid up in lavender ; and if our grandmothers could only 
 have waited, we would have woven them more cloth in a day 
 than their hand-looms would turn out in a lifetime. But 
 there is no royal road to a healthy manhood and woman- 
 hood. Nothing less costly than human life goes into the 
 construction of human life. We should have more reason 
 to be grateful to our ancestors if they had given up their 
 superfluous industries, called off their energy from its per- 
 ishable objects, and let more of their soul and strength 
 flow leisurely in to build up the soul and strength of the 
 generations that were to come after them. Nobody is to 
 blame for being born weak. If this generation of women is 
 feeble compared with its hardy and laborious grandmothers, 
 it is simply because the grandmothers put so much of their 
 vitality, their physical nerve and moral fibre, into their churn- 
 ing and spinning, that they had but an insufficient quantity 
 left wherewithal to endow their children, and so they wrought 
 us evil. 
 
 One would not willingly quarrel with his grandmothers. 
 All agree in awarding them praise for heroic qualities. They 
 fought a good fight — ^perhaps the best they could under the 
 circumstances with their light. We would gladly overlook 
 all in their lives that was defective, and fasten our eyes only 
 ofi that which was noble. But when their fault is distinctly 
 pointed out as their virtue, when their necessity is exalted 
 
and Worthlesstuss. 57 
 
 into our ensample, when their narrowness is held up to our 
 ambition, we must say that it was fault, and need, and nar- 
 rowness, grandmother or no grandmother. Indeed those 
 excellent gentlewomen, no doubt, long before this have seen 
 the error of their ways, and, if they could find voice, would 
 be the first to avOw that they did set too great store by chests 
 of sheets, and bureaus of blankets, and pillow-cases of stock- 
 ings, and stacks of provisions ; and that if it were given them 
 to live life over again, they would endeavor rather to lay up 
 treasure in the bodies, and brains, and hearts of their chil- 
 dren, where moth and mildew do not corrupt, which time 
 does not dissipate nor use destroy, and whereof we stand 
 in sorer need than of purple, or scarlet, or fine-twined linen. 
 A long way this side of our grandmothers we find bus- 
 tling, energetic women, who would laugh to scorn the idea 
 that they needed any help in transacting their household 
 business. But then, dear ladies, the laugh is not wholly on 
 your side. We in our turn, we incapables, laugh to scorn 
 your idea of life, or, if we do not laugh, we lament. We 
 think you utterly fail to form any conception of the true mo- 
 tives, methods, and ends of the family and of society. We 
 think you attain the less only by sacrificing the greater — that 
 all this strain of the muscles destroys the play of the mind. 
 Sometimes your work is really but half done. You rush 
 through your house with a touch and go. You have not 
 even an ideal of domestic comfort, of mere material purity. 
 You apparently have great executive ability, but its finest 
 feat is in covering your manifold defects with a superficial 
 decency. Any person could do her housework who could 
 be content with not doing it. Or, again, you are a marvel 
 of thoroughness. You are all "faculty." You are the town 
 talk for thrift and industry. You rise while it is yet dark, 
 and pride yourself on having your breakfast eaten and 
 cleared away before six o'clock. All very well, if you think 
 
 C2 
 
58 Woman's Worth 
 
 it is a cheerful thing to do in our climate. Yours may be 
 an extreme case, but it is like Byron's gentle hill — the cape 
 of a long ridge of such. You are at the extreme, but there 
 are many following you at a greater or less distance. But 
 tell us what you do with your time after you have thus 
 taken it by the forelock. Are you really any happier ? Do 
 you walk on a higher plane than we who like to begin the 
 day with sunshine ? Look at it, good friend. Is there not 
 something left out, after all ? Is .your influence upon your 
 husband elevating and spiritualizing ? Do you help him to 
 rise above his material occupations into the regions of 
 thought and sentiment ? Do you study into the hidden na- 
 ture of your children ? Do you thread with loving watch the 
 labyrinths of their little life, that you may get the clew 
 whereby to guide them through no winding paths into a 
 happy and honorable maturity ? And as they come up into 
 youth, into young manhood and maidenhood, are you still 
 to them the personification of what is most wise, and win- 
 ning, and worthy in human character ? 
 
 Are you of the first consideration in your house ? While 
 you are thinking and planning for the others, are they think- 
 ing first of you ? Is your approbation the confirmation, and 
 your disapproval the veto, of every new plan ? Is your house 
 a familiar resting-place for weary pilgrims ? " Do the young 
 people of your circle like your society, come to you for ad- 
 vice or sympathy, for careless chit-chat and serious conver- 
 sation ? Do men and women of mark frequent your house, 
 drawn by some unseen attraction? Do you make of your 
 home a little sunny spot of greenery in the great wilderness 
 of the world, where the jaded may find rest, and the sorrow- 
 ing consolation, and the inert stimiilus, and the merry free 
 play— whence every one goes out a little fresher, a little 
 brighter, a little happier than he came in ? 
 
 And look at yourself. Alas ! your hands are bulging at 
 
and Worthlessness. 59 
 
 the joints, hard in the palms, rough as to the finger-ends, 
 spreading, unshapely, and discolored, active enough in work, 
 but ruined for delicacy and grace. But a woman's hand 
 should be soft, and white, and supple. Heavens ! what her- 
 esy is this ! What laudation of luxury, and idleness, and gen- 
 eral worthlessness ! Let me say it again, then. A woman's 
 hand should be white, and soft, and supple, and the robbery 
 of grace and beauty which it has suffered only marks the loss 
 of so much grace and beauty out of womanhood. I do not 
 say that a woman may not do worse than have hard hands, 
 and a face and form disfigured by toil. If it is a question 
 of life or death, of dishonorable dependence or deforming 
 labor, there is but one choice. Rather there is no choice. 
 It is better for a woman to sacrifice her soul through her 
 body, than to sacrifice her soul outright and spare her beau- 
 ty. In the first case, she may hope to save something from 
 the wreck ; in the second, all that is valuable goes down to- 
 gether. But it is none the less' sacrifice. If you must de- 
 stroy comeliness and grace by hard work, there is virtue in 
 doing it as quietly and cheerfully as may be. If you do it 
 without the spur of necessity, there is no virtue in it at all. 
 And let it be ever remembered and rehearsed, that all labor 
 that wears upon the physical frame, or mental or nervous 
 power of woman, whether it be indoor or outdoor labor, is 
 so much taken away from her children. Whatever deteri- 
 orates her deteriorates her offspring. Through inherited 
 vigor she may stand all the wear and tear after a fashion, 
 but there is imminent danger that her children will not live 
 out half their days, or will vex their allotted time with an 
 attenuated existence. Nothing but tranquillity, and high 
 health, and happy, spirits, added to the royal souls of moth- 
 ers, can-give us the brave, grand race that is to mark and 
 make the Golden Year. 
 The perfect woman is as beautiful as she is strong, as 
 
6o Woman's Worth 
 
 tender as she is sensible. She is calm, deliberate, dignified, 
 leisurely. She is gay, graceful, sprightly, sympathetic. She 
 is severe upon occasion, and upon occasion playful. She 
 has fancies, dreams, romances, ideas. Sometimes her skies 
 are clear, like the cloudless blue of winter ; but sometimes 
 they are hazy and vague, like the Indian summer afternoon. 
 She is never idle, but she sometimes seems to be. She uses 
 her hands, but she never abuses them. She commands her 
 children and her household after her, but she does not 
 drudge for them. She administers the government of her 
 kingdom, she looheth well to the ways of her family, but she 
 never eats her bread in the sweat of her brow. Her mind 
 is in every corner of her house, but her face shines chiefly 
 where husband, and children, and friends sit in the light 
 thereof. She organizes neatness, and order, and comfort, 
 but they are merely the foundation whereon rises the temple 
 of her home, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole 
 earth. 
 
 Thus at least we comfort ourselves, Hassan and I, for our 
 foes the housekeepers, who look down upon us. 
 
 Since it can not be denied that our housekeeping flagged 
 wonderfully after the first few days. The inspiration seemed 
 to flutter and fade as we receded from Professor Blot, and 
 left us stranded upon a cruel shore of bare flat facts. What 
 is there to the kitchen after the novelty is over ? When you 
 have once baked a potato well, that is the end of it. While 
 the world stands there can be no improvement. As like as 
 two peas in a pod, says the proverb. As like as two thou- 
 sand peas out of a pod. To boil pease to-day is to boil 
 pease to-morrow, and the next day, and forever, till their salt 
 has lost its savor, and their freshness its flavor, and your soul 
 loathes the sound of boiled pease. When Sally Lunn has 
 once made a creditable appearance at the breakfast-table, 
 you desire to wash your hands of that femme pass6e for all 
 
and Worthlessness. 61 
 
 time. The only revival of interest comes with a new guest. 
 They tell you — the good moral books of Advice to Young 
 Housekeepers, and Mothers' Aids — that you ought to serve 
 yourself just as you serve your company. You will then be 
 always ready to welcome and enjoy your guests. It is a 
 good rule enough ; but, though the spirit be willing, the flesh 
 is weak ; and I have found that agreeable and exhilarating 
 guests are the only spur which the clear spirit doth raise to 
 get any kind of a meal after the first two or three times. It 
 creates life even under the jacket of a baked potato to think 
 that somebody you love will eat it. There is real pleasure 
 in making your table inviting — in bringing out for your 
 friend something a little remote from every-day uses — some- 
 thing a little finer, a little rarer than is cast into the com- 
 mon lot. But for your own self, bless me ! let us gnaw any 
 sort of a crust, and have done with it. What is the odds ? 
 You get a dinner for the family ; it is gone in the twinkling 
 of an eye, and you reflect with dismay that you must pace 
 the same tread-mill to-morrow. Or it is let severely alone, 
 and you know that something is burned, or water-soaked, or 
 under-done, and are equally brought to confusion. 
 
 Hassan's enthusiasm ebbed as rapidly as mine. He 
 brought down newspapers, and read them surreptitiously be- 
 hind his pile of cook-books. Then he waxed bolder, and 
 began to read them aloud to me. We all know it is nice to 
 be read aloud to when you are rattling about amidst the 
 crockery. You are likely to have a great deal of sympathy 
 with the Cuban insurrectionists, and be mightily interested 
 in the Suez Canal, when the chocolate is boiling, and the 
 oatmeal is burning, and all the outside doors are slamming. 
 Finally Hassan showed symptoms of deserting the kitchen 
 altogether. 
 
 " Come, it is half past seven, and I must go and get break- 
 fast," I say, decidedly, after many futile attempts. 
 
62 Woman's Worth 
 
 " Don't rush," says Hassan. " You have oceans of time." 
 
 " But it is half past seven." 
 
 " And we breakfast at nine. You have a good hour yet." 
 
 " But there are the eggs to boil, and the toast to'make — " 
 
 "It Stakes just three minutes for the eggs to boil, and al- 
 low five more for the toast." 
 
 And then he goes into a mathematical calculation, show- 
 ing by the rule of three that fifteen minutes is enough to get 
 all the breakfast in. And so it is — in his brain^nowhere 
 else ; for, though I never can detect any error in his figures, 
 it is a matter of experience that breakfast never comes in 
 fifteen minutes. 
 
 And your neighbor does — dear little kind-hearted woman ! 
 But she will come round by the back door, where you are al- 
 ready immeasurably perplexed because the tea-kettle will 
 not boil. Now it is not of the least consequence how kind- 
 hearted people are ; they ought never to . come in by the 
 back door. I am agonizing over the tea-kettle ; but that is 
 not suspicious, for it is past ten ; and if she surmises cook- 
 ing she will think it is dinner. You can always christen a 
 meal according to the hour it hits nearest. We trip around 
 the field of neighborhood gossip with a celerity which' she 
 probably does not understand. And the water will not boil. 
 And I can not go into the dining-room to set the table. 
 And the clock is ticking on toward half past ten. She is a 
 dear little woman — but if she only would go ! Does she not 
 see how abstracted and incoherent I am ? For my under- 
 thought will protrude into my surface talk. I expect'every 
 moment Hassan will come breezing in .with, " How do you 
 make it on the breakfast ?" And then we are lost. Already 
 I hear his tramp emerging from his lair. Light breaks. 
 " Mrs. Smith, I wish you would go out with me and take a 
 look at our beans. I am afraid they are frost-killed." Un- 
 der-reilection, "She won't come in again." And she doesn't. 
 
and Worthkssness. 63 
 
 My interest in the beans falls away as soon as she is launched 
 on them, and I gradually edge toward the house, drawing her 
 after me. Will she pass through or by the door ? Oh joy ! 
 she makes as if she would go farther. "Won't you come in, 
 Mr^. Smith ?" Hypocrite that I am — but how can you help 
 it ? " No, thank you ; I believe I must be going." And, re- 
 leased at last, I make another descent on the tea-kettle, and 
 suddenly remember that I forgot to put in the wood upon 
 the kindlings, and the reason why the water does not boil is 
 that the fire went out half an hour ago. 
 
 Such is life — in the kitchen. Professor Blot may garland 
 it with roses, and put a bouquet of see-sawn-ing in its hand ; 
 but the grinning, mocking, hideous skeleton is still there, 
 and will not be lectured or lessoned away. 
 
64 Woman's Worth 
 
 IV. 
 THE PURSUIT OF THE FORTY THOUSAND. 
 
 " This will never do," said Hassan. 
 
 " No," I replied ; " it is flying in the face of Providence.'' 
 
 I did not know to what he was referring ; but it is always 
 safe to strike in with an acquiescing remark. 
 
 " Something is about to give way, and we must have a 
 woman. There are lots of them." 
 
 " Forty thousand in the city of New York, with nothing 
 to do but come out in the newspapers every year makitig 
 shirts at six cents apiece or die." 
 
 " And thirty thousand in Massachusetts." 
 
 "And me with the whole world to reconstruct on entirely 
 new principles, and can't get at it for the barricades of bread- 
 and-butter that rise around me." 
 
 " Exactly, my dear. You might cry with the sons of the 
 prophets, ' There is death in the pot !' for you, while to these 
 forty thousand it might be life, let alone that our planet 
 would immediately turn into a self-luminous body if you 
 could but have free play for a few minutes." 
 
 " What is the good of talking ? The facts remain. No 
 hypothesis regarding a millennium relieves in the smallest 
 degree the pressure of existing circumstances. Doubtless 
 the Golden Age awaits our laggard steps ; but at present we 
 are hungry." 
 
 " It is always well, however, to take a dispassionate view 
 of the situation. Put the case, now, you were cast away on 
 a desert island alone, with plenty of flour, and sugar, and 
 mutton-chops, but with no one to cook them — all your spe- 
 
and Worthlessness. 65 
 
 cific dislikes and all your generic inaptitudes in full vigor. 
 What should you do ?" 
 
 " I should advertise." 
 
 "A Daniel come to judgment !" 
 
 " And now you have put the idea into my mind, why 
 should we not advertise as it is ? I think we are as near 
 being stranded on a stern and rock-bound coast as we are 
 likely ever to be." 
 
 " What good did our former advertising do us ?" 
 
 " None at all, because we did not advertise. We were 
 merely passive recipients of the arbitrary wants of others. 
 We only answered advertisements. I believe our misfor- 
 tunes are a judgment upon us for attempting to help our- 
 selves, and turning a deaf ear to the forty thousand women 
 in New York who are crying for bread, and the thirty thou- 
 sand of Massachusetts, who may be a little better off, but 
 who, doubtless, must stint themselves in butter. Let us be 
 no longer selfish, but humane. Let us advertise." 
 
 " There is a possibility that these seventy thousand may 
 not be regular subscribers to the newspapers." 
 
 "But at the houses of their hard-hearted employers a 
 newspaper will be furnished them to wrap around the work 
 they are to carry home ; and, bending over their needle at 
 midnight, their eyes will fall on the advertisement, which will 
 bring to their weary hearts a glimpse of refuge ; they will 
 deny themselves a loaf of bread to buy a postage-stamp and 
 a sheet of paper to send us a letter ; receiving which, we 
 shall immediately remit their fare, and thus secure a sei-v- 
 ant for ourselves, with the happy consciousness that we have 
 drawn an overburdened fellow-mortal out of the Slough of 
 Despond." 
 
 " Bring me my pen," cried Hassan. " We will advertise 
 instantly." 
 
 We sent immediately to our weekly religious and our dai- 
 ly profane newspaper : 
 
66 ' Woman's Worth 
 
 WANTED — In the country, thirty miles from Elysium, a woman to 
 do the housework for a family of two persons. 
 
 I was about to add, instinctively, " Widow preferred," but 
 recollected myself in time. We must delay that adjunct till 
 our Chinese brethren favor us with their company in greater 
 numbers than at present. 
 
 I was very desirous that Hassan should engage a private 
 secretary to read and answer the letters which our advertise- 
 ment would elicit. If only a half, or even a thirtieth of 
 those thirty thousand women should happen to see this ad- 
 vertisement in the paper that wraps their work, under what 
 piles of correspondence should we groan ! But Hassan 
 thought that, as the eight-hour law was not yet in force, if 
 we should rise early and write late, we might perhaps dis- 
 pose of the bulk of the correspondence ourselves. 
 
 It turned out that he was right. Our secular advertise- 
 ment brought us seven answers ; our religious advertisement 
 one ; so that, with an eight-hour law and a letter an hour, 
 our private secretary would have had just a day's work. 
 
 Even the eight letters were seven too many for us. We 
 suffered from an embarrassment of riches. The. eight writ- 
 ers were all excellent housekeepers, neat, economical, versed 
 in cookery, all that heart could desire. How eagerly, if 
 vainly, we wished we were eight families instead of one, or 
 that we were rich enough to keep eight servants ! But when 
 our respondents appeared upon the scene, we were startled 
 to observe that they all had ailments, and most of them in- 
 fants. Apparently the talismanic words "in the country" 
 had put out of sight the fact that there might be work to 
 do. I asked Hassan if there was any thing in the adver- 
 tisement that looked as if we were designing to establish a 
 Hospital for Incurables or a Home for Little Waiiderers. 
 It would appear that some of our characteristic benevolence 
 must have crept unawares into the paper, thus to have drawn 
 
and Worthkssness. 67 
 
 out the maimed, the halt, and the blind. Perhaps the poor 
 creatures thought a breath of country air would cure them. 
 Things came to such a pass, finally, that Hassan bade me 
 henceforth not to seek of our applicants their qualifications 
 for the situation, but to ask them in the beginning what 
 were their complaints. I never before had so realizing a 
 sense of the scriptural truth that we are fearfully and won- 
 derfully made. Never knew I how complicated an inven- 
 tion was the human organism till I thus saw the number of 
 diseases that could prey upon it. Our religious respondent 
 was too far off for a personal interview; and, in the faint 
 hope that she might not have mistaken us for an Infirmary, 
 we sent to a relative living in her city to know if he could 
 ascertain the character and capacity of Priscilla Marquesa. 
 He replied promptly that he knew Priscilla well ; that she 
 was, in fact, one of his own patients ; that she usually rallied 
 a little in the summer, and during these revivals she might 
 be capable of taking care of her own chamber. We might 
 rely upon it that she would not require much waiting on, ex- 
 cept in winter. 
 
 We were neither of us good nurses, and there is no doctor 
 in the village. We therefore declined to assume the respon- 
 sibility of Priscilla's health. 
 
 Mary Ann seemed to be the least fragile and the most 
 promising, and she had only one orphan nephew of three 
 years to bring with her. We engaged Mary Ann. She was 
 to come a week from Wednesday — orphan nephew — two 
 dollars a week — stay a fortnight on trial ; and we were then 
 to decide on future arrangements. So we had our house- 
 hold wheels freshly oiled to run smoothly on AVednesday 
 morning. Tuesday night Mary Ann sent word that her 
 brother had decided to keep house again, and wanted her, 
 and she could not come. Penelope stood next on the list 
 for eligibility, and we turned to Penelope. Penelope had 
 
68 Woman's Worth 
 
 many disorders, but no children. Penelope replied instant- 
 ly that she would come. The arrangement was the same 
 as before — a fortnight's trial previous to the definite engage- 
 ment. She was to come next Monday. " Is it an engage- 
 ment ?" " Yes, it is an engagement," says Penelope ; " and 
 I never break my word." Friday comes a letter from Pe- 
 nelope, saying only this and nothing more : " I have con- 
 cluded not to work for you." 
 
 " It is the curse of Kehama," I said to Hassan. " The 
 orphans shall see thee, and know thee, and fly thee. The 
 aunts shall not touch thee when they pass by thee." 
 
 The next was a stout Irish lassie. She surveyed us cool- 
 ly and critically from garret to cellar. AVe seemed to find 
 favor in her eyes. She was graciously pleased to remark 
 that the house was pleasant and convanient for work, though 
 I must admit that never did the ceilings seem so low, or the 
 carpets so faded, or the whole aspect of the establishment 
 so ungenteel, as while undergoing her inspection. But she 
 condescended to our low estate. She was very good-na- 
 tured, and said she would come Sunday night. The Wednes- 
 day after I caught a glimpse of her Magenta gown among 
 the poplars a quarter of a mile off, and in process of time 
 our little lad brought word that Ellen told him to tell us she 
 had got a place in the city. 
 
 But Elfleda came. Oh, heavens ! Elfleda is the kind 
 that always comes. Poor dear ! with her dark, drawn face, 
 her thin, bent figure, her unrestful eyes, her poor, wan, puny 
 baby boy ! How many bones do the physiologists tell us 
 there are in the human system ? Two hundred and some- 
 thing ? I have not a doubt of it. Elfleda had them all, and 
 every one ached j and, what is remarkable, not only had 
 each one its separate and peculiar twinge, but there seemed 
 to be also a sort of double-back-acting machinery by which 
 they all ached in concert with an entirely distinct and well- 
 
and Worthies sness. 69 
 
 defined pang. We did not find it out till she was safely 
 housed under our roof; then we discovered, to our dismay, 
 that she creaked every time she moved. I do think — but I 
 never suggested it to her — that all the lubricating oil must 
 have been washed out of her joints by the multiplicity of her 
 douches and sitz baths. What are douches and sitz baths, 
 I wonder ? I only know that we seemed to be living under 
 a dispensation of them, and our tubs never got a holiday 
 while she was with us. Do I seem to be making a mock at 
 misfortune ? Alas ! I pitied her from the bottom of my 
 heart. But why should one drown one's self alive ? Neither 
 the sufferings of the body nor the sins of the soul can be 
 swept away by a flood. Because you have a pump in the 
 sink, heed you live under the pump-nose ? 
 
 Elfleda's conversation was cheerful and instructive, equal- 
 ly divided between minute and graphic descriptions of the 
 diseases with which she had grappled and the remedies 
 thereunto appertaining, and the diseases, remedies, and vir- 
 tues of her departed consort. And what a temper she had ! 
 We always spoke of her as " the angel." I constantly kept 
 her before Hassan as a model and a rebuke. AVhen she 
 was in the very act of holding forth upon her pet themes 
 you could interrupt her without ruffling in the least that 
 saintly temper. This was a fortunate discovery for me. Of 
 course we are all brought up to hold it impolite to interrupt 
 an interlocutor, or even abruptly to change the subject upon 
 which he is discoursing. It requires sometimes no small 
 degree of ingenuity to construct a gently-inclined plane 
 along which to conduct him imperceptibly from his subject 
 to your own. A goodly amount of such carpentry was per- 
 formed with Elfleda during the early days of our connection, 
 but it was love's labor lost, for she could step from one 
 subject directly upon another without the least apparent 
 moral jerk or jar. Picture the heavenly-mindedness of a 
 
70 Woman's Worth 
 
 woman who, having lovingly led her story along through the 
 febrile, symptomatic stages, and finally got the most malig- 
 nant small-pox under full headway, will allow you to break 
 in, just as the malady is about to break out, with, " Now let 
 us have one pan of hot biscuit for breakfast, and the rest in 
 loaves. And is there milk enough for the chocolate ?" 
 
 Yes. And that martyr would let go the small-pox, turn 
 right about face, and immediately begin to descant upon 
 chocolate and biscuit, and the peculiar varieties of both — 
 which had been dear to her late espoused saint — with as 
 much sweetness and fervor as if that had been the subject 
 she started out on. And all the while I am surreptitiously 
 slipping through the door, and edging through the dining- 
 room, and backing up stairs, she following unconsciously 
 with her innocent gush of talk, and me responding hypocrit- 
 ically with " Yes !" and " Why !" and unmeaning smiles, till 
 my foot is on the top stair, when I shatter her remainder 
 biscuit with a sudden " Good-night, Elfleda !" and dart out 
 of sight. " Good-night !" replies the cherub, cheerful and 
 content, and trots back to baby and biscuits. 
 
 But those biscuits were the perfection of delicacy. They 
 would have enraptured Matthew Arnold with their" sweet- 
 ness and light.'' And she somehow gilded their refined gold 
 by painting their lily whiteness with butter before she put 
 them in the oven, so that their crust was a delicious crisp. 
 
 Her clear-starching was as perfect as her biscuit, and 
 would rival the frosty Caucasus. Her honesty would have 
 snuffed out the candle of Diogenes. Her neatness was, as 
 I have before intimated, a heavy drain upon the tubs. What 
 could our grief be ? Alas ! An unconquerable incapacity 
 neutralized every advantage. Breakfast was delicious, but 
 it never came. Dinner was the Head -Centre of delay. 
 Washing drizzled along till Thursday, and the last of the 
 ironing dawdled up stairs on Sunday morning. You were 
 
and Worthkssness. -j i 
 
 sure of nothing. The breakfast dishes gathered in the sink, 
 swelled with relays from the dinner-table, and finally over- 
 flowed upon the kitchen chairs. Imagine the thrill of hor- 
 ror that would curdle a New England- village at rumor of 
 such doings ! True, we lived ; but nothing was finished. 
 As gossips say, the work was never "done up." Yet that 
 saintly temper did not fail. You might go down at ten 
 o'clock of a July night and find her with a red-hot fire, a 
 crate of unwashed crockery, and a soul as serene as if she 
 were only listening to the songs of nightingales. Her furi- 
 ous fires, raging through the long summer days, told fear- 
 fully upon our fuel. I walked over to my friend, the soft- 
 voiced forester, and begged him to replenish our exhausted 
 wood-house. 
 
 " You don't mean to say your wood is all gone ?" 
 
 "Indeed I do." 
 
 " Not all that I cut up last winter and put into the barn ?" 
 
 " Every stick of it. We have been living off the old fence 
 these three days, and have now begun on the pitchforks and 
 hoe-handles." 
 
 "Well, I won't say you're extravagant, but, by gorry! 
 you've done well." 
 
 Poor, dear Elfleda ! 
 
 In this irritable, exacting, rampageous world it would seem 
 hardly credible that there could be such a thing as not hav- 
 ing temper enough ; but if there be such a thing, its name 
 is Elfleda. It was impossible to keep her, and equally im- 
 possible — if I may employ a euphuistic Gallicism — to disem- 
 barrass one's self of her. You can not scold a mother of 
 children. That sacred suffering and service interpose a bar- 
 rier which no superiority of position, attainment, or charac- 
 ter can break down or override. To any gentle hint of dis- 
 satisfaction Elfleda presented a voluble and valid excuse, or 
 a flood of tears, heart-rent and heart-rending. What can 
 
72 Woman's Worth 
 
 you do ? The baby — and this was a constant, solid com- 
 fort — waxed fat, and kicked. Abundant sunshine, pure air, 
 and fresh milk puffed out his thin, sad, pitiful cheeks into 
 laughing, dimpled, charming plumpness. He crept out- 
 doors, delighted, among the birds, and bugs, -and hop-toads, 
 whenever a door was left open. He took contented little 
 naps on the piazza, while the cat and hens gathered in friend- 
 ly conclave to claw and peck the gingerbread from his chub- 
 by fists. He went through a lung fever on the door-step, 
 and throve mightily in all ways ; and Elfleda turned a deaf 
 ear to any suggestions of departure, as if they had been 
 temptations of the adversary. No one could have the heart 
 to set her adrift on the great wide wild world again, and we 
 bestirred ourselves to find her a harbor. We recommended -^v 
 her to all the neighbors in every capacity under heaven, from 
 wet-nurse to Universalist minister, and they snapped their 
 fingers at us. We cut down her wages to starvation rate. 
 There is no available villainy in the calendar of crime which 
 I did not perpetrate against her, and all in vain. If a new 
 hospital had not been opened in a neighboring county, I be- 
 lieve her boy would have cast his first vote in our town in 
 spite of us. That hospital may or may not be an eleemosy- 
 nary or a pecuniary success, but it was our salvation ; and 
 if we ever inherit a fortune, we mean to put that establish- 
 ment on a princely foundation. The first mention of it sug- 
 gested a way of escape for Elfleda. If there be any inherent 
 and eternal fitness of things, Elfleda and a hospital were 
 made for each other. If there be any inherent unfitness, it 
 lay between Elfleda and ourselves ; for Hassan and I both 
 distinctly remember that our last sensation of illness was 
 when we were teething. The prospect of rioting in douches 
 and sitz baths, of unlimited revels among fevers and lotions, 
 blue pills and bluer patients, touched the weak spot in El- 
 fleda's character; and as I painted in glowing colors the 
 
and Worthlessness. 73 
 
 gay and festive scenes on which she would enter if she could 
 become nurse or matron in such an institution, the light act- 
 ually sparkled in her faded eyes, and her poor thin hair 
 seemed to crinkle with ecstasy. So she went to glory, as 
 you may say. 
 
 But I was not thus to be baffled. If the forty thousand 
 would not come to me, I would go to the forty thousand. 
 Any thing is better than to sit moaning among the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt, with thirty thousand women starving over the 
 needle in Massachusetts, and forty thousand more in New 
 York. 
 
 I arose and went to Boston. 
 
 I inquired for thirty thousand anxious and aimless women 
 making shirts at six cents a piece. People stared, and di- 
 rected me to the employment offices. 
 
 The first one was presided over by a lady, tall, slender, 
 delicate, and refined in appearance — a pretty, gentle woman 
 of culture and character apparently ; but the air she breathed 
 was horrible for any human being, let alone a lady. How- 
 ever, there is a choice in features ; and when you go on a 
 mission of this sort, you can give up your nose and take to 
 your eyes. The domain over which this sovereign lady pre- 
 sided was two rooms — one very large, the other smaller. 
 Every seat in the larger room was occupied by women want- 
 ing places. The smaller room was frequented, and some- 
 times thronged, by women wanting servants. The situation 
 was appalling. It was my first experience of an employ- 
 ment office. I paused at the open door between the two 
 rooms, and looked in upon the congregated waiting-women. 
 Such an array of coarse, ignorant, unintelligent, unhelpfiil 
 faces ; such stolid indifference ; such unshrinking self-asser- 
 tion ; such rude, brawny, worthless womarihood ! My very 
 heart and soul misgave me — misgave me for home, and 
 family, and country, and future. Who can make a home 
 
 D 
 
74 Woman's Worth 
 
 with such raw material as this in the heart of it ? It was 
 not mere domestic inefficiency that confounded me, but a 
 far deeper — an organic, inherent incapacity that seemed not 
 soluble, nor malleable, nor pliable, nor able in any way to 
 be wrought, by any known agent in moral chemistry, me- 
 chanics, or alchemy, into a sympathetic member of a Chris- 
 tian family. Of the scores that sat there, silent, chatting, 
 listless, watchful, not one but seemed bold or stupid, crude, 
 repellant, and utterly alien. I speak only of appearances. 
 Doubtless under the harsh exterior were the germs of gen- 
 tleness, fidelity, truth, modesty, courage — all human and 
 womanly qualities, but dwarfed and crowded out of sight by 
 unrelenting circumstance, by bitterly cruel fate. Doubtless 
 patience and self-sacrifice, uncalculating love and uncom- 
 plaining sorrow, had mellowed and moulded many a poor 
 soul before me. But all that I saw was an army of Ama- 
 zons, who seemed conscious alike of their strength and their 
 worthlessness, and equally to exult in both. It was as if 
 they knew their inadequacy to household service, yet knew 
 also that the call for household servants was so exceeding 
 great and bitter a cry that it quite drowned any call for im- 
 provement on their part. They were blundering, awkward, 
 and incompetent ; but they are all we can get, and they 
 know it. They control the market, and w# must take them 
 not simply with the grain of salt, but with the whole pillar 
 of it. I was shocked to find suddenly springing up in my 
 heart a sort of hate and hostility toward them. A distaste 
 for republicanism and individual liberty, a longing for an 
 absolute monarchy came over me, in which I should be ab- 
 solute monarch. I hungered to have authority over them, 
 rank, rampant weeds as they were ; to transplant them and 
 train them, with hoe, and knife, and trowel, and trellis, into 
 sightly flowers, and . wholesome, honest vegetables. Why 
 should they be allowed this wild, vicious growth? Wages? 
 
and Worthkssness. 75 
 
 These clumsy, unskillful fingers, these inert, heavy brains 
 demanding wages, when they should be only too thankful to 
 be tolerated under tuition ! Oh for one hour of tyranny — 
 one hour of autocratic, irresponsible power, such as we knew 
 in the halcyon days of slavery, to make these unprofitable 
 servants feel their ignorance,- and force thein to overcome 
 it ! But the spirit of Seventy-six, the instincts of three gen- 
 erations of freedom, came quickly back, and suggested that 
 moral disease is not to be homeopathically treated. It is 
 tyranny that has wrought the mischief which tyranny can 
 not cure. It is slavery, not liberty, that gave these sluggish 
 brains and stolid faces. More than this, it is liberty's late- 
 coming that brings this irritating exultation, this brazen and 
 ill-timed content with ignorance and inefficiency. Over and 
 over came to me the still small voice, " God hath made of 
 one blood, one blood, one blood, all the nations of the earth." 
 One blood. I pinched my own poor useless hands black 
 and blue in the effort to impress upon them that they were 
 one blood — one blood with the big, bare, sinewy, shapeless 
 hands around me. And religion, patriotism, and pinching, 
 all together, they did not more than half feel it. The other 
 half kept saying, " Head of fine gold, feet of iron and clay. 
 We are the head of fine gold ; you are the iron and the 
 clay." 
 
 I should be sorry even to be thought pandering in the 
 smallest degree to class prejudices, and I know that mis- 
 tresses are often as much to blame as maids for the disor- 
 der and misrule that prevail in our domestic kingdoms; 
 but certainly the mistresses that I saw at this employment 
 office were innocent-looking women enough — such women 
 as I would not have hesitated to take service with were I in 
 search of a situation. Some of them were evidently ladies 
 of wealth and fashion ; some — most of them — apparently of 
 modest means and mien. There was, at least, no display 
 
76 Woman's Worth 
 
 of imperiousness, unreasonableness, inconsiderateness, or 
 any form of bad manners. On the contrary, the signs of 
 cultivation and courtesy were as marked in the one room as 
 was their absence in the other. Equally marked, also, was 
 thfe difference between the wants of mistress and maid. The 
 former seemed chiefly concerned about qualifications ; the 
 latter regarded only price. These servants betrayed no mis- 
 giving of their ability to fulfill any duty whatever — indeed, 
 no conscience or consciousness of the existence of such a 
 thing as duty or faith in service. The main question was, 
 " What do you pay ?" On two points they were invulnera- 
 ble. They would not budge an inch into the country, and 
 they would not budge an inch any where for less than three 
 dollars a week. This I learned by listening before making 
 inquiries of my own. One lady was very desirous to secure 
 a certain girl whose look pleased her, and she tried to move 
 the obdurate Milesian heart by representing her family as 
 small and the work light ; but it availed nothing when she 
 was obliged to add, " But my husband says he can not pay 
 more than two dollars and a half a week." 
 
 I must here turn aside from the high road to enter my 
 protest against this form of speech. It is a slight matter in 
 itself, but it indicates and fosters a wrong state of affairs in 
 the household. " My husband says he can not pay !" Is the 
 husband, then, one firm, and the wife another, or are they 
 joint members of the same company? Does the husband 
 own the establishment and disburse the income, as an irre- 
 sponsible monarch, and is the wife simply his subordinate ? 
 If so, she is just as much to blame as he. The husband is, 
 or ought to be, the active partner in the business manage- 
 ment of the concern, and the wife must, of course, depend 
 chiefly upon his word for knowledge of its financial condi- 
 tion. But that knowledge, once communicated to her, is her 
 own. That financial condition, whatever it be, is hers as 
 
and Worthlessness. 77 
 
 much as his ; and it is as much beneath her dignity to say- 
 to her servant, " My husband says he can only pay so much," 
 as it would be beneath her husband's dignity to dismiss his 
 clerk on the ground that " My wife says she can only pay 
 you so much." If the husband has been delegated to hire 
 the servant, it is proper enough ; it is, at least, not severely 
 reprehensible for him to arrogate to himself a little sem- 
 blance of authority, and, having received due instructions 
 from his wife, to say, "/will pay thus and so." If the wife \ 
 is transacting the business herself, no power on earth should 
 be strong enough to make her say any thing but "/will doy 
 this and that." Where husband and wife stand toward each 
 other as they ought, these little matters adjust themselves 
 without friction. My remarks are intended for the ninety- 
 and-nine whose relations to each other need to be recon- 
 structed. 
 
 The few men who came into this employment office on 
 domestic errand bent made but a sorry figure. They looked 
 and felt so out of place that one could but pity them. They 
 stood around with their hats in their hands, trying not to be 
 in the way — the great, innocent, helpless, good-natured, good- 
 for-nothing creatures ; shrinking up into corners, swept past 
 by silks, drowned in flounces and laces, holding their hats 
 high above their heads in the last gasp of self-sacrifice, awed 
 by the mistresses, cowed by the maids, and utterly ground 
 into insignificance. One, a country clergyman, was attempt- 
 ing, with a very moderate degree of success, to measure 
 swords with a swarthy middle-aged woman, short, stout, in- 
 describably hard-featured, and unrelenting. His educated 
 and slightly professional voice, toned down to the require- 
 ments of the occasion, mingled pathetically with her harsh, 
 unmitigated monotone. Doubtless he fancied he was secur- 
 ing a servant, but the unprejudiced by-stander could but ad- 
 mire at the assurance with which she was securing him. 
 
yS Woman's Worth 
 
 She carried things with a high hand. He made a feeble ef 
 fort to engage her on trial for two dollars and a half. But, 
 oh no! oh no! This was a thing not dreamed of in.my 
 lady's philosophy. It was three dollars a week or nothing. 
 And having guaranteed all her vested rights to attend church 
 and not to attend children, her evenings out, and other con- 
 stitutional prerogatives, he walked off with his prize. I pic- 
 tured to myself the dismay with which some worn woman, 
 dainty housekeeper, careful mother, delicate lady, would see 
 her husband marching into the house with this tawny bar- 
 barian in tow. 
 
 The beauty of it was, that by the time it came my turn, I 
 was ready. They would not go into the country, would they? 
 Heavens ! No country that I knew any thing about would 
 hold them ! The gentle - faced queen - mother circulated 
 through her droning hive, and brought up to me one and an- 
 other of her unpromising subjects who were supposed not to 
 have insurmountable objections to "going into the country." 
 
 " An' what is yer pay, mum ?" begin my interlocutors. 
 . To which, with all the suavity I can summon, I make re- 
 sponse, " That will depend entirely on what you do. If you 
 suit me, I will pay you the full price. If you do not suit me, 
 I shall not care for your services at all." 
 
 This seems to strike them as an entirely new view of the 
 subject. The idea of suitability seems never to have found 
 lodgment in their brains, and they are not prepared for it. 
 They go nowhere on probation. They serve no apprentice- 
 ship. 
 
 " What is your family, mum ?" inquires one, when she has 
 recovered breath from the surprise of learning that there is 
 a power of choice on the other side. 
 
 "I am my family," is the impressive reply. {L'empire 
 c'est moi !) 
 
 " Likely you don't have much company." 
 
and Worthlessness, 79 
 
 I do not know why she considers it likely I don't have 
 much company, unless she has conceived as unfavorable an 
 opinion of me as I have of her, and I assure her solemnly 
 that I have all the company I can get. It is needless to 
 say we part with mutual satisfaction. 
 
 Certainly my thirty thousand women are not starving in 
 this office. 
 
 We went to another intelligence office with no better suc- 
 cess. The lady abbess was a florid, flourishing woman, 
 admirably adapted to her calling, and not backward in ex- 
 pressing her mind freely to both classes of her customers, 
 in a manner pleasant to witness, though it bore no visible 
 fruit. Neither persuasion nor denunciation could induce 
 her girls to go into the country. And while we were yet 
 speaking, a buxom maiden came up, and reported herself in 
 the market. 
 
 " Why, you have but just gone !" exclaimed madam, in sur- 
 prise. " Couldn't you find the place ?" 
 
 " Yes, mum. But the lady would not pay but two dollars 
 and a half, and I wouldn't stay for that." 
 
 " More fool you !" was the pithy comment, as the girl was 
 summarily dispatched to the waiting-room again. 
 
 Evidently an intelligence office is the last place in the 
 world to look for intelligence. We must push our research- 
 es on a higher plane. Is there not a Christian Young Wom- 
 an's Home, or some such benevolent invention, where young 
 women from the country can find a cheap, comfortable, and 
 respectable boarding-house while they are looking for em- 
 ployment ? This is the place where working-women of the 
 better class would be likely to resort for the suppression of 
 starvation. Irish women do not starve. Look at their col- 
 or and their muscles ! It is our high-spirited American 
 women who follow that occupation. Look at their lack of 
 color and muscle ! He that goeth in search of the rich and 
 
8o Woman's Worth 
 
 powerful Irish shall, of course, not prosper ; but he that fol- 
 loweth after Americans shall have poverty enough on Jhis 
 hands to employ all his resources in its relief. 
 
 We sought and found the Home for Christian Young 
 Women. A single Christian young woman was sitting in 
 a comfortable room, waiting the hegira of young women from 
 the country, which had evidently not yet begun. I laid my 
 errand before her. She did not know of any person now 
 who would be willing to engage in household service, though 
 they did sometimes have applications for work of that sort. 
 Generally the young women who came to them wanted em- 
 plo)m:ient in stores and offices as saleswomen, book-keepers, 
 and copyists. 
 
 "Where do the thirty thousand starving sewing-women 
 mostly go to ?" I asked, steadfastly. 
 
 " To heaven, let us hope," said Hassan, under his breath. 
 
 The Christian young woman, who was a very nice person 
 too, looked at me inquiringly. I explained the secondary 
 object of my search. She smiled, comprehending the situa- 
 tion at once, and said she knew there were rumors of a great 
 deal of suffering, which undoubtedly did exist, and which 
 ought not to exist. But the girls would go into shops, and 
 would not go into families, and what could you do ? 
 
 Unquestionably nothing — only look over the Home, which 
 was still in the experimental stage, and which was decent 
 enough, so far as decency consists with sleeping four in a 
 room, and which was apparently planned and conducted 
 with the honest intent to be useful. We gave it the meed 
 of our approbation, if that can be called approbation which 
 is founded on an examination so slight ; and having agreed 
 that the Grand Army of the Starving did not rendezvous 
 here, we were on the point of leaving, when we were called 
 back by the announcement that a woman had just come in 
 who might prove to be precisely what we wanted. She was 
 
and Worthkssness. 8i 
 
 a tall, hiuscular Christian, with high cheek-bones, and great 
 facility, in the use of language, and was accompanied by a 
 young Christian of the same persuasion, perhaps fourteen or 
 fifteen years old. The two forces were marshaled face to 
 face, and, in reply' to the first tentative inquiry, she poured 
 forth torrents of information. She had been accustomed to 
 living out, and, in fact, was tlidn Jiving out ; but she wished 
 to change her place. She would tell us the whole story, for 
 she had nothing to keep back. She worked for a living, 
 and she wasn't ashamed of it. She came from up country. 
 Her father was. well off, but the fact was he was penurious. 
 And then she had a step-mother, who made matters worse, 
 and she could not live in any peace at home. And her fa- 
 ther died and made a will ("Made a will and died," mutter- 
 ed Hassan j but it was a pebble against the tide), leaving 
 her something — no great' — not enough to support her. But 
 her step-mother would do nothing for her, because she had a 
 will — would not even let her live in the house. And she 
 had this child to support, and she had to work to help out. 
 She could do housework best, because the child could stay 
 with her. It was her sister's child ; her sister was dead, 
 and she had always taken care of the girl since she was a 
 baby. She was a lawful, legitimate child, and as good a girl 
 as ever stepped, and had never been away from her. She 
 was fourteen years old, and must have an education ; and 
 she wanted to be where the child could live with her and go 
 to school. It was suggested that the girl might get a place 
 near her aunt, where she might work enough to earn her 
 board and go to school at the same time. But no ; they 
 had never been separated, and she must have the girl with 
 her where she could see to her. People might impose upon 
 a girl of that age if they had the chance. Her price was 
 three dollars a week, and the girl thrown in. What she 
 should like was to keep house for a widower or an old bach. 
 
 D 2 
 
82 Woman's Worth 
 
 They were easier to get along with, and would not mind the 
 child so much. 
 
 I mentally thanked the Jewess for teaching me that word, 
 and vocally suggested that it was impossible for me to fur- 
 nish either of those qualifications. She smiled grimly, and 
 admitted the imperativeness of the situation.- Hassan, with 
 his hand over his mouth, wished me to ask her whether she 
 should prefer to have the girl taught in a Female Seminary, 
 or by a governess engaged at the house ; but it did not seem 
 worth while to go into particulars while the generals were so 
 far beyond our reach, and he was afraid to speak liimself. 
 So we came away, leaving the Christian young women to 
 their fate, though Hassan, when he had recovered his spir- 
 its, courage, and freedom in the open air, remarked that he 
 did not think this woman was very young or very Christian. 
 I know that she was exhaustive. One would as soon have 
 a whirlwind in the kitchen. 
 
 " Well ?" queried Hassan, when we had walked on several 
 minutes in silence. 
 
 "New York next," I replied. "I will find those thirty 
 thousand starving women, or perish in the attempt." 
 
 " Forty thousand is the New York figure," he suggested, 
 being, like the minute-hand, quick at figures. 
 
 I wrote to the editor of the best-tempered, the best-man- 
 nered, and the most trustworthy daily newspaper in the city 
 of New York : 
 
 " Dear Sir, — A few weeks ago I saw in your paper the 
 annual statement that' there were forty thousand women in 
 New York making shirts at six cents apiece, and otherwise 
 starving over the needle. If you will put me in communi- 
 cation with those women, I will speedily find a comfortable 
 and respectable home for one of them, so that you will have 
 only thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to 
 carry over to next year. Very respectfully, etc., etc." 
 
 His reply came promptly. Could I tell in what issue of 
 
and Worthlessness. 83 
 
 their paper the statement referred to appeared ? If so, they 
 would endeavor to look up the matter and give me the ear- 
 liest possible information. 
 
 I could not give the exact date, but it was only a few 
 weeks before. 
 
 He expressed great regret, but it would be impossible for 
 them to do any thing without definite information on that 
 point. 
 
 Five peas sat in a pod, says Hans Christian Andersen. 
 They were green, and the pod was green, and therefore 
 they thought the whole world was green. The fable is of 
 New York editors. But the rural mind knows that forty 
 thousand women in articulo mortis do not suddenly drop out 
 of the universe like a penknife lost from your pocket. 
 
 I arose and went to New York. 
 
 I descended boldly upon the awful lair of a New York 
 daily newspaper editor, who professes himself, and is gener- 
 ally believed to be, the busiest person in the known world, 
 except the father of all mischief. 
 
 I do not expect to be believed if I say that he was sitting 
 with his feet upon a chair, reading a newspaper, doubtless 
 admiring one of his own editorials. Therefore I do not say 
 it ; but I know what I saw. 
 
 He took down his feet instantly, and stood upon them, 
 evidently feeling that his hour had come. New York edi- 
 tors, I fancy, are not accustomed to being called upon to 
 confront their assertions in this summary fashion. 
 
 I accosted him without apology or remorse. 
 
 "You said in your excellent paper" — so much granted to 
 the spirit of courtesy — " a few weeks ago that there were 
 forty thousand women at the point of death and the needle. 
 Unless they are by this time all dead or fed, I will thank 
 you to introduce me to a few scores of them." 
 
 He ran his fingers through his hair — beautiful hair it was, 
 
^4 Woman's Worth 
 
 too, and abundant, in spite of the severe toil of the brain 
 beneath — in a perplexed, abstracted way, and began, hesita- 
 tingly, " If you could give me the date of the paper that 
 made the statement — " 
 
 But I was familiar with that old refrain, and replied, un- 
 flinchingly, 
 
 " I can not give it to you. But this thing is not done in 
 a corner. Forty thousand gaunt, famine-stricken women 
 can not come to the surface momentarily, like earth-worms 
 after a shower, and then disappear from the day. If they 
 swarmed the streets, or the cellars, or the garrets of New 
 York three weeks ago, they swarm them now. They can 
 not march into your newspaper forty thousand strong, and 
 leave no trace. Tell me where to find them." 
 
 Poor fellow, I pitied him, as a tender-hearted inquisitor 
 may be supposed to have pitied St. Lawrence on his grid- 
 iron. He ran both hands this time through his magnificent 
 hair. He leaned his tortured head on his hands, and his elr 
 bows on the table. He folded his bonnie brow in horizontal 
 and perpendicular wrinkles till it looked like a distressed 
 chess-board. And then he started up with a bright, happy 
 smile, and invited me home to dinner ! 
 
 Rather than let go my hold upon him, I went. 
 
 We sailed and sailed up the beautiful river as serenely as 
 if there were no women in the world. The editor expected 
 his wife to meet us at the landing with the ponies, but she 
 was not there. " Something has detained her," he said ; and, 
 after waiting a while, he went to the livery-stable and hired 
 a coach. We had been ten minutes on our land journey 
 when the editor's little son cried, " There's mamma !" 
 
 She was just late enough to have caused the trouble and 
 the extra carriage, and not late enough to imply any serious 
 cause of detention. Now, I thought, he will be vexed, though 
 he is too polite to show it. 
 
and Worthlessness. 85 
 
 " Why, so it is !" he exclaimed, warmly. " Poor little 
 mamma !" and jumped out and gave her his own seat, and 
 drove the ponies home himself alone, or with some man, 
 while we rode royally companioned. 
 
 I forgave him his forty thousand women on the spot. 
 
 If every man in the world would be thoroughly good to 
 the one woman whom God has given him, there would be 
 no forty thousand, or forty scores, left to fight the bitter bat- 
 tle in outer darkness. 
 
 Four-and-twenty hours lasted that dinner and its concom- 
 itants — four-and-twenty hours of paradise in a little stone 
 eyrie — if that is not too violent a word — perched high up 
 among the rocky Palisades. The lordly, lovely river wound 
 slowly, and smoothJy by, and lost itself in the brilliant hues 
 of autumn woods and the hazy purple of distant skies. Slen- 
 der skiffs shot athwart from bank to bank, and lazy boats 
 drifted down the gentle current far beneath our feet. The 
 stars came glowing out one by one, and the city lights 
 twinkled across the water, hardly less brilliant and beautiful 
 — stars of hidden, happy homes. 
 
 What have want and famine to do in this perfect world ? 
 
 The night-air freshens and sharpens, but within, upon the 
 ample, hospitable hearth, leaps and sparkles, flickers, and 
 fades, and leaps again, the boundless cheer of a hard-wood 
 fire. Children play quietly about the room — real little girls, 
 healthy and wholesome, in honest clothes, shy and silent, 
 watchful and bright, whispering softly among themselves, 
 and breaking out into half-hushed but wholly irrepressible 
 laughs. Cogently entreated, little miss finds courage to ex- 
 hibit her gymnastics on the hearth-rug before a very select 
 and appreciative assembly, who enjoy exceedingly her skill 
 in turning a somersault ; whereupon Miss Roly Poly, fired 
 with a noble ambition to emulate the feats of her older 
 sister, must needs throw her somersault also, and proceeds 
 
86 Woman's Worth 
 
 to roll her chubby person into a delicious little puff-ball, and 
 squirms around sidewise in a series of most astonishing and 
 laughter-provoking wriggles, flattering herself all the while 
 that she is turning heels over head, which is the only turn 
 she does not make, bless her sweet innocence 1 The next 
 best thing to her gymnastics is her devotion. "Bend your 
 head, Roly Poly," says her papa, when he is about to say 
 grace before meat. And if Roly Poly is too intent on her 
 stranger neighbor, papa merely takes her by the nape of the 
 neck and chucks her silky head into her plate till the words 
 of thanksgiving are ended, which is an Aid to Devotion at 
 once simple and effective ; and Roly Poly takes it all in 
 good part, sucking her thumb with silent steadfastness 
 through the whole, nothing doubting herself to be in the line 
 of the true apostolic succession. 
 
 After the glory of the dark comes the glory of the dawn, 
 and then long rambles in the gorgeous woods, and long lin- 
 gering on the sunny, warm rocks above the rolling river; and 
 then down, down, down the stpep cliff, through tangled shriib- 
 bery and over treacherous rocks, to the water's edge. And 
 farewell, charming host and hostess, rosy cheeks, dimpled 
 fingers, Roly Poly — good-by ! And may no hard fate ever 
 bring you out from your. summer nook among the birds and 
 breezes to swell the dreadful ranks of the unfriended and 
 unsheltered ! • 
 
 We resumed search! for the forty thousand women, but we 
 never found them. It would be impolite and illogical to af- 
 firm that they did not exist. I only declare that they were 
 not visible to the naked eye of the rural districts. At every 
 turn one came upon ladies whose patience and temper were 
 worn thin and threadbare by unfaithful workwomen ; ladies 
 whose plans were laid, whose engagements were made weeks 
 beforeha.nd, and who found both deranged and destroyed 
 because their seamstresses failed to come. Worse than this. 
 
and Worthlessness. 87 
 
 these seamstresses not only failed to meet their appoint- 
 ments, but they sent no excuse, no explanation, not even a 
 notice. It was simply that nine o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve 
 o'clock failed to bring them. I said, " Men would manage 
 these things better. Men would dismiss a clerk who was 
 so grossly negligent and unfaithful. You are really aiding 
 and abetting misconduct. Why do you not teach punctual- 
 ity and promptness by hiring other persons to do your work, 
 instead of condoning them by submissively waiting till Ma- 
 dame La Sempstress is ready to come to you ?" 
 
 " It would be just as bad," they said, " with the next one. 
 The delay would simply be repeated. Besides, we do not 
 know where to go for other assistance. All the women 
 who are worth any thing are engaged weeks ahead. It is 
 less vexatious, on the whole, to concentrate your patience 
 on one person than to diffuse it over a dozen, since, unfor- 
 tunately, each fresh draught upon vexation creates a new 
 supply." 
 
 I must confess that I mistrusted these reports. Such a 
 state of things seemed to me incredible. It must be apathy, 
 supineness,; indolence on the part of these city ladies, I 
 thought. It is that laissezfaire which will presently corrode 
 the character, subvert our institutions, eat the heart out of 
 our republic, and make mischief generally. Let us see what 
 an influx of energy, determination, and courage from the 
 green pastures of New England can accomplish. I visited 
 in person the places where unemployed women might be 
 supposed to congregate — rooms which were used, not as 
 intelligence offices, but as a sort of sewing. agencyi where 
 women's and children's garments were put out for manufac- 
 ture and brought in for; sale ; rooms which were under the 
 supervision of benevolent and intelligent persons, whose ob- 
 ject was less commercial than philanthropic. But it was to 
 no purpose. Not a little finger was to be had for love or 
 
88 Woman s Worth 
 
 money. There were the coats and garments which the Dor- 
 cases had made and were about to make, but no Dorcas 
 stood ready to serve a waiting world. 
 
 " Do you never have applications from women who want 
 work?" I asked. 
 
 " Occasionally we do, but we do not happen to have any 
 on the slate now." 
 
 Yet one would suppose that a whole nest of slates would 
 not be able to contain the names that should be written. 
 
 " Do the working-women know that there is such an agen- 
 cy as this in existence ?" 
 
 The young woman smiled at my pertinacity and eager- 
 ness, and thought it was pretty generally • known, as the 
 agency was no very.new establishment. Continuing to look 
 over her books, she found that one good seamstress, who 
 was at work in a remote part of the city, was near the close 
 of her engagement, and, unless she had subsequently formed 
 a new one, I could very likely secure her, if I would take the 
 trouble to go so far. 
 
 What is trouble when it comes in the shape of coach or 
 horse-car to him who would save an unprotected woman 
 from starvation and dishonor ? 
 
 "Starvation and dishonor!" echoed my indurated New 
 Yorker. "You will find that she will be engaged three 
 weeks ahead, and then we shall renew our probation of 
 waiting." 
 
 But the energy of the farming sections prevailed, and we 
 found the young woman, who thoughtfully counted her fin- 
 gers — "with a hundred needles exquisitely pricked" — and 
 then replied that she could come to the rescue " three weeks 
 from next Monday." So, it will be seen, the farming sec- 
 tions quick upflew, and kicked the beam. 
 
 This, as our firiends Swinburne and the ancient Greeks 
 remark, was the end of that hunting. Mark the perfect 
 
and Worthlessness. 89 
 
 man, and you will behold that he never pushes his forces 
 beyond the verge of hope for the sake of a futile consist- 
 ency. The starving women were relinquished to foreor- 
 dained obscurity, and the exploring expedition devoted the 
 remainder of their lives to moral reflections, of which the 
 following are chief. 
 
90 Woman's Worth 
 
 THINGS NEEDED AND THINGS WANTED. 
 
 Things are worth all they are good for. The primary 
 use of the heavy silken curtain is, by richness of texture, and 
 beauty of color, and grace of fold, to give to the room an air 
 of elegance, comfort, and repose. But if a little child of the 
 house has set its clothes on fire, the costly curtain can be 
 put to no higher, no more economical use than to wrap it 
 around the little form and stifle the threatening flame. As 
 between folding the curtain away, to become creased and 
 stained in some antique chest, or leaving it unmarred in all 
 its drawing-room magnificence, and devoting it in emergen- 
 cy to rough but vital service, there can be no question. 
 
 The parable is of woman. Her first cause, so to speak, 
 and her actual uses, would hardly suggest each other ; and 
 in the press of the latter the former has been largely over- 
 looked. Her primary value is not only foreign to, but is 
 absolutely incompatible with physical toil, manual labor, 
 commercial industry. If we are to judge of design by re- 
 sults, she was not made for it. Physically, mentally, and 
 morally, she was made for directly the opposite. Nature 
 and revelation agree in this. You may not believe the Bible, 
 but you can not doubt your own eyes. You may never have 
 learned to use your eyes, but there is the Bible. It was 
 man who was doomed to eat his bread in the sweat of his 
 face. Woman's bread was to be found for her. A thousand- 
 fold more awful in its requirements, perhaps a thousand-fold 
 more sweet in its rewards, was the work of woman. To 
 wrest from the earth shelter, and food, and warmth, to make 
 straight in the desert a highway for the human race, is the 
 
and Worthkssness. 9 1 
 
 appointed duty of man. To nurture the race thus phjsical- 
 ly provided for into grace, and purity, and strength, is the 
 duty of woman. Yet duty is a cold word to use, and a worth- 
 less word at best. For, in the ideal family — which one need 
 not have the gates ajar the smallest crack to know must be 
 the type of heavenly life, if there be any heaven — in the 
 ideal family the man's most abounding joy, the mainspring 
 and hope of his. career, is planning and working for his fam- 
 ily ; while the woman moves hither and thither, transmuting 
 all coarse metal into gold by the unconscious alchemy of her 
 loye, without thought of duty. Indeed, there is generally no 
 such thing as duty to the people who really do it. They 
 simply take life as it comes, meeting, not shirking its de- 
 mands, whether pleasant or unpleasant ; and that is pretty 
 much all there is of it. 
 
 Speaking broadly, the difference between the Conserva- 
 tives and the Radicals on the " Woman Question" is one of 
 degree, not of kind ; of shadow, not substance ; of subor- 
 dinate, not of primary interest. The Conservatives think 
 that the Radicals are trying to make woman over into a 
 kind of man, and so they are. But the Conservatives think 
 that they themselves are trying to keep woman woman, 
 which they are not. They are simply trying to keep wom- 
 an the kind of man she already is. No organization has 
 yet been effected, no convention has been called to make 
 her woman, or to remove the hinderances which prevent her 
 from becoming woman, for nature is so strong that it does 
 not need cultivation in this direction. It only wants the 
 absence of restraint. Take away from woman the necessity\ 
 of being any kind of a man — and a poor kind it must always / 
 be — and she never will grow into any thing but a womanj^ 
 Here and there men have tried the experiment ; mostly, it 
 is probable, without knowing it. No ambition to solve a 
 social or psychical problem animated them • but their owu 
 
92 Woman's Worth 
 
 native delicacy, their alert mental power, the strong man's 
 spirit born in them and kept unspoiled, set them uncon- 
 sciously in the right path. Of their own instinct, following 
 their own bent, they did their work, and left the woman, per- 
 haps made the woman free to do hers. Without recogniz- 
 ing the process, the world sees the result in grand, gracious 
 women ; in bright, wild, strong-natured children ; in free, 
 eager, vigorous home-life. But these men do not organize. 
 They do not even combine. I scarcely know if they have 
 ever spoken. The speakers on the "Woman's Ri^ts" side 
 demand that woman shall have man's adxantage to do rnan's 
 work. The opposing speakers demand that she shall con- 
 tinue to do man's work with woman's disadvantages. | But 
 the_tmejTOmaii|s_right_i^ to dom an's work afalE The 
 Radicals demand that women shall support themselves by 
 having an opportunity to do man's work, and receive there- 
 for man's wages. Their opponents practically maintain that 
 women shall support themselves by doing man's work, and 
 receiving therefor whatever man shall choose to allow them ; 
 but the true woman's right is not to support herself at all. 
 I mean this in the broadest, most palpable sense. Women 
 ought to be supported by men. The building can never 
 stand firm until we begin on this foundation. I do not mean 
 simply that women ought never to be forced to get their own 
 living, as the phrase goes, but that the living which is got 
 for them should be one of ease and comfort. A woman is\ 
 not supported by her husband, or her father, or her brother 
 when she works as hard in the house as he does out of it^ 
 To receive service without paying wages may be robbery ; 
 it is certainly not conferring support. Stone walls do not a 
 prison marke, but neither do they make a paradise. Solitary 
 confinement within a narrow hbuse does not change hard 
 labor into useful leisure. 
 
 So great is popular ignorance of the true nature and final 
 
and Worthkssness. 93 
 
 cause of woman, that she who was supported as she ought 
 to be would be considered by the masses, and even by many 
 who tower above the masses, to be supported in idleness. 
 By far the larger part of the peculiar, the really appropriate, 
 the only economical work of woman lies within a sphere 
 well-nigh invisible to the common vision. No woman is free 
 to live the life which she ought to live, to accompUsh for the 
 world the work which she was fashioned to accomplish, until 
 to the carnal eye she seems to have pretty nearly notliing 
 at all to do. So, when it is scornfully said, as a summing 
 up of the absurdity of the thing, " You would then turn wom- 
 en into mere dolls, and have them live in idleness !" I an- 
 swer, Yes. Perhaps, on the whole, that is as near as we 
 can get at it to begin with. So commercial, so mercenary, 
 so altogether material is the value set upon woman in the 
 ordinary estimation, that the nearest approach we can make 
 to a common understanding of her real value is to sweep 
 away the old standards and begin new. Dispense with ev- 
 ery thing that is usually considered woman's work, and we 
 shall then, at least, be able to set our faces toward the Zion 
 that will come with the discovery of her real work. Given 
 a clean balance-sheet, and we will see what accounts can be 
 figured up. Given a woman-race with hands unshackled, , 
 with time unmortgaged, and we shall be on the high road i 
 to ascertain what bountiful provision Nature has made for J 
 the sustenance and cherishing of her children. 
 
 But upon this subject women seem to be very nearly as 
 much in the dark as men. From the public speeches and 
 public writings of women, you would gather that women had 
 only to choose between idleness on the one side, or man's 
 work on the other. It is either an Oriental life, inane, su- 
 pine, selfish, or one of manifest^ tangible, wage-winning bus- 
 iness. They believe in the dignity of labor — man's labor, 
 but they do not believe in the existence of woman's work. 
 
94 Women's Worth 
 
 They admit that the mother has special exemptions, but 
 they hold motherhood to be an incident, a vocation, and 
 that, outside of this incident, women are men. Many wom- 
 en are right on this matter, but they are right silently, in- 
 stinctively, subjectively, through experience and the inner 
 light. What women preach and teach in public is the view 
 which has been held and taught by men time out of mind. 
 
 Perhaps it is not too late to say that this book is intended 
 exclusively for women. Men may consider themselves not- 
 only discharged from any fancied obligation to read it, but 
 respectfully requested not to read it ; for to them it will be 
 but a savor of death unto death. The truth which it con- 
 tains, and which it is hoped may be wholesome when ap- 
 plied in the proper quarter, will only minister to their self- 
 love, and tend to turn away their eyes from beholding their 
 own vanities, and fix them upon the vanities of women, a re- 
 sult which is beneficial to neither. 
 
 To women only let me suggest that, in planning- for the 
 world as it ought to be, we should never forget the world as 
 it is. If woman has never yet been ranked according to 
 the real standard of valuation, we may yet make the most 
 of her according to the lower standards. Always remem- 
 bering that a state of repose, ease, leisure is that for which 
 woman was divinely designed, let us lay aside for the pres- 
 ent all thought of what would be necessary or unnecessary 
 for her in that condition, and speak only of women as they 
 are in this hard, exacting present stage of the world's prog- 
 ress. .Granting and affirming that woman ought to live out- 
 side of the laws of trade, it is none the less true that, if she 
 puts herself, or is brought by society within the scope of 
 those laws, she must conform to them. Granting and as- 
 serting that woman ought not to do man's work, it is none 
 the less true that, if she does it, she must do it in man's 
 way, or suffer the consequences. The products of her toil; 
 
and Worthkssness. 95 
 
 the value of her labor, must be brought into direct compari- 
 son with those of man, and be judged solely by their worth, 
 not by the weakness surmounted in the doing. 
 '^The ignorance, the inexactness, the untrustworthiness, the 
 unbusiness-like ways of women are appalling when you look 
 at them from a commercial point of view. Men are as bad 
 as they can be, one is sometimes tempted to say, but ap- 
 parently they can not be so bad as women in these respects. 
 Long ages of experience have at least educated them into 
 a consciousness of the difference between yes and no, but 
 women have yet to learn that they are not one and the same 
 word. The carpenter promises to finish your new porch by 
 a certain time. He runs weeks behindhand ; and when, at 
 length, the porch is finished, the rain weeps in at every 
 seam, and pours in at every joint. But he has the grace 
 to be ashamed. He knows that it is poor work and tardy 
 work, and he takes care to bring in his bill when you are 
 not at home. 
 
 But women look you blandly in the face and are not 
 ashamed. They seem to lack a moral sense, or a mental 
 perception, or whatever the faculty is which makes one ca- 
 pable of contracting an engagement. They do not compre- 
 hend its nature. It has for them no more binding force 
 *lian a rope of sand. They break it with a serene uncon- 
 sciousness that any thing is broken, or that there was any 
 thing to break. I do not refer now to the female portion 
 of our foreign population. No one expects to find there a 
 scrupulous adherence to truth. But the Anglo-Saxon race 
 is, I believe, considered to be beyond all other races truthful ; 
 and when a well-dressed and respectable American wom- 
 an who knows how to read and write, and belongs to the 
 Church, and goes to -the sewing society, and changes her 
 gown in the afternoon — when she promises to go east, and 
 calmly turns about and walks west, and does not see that 
 
g6 Woman's Worth 
 
 there is any discrepancy, does not tear her hair or send in 
 her confession to the Church, you say at once that here is 
 missionary ground. Such a woman, after as much deliber- 
 ation as she may choose, engages, without condition, to come 
 into your service on a certain day, to remain for a fortnight 
 on trial, and then to decide whether she will continue or re- 
 linquish it. This is not an ordeal so severe that human na- 
 ture can not be expected to meet it. It is not a promise 
 for life, but for a fortnight. Yet, a day or two before the ap- 
 pointed time, she, sends you word that she shall not come, 
 because her son wants her to keep house for him ! She does 
 not see that her word is of more consequence than her wish, 
 let alone her son's. She does not see that, even if she re- 
 pented of her bargain, it is too late to withdraw from it. She 
 does not see that her engagement to a stranger is a reason 
 why she can not make an engagement with her son, but that 
 her wish to make an engagement with her son is no reason 
 why she should cancel her engagement with the stranger. 
 The very slightness Of her promise increases the enormity 
 of breaking it. It is but a small thing for the son's house- 
 keeping to be a fortnight delayed, and her engagement only 
 lasts so long. Doubtless a request on her part for a release 
 from the promise would be instantly granted, but she does 
 not value her word highly enough to make that little exer- 
 tion to keep it. 
 
 A young woman, bright, sensible, and American, makes a 
 similar promise, and breaks it in a similar manner, except 
 that she gives no reason at all. She simply and succinctly 
 says, "I have concluded not to work for you.'' But she 
 had formally concluded and engaged that she would work 
 for you. To a person properly constituted or properly 
 taught, an engagement could not have two conclusions. 
 
 When the first promise was made, there was an end of the 
 matter. It was no longer an open question. It had passed 
 
and Worthlessness. 97 
 
 beyond her control. No matter how much she might regret 
 the decision, a woman who comprehends the nature of an 
 engagement would not recall it. It takes two persons to 
 make a bargain, says the adage, and it takes two honorably 
 to break it. 
 
 Still further, to show how completely childish they are in 
 recognition or non-recognition of obligation, these very per- 
 sons will come to you, and, repenting themselves of their 
 change of mind, ask you a second time to take them into 
 your service, just as innocently as if no display of Punic 
 faith had ever been made ! 
 
 Now the first thing which I would do toward the ameliora- 
 tion of the condition of woman — the redress of her wrongs, 
 and the enforcement of her rights — the very first measure I 
 would adopt to enable her to obtain an honorable independ- 
 ence, when an honorable dependence was not possible — 
 would be to imbue her with a sense of the sacredness of an 
 engagement. First, last, and always is the obligation to 
 keep one's word. He who shall abide in the tabernacle of 
 the Lord is he that sweareth even to his own hurt, and 
 changeth not. [ Do \?hat you say you will do. Come when 
 you say you will come. Go when you promise to go. Be 
 as slow as you choose about making an engagement ; refuse 
 altogether to bind yourself, if you will ; but, when you have 
 bound yourself, let nothing whatever induce you to break the 
 bond. I If you have engaged to teach a school at five dollars 
 a week, and find afterward that you can get another school 
 at ten ; if you have engaged to do housework at two dollars 
 a week, and another place is offered you at three ; if you 
 have contracted to do a certain quantity of machine-sewing 
 at two cents a yard, and learn presently that your next 
 neighbor is doing the same sort at three — ^you may represent 
 the case to your employers, and get a release from your en- 
 gagement if you can, though even so much one should be 
 
 E 
 
98 JVoman's Worth 
 
 slow to do. But without such a release you should no more 
 withdraw from your bargain than you should drown yourself. 
 The wisdom of the bargain is not a thing to be taken into 
 the account. The fact of the bargain is all you have to con- 
 sider. Do your work promptly and thoroughly — as prompt- 
 ly and thoroughly as if the terms were brilliantly satisfacto- 
 ry — and make a wiser bargain next time ; but this debt 
 pay to the uttermost farthing, as scrupulously as if you were 
 sent into the world for nothing else. 
 
 When women have once become thoroughly possessed 
 with the importance of keeping their word, the next step to- 
 ward improving their condition is to improve the quality of 
 their work. Of all the evils which womankind endure, the 
 part which law can cause or cure is infinitesimal compared 
 with that which is caused by their own inefficiency. I think 
 it is not too much to say that good work always brings good 
 price. There is always room high up. No matter whether 
 it be serving, or cooking, or writing, or painting, real service 
 is always in demand. But women, like men, must do the 
 work which the world wants done, and not simply the work 
 which they want to do. It is not more certain that two and 
 two make four, than that she who can do well what people 
 wish to have done will always find employment. One rea- . 
 son why woman's work is so little sought and so poorly paid 
 is that it is so good for nothing. I am at this moment so 
 far from joining in the general outcry concerning the low 
 wages of women, that it seems to me in a large majority of 
 cases women are overpaid. They receive more money than 
 they fairly earn. The raw, rough, unskilled, untidy Irish 
 servant in a New England kitchen is paid three dollars a 
 week for diffusing discomfort through the house. A boy 
 leaves a high-school well educated, well mannered, eager to 
 learn, to become useful, to please his employers, and goes 
 into the wholesale store, pays his own board, finds his own 
 
and Worthlessness. 99 
 
 clothes, receives little or nothing in wages, but is too thank- 
 ful to be admitted to the house and give his services for the 
 sake of learning the art or the trade. Where will you find a 
 woman, ever so ignorant, who is willing to give a single 
 month's time to learning the arts of cooking or the ways of 
 her employers? Ten to one she does not care to learn 
 either. She is concerned only to get through the day after 
 any fashion whatever, and receive her wages. Will any one 
 venture to say that the New England house-servant is un- 
 derpaid ? 
 
 This, indeed, seems to run against what has before been 
 said — that good work is necessary to good pay. But it only 
 shows that in our country the demand for work is so great 
 that even poor work receives good pay, and it makes still 
 more unreasonable the clamor against the low wages of 
 women. 
 
 A capable servant is perfect master of the situation. A 
 good cook may be sure of twenty dollars a month the year 
 round, through all her active life, and a comfortable home 
 for her old age. She can be sure of consideration, respect, 
 and kindness, and it is not at all unsafe for her to be often 
 tyrannical and capricious. There is no more free and inde- 
 pendent citizen than a trusty servant. It would sometimes 
 not be far wrong to say there is no more absolute master. 
 It is often amusing to see the proprietorship which a loyal 
 servant assumes of a loyal household. Such a relation may 
 become one of the most satisfactory relations of life. And, 
 in face of all this, in face of the alleged suffering of women 
 for want of work to do, and the certain suffering of women 
 from overmuch work to be done, there are not wanting those 
 who will rise up and attempt to heal the hurt of the daugh- 
 ter of my people by reference to social equality. In a paper 
 devoted to the interests of women, a woman tells us of two 
 ladies who " called at a private house in Brooklyn in search 
 
100 Woman's Worth 
 
 of board. On being told that the mother and daughter did 
 the housework, they instantly decided not to remain, for it 
 would be impossible for them to think of sitting at the same 
 table with persons employed in such labor. 
 
 " In one of our New England cities lives a lady whose 
 name I should like to give, but do not feel at liberty to do 
 so. She said she wished no servants in her house who were 
 not as good, or who knew less than she. You may be sure 
 she has no difficulty in getting good help when she wants 
 it. When her maid-servants have finished their work for 
 the day, they put on their pretty clothes, and go into the par- 
 lor to entertain and be entertained. They sit at the same 
 table with their mistress, and are treated in every respect as 
 her equal. She has in her employ two women who have 
 served her for thirty-five years. Her husband died not long 
 since. He willed each of these servants five thousand dol- 
 lars, and, in case they outlive his wife, the use of a house 
 during life. Who wiH arise and make the appropriate com- 
 ments on these two cases^?^ 
 
 I do not know whether my comments will be the " appro- 
 priate" ones expected ; but, to my thinking, these incidents 
 put women in the pTecise attitude of the person who should 
 refuse to be saved from drowning by a man who had not 
 been introduced. We are questioning how to rescue women 
 from spoliation and starvation, and find that the trouble, 
 after all, is not that woman is starving, but that she can not 
 dine with her mistress ! This may be a grievance, but it has 
 no place in the discussion of woman's rights, and to bring 
 it in seems childish and trivial. Do men dine with their 
 employers, or refuse to work if they must eat by themselves ? 
 Here is a relay of carpenters — skilled workmen, owners of 
 property, singers and players upon instruments, intelligent, 
 reading, thinking men, and they eat their dinner in the 
 barn or the cellar, and make merry. They would make still 
 
and Worthkssness. loi 
 
 merrier if you should suggest to them that the fact had any 
 significance in point of political economy. It is worse than 
 foolish, it is mischievous, to bring up such facts as argu- 
 ments on the woman question. They mislead. They divert 
 attention from the real question. The demand is justice, 
 and we discuss taste. Even as a matter of taste, there are 
 two sides. For me, I have not the smallest admiration for 
 the woman who makes a point of having her " help" eat and 
 sit with her. She may be every thing that is charming, but 
 this circumstance by no means proves it. It does not show 
 or indicate that she is any more just, or generous, or sensi- 
 ble than the woman who prefers to eat alone. It is far 
 stronger presumptive evidence of lack of discrimination and 
 delicacy than of any thing else. A woman may be an ex- 
 cellent servant, and not an agreeable companion. Most 
 women, too, have companionship enough without hiring it. 
 Servants may be superior to their mistresses, but sitting in 
 the parlor does not prove it. The persons who hire work- 
 men or workwomen, not for their fitness to do the work re- 
 quired, but their general availability as companions, may 
 please themselves and benefit individuals, but they contrib- 
 ute little to the solution of the labor problem. Women_are 
 not to be blanxed for being natural aristocrafe4.but it is un- 
 fortunate that they should be led to nurse this aristocratic 
 tendency at the expense of their comfort and prosperity. 
 If a girl has a choice of places, she is right and wise in 
 choosing the one most to her taste ; and that she should 
 choose the one where her position will be highest^ is credita'- 
 ble to her ; but to cry out that she is starving because she 
 can not find one to her taste is not right, nor wise, nor cred^ 
 itable. So, if a mistress can get plenty of her equals to 
 serve her, she would be foolish to go unserved, and to make 
 an ado about her sufferings, because she insists on having 
 inferiors, and can not find them ; but when inferiors are 
 
102 Woman's Worth 
 
 many, and their wail for work is loud and bitter, she is en- 
 tirely wise in consulting her own inclination as to whether 
 they shall assist at her meals in the English orthe French 
 sense of the word. 
 
 The mischief of it is that, when such things are brought 
 forward as grievances, a wicked and perverse generation will 
 immediately conclude that all grievances are of the same 
 nature, and the plaintiff is summarily dismissed with costs. 
 No one blames or ought to blame a woman for wishing to 
 stand well in the world ; but disappointed ambition and baf- 
 fled endeavor are as common to men as to women, and real 
 or fancied inequality of rank is a poor ground for social rev- 
 olution. 
 
 There is the great army of sewing-women, who, beyond 
 question, are wretchedly paid. Equally beyond question is 
 the wretchedness of their sewing. A good seamstress is as 
 scarce as a good cook, and as sure of good wages. How 
 many of these women, who make shirts at six cents apiece, 
 know how to fashion under-garments tastefully, to cut them 
 economically, to sew them neatly and strongly ? What they 
 do is the coarsest and most mechanical kind of sewing. 
 When it comes to what is called family sewing, they are ut- 
 terly deficient. There are plenty of mothers who would be 
 eager to engage their services if their services were worth 
 engaging. Women at the heads of households are put to 
 great inconvenience and annoyance for want of competent 
 help at the needle ; and the help which they get is often so 
 clumsy, shabby, and ineffective, that it is a question whether 
 it ought not to be called a hinderance. Let all women who 
 design, or who are forced to earn their living by their nee- 
 dle, become skilled needle-women. Let them learn how to 
 cut, and fit, and make all manner of clothing, outer and in- 
 ner, coarse and fine, and then let us see whether they will 
 be obliged to work at six cents a shirt. 
 
and Worthkssness. 103 
 
 But it is said they have no opportunity to learn this. They 
 are poor, and have neither time nor teachers for any thing 
 but the plainest work. This may be true, but it has noth- 
 ing whatever to do with the question. The world does not 
 ask how its servants came to be ignorant, but are they wise ? 
 It wants ability, not reasons for inability. It may not be a 
 woman's fault that her work is poor, but she must not ex- 
 pect to get the same price for it as if it were good. This law 
 is inexorable. Man did not make it, and man can not un- 
 make it. 
 
 Here also comes in the necessity of doing the work which 
 society wants done. There is just so much serving to be 
 done ; so much family sewing, that needs trained hands; so 
 much slop-work sewing, that untrained hands can make shift 
 to do. The trained hands are few, and they command the 
 market. They are called fashionable milliners or dress- 
 makers. They open shops j they set up clothing establish- 
 ments j they ask great, perhaps exorbitant prices, and they 
 make fortunes. The untrained hands are many, and are at 
 the mercy of the market. They must take what they can 
 get. Because they are many, there is competition ; and 
 starvation wages follow. There being only so much coarse 
 work to be done, the greater the number of workers, the 
 greater the subdivision of wages. There being so much 
 fine work to do, the fewer the workmen, the larger the por- 
 tion of wages to each one. If the woman is dissatisfied with 
 making shirts at six cents apiece, let her make dresses at 
 fifteen dollars. But she does not know how. What, then, 
 is she complaining of? Must the employer who wants shirts, 
 and does not want dresses, pay for one and receive the oth- 
 er ? No, it is said ; but the employer who wants shirts made 
 should pay a living price. Not in the least. Whether the 
 price be living or dead is no affair of his. It is his solely 
 to pay the sum necessary to get his work done. It is not a 
 
I04 Woman's Worth 
 
 question of morality ; it is a question of market price. You 
 have no more right to demand of a man that he shall pay 
 twelve cents for work which he can buy at six, than he has 
 to demand of you that you shall pay twelve dollars a barrel 
 for flour when you can get it for five. Morality, and philan- 
 thropy, and sentimentality are entirely out of place, here. 
 They may come in to relieve individual suffering, but they 
 contribute nothing to the solution of the problem. We pay 
 for things what they are worth. Extra price for extra qual- 
 ity. Extra price for common quality may be charity or 
 short-sightedness, but it is not trade. Trade is a law unto 
 itself It needs no outside interference. The fashionable 
 dress-maker or the noted lawyer demands exorbitant prices. 
 The remedy is at hand — ^you need not employ them. If 
 they are really exorbitant, the withdrawal of patronage will 
 speedily bring them to terms. If they are so skillful that 
 you must employ them, then their terms are not exorbitant. 
 For their signal skill they have a right to demand signal 
 wages ; and you have no more right to say that they shall 
 bring their style and their sagacity to a cheaper market, than 
 you have to demand that the owner of a coal-mine shall dis- 
 tribute his coal around among the poor, or sell it to work- 
 ing-men at half price. 
 
 The suit lately brought by a dress-maker to recover the 
 amount of her bill from a customer exactly illustrates my 
 meaning. Judging from the evidence, I have no doubt the 
 charges were extortionate up to the verge^ of fraud ; but so 
 powerful is a reputation for skill, that, on the strength of it, 
 a woman may dare to risk her reputation for honesty. I 
 am sorry that a woman should thus abuse her gift, but I am 
 heartily glad when she is so skillful in any honorable calling 
 that she controls the market, and dares charge high prices. 
 She has precisely the same right to do it that the great law- 
 yer has to charge high fees. He does not necessarily be- 
 
and Worthkssness. 105 
 
 stow more thought on his cases than his lowlier brother, 
 but he is paid for his ability to do more work with less 
 thought. The city dress-maker puts no more stitches into 
 her gown than the country dress-maker, but she charges for 
 the Je-ne-sais quoi — which is born, not made. Of course, 
 she may make fraudulent charges ; she may want an extra 
 fifty dollars on Saturday night, glance over her account- 
 book, and assess that sum upon two or three of her rich and 
 careless customers. Or she may make false entries and 
 render false accounts, believing that her customers would 
 sooner pay privately than contest publicly. That is simple 
 dishonesty. So the hotel-keeper charges carriage-hire to 
 guests who have ordered no carriage. If they protest, he 
 says it was a mistake, and remits the fine. If they do not 
 notice it, he gains his five or ten dollars. It is only a mode 
 of theft. But it is not theft for a woman to put upon her 
 work as high a valuation as it will bear. It is public as well 
 as personal service. Every woman who demands a high 
 price on what she has to sell, and gets it, benefits every 
 other woman who has any thing to sell. Nor does she in- 
 jure any one; for the woman who can not afford to buy 
 her dresses and bonnets can make her own. Style is a 
 luxury, not a necessity. A woman is under no obligation 
 to wear a Worth gown, nor is there real bitterness to the 
 pain of going through life without it. 
 
 There has been much talk lately about raising the wages 
 of the women who are employed in the United States Treas- 
 ury, and those senators and representatives who favored 
 the measure are spoken of as friendly to the woman cause, 
 and those who opposed it as being ungallant. Such talk is 
 well enough for badinage, but it can never rise to the level 
 of argument. Nothing seems clearer or fairer than that for 
 the same work women ought to be paid the same wages as 
 men. But it is a commercial ought, not a moral ought. 
 
 E2 
 
io6 Woman's Worth 
 
 If trade says No, it is not the province of morals to say Yes. 
 It is not the province of morals to have any say about it. 
 Morality has not to make the rules of trade, but it may help 
 to keep them. It has not to regulate the price of labor or 
 of merchandise, though it may enforce the fair and prompt 
 payment of that price. It does not prescribe the terms of 
 the contract, though it demands that there shall be no con- 
 cealment of conditions, no evasion of meaning, no violation 
 of pledges. Women ought to receive the same wages for 
 the same work as men, if they can get it. But the ought is 
 to be enforced by the power of women, not extracted from 
 the compassion of men. Until then, nothing is gained. A 
 single employer here or there may be moved by conscien- 
 tious scruples to pay men and women the same wages j but, 
 so long as it turns on a man's conscience, it is local, tempo- 
 rary, not to be depended on. It is no more a victory for 
 the " woman's cause" than when a man gives a poor woman 
 a dollar in the street. Women-workers have gained no van- 
 tage-ground until they are in a condition to dictate terms in- 
 stead of receiving bounty. 
 
 The United States government is like any private employ- 
 er, except that it has only a derivative power, and is there- 
 fore more limited in action. If a private employer chooses, 
 from conscientious motives, to pay nine hundred dollars for 
 work that can be equally well done for six, he has a right 
 to gratify himself. He pays the cost out of his own pocket, 
 and it is nobody's affair but his own. I question if the gov- 
 ernment has a right to pay more than the market-price for 
 labor. It is not spending its own money, but that of the 
 people. It IS not set up in business for itself, but is the 
 agent of the people. It may not transcend its proper bounds 
 in trying social experiments to some extent ; biit there are 
 certain principles which seem to be settled, and which have 
 therefore passed beyond the province of experiment, and 
 
and Worthkssness. 107 
 
 one of these is the eternity and self-sufficiency o. the law of 
 demand and supply. The question of work and wages is 
 not to be tampered with. It needs only to be left alone to 
 adjust itself The government is concerned only to get its 
 work well done. It should employ the best of servants, and 
 pay the price which it is obliged to pay. It has no right to 
 put its wages so low that it can secure only incompetent 
 servants, and it has no right to put its wages any higher 
 than is necessary to secure the best service. If it pays the 
 Treasury women so little that only inferior women offer 
 themselves, and, in consequence, only inferior work is done, 
 it is an unfaithful steward, a squanderer, of the people's 
 money. If at the price it now pays it secures perfect and 
 permanent service, has it a right to pay more, out of defer- 
 ence to an abstract idea, whether that idea be justice or 
 mercy ? It is no reason against a rise in salary that wom- 
 en can be found who will work at the low wages. Prob- 
 ably no salary in the country can be reduced so low that 
 some man or woman will not be ready to take the office, 
 but the salary may be made so small that only a very 
 poor sort of person wiir think it worth while. Such reduc- 
 tion would be the worst kind of extravagance. Neither is it 
 necessarily a reason for the rise of salary that the women 
 will otherwise resign, since there may be twice as many 
 women in waiting who would perform the work equally well ; 
 and, unless the change would amount to more than the de- 
 sired increase of salary, government would have no right to 
 grant the increase. 
 
 An argument brought forward against the proposed in- 
 crease of salary is that the women themselves did not de- 
 sire it, and had sent in requests to members of Congress 
 not to grant it ; but this also is vanity. The most thought- 
 less person must surmise that people never really want less 
 money than they can honestly get ; and when a workman 
 
io8 Woman's Worth 
 
 petitions for smaller wages, it is an indirect way of gaining 
 some other object. So in this case it appears, upon close 
 questioning, that the outside pressure upon the Treasury is 
 already so great that the occupants have all they can do to 
 hold their own, and, if the salary be increased, they fear 
 they will succumb and be swept away altogether. But this 
 is turning the world upside down indeed. One would not 
 blame the women. It is not to be expected tliat a weak 
 swimmer, struggling against the tide, should be philosoph- 
 ical, but it would be blameworthy indeed if cool, grave, dis- 
 passionate legislators should frame a law on such pretexts. 
 
 Whichever way the question is decided by government is 
 of no general importance so long as it is decided by gov- 
 ernment. When women can demand of their employers a 
 fixed price, and can afford to leave them unless that price 
 is paid, the victory is gained, the staff is in their own hands. 
 Then their price will be paid, and they will have no more 
 complaints to make of injustice. But any liberality or any 
 increase of wages that comes only from an employer's sense 
 of justice or benevolent disposition is of no more account in 
 the solution of the problem than so much money bestowed 
 in charity. It is another form of dependence. It is not a 
 step toward independence. 
 
 One would suppose, from what he hears, that the great 
 and crying want of women is work ; or, as it is sometimes 
 put, a fair day's wages for a fair day's work ; or, again, free- 
 dom to do whatever she is capable of doing. This is not 
 so. What women want is not work, but the wages of work ; 
 not freedom to work, but freedom to receive money without 
 working. There is plenty to do now, but they will not do 
 it. They wish to live like women, and be paid like men. 
 I do not blame them for this. It is as natural as it is to be 
 born. They can no more help it than they can help being 
 women. They would not be women if it were otherwise. 
 
and Worthies sites s. 109 
 
 They were made to spend money, not to earn it. They take 
 kindly, because instinctively, to spending money, and hard- 
 ly, because enforcedly, to earning it. But all the same it 
 remains that when they become men they must put away 
 womanish things, and when they undertake to earn money 
 they become men. 
 
 If women want work, what doth hinder them from getting 
 it ? They flock to the school-houses for situations as teach- 
 ers till there are twenty applications for every vacancy, and 
 in some instances I know there are twice and thrice that 
 number. They press against the doors of the government 
 offices, and for one who is received scores are sent disap- 
 pointed away. They will be clerks, copyists, amanuenses, 
 any thing which promises light employment, permits taste- 
 ful dress, and bestows even a moderate remuneration ; and 
 for this they will wait, and pray, and suffer. But to the 
 fields that are really ripe for harvest the laborers are dis- 
 tressingly few. It has been dinned and dinned into the 
 ears of women that the place where they are wanted is the 
 kitchen, but into the kitchen they will not go. They are 
 sorely needed in the sewing-room, but the sewing-room is 
 to them an abomination. They have no taste for these 
 things, it is said. But have they any inborn taste for cop- 
 ying deeds ? Is there any thing especially agreeable in 
 counting greenbacks till your fingers bleed ? It seems de- 
 grading to a girl of good education to assume the business 
 of cooking or clear-starching, but there is a call for ten 
 times as much mind, skill, judgment, wisdom in managing 
 a cooking, or an ironing, or a sewing department, as is re- 
 quired to count money or copy letters. 
 
 Sick-nursing is an occupation the most honorable, import- 
 ant, and remunerative. The demand for nurses is constant 
 and urgent. They receive whatever they choose to ask. 
 No skill, no training, no education, no refinement is thrown 
 
no Woman's Worth 
 
 away here. And it is a calling peculiarly womanly; so 
 much so, indeed, that only the money earned puts it in the 
 sphere of man. One would suppose that women would rush 
 to it. On the contrary, they assiduously keep out of it. The 
 scarcity is so great that the need is always pressing, often 
 distressing, and not infrequently fatal. Life is lost, health 
 and happiness are destroyed, and mourners go about the 
 streets from sheer and simple lack of careful and intelligent 
 nursing. Delicate, sensitive women, in critical and danger- 
 ous illness, with every sense preternaturally acute, and pow- 
 er of resistance weakened by suffering, are consigned to ig-, 
 norant, superstitious, garrulous, obtuse, untidy, snuff-taking 
 old women, whose very presence would be enough to make 
 a well person sick. If sudden and severe disease makes too 
 heavy draughts upon the healthy, 
 
 " East and west, and south and north, 
 The messenger rides fast," 
 
 and often and long they ride in vain. The patient not 
 only suffers from being tended by worn-out friends, but he 
 suffers unspeakably from anxiety on their account. Instead 
 of being quiet, and giving his sole strength to recovery, he 
 is constantly kept back and kept down by feeling himself a 
 burden upon those he loves. And the greater their mutual 
 love, the greater their uneasiness. It is amazing to hear 
 this outcry for a wider sphere and greater opportunities for 
 woman, while her sphere is already a thousand times wider 
 than she spans, and her opportunities a thousand-fold great- 
 er than she has ever attempted to measure. Every sphere 
 under the sun is open to her but the do-nothing sphere. 
 Every imaginable opportunity is offered her except the op- 
 portunity to sow tares and reap wheat. The cry for work, 
 the clamor for a career, are the cry and clamor of weakness. 
 Strong eyes see work, and strong hands do it, and say noth- 
 ing about it. She who is equal to a career enters upon a 
 
and Worihlessness. in 
 
 career, and there is no flourish of trumpets. Be sure she 
 who complains of obstacles is not the victim of obstacles. 
 
 I do not blame women for wishing to live easy and dress 
 well, but I do blame them for thinking it more dignified to 
 whine and complain than to live laboriously and dress 
 coarsely. I rejoice in every woman who conquers fate and 
 compels deference, but I do not rejoice in those who are 
 neither strong enough for a calm victory or a dignified sub- 
 mission. It is well if a woman has the power of self-direc- 
 tion — feels no fear and asks no favor ; but there are thou- 
 sands of women who have no especial bent to any thing, but 
 who have general adaptations that might make them useful, 
 prosperous, and honored if they would only give their ener- 
 gies to work, instead of to getting money without work. 
 
 On the supposition that women want work, various 
 schemes are devised to furnish it. I have heard talk of a 
 plan which is to supply women with small farms in the vi- 
 cinity of a large city, which farms they are to occupy rent 
 free for a certain time, at the expense of the state, and 
 whereon they are to support themselves by raising small 
 fruits for the market. It is found that the poor women will 
 not go into the country, but persistently cling to the city, 
 and this device is brought forward as a sort of compromise. 
 
 One would be slow to oppose any thing which looked to 
 the amelioration of poverty, lest haply he be found to fight 
 against God ; but it must be confessed that women in the 
 country, who are wearing out their lives with overwork, and 
 their nerves with the awkwardness and ignorance of house- 
 maids, look with coldness upon such a scheme. "What 
 right," they say to the authorities, "have you to tax us to 
 assist women whom we would pay handsomely to assist us ? 
 These women object to going into the country. There 
 are few of us who would object to a residence in the city or 
 suburbs, but we are obliged to live in the country, and we 
 
112 Woman^s Worth, 
 
 can not see why we should be called upon to release others 
 from the same necessity." 
 
 These suffering countrywomen may be right or wrong, 
 but there are reasons which seem to make such well-meant 
 plans chimerical. In the first place, it is wrong to suppose 
 that farming, or even householding, does not need brain. A 
 woman can not raise strawberries by instinct any more than 
 she can make dresses. Of the two, I fancy it would be far 
 easier to learn how to sew than how to carry on a farm with 
 judgment. To take a woman from helpless poverty — and 
 that is the only kind of poverty we are speaking of, for pov- 
 erty that can help itself is not poverty — to put such a wom- 
 an at the head of a house and a farm, without knowledge 
 and without experience, seems not only injudicious, but un- 
 warrantable. She who is not faithful over a few things 
 should not be made ruler over many things, especially at 
 other people's expense. She who has not sense enough, or 
 spirit, or efficiency, or whatever you may call it, to set her- 
 self to profitable work, in a country where profitable work 
 is as plenty as it is here, has not sense enough to be put at 
 the head of an enterprise which requires so much as does 
 horticulture or agriculture. Farms for women? Why, it 
 demands science to drive a pair of oxen ! The ox knoweth 
 its owner, and if that owner be a nervous, unobserving, un- 
 reasoning, undecided, inefficient woman, do you think the 
 ox will not speedily find it out ? Moreover, though work in 
 a garden looks light, and even romantic, in the columns of 
 the agricultural newspaper, I think it will be found more se- 
 vere and more wearing than work within doors. The fiow- 
 ers that grow in print grow gayly, with scarcely the soiling 
 of a lady's finger in the cultivation j but the flowers that 
 grow in gardens grow under the old dispeijsation, by the 
 sweat of somebody's brow. How much more potatoes and 
 beets ! That brow ought to be a man's, even if the brain 
 
and Worthlessness. 113 
 
 behind it be a woman's. Something may come of setting 
 women at work in the fields, but I do not believe the class 
 of women whom it is the intention thus to aid have the skill 
 to manage or the strength to till a farm. 
 
 The women who own and cultivate land, and make it 
 profitable, are not those whose sufferings induce the com- 
 passionate to claim for them state aid. They are women 
 of nerve, and ingenuity, and independence. Would it not 
 be a less costly, less hazardous, and less objectionable ex- 
 periment to seek to perfect the weaker sisters in certain 
 mechanical work, which makes no unusual draught on their 
 mind or their strength, but which does require patience, ac- 
 curacy, care, arid practice ? Would it not be better to enter 
 the domains which women have overrun, but not occupied, 
 rather than those into which they have not yet penetrated ? 
 Outdoor work has hitherto fallen to man, and indoor work 
 to woman, yet men do even indoor work better than wom- 
 en. There are thousands of female cooks, and the large 
 majority of them are bunglers. There are not a great many 
 male cooks, but they are generally good. I admit that I 
 make these assertions necessarily from a limited induction 
 — rather as impressions than as positive knowledge ; but let 
 them go for what they are worth. I believe there are few 
 who will not confess that a man-servant at the table, at the 
 door, at the cooking, and the sweeping, is not only "better 
 style," but is a more efiicient member of the household 
 staff. You are more sure that the work will be promptly, 
 thoroughly, and quietly done with a man at the fore than a 
 woman. This is not in the smallest degree a statement in 
 a woman's disfavor. It only goes, with many other things, 
 to show that women were not made for toil, whether indoors 
 or out. Men were made for both, and, therefore, when men 
 and women compete, men must always win. But, if women 
 can not compete with men in those fields of which they 
 
114 Woman's Worth 
 
 have held undisturbed possession for generations, how can 
 they hope to do so in those which have been hitherto occu- 
 pied by men ? If men, as soon as they begin to do what 
 women have always been doing, bear away the palm, how 
 can women hope to hold their own where men have all the 
 advantage of superior strength and practice ? Failing in a 
 business where they have much experience but little capital, 
 they would embark in a business where they have less cap- 
 ital and no experience at all. Since, now, women's need is 
 so imperative, would it not be better to take them where 
 they are, and perfect them in those matters wherein they 
 have made a beginning ? 
 
 It is not to be expected that women hard pressed by the 
 exigencies of life should have leisure to be broadly wise. 
 The poor seamstress is absorbed in getting her work done 
 in season to pay the rent, and to her a suburban house and 
 an acre of land rent-free must seem a paradise. The igno- 
 rant girls who organize disorder in our kitchens and discom- 
 fort in our houses are hardly to be blamed, for no one has 
 taught them the arts of order and comfort. It is but natu- 
 ral that women who are actually suffering should snatch at 
 any hope of relief, and should send up a great and bitter 
 cry for relief when they have no hope. But the men and 
 women who arise as leaders to these people are under the 
 strongest obligations to be wise. If it is ever lawful to be 
 inconsequent and inconclusive, it is not before an audience 
 to whom wrong doctrine means immediate and disastrous 
 wrong-doing. It has never been demonstrated that any 
 person has suffered in mind, body, or estate from our long 
 delay in discovering the undulatory theory of light ; and, if 
 one day some new philosopher shall arise and put this the- 
 ory to rout by irrefragable proof that light is a fixed and 
 solid body, it is difficult to see how our happiness or well- 
 being is to be consciously enhanced thereby. But if the 
 
and Worthlessness. 115 
 
 women of this country are suffering because they can not or 
 will not work, and if the Prophetess Deborah arises and tells 
 them that they are suffering because their selfish employers 
 will not pay them, or selfish society will not employ them, 
 Deborah does them immediate and serious harm. Double 
 harm, for she takes their attention away from the only di- 
 rection in which relief can come to them, and fastens it 
 upon a spot from which permanent relief can never come. 
 And because she is a woman and a friend she does her sad 
 work all the more effectually, 
 
1 1-6 Woman's Worth 
 
 VI. 
 
 WOMEN AMONG THE PROPHETS. 
 
 Observing the shiftlessness — I do not know any more 
 comprehensive word — which characterizes so many working- 
 women, and which shows the point of the Scripture, " The 
 destruction of the poor is their poverty," I noticed one day 
 that a woman was advertised to address the working-women 
 in one of our large cities. I had never heard a woman lec- 
 ture — in public, and had no special sympathy with the feel- 
 ing that would prompt a woman to do so. Yet one can 
 hardly take note of the distress of the poor, and see how 
 surely that distress is brought about by their ignorance of 
 ways and means, without longing to lift up his voice in sug- 
 gestion and assistance. No, it is no wonder that a woman 
 of ability and benevolence, gifted with power of speech, 
 should find all her native reluctance overborne by a strong 
 desire to serve the feeble and impoverished. And what an 
 opportunity ! One of the largest halls in one of the largest 
 cities in the country, filled with men and women — working- 
 women largely — favorably inclined to the speaker, and list- 
 ening to her voice as that of a friend and a superior. Will 
 she use the eloquence, the wit, the pathos, the imagination 
 which have been so freely attributed to her, in enforcing 
 upon these struggling women the importance of excellence, 
 of thoroughness, of punctuality ; the indispensableness of 
 keeping an engagement, the necessity of doing what work 
 presents itself? Will she show them that it is skill which 
 wins ? Will she hint to them any way by which they can 
 learn what they do not know, or improve upon what they do 
 know, or transfer their goods to better markets, or take ad- 
 
and Worthlessness. 117 
 
 vantage of the markets that exist ? Alas ! I had time to 
 think of this, and much more. The lecture was advertised 
 to begin at eight in one paper, and in another at half past 
 seven. I inwardly fear that it is some womanish inaccuracy 
 that has caused this discrepancy ; but perhaps it is some 
 man's blundering. Let us hope so ; at any rate, let us say 
 so. To make sure, we are on the spot soon after seven. 
 The half hour comes and goes. So much, then, is proved : 
 the lecture begins at. eight. Eight arrives, and the lecturer 
 does not. Five minutes past eight, and an audience of 
 thousands waiting ; ten minutes past eight, and thousands 
 of working-women waiting. It is to be feared something 
 dreadful has happened — or hoped. Seventeen minutes past 
 eight, and a lady comes forward on the platform and says, 
 " Miss Lecturer hopes you will excuse her. She only ar- 
 rived on the last train, and has been very busy." And, with- 
 out farther preamble, the lecturer takes up her parable. 
 
 Who does not see that in tlie very beginning, before a 
 word was spoken, the lecturer had done those working- 
 women a greater mischief than all her talk could undo ? In 
 one of their worst habits she had directly confirmed them. 
 Stronger than by any spoken language she had said to them, 
 " It is of no consequence that you keep your engagements. 
 Engagements are not of any account. Punctuality is an un- 
 important matter. Strict promptness has nothing to do with 
 business. It is just the same to dawdle along fifteen min- 
 utes behind time as it is to be exact to the minute." 
 
 Understand, her crime was not in being late. If the in- 
 troducing lady had said, " The train in which Miss Lecturer 
 came was thrown from the track, and detained seventeen 
 minutes," or, " She tore her gown in coming out of the house, 
 and was obliged to go back and change it,^' the evil would 
 have been avoided ; but the excuse given was no excuse at 
 all, and was a lesson in unpunctuality. The lady had made 
 
ii8 Woman's Worth 
 
 an appointment to address five thousand persons say at 
 eight o'clock. Why did she leave home in the last train 
 if the last train would not enable her to meet that appoint- 
 ment? If her course were unavoidable, she should have 
 said so ; if it were avoidable, she should not have taken it. 
 It is an insult to any audience to keep them waiting. To 
 an audience of working-women, assembled for the ameliora- 
 tion of their condition, it is an irreparable injury. 
 
 After the hungry sheep had a shepherd to look up to, 
 how were they fed ? 
 
 It is impossible to give an analysis or an outline of the 
 lecture. It had apparently no plan. It had certainly no 
 coherence. It consisted of a collection of remarks bearing 
 something of the same relation to its subject as did Mr. Ar- 
 temus Ward's lecture to his " Babes in the Wood." This is 
 not necessarily a defect. It would be difficult sometimes to 
 find the central point of Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson's lec- 
 tures, yet no one would choose he should wander in paths 
 less devious. A large part of the lecture consisted in the 
 enunciation of truths which no one doubts, and the an- 
 nouncement of facts which are universally received. The 
 time has come to act. Women are not so well off to be 
 freed from responsibility. The highest motto in life is 
 "Onward and upward." Women must work in order to be 
 healthy. As things are, women often marry for a living, 
 which is very dishonorable ; and thousands of souls are 
 steeped in the blackness of darkness because — it was not 
 very clear why ; but, as far as one could make out, because 
 things are as they are. Manual labor is not liked by men 
 or women. Masons receive four dollars a day, and clerks 
 two ; yet there are many thousands more clerks than masons 
 in New York. Wherefore make labor honorable. Rever- 
 ence masons as much as you do clerks. Myriads of women 
 are living in a dreadful condition in New York. They might 
 
and Worthies sness. 119 
 
 have been ministers or lawyers if they had received a proper 
 training. As it is, their life is drinking away at the point of 
 the needle. And so on, and so on. But what of it ? 
 
 And yet these generalities were the best of it. When it 
 came to particular application, the case was pitiable. The 
 Hartford Insurance Company was taken to task for not in- 
 suring the lives of women as well as those of men. "Are 
 not women liable to be killed as well as men ?" asks the lec- 
 turer, eloquently. But would any wise man or woman have 
 us believe that an insurance company is conducted on any 
 other principle than that of making money ? — is impelled, 
 for instance, by a prejudice against women ? There needs 
 no ghost, it would seem, to tell us that, if a company will not 
 insure the lives of women, it is simply because they do not 
 find their account in it, and not because they have a blind 
 belief that women do not die, or a depraved indifference as 
 to whether they die or not. No reform seems more hope- 
 less than an attempt to reform insurance companies in this 
 respect ; and we shall secure equal rights to life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness a thousand years before we shall se- 
 cure equal rights to life-insurance from these stiff-necked and 
 uncircumcised corporations, unless we can convince them 
 that they will declare greater dividends by such equality ! 
 
 Another practical suggestion in the lecture was that, as 
 higher salaries are paid to male clerks in Washington than 
 to female, the male clerks should relinquish their desks to 
 women, go West, and till the land. Granting this to be an 
 excellent recommendation to the young men, what was its 
 value in a lecture to working-women ? Was any one of them 
 likely to be helped out of her difficulties by it ? What sor- 
 row of a woman is soothed or what struggle softened by her 
 being told that some man ought to give her his twelve-hun- 
 dred-dollar office, and retire to the backwoods — unless he 
 marches to the backwoods ? 
 
120 Woman's Worth 
 
 Suppose he does ; is the case decidedly gained ? Is it 
 certain that the country would be better for the change? 
 Could the clerical work of the government, with certain ad- 
 vantage, be taken out of the hands that have always held it, 
 and put into those that have never tried it to any large ex- 
 tent, and have not always been successful even in their lim- 
 ited trials ? 
 
 And if young men will be clerks, and will not be masons, 
 what are the working-women to do about it ? Masons make 
 four dollars a day, and work eight hours ; and clerks make 
 two dollars a day, and work twelve hours ; and professional 
 men make nothing, and are twenty hours a day about it. 
 What then? "Make labor honorable,'' says the lecturer. 
 How ? I ask, as a disciple. In a general way, labor is hon- 
 orable ; in the divine economy, it is desirable ; but in prac- 
 tical daily life we all wish to be rid of it as fast and as far 
 as possible. Nor is it likely ever to be otherwise. No ad- 
 vance in civilization or enlightenment will ever make labor 
 any thing but a burden. Indeed, we measure our civiliza- 
 tion by the extent to which we shift the weight of labor from 
 our own shoulders to the forces of Nature. An honest man 
 is honored, but we all recognize the fact that brain-power is 
 of a finer and higher order than muscle-power, and we never 
 shall and we never can help paying greater homage to the 
 one than to the other. Indeed, we shall long strive after 
 the semblance of the one more strenuously than after the 
 substance of the other. But, even granting that it is manly 
 to be a mason, and eifeminate to be a clerk, how does that 
 heal the grievous hurt of the daughters of my people ? If 
 merchants persist in hiring boys instead of girls, what can 
 the girls do ? How are serving-women helped in the battle 
 of life by being told that they ought to have the place which 
 men will not give up, and which women can not secure? 
 
 And suppose the serving-women of New York might make 
 
and Worthies sness. 121 
 
 good lawyers if they were properly trained — how are they 
 to be trained ? They have no means to support themselves 
 while learning a useful trade, says the lecturer. Very true. 
 There are scores of boys in the same predicament. Some- 
 times they make a brave wrestle with fate, and overcome. 
 Sometimes they go down in the conflict, and lie in unknown 
 graves. Sometimes they never strive at all. It is the old 
 unsolved and insoluble problem of evil. Hundreds and 
 thousands of souls, men and women, never seem to have a 
 fair chance in life. If only all human beings were wise and 
 virtuous, the serving-women of New York might become 
 chief justices. If wishes were horses, beggars might ride; 
 but is it worth while to collect five thousand beggars in 
 their best clothes in one room to tell them so at fifty cents 
 a ticket .■■ 
 
 We were given also a pathetic and eloquent invective 
 against men in general, and Philadelphians in particular, on 
 account of a certain young woman who was then lying in 
 prison under charge of having slain her illegitimate infant. 
 Her story was told with great solemnity and sternness, and 
 the young person was invested with a sentiment, a tender- 
 ness, and an interest which we do not always take to women 
 who have married their husbands and not murdered their 
 children. The poor creature had been betrayed by hypoc- 
 risy in high places, and was perishing from cold and hunger ; 
 with woman's devotion, she refused to give the name of her 
 seducer, lest she might bring to grief the wife whom he had 
 subsequently married ; the lawyer whom she had employed 
 had grasped all her money and left her defenseless ; the 
 Philadelphians in general, we could but infer, were a san- 
 guinary race, famished for a poor girl's blood : and would a 
 jury of WOMEN, think you, have doomed this young girl to 
 die? 
 
 Now, if this appeal, under the circumstances, meant any 
 F 
 
122 Woman's Worth 
 
 thing definite, it meant that this woman did not receive full 
 justice because she was judged by men ; while, if she had 
 been tried by a jury of women, she would have been more 
 fairly — that is, more leniently — treated. 
 
 Is it possible that any woman can believe that female 
 criminals would receive — I do not say more justice, for that 
 is quite possible — but more lenity at the hands of women 
 than at those of men ? This is a subject which hardly ad- 
 mits of discussion, and on which discussion is fruitless. But 
 it seems to me that women who are guilty — especially of 
 this class of crimes — have need to pray with peculiar fervor, 
 From all women judges and women juries, good Lord, de- 
 liver us ! ^ 
 
 It hardly needed subsequent developments to show that 
 the case was chiefly a made-up one. Philadelphia is a re- 
 spectable American city ; and, notwithstanding the unspeak- 
 able and indelible infamy which broods over the administra- 
 tion of justice in New York, and which puts to shame our 
 boast of the typical American gentleman, it is impossible to 
 believe that any American community of men, with no po- 
 litical pressure upon them, could do to death a helpless, in- 
 nocent young woman. Notwithstanding the hard-hearted- 
 ness of masculine Philadelphia, and the thrilling tones of 
 the speaker, and the tears of her audience, I confess that I 
 held a stolid, stoical belief that the prisoner was perfectly 
 safe, even in the dungeons of Philadelphia. So one was not 
 surprised when affidavits from her own hand robbed the un- 
 happy girl of all the romance and all the delicacy with which 
 she had been invested, and of all the sympathy which her 
 alleged oppression had worked, and, without making her 
 personally any less an object of profound pity, took her case 
 entirely out of the region of national eloquence and invec- 
 tive, and left it where it first lay, in the hands of local justice 
 and benevolence. 
 
and Worthlesstiess. 123 
 
 Undoubtedly our laws are defective, and their administra- 
 tion imperfect, but it is not by such processes that they are 
 likely to be improved. A good cause suffers more from 
 being defended with false statements than from going unde- 
 fended, or even unespoused. 
 
 I can not refrain from adding, in passing, that the old, 
 unwritten, but inevitable social law which makes woman, 
 though the least offender, bear the heaviest penalty for 
 crimes against personal purity, seems to me less harmful to 
 woman than that sentiment which makes the criminal a 
 martyr, suffering from the persecutions of a hard-hearted, 
 Pharisaic, because virtuous world. There goes John Bun- 
 yan, but for the grace of God, in every thief and murderer ; 
 but if, on that account, theft and murder are to be made po- 
 etic and pathetic, not to say saintly, it will be likely to in- 
 crease the number of those whom not even the grace of God 
 can keep John Banyans. I know that the destruction of the 
 poor is their poverty, but I do not believe that in this coun- 
 try women are ever reduced to the alternative of starvation 
 or shame. If the alternative ever faces them, they have re- 
 duced themselves to it. 
 
 While I am writing this appears a letter in the pubhc 
 prints saying, 
 
 " No woman will embrace a life of shame unless she is 
 driven to it, as can be easily proved in ninety-nine cases out 
 of every hundred 
 
 " Perhaps some will ask, ' How do you know all this ?' I 
 answer, from a personal knowledge of city life in all its va- 
 rious phases ; and I could cite hundreds of cases that have 
 come under my notice during the past twenty years ; but I 
 will mention only one as an instance, which is of late occur- 
 rence, which is true in every particular. 
 
 " Not long ago, a gentleman of education, who had for- 
 merly been a teacher of languages, came to this city with his 
 family — his wife being an accomplished lady, and moving in 
 the best society of our sister cities. The husband and fa- 
 
124 Woman's Worth 
 
 ther sought employment, and found, after a month's search, 
 a situation, which he filled with satisfaction to his employ- 
 ers till about the ist of February, when he was discharged 
 because business was dull. Since then he has searched for 
 employment in vain. For some time his little family have 
 seen much suffering, some days starvation actually staring 
 them in die face. In such circumstances, with little ones 
 crying for bread, is it a wonder that the wife and mother, 
 who is a good-looking lady, should go on to the street, 
 
 " ' And sell her soul to whoever would buy, 
 Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread' 
 
 to keep her little ones from starving? She tried to get a 
 situation as teacher of music, but failed, and was finally of- 
 fered a situation to play the piano in a Broadway concert 
 saloon at twenty dollars a week, but declined, as it was too 
 public. I learn that she will enter upon a life of shame, or 
 else end her sufferings in death, before she will longer see 
 her loved ones suffer. This is a true picture of many cases 
 which daily take place in this city of boasted charity and 
 religion." 
 
 And every case is deserving of the severest condemna- 
 tion and abhorrence. Here are two able-bodied adults, in 
 a country where the unskilled laborer, twenty miles from a 
 city, can earn two dollars a day and rent a tenement for 
 twenty dollars a year, and where a woman in a city, in a vo- 
 cation not indeed reputable, but not vicious, can earn twen- 
 ty dollars a week, counting themselves reduced to the al- 
 ternative of starvation or shame ! A woman refuses twenty 
 dollars a week, not because the work or its tendencies are 
 bad, but because the situation is too public, and considers 
 herself forced into wickedness. She prefers private vice to 
 public virtue. I, for one, am quite willing that such persons 
 should starve. The children, indeed, are objects of pity and 
 charity ; but if the parents choose to end their sufferings in 
 death rather then in a country farm-house, it is difScult to 
 see why society should interpose any objection. 
 
 The writer makes special asseverations of truth. No 
 
and Worthlessness. 125 
 
 doubt his story is true, and true in the hundreds of cases he 
 does not mention. No doubt " in ninety-nine cases out of 
 every hundred" a life of shame comes because people would 
 rather die both the first and second deaths than work. Vir- 
 tue may proffer toil, plain clothes, hard hands, but she prof- 
 fers also certain and sufficient food and shelter. Vice holds 
 out apparent ease and shabby splendor ; and women, hered- 
 itarily weak, weakened farther by unfavorable circumstances, 
 lapse to vice rather than work for virtue. But a will ener- 
 vated if not annihilated, a moral sense blunted if not de- 
 stroyed, will never be strengthened and sharpened to effect- 
 ive activity by being enveloped in never so picturesque a 
 cloud of melodramatic sentiment, while we do grievous 
 harm to the weakness which is still innocent when we ad- 
 mit that vice can be any thing but the lowest depth of vul- 
 garity and the last degree of profaneness. 
 
 A woman has the same right to be a lecturer that she has 
 to be a laundress. I will confess that all my prejudices and 
 all my instincts were against it. But when, for the first 
 time, I saw an audience gathered to listen to a woman, the 
 right and reason of the thing rose up so strongly that in- 
 stinct and prejudice were forced to give way. Here is a 
 company of respectable, well-behaved men and women, 
 come together for no material good, but for mental improve- 
 ment or amusement. Woman's sphere, the most conserv- 
 ative admit, is pre-eminently the sphere of influence ; and 
 surely a woman is far more femininely occupied when she 
 stands, well-dressed, erect, graceful, dignified, and self-pos- 
 sessed, before a respectable assemblage, and speaks to them 
 " High thoughts, and honorable words, 
 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame, 
 
 And love of truth," 
 
 than she is in a shabby gown, with the skirt upturned around 
 the waist ; sleeves pinned above hard, red elbows ; thin hair, 
 
126 Woman's Worth 
 
 untastefully bunched upon the back of her head ; coarse 
 shoes, and no collar ; bending over her wash-tub or her 
 cooking- stove;. flying from broom to boiler; all womanly 
 softness and beauty worn out of face and figure ; all wom- 
 anly leisure and repose chased away by the hard require- 
 ments of life, and only a glimpse of the woman shining now 
 and then through the dreary crust of the drudge. Indeed, 
 the vocation of lecturer may come peculiarly within woman's 
 sphere, for her work is work upon mind, soul, heart. It is 
 hers especially to teach, to entertain, to soften, to refine, and 
 the more persons who can be brought under her influence 
 the better. 
 
 But we also — we the public, we society, we the audience, 
 the unregenerate, hard-hearted, money-making, justice-de- 
 manding world — have the same right to require good lec- 
 tures that we have to require good laundries. And because 
 women have always been washer-women, and failure in that 
 line attracts no especial notice ; while women have not long 
 or largely been lecturers, and failure there is noticeable and 
 widespread in its consequences, it would seem as if there 
 were an imperative need that women should be good lec- 
 turers if they lecture at all. I acknowledge that this is a 
 factitious need, a requirement created by the peculiar com- 
 bination of circumstances, not by the inherent nature of 
 things. For example : the lecture to which I have referred 
 was indeed inconsequent, rhetorical, and for the purposes 
 for which it was professedly designed worthless ; but in 
 point of substance, in point of logic, and rhetoric, and men- 
 tal worth, it was every whit as good as Mr. Actor's, and 
 Mr. Actor is the most popular lecturer in the country. He 
 makes people cry, though it is hard to see why. He makes 
 them laugh, and it is very easy to see why. For the rest, 
 he is always on the side of temperance and morality ; but 
 if you look at his lecture for argument, or intellectual power, 
 
and Worthies sness. 127 
 
 or any thing but acting and anecdote, you look in vain ; and 
 he receives I do not know how many hundred dollars a 
 night, and is engaged for I do not know how many hundred 
 nights in a year. But the lady, also, is on the side of tem- 
 perance and morality ; she is, too, on the side of suffering 
 women, which is even more definite and praiseworthy. Why 
 should she not also, if she can, secure her hundreds of dol- 
 lars for hundreds of nights ? Why shall a man make his 
 fortune with a single talent, in spite of deficiencies, while a 
 woman must keep hers in a napkin, unless she has the 
 other nine to go with it ? 
 
 Why, indeed ? Far be it from me to say that she should. 
 So far as the Conservatives are concerned, she should not. 
 If an opponent of the woman movement were to make this 
 affirmation, he should immediately be put down with a strong 
 hand. For any thing he has to say, a woman has the same 
 right to play the fool that a man has. He should no more 
 demand from her sweetness and light than from a man. In- 
 deed, we will not let our opponent off so lightly. We will 
 hoist the remorseless but now wretched ruffian with his own 
 petard ; and when he says that women are not intended by 
 Nature for public speakers — since he attended the last wom- 
 an's convention in his own town^ where a good many women 
 spoke, and he could count on his fingers all who could be 
 fairly reckoned as good public speakers — up he goes without 
 mercy. His own words condemn him. After generations 
 of dumbness, with no training, no traditions, and scarcely 
 any education, women at length mount the rostrum, and in 
 a single assembly, in a small city, an iron-clad doctor of di- 
 vinity needs all his fingers in estimating the number of good 
 speakers ! He would have to call in no further assistance 
 than his thumbs could afford if he were in an assembly of 
 men. Ten good speakers in a Sunday-school convention 
 or a conference of churches is a thing undreamed of in lay 
 
128 Woman's Worth 
 
 philosophy. It would be difficult for an advocate of female 
 oratory to produce a stronger argument in its favor than 
 this opponent brings forward — all factiously, indeed, so that 
 he shall have no credit for it. 
 
 But speaking not as an opponent, speaking from a pro- 
 found sympathy with the sentiment that underlies the "wom- 
 an movement," and with a profound contempt for the in- 
 sight and intelligence which see in it only an .itching for no- 
 toriety on the part of a few discontented women, it is a great 
 deal worse for a woman to give a poor lecture than it is for 
 a man. The fruits of his failure he gathers alone ; but if 
 a woman fails, it is not simply laid to the account of her in- 
 dividual weakness — it is the character of her class. Her 
 speech is sound and fury, signifying nothing ; therefore the 
 woman's rights movement is a reform against nature. 
 
 Nothing is gained for the cause when you fall back on the 
 fact that this, that, and the other female lecturer draws large 
 audiences ; that she is popular ; that, good or bad, people 
 go to hear her. " Men," said a great-hearted gentleman to 
 a great-hearted and strong-minded woman, who was bewail- 
 ing her disappointment on hearing a much-applauded lec- 
 \.\xxess — " men don't judge her so severely as you. She is 
 fine-looking — at least by gas-light ; and they don't mind if 
 there isn't so much sense and substance, /liked her, and 
 I would go again." 
 
 But the point we are all up in arms about is not whether 
 women are pretty, and graceful, and attractive. They have 
 always been, and always been acknowledged that. Not 
 even a pulpit or a platform can make beauty unlovely, or 
 grace uncouth ; but certainly the pulpit and platform are 
 not necessary to female loveliness. Women are not break- 
 ing out in public for the sake of showing how fair they be I 
 It is presumably because they have something to say so im- 
 portant, so irrepressible, that the old channels of communi- 
 
and IVorthlessness. 
 
 129 
 
 cation are insufficient, and it is worth while to break through 
 all the prejudices and customs that hedge them in, and say 
 their say in cavalier fashion ; or they do it for the simple 
 and honest purpose of getting a living. So far as that is 
 their motive, I do not quarrel with them. But when a wom- 
 an comes before you inspired with a grand purpose, demand- 
 ing great opportunities, advocating a great cause, and em- 
 ploys a reasoning and a rhetoric that are good for nothing 
 but to furnish fallacies and infelicities to the logic-class in a 
 girls' school, the woman cause has not gained— it has lost. 
 No woman has gained any thing for that cause so long as 
 allowance has to be. made for her as a woman. Except so 
 far as she works for a living, she does not justify herself for 
 taking hold of man's work unless she does the work better 
 than men. I am not in the least degree exalted or exhil- 
 arated by hearing a woman preach unless she preaches so 
 powerfully that I forget she is a woman. If we are to have 
 prosing and platitudes, what care I to which sex the plati- 
 tudinarian belongs? There is no legal disability that I 
 know of. Nothing hinders a woman from lecturing or 
 preaching except lack of audiences. Men have preached 
 us deaf and dumb, or bitter and bellicose, with their inani- 
 ties and their superficialities, their pettinesses and their pas- 
 sions also petty. Is it worth while to have brought out 
 mitrailleuse and Chassepot, and to have rent the heavens 
 with their roaring, for the sake of showing that women can 
 be as stupid as men, if they only have the chance ? 
 
 In saying that the female preacher should make her audi- 
 ence forget that she is a woman, it is not necessary to de- 
 mand that she should be like a man. A woman can scarce- 
 ly be more distasteful than when she imitates the other sex. 
 Our conservative friends are very right in fearing that wom- 
 en will be extremely disagreeable if the new movement 
 makes them into a sort of man, and there are weak-minded 
 
 F2 
 
130 Woman's Worth 
 
 women enough engaged in it to make their fears not wholly- 
 groundless. Women who are without genius, without judg- 
 ment, without sweet sound sense or instinctive delicacy, but 
 not without ability in certain directions, attach themselves 
 to the v/oman's rights cause as naturally as every one that 
 was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every 
 one tha:t was discontented, gathered themselves unto David 
 in the Cave of Adullam. These women are not necessarily 
 noisy, though sometimes they are noisy ; but they are perti- 
 nacious and pushing, virtuous, but altogether abominable. 
 If they become ministers, they lean on their elbows, and 
 press down the leaves of their sermons, and read the hymns 
 badly, and begin one exercise before another is over, just as 
 male ministers do ; and you withdraw, confirmed in your 
 opinion that you don't want to hear a woman preach. If 
 they go into business, they raise a clamor about it ; they 
 are interviewed ; their ways, means, and motives are chroni- 
 cled ; they frequent the haunts of men, and get to be coarse, 
 ly mentioned. They take up the dress reform, and devise 
 a hybrid costume, which combines all that is ugly in male 
 attire, and rejects all that is graceful in the Bloomer suit, 
 and turns a woman into a nondescript object which ti be- 
 comes all civilized humanity to avoid, and secures no bene- 
 fit that is not just as well secured without the sacrifice of a 
 single line of beauty. If such things were the consequence 
 of woman's enfranchisement, better that women never were 
 enfranchised. Better a woman should be unhealthily than 
 unbecomingly dressed. Better she should be a useless fire- 
 side figure-head than a noisy nuisance. Better a feminine 
 than a masculine fool. But the choice is not so limited. 
 
 I have seen and heard a woman preach sermons with an_ 
 unction which any clergyman might emulate, to an audience 
 whose attention any clergyman might envy. Her. addresses 
 were not called sermons, and her listeners were not called a 
 
and Worthkssness. 131 
 
 congregation. The most conservative find nothing objec- 
 tionable in a woman's being at the head of a female semi- 
 nary, and a school of young girls is a perfectly orthodox 
 sphere ; but the interest of no congregation is harder to se- 
 cure, the position of no minister is more commanding. This 
 lady would read a chapter from the Bible, select her text, 
 and for half or three quarters of an hour secure the rapt at- 
 tention, the entire sympathy of her audience. With clear, 
 impressive voice, with speaking, conquering eyes, with mo- 
 bile mouth and eloquent hands, with decisive and incisive 
 manner, with illustration keen, apt, and vivid, in language 
 homely, terse, touching, pathetic, poetic, amusing, she eluci- 
 dated truth ; she enforced duty ; she aroused impulse \ she 
 stirred conscience ; she incited effort ; she touched heart, 
 till her congregation sat before her excited, thrilled, mag- 
 netized. Like a man ! Good heavens ! There are no 
 men. Man is a lost art beside such a woman. Let her go 
 into the public pulpit, and preach as she preaches in her 
 own, and you would no more be reminded of a man minis- 
 ter than you would of a mastodon. She is never more in- 
 tensely, more differentially, so to speak, and I will say more 
 winsomely a woman than in doing this very manly work. 
 Therefore the work is not necessarily manly. 
 
 I have heard another woman speak in public, and, what 
 is worse, preside over public meetings, and, what is worse 
 still, if any thing can be worse, these meetings were woman's 
 rights conventions. It is impossible to conceive any thing 
 more profoundly obnoxious to a conservative and orthodox 
 mind, like— well, if the egotism may be pardoned — like my 
 own. Yet this woman, with all her social sins upon her 
 head, by the mere charm of her sweet, simple personality, 
 by the force of her pure womanliness, melted away antago- 
 nistic prejudice, and won all hearts to do her reverence. 
 She walked in the manly ways with womanly gait. She 
 
132 Woman's Worth 
 
 threaded the devious paths of parliamentary law with an 
 unconscious, innocent confidence ; and when sometimes 
 she hesitated, she appealed to superior knowledge and ex- 
 perience, not only without shame, but with a natural grace 
 more pleasing than knowledge itself. The success of wom- 
 an's rights will alienate the sexes, will they ? This woman 
 had not the beauty which attracts the eye. She was but 
 comely and wholesome ; but under the spell of her musical, 
 modulated, varying voice, her simple, appealing, child-like, 
 yet motherly manner, her sound sense and her fervid con- 
 viction, every fool who came to scoff remained to approve 
 and admire. I was amused to see hard-headed lawyers, 
 who had only advanced from contemptuous indifference to 
 breathing out threatenings and slaughter upon strong-mind- 
 ed women, involuntarily rush to the rescue when she hesi- 
 tated upon some involved parliamentary point. They were 
 not, perhaps, converted to the cause, but they were, at least 
 for the time, converted to her. And I observed, too — for I 
 turned all eyes and counted nothing trivial — I observed that 
 her husband artfully and heroically concealed the shame 
 which must have torn his heart, stood by her like a man, 
 and shawled her, and cloaked her, and cared for her, unos- 
 tentatiously, indeed, but as naturally and " protectingly" as 
 if she had done nothing all her life but suckle fools and 
 chronicle small beer. And what man has done man may do. 
 It is such women as these in the pulpit and on the plat- 
 form, and only such, who are really advancing the welfare 
 of women. They show by well-doing what woman can well 
 do. They command the respect, if they do not compel the 
 conviction of their opponents. And it is this which is the 
 measure of fitness. The flattery of a cirque, the suffrage of 
 a mutual admiration society, the laughter and applause of 
 galleries, do not hinder an address to the people from being 
 false in logic, foolish in sentiment, a grief to the judicious, a 
 
and Worthlessness. 133 
 
 snare to the un\yary. When the charm of the woman sets 
 off comprehensiveness, acuteness, broad and just thought, 
 right feeling rightly tempered, wisdom and benevolence com- 
 bined, a woman is never more in her sphere than when she 
 is addressing an assembly of men and women. But when 
 her beauty or her grace, her prettiness or her ugliness, has 
 underneath it only the echo of thoughts, the shadow of ideas 
 which she can neither comprehend nor reproduce ; when 
 she has only vain and vapid words without knowledge; 
 crude and impracticable measures to suggest; a culture 
 whose only redeeming point is that it is shallow, the specta- 
 cle is simply pitiable. Over against her, sitting respectfully 
 among her listeners, are men of life-long study and experi- 
 ence, of severe and responsible thought — men whose theo- 
 ries have every day to be put to the touchstone of actual trial, 
 and to whom her random talk passes for the vain and idle, 
 though well-meant babbling that it is. They are courteous 
 and deferent ; but their considerate and restrained compli- 
 ments are a greater insult to the female understanding than 
 any censure could be. How can they honor the female in- 
 tellect when it presents to them such ground and lofty tum- 
 bling as its ideal of agility and activity ? How can they be- 
 lieve in the gravity, the equipoise, the social worth of a wom- 
 an's mind, when the first thing they are obliged to do for this 
 representative woman is to put aside all thought of mental 
 gravity and equipoise, and fall back upon the world-old flat- 
 teries and fooleries of personal compliment, or pass beyond 
 into a half bitter and half ludicrous disgust ? 
 
134 Woman's Worth 
 
 VII. 
 
 DISABILITIES 
 
 It is sometimes amusing to see the great gulf fixed be- 
 tween general assertions and particular facts in some of our 
 statements regarding women. Neither side monopolizes the 
 inconsequence. Perhaps that religious and respectable ec- 
 clesiastical newspaper, edited by doctors of divinity, and 
 conducted with irreproachable masculine logic, may be con- 
 sidered as leading off the dance of non sequiturs when it 
 gravely says : 
 
 "Having so persistently and skillfully engineered the 
 woman's rights movement that it has passed beyond the re- 
 gion where it encountered only indifference or scorn, to that 
 where it meets with earnest and conscientious opposition, 
 the advocates of the reform can afford to pay a decent re- 
 spect to the opinions of their opponents, and should, there- 
 fore, put away childish babbling, and speak as becomes men 
 and women engaged in one of the most revolutionary re- 
 forms of the century." 
 
 Can even a D.D. tell us why? If this childish babbling 
 has so skillfully and persistently advanced the cause, why 
 should it be discontinued ? Having won in one fierce bat- 
 tle, shall the revolutionists now throw away the sword they 
 fought with, and betake themselves to some other weapon 
 selected by their adversaries ? Rather, one would say, if 
 they have babbled so brilliantly thus far, they can not do 
 better than babble on to final victory. 
 
 But we woman's rights men also sometimes roam rather 
 wildly amid cause and consequence. " The stimulus of pol- 
 itics, in their reaction upon the mind," says one paper, en- 
 
and Worthkssness. 135 
 
 forcing female suffrage, "is immense. The American girl 
 never felt it till the late war. Give her the ballot, and the 
 mass of her powers will so increase .... that only we, 
 whose mothers, and sisters, and wives have been the best 
 man's eyes ever looked upon, can imagine what woman will 
 become." 
 
 But these good mothers, sisters, and wives grew to what 
 they were without the ballot, so that the inference we draw 
 is directly the opposite of what we were expected to draw. 
 We say immediately, no matter what the ballot may be good 
 for, it is certainly not essential to the excellence of Ameri- 
 can girls, since they grow in grace without it. We may 
 need wars to stir them to activity. We do not need suf- 
 frage. 
 
 " Without the ballot," says the same paper, " women can 
 never permanently share in this vitalizing experience" [of 
 political campaigns]. Yet another column, arguing for an- 
 other purpose, indeed, says : 
 
 " The Whig party elected Harrison and Tyler by intro- 
 ducing woman for the first time into their great political assem- 
 blies. . . . The presence 0/ woman wa.s the talisman of Whig 
 success. The abolition question gained the ear of the peo- 
 ple only when it enlisted the aid of woman. The Liberty 
 party in Ohio obtained its first animating impulse from the 
 thrilling eloquence of Abby Kelley. . . . The presence of 
 women in Republican meetings, and their absence from 
 those of Democrats, were facts conspicuous from the very 
 outset. . . . Informally the influence of woman was always 
 prominent. Who can estimate the influence of Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin' upon the politics of 
 the nation.' The conscience and enthusiasm of woman 
 elected Lincoln, and sustained the Republicans through the 
 war. The hunker State of Connecticut was carried at the 
 critical moment by the eloquent addresses of Anna Dickin- 
 son." 
 
 Really, people who have believed in a sequence of thought 
 
136 Woman's Worth 
 
 must begin to rub their eyes and ask themselves if they are 
 awake. American girls must have the ballot to make them 
 worth while, because American girls have grown into the 
 best of women without it. American women must have the 
 ballot to stir up their interest in politics, for they have viv- 
 ified parties, aroused principles, carried states, elected presi- 
 dents, maintained wars without it. Under which king, Be- 
 zonian ? If these are the facts we bring forward to show 
 that women need the ballot, what kind of facts should we 
 produce to show that they do not need it ? What can you 
 do with a syllogism that turns somersaults in the middle ? 
 The premise is as sound as a nut. The conclusion may or 
 may not be true ; but the hidden Major Premise looks very 
 little like a fighting soldier when we unearth him. "All 
 persons," says that silent gentleman, forced to stand and 
 deliver — "all persons who for thirty years, chiefly of peace, 
 have been showing intense interest in and exerting a marked 
 effect upon politics without the vote, need the vote in order 
 to take an interest in politics in times of peace." I greatly 
 fear that Archbishop Whately would not find his hearty con- 
 tempt for the female intellect materially diminished if this 
 method of reasoning be the device of the female brain. 
 
 Again : " Give woman the ballot," says one column of the 
 reform organ, " and their motto will be, Equal pay for equal 
 work; and the first question they will ask the would-be 
 nominee for school commissioner will be, ' Will you faith- 
 fully carry out our motto ?' " 
 
 But another column of the same paper says : 
 
 " Working-women are wanted in Colorado. Reliable re- 
 ports say that a thousand could find immediate employment 
 there, and at high wages. A competent girl commands bet- 
 ter wages there than a male laborer." 
 
 And also : 
 
 " Masculine ministers must be looking out for their lucre 
 
and Worthlessness. 137 
 
 as well as their laurels. We learn that some women are 
 paid $25 a Sunday for supplying the same pulpits where 
 doctors of divinity are compelled to put up with only $15." 
 
 How is this ? Are we agitating to bring down the pay of 
 the Colorado girls to the level of the male laborers ? In the 
 good time coming, shall not the Rev. Mrs. Smith be allowed 
 to receive twenty-five dollars a Sunday because the Rev. 
 Mr. Brown was paid only fifteen ? And how is it that we 
 need the ballot to secure equal pay for equal work, when 
 without the ballot we have already secured unequal pay in 
 the woman's favor ? 
 
 " Going to New York,'' says the biographer of a woman's 
 rights woman, "with her brother and his newly-wedded wife, 
 her soul was agonized with the thought that for single 
 women there was no place in the universe. The world had 
 choice of employments, varied interests, independence, and 
 honors only for men. 
 
 " Arriving in New York, she spent some time with a mar- 
 ried sister, trying to satisfy the unrest of her nature by as- 
 sisting in the family sewing and the care of the children." 
 
 Not feeling sufficiently absorbed, she went to the editor 
 of a paper and applied for a situation as reporter. The un- 
 rest of her nature would, no doubt, have been effectually 
 and permanently disposed of had she succeeded in becom- 
 ing the reporter of a city daily newspaper. But its proprie- 
 tor laughed at the idea, and she went home and wrote a 
 letter about it, which letter so pleased another editor that 
 he published it forthwith. Thereupon she continued to 
 write, was soon put in a responsible position upon a news- 
 paper, and shortly after was offered by another paper double 
 the salary she had at first received. 
 
 Considering now that this woman, according to her biog- 
 rapher, had been twice engaged tcr be married, had taken 
 the whole charge of her brother's motherless children, had 
 
138 Woman's Worth 
 
 assisted in the family sewing and the care of her sister's 
 children, became a writer for a daily newspaper, was mar- 
 ried, and kept house, and made shirts, has been fashion-ed- 
 itor of two magazines and editor of one, has for years fur- 
 nished a monthly bulletin of fashion for some twenty news- 
 papers throughout the country, has been a regular contribu- 
 tor to one review and to one weekly journal, an occasional 
 contributor to almost every prominent paper or magazine 
 that has been published in New York for the last ten years, 
 is an exemplary mother, occupies several important offices, 
 and is still a young woman — how are we to construe the 
 statement that the world has 
 
 I St. Choice of Employment, 
 
 2d. Varied Interests, 
 
 3d. Independence and Honors 
 only for men ? 
 
 In what Pickwickian sense are we to understand the as- 
 sertion that for single women there is no place in the uni- 
 verse ? How many men have chosen a greater number of 
 employments, or have had more and more varied interests, 
 than this still young woman ? 
 
 The same paper tells us that Miss Blank has been ap- 
 pointed teacher of English composition at Blank College. 
 Miss Blank is a graduate of a certain academy, " and is the 
 young lady whose remarkable success as a proof-reader was 
 mentioned, etc. At the Celebrated Press in Utopia she se- 
 cured the highest reputation in that difficult vocation. On 
 such points she is already a high authority." 
 
 Men and brethren, especially women, do you not see, vote 
 or no vote, slave or free, just as soon as a woman is good 
 for any thing, every body wants her? Society runs wild 
 after an abl6 woman, and seems sometimes to think that 
 because she is good for one thing she is good for any and 
 every thing. As soon as she shows that she can turn her 
 
atid Worthlessness. 139 
 
 hand featly to one act, scores of hands reach out to clutch 
 her. Why did not the college let Miss B. alone if she was 
 doing well at the press ? There are plenty of women who 
 would have snatched at the professorship. Because she was 
 doing well. If she had been doing ill, they would have let 
 her alone severely enough. No one wants the person whom 
 no one else wants. It is true the world over, in science, and 
 politics, and property, as well as in religion : To him that 
 hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be 
 taken away even that which he seemeth to have. It sounds 
 harsh, spoken of human, sensitive beings, but it is as inev- 
 itable as a law of nature. It is a law of nature. Man can 
 no more help it than he can help the blowing of the wind. 
 To him that hath power shall be given power. Ability be-"~ 
 gets influence. The sagacity that acquires wealth increases 
 wealth. He who grasps life feebly, he who hangs on to his 
 position imploringly, and does not occupy it commandingly 
 — he will be continually jostled, and is likely to be dis- 
 lodged. 
 
 The pursuit and the profit of an occupation are matters 
 pertaining to the individual as well as to the sex. They are 
 affected by sex in that women have not been trained to ag- 
 gressive personal effort as men have been, and therefore do 
 not so readily determine their work. They have not been 
 educated to believe that they must take hold of something, 
 and therefore they do not so easily see or so quickly grasp 
 what offers. But there are multitudes of young men who 
 ponder over their future, question what they shall do, try 
 what they do not like, and are bafHed, repulsed, and reject- 
 ed. There are scores who do not know precisely what they 
 want to do, and would embrace any one of a dozen differ- 
 ent offers. No doubt many of them walk up and down in 
 agony, think there is no place for them in the universe, and 
 try to satisfy the unrest of their souls in diy-goods stores. 
 
140 Woman's Worth 
 
 But they mostly settle after a while into some sort of a nook, 
 and make the best of it. A woman can do precisely the 
 same thing. Why not ? The woman whom I have men- 
 tioned did it, only better. She refused to content herself 
 with what did not satisfy her, and kept on until she found 
 something that did ; and she found, also, that so many voi- 
 ces called her that it was hard to choose which she should 
 obey. 
 
 These are but illustrations of a fact which can not be too 
 often or too impressively repeated, that in this country a 
 woman need no more be without occupation than a man. 
 She need not be without healthy and remunerative occupa- 
 tion. In the higher latitudes her pay is equal to that of a 
 man. In many latitudes, if she has a man's sense, she gets 
 a man's emolument. Trade makes little inquiry concerning 
 success. If a shop-girl receives less wages than a shop-boy, 
 why does she not go into business herself? I suppose a 
 large proportion of our rich merchants walked into town 
 with the traditional shilling in their pockets. There are 
 women also who have succeeded brilliantly in trade. The 
 largest, most popular, and most successful dry-goods store 
 in a certain American city was founded and is owned and 
 managed by women. They make no fuss about it. They 
 are not bartering on high moral ground ; they are not in 
 the papers with plans and projects, and I fear they give 
 very little thought to the starving women of New York. 
 They simply buy and sell, and get gain, and invest in real 
 estate. I suspect they are in favor of woman suffrage, but 
 their actions speak very loudly in showing how well women 
 may prosper without it. 
 
 What does a man do when his pay is not enough ? If he 
 is a commonplace man, one of a multitude, he joins a strike, 
 which he has a perfect right to do. If he is an ignorant 
 man, with crude notions of liberty and tyranny, of right and 
 
and Worthlessness. 141 
 
 wrong, he not only strikes work himself, but attempts by 
 force to prevent his neighbor from working, and thus makes 
 himself a criminal and dangerous to society. But if he is a 
 man of mettle he only works the harder, and makes himself 
 so necessary to his employer that he becomes master of the 
 situation. When a man gets the service that he wants, a 
 few dollars more or less are a trivial matter to him. It is 
 exactly so with a woman. What mother of a household 
 would hesitate between two dollars and a half to an ordinary 
 housemaid, and three dollars to one who would do the work 
 as she wants it done ? What young lady would hesitate be- 
 tween paying ten dollars for an ill-fitting dress, and fifteen 
 for a well-fitting one ? 
 
 I am informed that a first-class workwoman even in New 
 York earns fifteen dollars a week at a sewing machine. It 
 is not wealth ; but many a man who has spent thousands of 
 dollars on his apprenticeship earns less than that in the pul- 
 pit. I know a forewoman in a sewing establishment who 
 has a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year, and I know a 
 township in which not five men have seen a yearly income 
 of fifteen hundred dollars in all their lives. 
 
 Why do not sewing-women establish sewing-houses, and 
 become proprietors, instead of being at the mercy of brutal 
 employers ? Suppose a hard-working mother of a family 
 wants to buy a winter outfit of under and outer clothing for 
 herself and three little girls, plain but strong, and at a cost 
 no greater than if she bought the cloth and hired the dress- 
 maker and seamstress to make them at home. How many 
 houses are there to which she could go ? Men do this every 
 where. The making of male apparel has passed almost en- 
 tirely out of the family hands into those of the shopmen ; 
 but women have scarcely begun to organize their supplies. 
 Every woman has to go through the process for herself, and 
 with as much proportional disadvantage as if she should 
 
142 Woman's Worth 
 
 shear her own sheep and weave her own cloth. But women 
 can establish sewing-shops. Why talk of disability, when 
 you see a woman begin on nothing, make bonnets, gradual- 
 ly but steadily enlarge her borders, open a fancy store, en- 
 gage apprentices, rebuild her house, open a boarding-house, 
 make her own purchases, superintend her business, send her 
 sons to college and her daughters to academies, maintain 
 vigorous health, and entertain decided convictions as to the 
 cause and consequences of the French and Prussian War ? 
 
 Women are employed in telegraph offices, and receive 
 fifteen and twenty dollars a week. It is said that they un- 
 derstand the details as well as men, that they manipulate 
 more deftly, and are more faithful at their posts. I do not 
 know the wages of male operators ; but, if the female oper- 
 ators surpass them in skill and service, they are in the right 
 way to win not only their own case, but the case of all wom- 
 en. Every woman who legitimately succeeds in a legitimate 
 business helps all women. And when I go to one telegraph 
 office ten minutes after the hour of opening, and find it 
 closed ; and to another, and find a woman crusty, indiffer- 
 ent, and negligent, treating me as if it were a favor to per- 
 mit me the use of the telegraph, my annoyance is not con- 
 fined to my personal inconvenience, but I think how surely 
 these women are creating a prejudice against all other 
 women. 
 
 Here is a girl who happened not to be born poor. Her 
 father is rich enough to live in Fifth Avenue, but he does 
 not live there. He gives her all the advantages of city ed- 
 ucation which she chooses. Eight months in the year she 
 spends in home duties, charities, parties, concerts, operas, 
 theatre, her own music, and the like ; but in the other four 
 months she lives her own true life. She has found a pure 
 country town, undiscovered yet by the tourists, and there 
 she goes, with a bloomer dress, and lives on a farm and 
 
and Worthlessness. 143 
 
 works like a fann-hand — up in the morning with the men 
 helping take care of the animals, then to the fields to work 
 with them, driving the oxen and pitching the hay. She has 
 a very definite idea of perfect earthly happiness. It is to 
 raise animals on a stock-farm ; and, if she were thrown on 
 her own resources, no doubt she would do it. No starving 
 over the needle or stooping behind the counter for her. 
 And yet she is no Amazon, but a pure, womanly girl, with- 
 out a grain of coarseness, a true lover of nature. 
 
 I know two girls born to ease and wealth. In their early 
 youth they were rich, careless, free. They walked, and drove, 
 and rode, and hunted, and boated, and drank great draughts 
 of happiness and health. Presently trouble came. Affairs 
 were involved. The stalwart father became a confirmed 
 and helpless invalid. Did they sit down and wring their 
 hands t Did they go moaning all their days, begging men 
 to give them a little sewing, a little copying, a little teach- 
 ing "i Not they. They began, in a small way, in a country 
 town, to keep a " dry-goods and grocery store." They were 
 prompt. They gave fair measure and right change. They 
 kept what people wanted ; and if any thing was called for 
 which they had not, they put it clown on their list of future 
 purchases. They had the cleanest and nicest grocery for 
 miles around. They hired a clerk, and bought a horse, and 
 built a house, and are at this moment independent property- 
 holders, as well as piquant and agreeable women. 
 
 The newspapers tell us that the head of one of the larger 
 New York tea-dealing firms is a woman. Previous to the 
 outbreak of our Civil War she was extensively engaged in 
 utilizing (?) the leaves of the great blackberry and raspberry 
 crops of Georgia and Alabama. By a generous and judi- 
 cious admixture of imported tea, these blackberry leaves 
 were worked up into all the proper varieties of the black 
 and green teas of commerce. After the war had turned her 
 
144 Woman's Worth 
 
 field of fortune into the field of battle, her basis of opera- 
 tions was changed, and the costly green teas were manipu- 
 lated from the less costly black teas ; but there is no record 
 that her trickery was any less genuine, skillful, or lucrative 
 than that of men. 
 
 Through the same newspapers we learn of another wom- 
 an who, after her husband's death, took sole charge of his 
 business. A grist-mill, a saw-mill, six hundred acres of land 
 in homestead, besides other tracts, and four daughters, came 
 under her single supervision. She accepted the trust, ac- 
 complished the work, and conducted every thing to success 
 and prosperity. 
 
 The appointment of a woman to the post-office of a South- 
 ern city was hailed by the newspapers of that city with exe- 
 cration. She wisely let the newspapers alone, and expend- 
 ed all her energies on the post-office. She introduced need- 
 ed reforms, so far as possible, and paved the way for those 
 which could not be immediately effected. She was prompt, 
 polite, faithful, and the papers that reviled her were forced 
 to admit her excellence. 
 
 Even the schools, to which the young women flock, are 
 not made of cast-iron. I have known a young woman so 
 highly valued that the committee of the school, having al- 
 ready raised her salary to the highest legal standard, offered 
 her a third more out of their own pockets to secure her con- 
 tinued stay, and offered in vain. The rush to the schools is 
 so great that the pay is permanently and generally low, yet 
 a good teacher is hard to find. Sixty and a hundred teach- 
 ers apply for a single situation in a single school, yet in that 
 same school the principal says despairingly to the parents, 
 who all want their children in Miss A.'s class, that he would 
 have Miss A. cut up into twenty pieces if he could, so that 
 she might teach them all. In the heart of New England, 
 in a highly cultivated community, an attempt was made to 
 
and Worthlessness. 145 
 
 substitute female for male principals in tlie higher grades 
 of schools. A salary was proposed nearly, if not quite as 
 large as the average salary of the clergymen in the vicini- 
 ty ; and the committee, who had been for years conversant 
 and connected with schools, knew of only one woman within 
 a radius of thirty miles whom they were willing to intrust 
 with the experiment. I have heard a woman complaining 
 of injustice, of the partiality shown to men, and affirming 
 that she could not live on her salary, when that salary was 
 four hundred dollars a year, when she had received only 
 the most slight and common instruction from the most com- 
 mon schools — an experience that could in no sense of the 
 word be called education — and had attained a culture suffi- 
 ciently indicated by the fact that she found offense in being 
 spoken of as a female teacher instead of a lady teacher ! 
 Now I admit that it is very exasperating to have a man in 
 the next room, no better, and no better educated than you, 
 doing the same work that you do, and getting twice as much 
 pay. It is still more exasperating to have him set over you, 
 and getting three times as much pay. But where there is a 
 glaring discrepancy not only between a woman's work and 
 her wages, but between her duties and her fitness to per- 
 form them, it would be encouraging to see her efforts not 
 wholly confined to the former; but I have heard her speak 
 ten words for increase of pay where I have heard one for 
 improvement in performance. Men may be no better than 
 women, but women are not half as good as they ought to be. 
 When you have secured to uneducated female teachers the 
 same salary which uneducated male teachers receive, when 
 you have paid for a woman's shabby work the same wages 
 which you pay for a man's shabby work, have you really ele- 
 vated society ? You have, indeed, brought about an equali- 
 ty, but it has not been by a leveling-up process. 
 
 Poor work is the fatal disability, not poor pay. Good 
 G 
 
146 Woman's Worth 
 
 work may be a slow, but it is a sovereign remedy. Yet 
 women will not administer it. They have not the. ingenuity 
 to devise, the courage to commence, the perseverance to 
 carry out responsible undertakings. , They have not the pa- 
 tience, the sense, the wisdom to work faithfully under some 
 other person's responsibility. It is easier for them to moil 
 on in the old ruts, to live from hand to mouth, to be serfs to 
 heartless employers, to complain of partiality, and cry out 
 against injustice, than it is to strike silently into untried 
 paths, to bend circumstances, and defy injustice, and com- 
 pel respect, and control fate. 
 
 All, alike the advocates and opponents of woman suffrage, 
 agree that the avenues of emplo)m3ent should be open to 
 women J but if women have not the ability to open them for 
 themselves, have they the ability to walk in them after they 
 are opened ? The barriers are such that her feet can not 
 pass beyond them whose hand can not remove them. Stu- 
 pid men plod, and bright men invent. They make a busi- 
 ness. They devise a supply, and create a demand.. Wom- 
 en can do the same, if they have the head for it. If they 
 have not, perhaps the next best thing is to pass a law that 
 head shall be counted out in the general judgment. 
 
 It is not so much opportunity that women need as quali- 
 ties. They do not succeed in business for the same reason 
 that men do not succeed — ^because they are timid, tame, un- 
 adventurous, ineffective. They have not energy, enterprise, 
 persistence, spirit, daring. They are not far-seeing, ready in 
 plan, fertile in resources. Nothing else fails them for suc- 
 cess. It is not that they are poor, for the ranks of our " mer- 
 chant princes" are replenished from just such poverty as 
 theirs. It is not political disability. Men with political abili- 
 ty have failed in just such careei-s, and women with political 
 disability have succeeded. If this day men and women 
 should ichang^ places — the successful men and the unsuc- 
 
and Worthkssness. 147 
 
 cessful women — I doubt not that in five years every thing 
 would be just as it is now. The thirty thousand starving wom- 
 en would have gone into the stores and offices ; would have 
 lived comfortably, dressed tastefully, never have acquired a 
 half understanding of their business, nor a whole understand- 
 ing of what understanding business means, until the whole 
 thing had slipped through their hands. The thirty thousand 
 men who had taken their places would at the start have 
 looked around them, seized the first opening for making 
 money, or made an opening if none appeared, thrown away 
 the needle, combined forces, and in five years be bullying 
 the poor sewing-women just the same as ever. And the 
 poor sewing-women would stand and take it just as meekly 
 as ever. 
 
 " This gully must be filled by Saturday night," said the 
 overseer on the Pacific Railroad. 
 
 " Impossible," was the reply. ■ " There is nothing to fill it 
 with." 
 
 " It must be filled with five thousand Irishmen, if there 
 is nothing else ; and it must be filled by Saturday night." 
 
 And it \vas filled. 
 
 " This river must be bridged," said the general, on his 
 march to the sea. 
 
 "There is not wood enough in the village to build a 
 bridge," replied his officer. 
 
 " Take the village !" 
 
 The bridge was built. 
 
 This is what all need for success, will — will that takes no 
 account of obstacles except to overcome them. What is 
 the use of talking to women about wider opportunities, when 
 opportunities are dying every day for want of being used .' 
 What is the use of lamenting lack of employments, when 
 women aire still feebly fumbling around in a jungle of em- 
 ployments ? Why talk about poor pay, when it is almost by 
 
148 Woman's Worth 
 
 sufferance that women get any pay at all ? Women in trade 
 are nothing but men. If they are weak, helpless, complain- 
 ing men, we may as well acknowledge the fact ; but, weak 
 or strong, they are men, and'must be dealt with as men. 
 
 I have two letters, received at the same time, and written 
 on the same subject, which so unconsciously but so admira- 
 bly illustrate the difference between the masculine and the 
 feminine treatment of a question, and which also throw so 
 much light, indirectly, upon our theme, that I propose to 
 make some extracts from each. The first is a woman's let- 
 ter, the second a man's. With both I take private liberties 
 in respect of spelling, punctuation, and superfluities, but I 
 add nothing. 
 
 " I am well aware that any work properly done will com- 
 mand a living price paid to any woman, and that an unskill- 
 ed worker who sends out poor work must not expect first- 
 class prices. But that is not (in my mind) the point which 
 women argue. It is not that other women can command 
 higher prices. It is the universal partiality shown to men. 
 The cry of the working-women of the land is, ' I can do a 
 man's work, and I ought to be paid a man's salary.' Yes, 
 they ought to be ; but are not mankind, agreed that women 
 are the best ones to instruct the young? If so, then why 
 do not men (for they make and always have made the laws) 
 make laws to protect teachers of schools ? Why do they 
 lessen the salaries of lady teachers so that they may in- 
 crease a salary of some man — the man having refused to ac- 
 cept the salary of a woman ? 
 
 " It has been argued by many that men should be paid 
 more than their sisters, for the reason that men have- so 
 many expenses to bear for women. 
 
 " One instance is, when a gentleman takes a lady to ride 
 with him, he pays for the horses, refreshments, etc. The 
 lady has nothing to do with that. Why should she ? The 
 gentleman took her for his own pleasure quite as much as 
 he did for hers. If the lady happened to be one who earn- 
 ed her own living, she would willingly pay the man, if he 
 wished it. If it happened, I say. You know that we who 
 
and Worthlessness. 149 
 
 depend upon our Own exertions for support are not very 
 often invited to ride, eat ices, etc., by gentlemen of society. 
 Ah ! no. They reserve their invitations for the butterflies 
 of society. But we do not ask to have it otherwise. Every- 
 day toil unfits one for the frivolities of fashion. 
 
 " If women who are at ease do not^believe that the host 
 of noble women suffer who support themselves, just let them 
 try it, and see your former friends turn their backs upon 
 you. Then, and not till then, will you know. 
 
 " Don't you expect as much pay for your MS. as any man 
 would for the same amount of labor ? Don't your paper, 
 pens, ink, and board cost as much as if you were a man? 
 Are you willing to work for less ? 
 
 " Let us, then, join hand in hand, and stand shoulder to 
 shoulder, and try to elevate our less fortunate sisters," etc. 
 
 Now for the man's letter : 
 
 " I have always supposed, and still think, that if there is a 
 demand or a market for any thing, and there is money in it, 
 that demand is sure to be met, that market supplied. Now, 
 in your article, you give us to understand that there is a 
 great demand for skilled workers, and advise poor working- 
 women to become skillful in some trade, and then they are 
 sure to do well. This, I think, is not so. There is no de- 
 mand for skilled workers ; and if you look carefully among 
 the various mechanical trades in our midst, you will find it 
 the almost invariable rule, the better the workman the poor- 
 er the man. Take my own business, for example — Gas- 
 piping. I can find you in the city of lots of first-rate 
 
 workmen. They are all of them poor ; and I can't call to 
 mind a single man that has got rich in the business (and I 
 know many that have) that can pipe a house decently. Why, 
 the man that has done the best business in the city the last 
 ten years in gas-fixtures never made one that I would take 
 for a gift to put in my house. I have worked at the busi- 
 ness ten years, and am accounted a skillful workman. Can 
 I get a cent a foot more for piping than the veriest botch ? 
 Not at all. In fact, he rather has the advantage of me, for 
 most people seem to think poor work is the cheapest, any- 
 
ISO Woman's Worih 
 
 how. At any rate, they won't pay any more for good work. 
 
 " The true idea, it seems to me, is not to know how to 
 work well, but how to buy and sell well ; and the man or 
 woman who knows how to dispose of their wares in the mar- 
 ket is sure to get rich. There are many notable examples 
 of this. I will give you one or two. There is Mr. A., one 
 of the governor's council now, I believe. Well, he has got 
 rich at the carpenter's trade. He, knows just about as much 
 how to do a job of carpentering as an old setting hen ; but 
 he knows how to hire men that do know how to work, and 
 he knows how to manipulate boards of aldermen and com- 
 mon council so as to get fat contracts, in which he so man- 
 ages that the bill for extras will be larger than the original 
 contracts. He knows how to carry his wares to market, and 
 he is made president of this, that, and the other ; and Mr. 
 B. C, in that wonderful production of his, the oration at the 
 last annual dinner, points to him with pride as an example 
 of what mechanics can accomplish. That oration, by the 
 way, was a big thing. In it he spoke of the readiness of 
 wealthy people to help mechanics. That's so. Help them 
 get rid of their money. . . . 
 
 " That is the reason why boys shun mechanical trades. 
 We read long homilies in the papers on the advantages of 
 having a trade, but both parents and children instinctively 
 know better. They see that the great prizes of life don't lie 
 in that direction. The great traders rule the world. 
 
 "... To sum up, the world don't want skilled work ; it 
 wants cheap work. The creators of wealth don't get any of 
 it. Those that trade in that wealth are the favored ones." 
 
 Leaving out of sight the question of correctness, who does 
 not see that the woman's letter is sentimental, the man's 
 letter brawny ? The one is piteous, wavering, longing, feeble, 
 the other is sturdy, bitter, scornful, and direct. The one ad- 
 mits every thing, and wanders off into side issues and devas- 
 tated ways ; the other plumps down upon facts at the out- 
 set, and denies them. 
 
 "Why is the woman's salary lessened that the man's may 
 be increased," asks the woman — "the man having refused 
 
and Worthkssness. 151 
 
 to accept the woman's salary ?" — and does not see that one 
 breath asks and answers the question ? It is because men 
 refuse a woman's salary that they get men's salary. It is 
 because women accept a low salary that they do not get a 
 high one. The world will never pay any more for work 
 than it is obliged to pay. This never looks so wrong as in 
 schools, and I do not say that there is no injustice in it. 
 But I do say that the remedy is not in expostulation, but in 
 action. If a woman writer gets the same pay as a man, it 
 is riot because she reasons with her publisher about her 
 board bill and stationery, but because, if his price does not 
 suit her, she takes her wares to the publisher over the way. 
 Unless she can do this, and until she can do this, she is in 
 precisely the condition of the teacher and the seamstress — 
 she mjist take what is offered. Against this horrible neces- 
 sity no law can be framed to protect her. 
 
 And is it not just the least in the world grotesque for a 
 working-woman to face the great questions of equality and 
 relations with an argument built on ice-cream.? The op- 
 pressed and downtrodden, the noble, suffering, self-support- 
 ing host sends up a bitter cry, one of whose component 
 parts is a well-defined wail that gentlemen do not take them 
 to ride ! Surely there ought to be a law passed for the pro- 
 tection of the bees against the butterflies ; and as men 
 make and always have made the laws, and as the same men 
 take and always have taken the butterflies to ride, it is use- 
 less to hope for any reform or " refreshments" until the bees 
 have a seat in council. Women have heavier burdens than 
 these, but it will be hard to make the world believe it so 
 long as they bring these forward as burdens. 
 
 One may be pardoned for thinking that the women who 
 earn their own living find, at least, a moderate degree of 
 compensation in contemning the women who do not. The 
 former are "a host of noble women," the latter are the 
 
152 Woman's Worth 
 
 " frivolities of fashion ;" but why it is not arrogant and 
 pharisaic for a woman to class herself among tlie nobility 
 because she is poor, and her " sister" among the ignobility 
 because she is rich, I fail to see. If a woman has no one 
 to provide for her, she must provide for herself. It would 
 be ignoble for her, in sound health, to go to the poor-house ; 
 but is there any thing especially noble in staying out of it ? 
 Is independence inherently any more glorious than depend- 
 ence ? Both have ample room for excellence, but both are 
 in themselves neutral. It indicates no more merit in a 
 woman that her husband has died, and left her to support 
 as well as train her children, than if he had lived and sup- 
 ported them himself. She may be noble in doing it, but an- 
 other woman, who never earned a penny in her life, may be 
 just as noble. Literature has always been rather hard on 
 butterflies, but I do not know where we find our warrant for 
 supposing the butterfly any less perfect or pleasing in the 
 eyes of its Maker than the bee. 
 
 We speak of the dignity of labor, but labor has no dig- 
 nity. Dignity is in the workman, not in the work ; in the 
 motive and attitude, not in the task. 
 
 Circumstances are but the frame -work of character. 
 Sweetness, modesty, dignity, charity, self-respect, and re- 
 spect for others, are personal graces among rich or poor. 
 No life is lovely without them ; no life is mean with them. 
 
 The man's letter does not make out the man's case ; but 
 what a ring it has. The world, he says, does not want skilled 
 labor ; but does not gas-piping — ^which requires skill — ^pay 
 better than hod-carrying, which does not ? The poor gas- 
 pipers get rich, but is it not by making people believe that 
 their work is good? The old setting-hen of a carpenter 
 does not thus characterize himself to his customers, I sup- 
 pose. He is not skilled in carpentry, but he is an adept 
 in the still more skillful labor of palming off good work for 
 
and Worthkssness. 153 
 
 poor. All I design to do, however, is merely to call atten- 
 tion to the different way in which the man and the woman 
 take hold of the same question. The woman must have 
 more of the nerve and muscle of the man, must talk less 
 of shoulders and sisters, and think less of ices and gentle- 
 men, before her fingers will have grasp, her protest power. 
 
 G2 
 
154 Woman's Worth 
 
 VIII. 
 
 SERFDOM. 
 
 Are women to be blamed for their inaptitude.'' Only 
 partially, at most. One trouble is that they are where they 
 do not belong. They can not see where business lies, be- 
 cause they were not born with business eyes. The few 
 women succeed. They have an exceptional fondness and 
 fitness for traffic, and they buy, and sell, and get gain as 
 readily as men, and do not necessarily lose any grace for 
 their worldly wisdom ; but women in general have not ca- 
 pacity for business. It hurts them ; it annoys them. They 
 are ill at ease. \ They instinctively make every thing a mat- 
 ter of feeling.v They constantly, if unconsciously, refer every 
 thing to the standard of chivalry. They think trade ought 
 to take off its hat as deferentially as courtesy. They are 
 worn out doubly by the wear and tear of the struggle, and 
 by the unnatural ness of such wear and tear. AVhat says 
 Miss Mitford — that brave and blameless lady, who upbore 
 out of the ruin of the home which himself had wantonly 
 destroyed a worthless and wicked father? "Women were 
 not meant to earn the bread of a family. I am sure of that ; 
 there is a want of strength." No one has gained a better 
 right than she to speak authoritatively on this point ; and, 
 remembering her long suffering, and the years of anxiety 
 and anguish that followed the brilliant promise of her open- 
 ing life, one restrains his inclination to cuff her when she 
 says, " I write merely for remuneration ; and I would rather 
 scrub floors if I could get as much by that healthier, more 
 respectable, and more feminine employment." 
 
 (But there must have been some defect in a woman who 
 
and Worthlessness. 155 
 
 could pay court to such a man as Dr. Mitford. A daughter 
 must honor her father, whatever be his character. She must 
 do her filial duty, however gross, selfish, and ungratefiil he 
 be \ but to give to such a man the homage of her heart 
 makes heart's homage of little worth.) 
 
 All that can be done for women is to help them do as 
 well as possible what they never can do well, but what it is 
 absolutely necessary they should do somehow. It is im- 
 probable that women will ever become, to any large extent, 
 tillers of the soil ; but the Horticultural School established 
 in Boston most wisely offers to them an opportunity for 
 thorough education in the theory and practice of horticul- 
 ture. It aims to choose that part of agriculture most suited 
 to women, and to substitute trained, skillful, well-directed 
 labor for untrained, clumsy, and spasmodic effort. We may 
 admit that women can never equal men in trade, or com- 
 merce, or industry ; but, because many women are born to 
 self-support, and because all women may be reduced to self- 
 support, he who founds a college to teach women the vari- 
 ous branches of science, art, and industry confers a real ben- 
 efit. A viroman thoroughly trained to the occupation of 
 type-setting or hair-dressing may or may not be inferior to 
 the thoroughly-trained male printer or barber, but she has 
 a great advantage over the untrained woman. That she is 
 less deft than a man is no reason why she should not be as 
 deft as a woman can be ; and I fancy her best is far beyond 
 the masculine average. So the objections raised to these 
 schemes — that they tend to take women away from their 
 homes — is not only futile, but fatuous. Women are out of 
 their homes already. It is not a question whether their life 
 shall be domestic, or mercantile and mechanical. It is 
 whether they shall be intelligently and lucratively mechan- 
 ical, t)r awkwardly, unprofitably, and fatally so. Were it 
 otherwise, did the choice lie between self-support and man- 
 
156 Woman's Worth 
 
 support — coming, of course, naturally, and, therefore, honor- 
 ably — there would be but one answer. And here is where 
 I branch off from the woman's rights reform. If I under- 
 stand it, the leaders teach the absolute worth and desirable- 
 ness of manual labor to woman. They say (I quote from 
 one of their prominent journals), "Women should earn their 
 living. This is the first spring to action. Girls should be 
 reared, like boys, to depend upon themselves for support. 
 Self-support .... creates a self-respect which nothing else 
 can confer. No true happiness is found in dependence. No 
 true life is consistent with it." 
 
 Thus it puts men and women on the same plane. It 
 counts pecuniary independence equally incumbent on, and 
 pecuniary dependence equally degrading to, both sexes. It 
 demands entrance for woman into all departments of labor, 
 not as the remedy of an evil, but as the fulfillment of a mis- 
 sion. I do not know how strongly enough to express my 
 dissent. I think the necessity of earning her own living is 
 a woman's misfortune. She who must support herself in 
 order to respect herself is an inferior sort of woman. In- 
 deed, so far as regards any conception of her part in the 
 economy of life, she is no woman at all. Probably her in- 
 stinct overbears her intellect, and she is nineteen twentieths 
 more a woman than she would make herself out to be, but 
 her theory is wholly defective, and grievously below the real 
 standard. 
 
 Pecuniary dependence, degrading to men, is not only not 
 undignified, but is the only thoroughly dignified condition 
 for women. In a renovated and millennial society all wom- 
 en will be supported by men — will have no more to do with 
 bringing in money than the lilies of the field. 
 
 It is the misfortune of our age to be as yet far removed 
 from that day ; but to imagine it, and then call it degrading, 
 is altogether intolerable. Says a woman's paper : 
 
and Worthlessness. 157 
 
 " The intervening years (between girlhood and marriage) 
 are replete with dependence — conventional, honorable, but 
 still grinding dependence ; chained to one house, to one 
 round of duties, one constant claim of service. If claimed 
 in love, it is well. [This seems to be inconsistent with a 
 subsequent assertion.] If claimed as payment for benefit 
 received, it is a fraud upon her time, her thought, and pur- 
 pose in life. With no will save her father's, and no benefits 
 save of his conferring, and no privilege save of his indul- 
 gence, she and her mother are serfs — loving and beloved, 
 petted and indulged, caressed and flattered, it may be, but 
 serfs notwithstanding. 
 
 " When the girl prefers to risk all and help herself, desir- 
 ing a little means of her own earning, it is regarded as a di- 
 rect reproach to her father. It is regarded as a still greater 
 reproach to the husband when the wife aims at self-depend- 
 ence. ' Can't that man support his wife ?' is the every- 
 where-urged question." 
 
 Surely this is wild writing. An artist might as well sketch 
 the outline of heaven and label it hell. What meaning have 
 words to the mind that calls a " loving and beloved, petted 
 and indulged, caressed and flattered" wife or daughter a 
 serf? The cause must be hard pushed for grievance which 
 finds such a state of things a grievance. 
 
 And the remedy is as grotesque as the grief is imaginary: 
 
 " Suffrage will be to her what concealed weapons are to 
 the traveler — a provision for defense which, if unused, still 
 secure respect and an unmolested transit. 
 
 " The presence of three or four citizens in the house, with 
 a citizen's power of redress and a citizen's power to change 
 poor laws, is a very different thing from the presence of sev- 
 eral abject, timid, dissatisfied women, whom it is a pleasure 
 to abuse because they can't help themselves." 
 
 To me, I must confess all this seems a mere travesty, and 
 a ludicrous travesty, of real social conditions. We will ad- 
 mit that, technically, legally, the husband and father has the 
 right of eminent domain. He is a citizen, wife and daugh- 
 
IS8 Woman's Worth 
 
 ter or not. Actually, also, if he is a wrong-headed or bad- 
 hearted man, he may be an intolerable tyrant. There are 
 men so persistent of will, so feeble or twisted in intellect, 
 that never so superior a. wife can only manage them — can 
 never thoroughly subdue or renew them — Scanlans who con- 
 quer by their very weakness. But there are also female 
 Scanlans, and no law can be framed to touch them. Civil 
 codes may reach a state of absolute perfection, doing equal 
 and entire justice to man and woman, and a husband will 
 still be able to hector his wife to death, and the wife her 
 husband ; and as between the two, one is inclined to think 
 she does it best. A woman has rather more power to make 
 a home steadily and unmitigatedly uncomfortable than has 
 a man. But this writer is not speaking of petty tyrants. 
 He expressly depicts a husband and father, able, willing, 
 and longing to support and to cherish ; loving and express- 
 ing love in all love's ways. To call wifehood tojuchj. man 
 serfdom is to den ominat e at random. Iftherejs a ny ser£ u, 
 dom about it, it is far more on the husband's side than on 
 the wife's. There is no slavery so abject as thejlavery oi^ 
 a man to the woman he loves. Abject, forjt goesjbehiad 
 his' will and possesses the whole maru, hxA the more a 
 man he is, the more strong, and bjight, and free^the more 
 thorough is his enthralhnent. Woe to such a onejTM^ 
 fails into^the hands of a weak, a fri volou s, or an_unworthy 
 owner. Joy to Jiim ifjns pr oprie tor be a la^Miatoed 
 woman, for2then_his completest thrall is 'Ks most exalted 
 and divine freedom. 
 
 In every known sense of the_word, a woman owns the man 
 who Igxfis her more than he owns_her. Her^love js^perhaps 
 as great, b utjt is not so absorbing;^ She sees the situation, 
 where he only sees hen She is as strong as all his strength, 
 because his strength is hers. With whatever of power, or 
 wisdom, or renown he is endowed, she also becomes pos- 
 
and Worthlessness. 1 59 
 
 sessed, and no enlargement of his borders diminishes one 
 iota of his dependence upon her for the ability to enjoy them. 
 If there is any difference, the supreme control, the court of 
 last resort, is hers. 
 
 As for the loving and beloved, the petted and caressed 
 daughter, the case is even harder for the happy father. A 
 beloved wife is a constitutional monarch, after all, but a 
 good daughter is apt to be an absolute despot. Indeed, she 
 often carries things with so high a hand that the more expe- 
 rienced mother and less captivated wife has not infrequent- 
 ly to interfere to mitigate the rigor of paternal servitude. 
 A mother will often wisely discriminate against her daugh- 
 ter's wishes, where a father will make an immediate and un- 
 conditional surrender. 
 
 " Father," says Susy to that gentleman, on his return home 
 after some weeks of absence, " you are going to the theatre 
 to-night." 
 
 " Why, no, Susy, I think not. I never was at a theatre in 
 my life." 
 
 " But you are going to-night. Fanny and I mean to take 
 you. I have bought the tickets. Your education has been 
 too long neglected, and you must see the world." 
 
 And, so sure as evening comes, the respected citizen and 
 Church-member is boldly and bodily taken possession of by 
 the saucy chits, and marched off to the theatre — clanking 
 his chains, it must be confessed, as if he loved them. Lov- 
 ing and beloved, petted and caressed, indulged and flattered 
 he may be, but the veriest serf notwithstanding. 
 
 "With no will save her father's." If parents were called 
 upon for evidence, I suspect they would testify to a different 
 state of things. It must be a humdrum sort of family of 
 which the father would not depose and say that there are as 
 many wills in it as there are daughters. 
 
 " Grinding dependence." The girl who submits to such 
 
I do Woman's Worth 
 
 a thing in her father's house is an inferior girl, and the con- 
 stitutional amendment that is to avail her must come from 
 heaven, not from Congress. The world is all before her 
 where to choose. If her father does not wish her to be de- 
 pendent on him, or if he taunts her with her dependence, 
 she can leave him and make her own way in life ; and she 
 always should. A girl who will stand insult from any quar- 
 ter is simply mean-spirited. If she would rather stay at 
 home and grind than strike out for herself and grow, how 
 can law or Gospel help it ? You can not put fluck into 
 people. There are women, and men too, for that matter, 
 who seem to lack not only the aggressive, but the resisting 
 element. They are born to be cowed. There is no snap 
 in them. They never stand up to any thing. And if a 
 man, coarse, somewhat tyrannical, and a little brutal, has 
 them in his house for wife or daughters, he is tolerably sure 
 to impose upon them. He will generally give all that they 
 will take, and can any law be framed that will prevent it ? 
 
 But where a father loves and cherishes his daughters, feel- 
 ing that they are a part of himself, and that their happiness 
 is his honor, no place in the world is for them so suitable 
 and fit as their father's house, and no way of getting a living 
 is so suitable as with their father's money. If they are gift- 
 ed in any direction, let them exercise their gifts. If money 
 follows such exercise, it is no disgrace. If the cultivation 
 or the desired and desirable exercise of their power call 
 them away from home, let them go ; and if, as they attain 
 maturity and self-poise, the absence is prolonged, still the 
 home-circle is but stretched under wider skies — it is not 
 broken. If they have no special gifts, there is still the com- 
 mon field of home and society, which will bear ages of till- 
 age without danger of running to too much richness. Such 
 dependence is the natural order of things, and is not degrad- 
 ing, but ennobling. Like the quality of mercy, it blesseth 
 
and Worthlessness. i6i 
 
 him that gives and her that takes, and is even more blessed 
 in the giving than in the receiving. I suppose the care, 
 provision, and support of a family is just as much a means 
 of grace to the care-taker as to the care-receiver. For the 
 consolidation of his own power ; for continuity of purpose 
 and vitality of heart ; in one word, for the perfect develop- 
 ment of his manhood, a man needs wife and child to cher- 
 ish. Nothing else so constantly calls forth his tenderness, 
 his chivalry, his unselfishness. Surely it can not be degrad- 
 ing for a woman to receive what it ennobles a man to give. 
 Surely God never would have made the instrument of a 
 man's salvation the tool of a woman's destruction. 
 
 Sometimes, even where the father feels as all fathers 
 should — where his happiness would be in gratifying every 
 wish of his daughters, in winning for them a home that 
 should satisfy at once their wants, their tastes, and their 
 hearts — he is yet unable to do it. He can not command 
 the income that will enable them to live as he and they 
 would wish. Dutiful and affectionate daughters will then 
 be glad to help their father by helping themselves ; or, where 
 the father is able to provide and does provide abundantly, 
 a girl may still desire to incur expenses or bestow charities 
 which she feels that her father hardly ought to be asked to 
 meet, and she takes keen pleasure in some money-earning 
 scheme of her own — a scheme, too, in which she often en- 
 lists her father's sympathy and assistance. A thousand 
 such incidents diversify and enliven, without deteriorating 
 the dependence of daughter and wife ; but all the same 
 and always I maintain that the dependence of a loving 
 daughter upon a loving father is the ideal condition of 
 things, and her ideal home is in his house. It is only in 
 such or similar relations that woman can do her real work. 
 If she must go out and earn her living for herself, it is so 
 much time and vitality taken from her higher and appropri- 
 
1 62 Woman's Worth 
 
 ated to her lower uses. Whatever work she does from in- 
 ward prompting, from an irresistible love of it, detracts in 
 no wise from her womanliness, for the one is as natural as 
 the other ; but doing work simply to earn a living is un- 
 natural, and not to be desired to make her wise. 
 
 Let me not be understood to defend a state of things oc- 
 casionally seen, but disgraceful to all concerned — a father 
 occupied only in earning money, a wife and daughters occu- 
 pied only in spending it. The father is immersed in busi- 
 ness, works early and late, takes little holiday ; the wife and 
 daughters wear fine clothes, fare sumptuously, and live in 
 idleness. His life is all drudgery, theirs all recreation. 
 His aim is to keep as much money out of their clutch as 
 possible, theirs is to clutch all they can; or, if he. is a 
 notch lower down financially, his struggle is to meet their 
 ever-clamorous call. It is a case of self-denial, without dig- 
 nity, on the one side, and of repulsive selfishness on the oth- 
 er — the mere travesty of a family whose sham splendor is 
 the least of its shams. Let us hope such families are few ; 
 but there are far too many who verge toward it — too many 
 who find pleasure in finery wrung from toil, rather than in 
 the sympathy and affection of the toiler ; who care not how 
 dreary may be the life, or how ungratified the taste and un- 
 satisfied the heart of the father, so they can pursue their 
 round of useless and senseless frivolity. Nor, on the other 
 hand, let these women be confounded with those saints and 
 martyrs who are connected with miserly and self-willed men 
 — women whose lives are a constant effort to fetch water 
 out of a rock ; high-spirited women, who know that there is 
 money enough, who know how to spend money judiciously, 
 yet who, to insure even a scant supply, are forced to expend 
 upon their crabbed bondholders an amount of ingenuity and 
 persistence that, properly applied, would have tunneled the 
 Hoosac Mountain years ago. Their life seems to be a pro- 
 
and Worthies sness. 163 
 
 longed Battle of the Wilderness ; but they look at their 
 young in the rear, set their teeth, and square themselves for 
 the fight. And they generally come off conquerors. They 
 educate their children, introduce them to and keep them in 
 good society, and, hardest of all, varnish their old dragon 
 himself with a thin coating of humanity, and hold him up 
 to a shuffling, shambling ambling alongside themselves. 
 Sometimes Heaven is kind, and he dies. Then a sweet 
 peace suffuses their lives, and their faces shine with a lustre 
 not to be hidden by all the crape wherein they swathe them- 
 selves withal. 
 
 Nor let me, by any possibility, be supposed to cherish or 
 defend that class of women whose existence in this country 
 one could never credit except on unimpeachable testimony ; 
 women so radically different from the genius of the place 
 and the age, so entirely aside from the line of our national 
 development, both in its strength and its weakness, that I 
 am not sure but we ought to cherish them as a sort of me- 
 mento mori — a needed reminder that human nature is the 
 same in all ages and countries ; and that, though we pride 
 ourselves on our independence and energy, there is a latent 
 indolence or passivity in the blood which occasionally shows 
 itself, and which may at any time burst out — perhaps it 
 would be more appropriate to say creep out — and reduce us 
 to the unresisting, undignified subordination of the " effete 
 despotisms" of the Old World. 
 
 I mean women who, by death or disability, are deprived 
 of their natural guardians ; who have to choose between tak- 
 ing care of themselves and being taken care of by persons 
 on whom they have no claim, and who choose the latter. 
 The natural guardians of a woman are her father and her 
 husband. They, of their own free will and choice, assumed 
 her life, and it is their shame if they do not, or their misfor- 
 tune if they can not, provide for her. But nobody else is 
 
1 64 Women! s Worth 
 
 her natural guardian. Upon no one else has she an un- 
 spoken claim. Into no other home than theirs has she an 
 undisputed right to enter, and no other doors is it impossi- 
 ble justly to close against her. 
 
 A father dies leaving his family penniless. It is a wrong 
 thing to do, but men will sometimes do it. We should all 
 think it selfish and unmanly for the sons to go on their way 
 and leave the daughters to go on theirs, unhelped. It is 
 happily a sight we seldom do see. I often wonder at the 
 bravery, fidelity, and delicacy with which boys assume a 
 burden devolved upon them, often through what was neither 
 more nor less than the improvidence or incapacity of their 
 fathers. They " fight the bitter fight" for two, or three, or a 
 dozen, without taking on airs, simply because it is the thing 
 to do, and never imagine themselves heroic. But just as 
 disgraceful as it would be for boys to neglect their sisters is 
 it for sisters supinely to permit themselves to be a burden 
 upon their brothers. A sister has no such claim upon her 
 brother as it is ever safe to presume on. She can not, after 
 arriving at maturity, be honorably supported by him unless 
 at his expressed and perfectly untrammeled desire. Even 
 then the connection may not be free from embarrassment. 
 I can hardly conceive of a case in which independence 
 would not be preferable. For a time the common support 
 may not be onerous, and the common home may be happy. 
 But by-and-by the brother forms new attachments, and his 
 marriage puts a new face on matters. He must either main- 
 tain two establishments, which he may be very far from able 
 to do, or he must have wife and sister in the same, and very 
 few houses were ever built large enough for such an arrange- 
 ment. ''^Men, and their wives, sisters, and mothers, may all 
 be saints, but when the code of laws regarding married 
 women is perfected, it will be a state-prison offense for a 
 man ever to propose to his wife in esse or in posse to live in 
 
and Worthlessness. 165 
 
 the family with his female relatives. I If his wife propose it, 
 or they invite and she accept, that is her own affair ; but for 
 a man to arrange it, and call that providing for his wife, is a 
 part of the naive and touching blindness which distinguishes 
 men in their conduct of delicate domestic affairs. | A girl 
 must then be in some sense cast off by her brother, or she 
 must be a superfluous member of his household, and uncer- 
 tain at any time whether she may not be a burdensome and 
 undesired one. The time may come when she will be need- 
 ed and summoned, but how much better for her to be self- 
 sustaining from the beginning and be summoned ! This 
 does not necessarily involve isolation or even separation 
 from her brother, but it does involve a partnership whose 
 benefit shall be iputual, and in whose existence both shall 
 have a power of choice. 
 
 There are women who will rest, or at least exist, upon 
 weaker ties than these ; who will depend for support upon 
 the merest shadow of a claim ; who, strange as it may seem, 
 appear to think that it is more unladylike to work for money 
 than it is to endure an obligation. They fondly imagine 
 themselves to be decayed gentlefolk, and that their narrow, 
 straitened, useless life allies them to the English nobility. 
 So they deny themselves society, amusement, travel, all 
 largeness of life ; they shut themselves in dingy rooms ever 
 growing dingier ; live in dressing-sacks from which they 
 emerge only on rare state occasions ; devote all their pow- 
 ers to evolving elegant garments out of shabby ones, and 
 very likely succeed ; expend in the struggle to live respect- 
 ably on the allowance furnished by some grudging relative 
 an amount of time, industry, ingenuity, and perseverance 
 which, properly directed, would secure them an ample in- 
 come, and find their one consolation in the reflection that 
 they are ladies, reduced and impoverished like the ladies in 
 English novels, but ladies still. But a lady would rather dig 
 
1 66 Woman's Worth 
 
 ditches, and die in the last one, than live on charity. A 
 gentlewoman is decayed beyond all tradition of past grand- 
 eur and all hope of future resuscitation before she can levy 
 contributions on reluctant connections, or become the recip- 
 ient of unwilling bounty. No occupation is so menial as 
 beggary, and no beggary is so mean as indirect beggary. 
 
 Sometimes these women may be found clinging together, 
 and sometimes they attach themselves singly to other house- 
 holds, and occupy an undefined, but always unhandsome po- 
 sition. Few sights are more pitiable. " Anxious and aim- 
 less," bitter but repressed, without natural play of the facul- 
 ties or freedom of choice, dependent upon the will and per- 
 haps the caprice of men who do not love them, and who par- 
 tially despise them, with their good qualities depreciated and 
 their faults magnified, their greatest virtue an enforced pa- 
 tience, and the tenderest feeling they excite a half-contempt- 
 uous pity, they tread their dreary way from a youth without 
 spirit to an old age without respect. 
 
 To be obliged to support herself is a woman's misfortune. 
 
 To shift the obligation from her own shoulders to those 
 of another is her fault. 
 
 The best place for a woman is in the home that wants her. 
 
 The worst place is in the home that does not want her. 
 
and Worthkssness. 167 
 
 IX. 
 
 SERVILE OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 What shall a girl do in her father's house ? 
 / f Oh ! if girls had but open eyes to see the unreaped har- 
 ! I vests, the unsown fields that stretch around them ! 
 
 Looking only in one direction, we must see that our so- 
 cial life is largely lacking in the higher and finer elements, 
 which women, and perhaps women alone, can supply. Men 
 are absorbed in affairs. They have often little cultivation ; 
 and even their shrewdness, their hard sense, their practical 
 sagacity they are too apt to leave behind them in field, and 
 shop, and counting-room. Their time is limited, their the- 
 ory of society meagre, their standard of womanhood low, 
 and the women whom they meet are not concerned or adapt- 
 ed to raise it. I have seen the whole tone of conversation, 
 even in a brilliant company, persistently dragged down by 
 one aggressively ignorant and vulgar woman. If such a 
 thing can be done in a green tree, what can not be done in 
 a dry ? If light can be extinguished by an unfavorable at- 
 mosphere, how much more can it be prevented ? Not many 
 women are aggressively ignorant or aggressively vulgar, but 
 unconscious insipidity is by no means uncommon. There 
 is a great army of women in city and country whose only 
 individuality is a flavor of goodness. They are of power 
 only in the mass. Of themselves they give no inspiration 
 and hold no opinions. They are simply susceptible to in- 
 fluences. Their views on most things are nothing worth. 
 In company they have an amiable desire to entertain you, 
 and a traditional belief that you are to be entertained by con- 
 
1 68 Woman's Worth 
 
 versation ; so, when you have by good luck fallen into the 
 company of the traveler just returned from Syria, and he is 
 deep in his description of the last hieroglyphical discovery 
 on Mount Sinai, this good and amiable woman at your el- 
 bow strikes out with her friendly, self-satisfied voice, and 
 asks you if you do not feel sorry that round hats are giving 
 way to bonnets ! If she were a child you would say " Hush !" 
 But she is a woman — ^yes, and a lady ; so you reply polite- 
 ly, and of course discursively, and are just as effectually cut 
 off from Mount Sinai as if you had received a telegram from 
 home that your family are down, one and all, with cholera. 
 Yet the lady did it out of pure goodness. Because you 
 were not talking, she thought you were being bored. Mount 
 Sinai had no attractions for her, and she had not discrimi- 
 nation enough to see that it had any for you. That a wom- 
 an could be interested in hieroglyph would have seemed to 
 her something altogether literary, unnatural, blue. 
 
 Even in those classes where the women are petted and 
 supported, and the men preoccupied with business, are the 
 materials for , social entertainment as rich and abundant 
 among women as among men, and the selections as sedu- 
 lously and carefully made ? Am I wrong in thinking that 
 the complexion, the tone of our social assemblies is chiefly 
 given by men ? A dinner is successful according as the 
 male guests are bright or dull ; scarcely according to the fe- 
 male guests. Which is the oftenest invited for pure agree- 
 ableness, a man or a woman ? Which is the more common, 
 to bid a man to your banquet because he is his wife's hus- 
 band, or a woman because she is her husband's wife ? 
 
 But this ought not to be. Women ought to be good talk- 
 ers. It is their eminent domain. There is much banter 
 afloat on the subject, and one might easily suppose that our 
 women were given to talk ; but nothing is further from the 
 truth. Their fault in society is that they do not talk. They 
 
and Worthlessness. 169 
 
 are timid — not socially, but intellectually. They are afraid 
 to imbibe, or to cherish, or to enunciate ideas. They mis- 
 trust their own capacities and acquirements, and have mis- 
 trusted them so long and so sincerely that the mistrust pres- 
 ently becomes final and fatal. They have too much sense 
 to be silly, and too little power to be self-forgetful, so they 
 take a secondary place when they ought to be in the van. 
 It is not oppression on the one part, nor superiority on the 
 other, but the natural effect of a long line of causes. Wom- 
 en not only fear men, but they fear each other. They fear 
 themselves, they fear hobgoblins ; and, perhaps, to their dy- 
 ing day, never find out that their next neighbor was just as 
 afraid of them as they were of her, and that it was always a 
 question of hair's-breadth which should flee first. 
 
 Here, then, is one thing for girls to do in their father's 
 houses. Does it seem slight ? Is it so easy that girls can 
 give themselves to it, and yet find time hang heavy on their 
 hands ? On the contrary, it is so complicated and so impor- 
 tant a matter, it is an opportunity so vast and munificent, 
 that every woman of leisure in the country might find in it 
 ample career, and yet leave a large work undone. No de- 
 partment of life offers a wider field for influence than the 
 department of society ; and here women are by nature rulers, 
 and not subordinates. But to rule, and not to deteriorate, 
 they ought to be women indeed, strong-minded and strong- 
 hearted ; women of nerve and beauty, of ideas and opin- 
 ions, of reasons and facts ; women who can influence, and 
 command, and control ; who can rebuke and encourage j 
 who shall sway men by that which is highest in both j who 
 can discern and elicit the hidden power, and be hospitable 
 to the modest thought ; who can repress without wounding, 
 befriend without patronizing, and refine without enervating ; 
 who can resist silently, perhaps, but steadfastly, the onset of 
 popular fallacy, turn quietly aside from a false standard, and 
 
 H 
 
1 70 toman's IVorth 
 
 frame and fashion not so much by direct effort as by indi- 
 rect influence. Such a woman need not say, " Be noble, be 
 generous, be true ;" but, by reason of some subtile quality in 
 herself, some unseen but persuasive and pervasive power, 
 some insinuating grace and graciousness, no man brings to 
 her any thing but his best. 
 
 Do you say such a woman is born, not made ? Rather 
 all women ate born to be thus made. But the work needs 
 care, and wisdom, and mental training, observing eyes and 
 just reasoning, wide benevolence, and an infinite, delicate 
 sympathy. It furnishes scope for every faculty which a wom- 
 an possesses, and it demands imperatively her especial pre- 
 rogative — tact. It is a work which, if not done by women, 
 will not be done at all. Man has a perpetual tendency to 
 disintegration. Woman is the cohesive element of society. 
 It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. It is in 
 woman to direct them for him. In the best of men there is 
 always a trait and trace of the savage. It is, indeed, neces- 
 sary to constitute the best sort of man. If this savage is 
 well held in hand by a woman, or by the feminine force of 
 society, he is a serviceable addition to our social life,- if not 
 in a sense its substratum ; but, left to himself, he is always 
 ready to spring upon the man to his undoing. 
 
 The mysterious attraction which every where draws men 
 to women is a sacred trust committed to women by the 
 Creator. It is not only a power irresistible, but a posses- 
 sion inalienable. By no misuse or disuse can it be forfeit- 
 ed. In listening to some of the arguments against woman 
 suffrage, one might suppose that there was danger lest the 
 sexes should become disaffected toward each other ; lest 
 women should be able so to array themselves in masculine 
 armor as to alienate the regard of men. That will never 
 be. The Minnesota farmers were far nearer the real state 
 of the case in their comical Fourth of July " sentiment :" 
 
and Worf/misness. 171 
 
 " ' The woman of the coining time ?' 
 
 Shall man to vote app'int her ? 
 Well, yes or no ; your bottom dime 
 
 ffe'll do as she's a min' ter ! 
 We know she ' will,' or else she ' won't ;' 
 
 'Twill be the same as now ; 
 And if she does, or if she don't, 
 
 God bless her anyhow !" 
 
 It is not beauty, nor wit, nor goodness, for the attraction ex- 
 ists independent of all these. It is simply womanlaood. 
 Man pays deference to woman instinctively, involuntarily, 
 not because she is beautiful, or truthful, or wise, or foolish, 
 or proper, but because she is woman, and he can not help 
 it. If she descends, he will lower to her level ; if she rises, 
 he will rise to her height. This is the real danger — not that 
 she will drive him from her, but in that she can not drive 
 him from her. She can not help being his blessing or his 
 bane. She can not make herself into a being whom he will 
 not love. If she is insipid, ignorant, masculine, coarse, then 
 he will love insipidity, ignorance, masculineness, coarseness, 
 and be himself deteriorated. So much the more ought wom- 
 an, by virtue of this mysterious and inalienable power, to 
 rise to the height of its wise and worthy exercise. Instead 
 of making it merely the minister of her own indolence and 
 vanity, it should be made to minister all human grace and 
 succor. Instead . of regarding it as a reason why she may 
 dispense with prudence and wisdom, it is the reason of all 
 reasons why she should concentrate within herself every re- 
 source of prudence and wisdom. " I am glad women are 
 not learned," says a little fool ; " I leave that to the men ;" 
 and imagines she has said something womanly and winning ; 
 and because her feathers, and flowers, and flutters some- 
 what hide her inanity, and she has her feeble following 
 among the males of her own kind, and the outward courtesy 
 of men, she is perhaps never undeceived. But, whatever 
 
172 Woman's Worth 
 
 may be said of the undesirableness of learning for women, 
 a woman never lost any thing by being intelligent. Culti- 
 vation, information, intellect always tell. More than this, 
 their absence is fatal. Folly will not prevent beauty from 
 being attractive and admirable ; but whoever has other ends 
 in view than the gratification of her personal vanity must 
 have something besides beauty. Loveliness palls, and good- 
 ness loses flavor; and she who would do any thing for a 
 man but pull him down, must add to her virtues sense. 
 Women ought to be so ready in resource, so well furnished, 
 and well balanced, and high toned, as to be the conscience, 
 the judgment, the moral umpire of society. They ought so 
 to live and so to think that men shall respect their opinions 
 and solicit their counsel. Men in the thick of the fight may 
 sometimes find their views obscured ; women in a tranquil 
 atmosphere should always be clear-sighted. 
 
 But, before this is done, women must be able to discrim- 
 inate between the points on which they are competent and 
 those on which they are incompetent to pronounce opinion. 
 How many of these petted and caressed serfs, to whom the 
 father says, " You have a good room, enough to eat, and 
 plenty of nice clothes to wear ; you are very unreasonable 
 to crave more" — how many of these girls have a connected 
 and communicable knowledge of the world's history ? How 
 many of them know where in the chain of logic to locate 
 our great Rebellion or the last great European war ? How 
 many of them know the struggles, the advances, the retro- 
 gressions of mankind in its upward or onward progress ; the 
 developments of character or tendency of race, the trials 
 and the modifications of different forms of governments, the 
 checks and the impulses in result of which we stand in our 
 place to-day ? But why is it any more exalting or ennobling 
 to go into a telegraph oifice, or a boot and shoe store, and 
 " tend" all day, than it is to pursue such investigations ? We 
 
and Worthkssness. 173 
 
 say in America that we have no cultivated class like the 
 cultivated class of England, because we have no hereditary 
 wealth. Every one here must first "get his living," and 
 take what of art, or science, or literature he can at odd hours. 
 But we look forward to the time when we shall have a cul- 
 tivated class. We pay great honor now to those sons of 
 rich men who, instead of going into business to increase the 
 wealth which their fathers accumulated, or going into dissi- 
 pation to scatter it, betake thernselves to learning, illustrate 
 their country, honor their name, and show the true blessing, 
 the highest, or one of the highest uses of money. They do 
 not perhaps immortalize themselves by great discoveries ; 
 perhaps they add nothing to the common stock of knowl- 
 edge, but they are invaluable to those who do. They form 
 a circle gratefully receptive of and stimulative to all great- 
 ness ; and, without noise or parade, by their refinement, their 
 calmness, their judgment, their critical power, their discrim- 
 inating observation, and freedom from personal ambition, 
 they become not only the ornamental, but one of the most 
 useful and potential forces of a society which has sore need 
 of them. 
 
 I doubt not that where young men of these possibilities 
 are to be numbered by units, young women are to be num- 
 bered by hundreds. It is the rule in our country for young 
 men to go into some money-making business, whether their 
 fathers be rich or not. It is the rule for young women 
 whose fathers are rich, and for many whose fathers are far 
 from rich, not to earn money. Here we have at once the 
 material for a cultivated society. We have the very condi- 
 tion necessary for intellectual advancement — that is, mate- 
 rial comfort. And, indeed, this is no trifling consideration. 
 Believe me, girls, a good room, enough to eat, and plenty 
 of nice clothes to wear, " without the soiling one white hand" 
 to procure them, is not a bad thing. The women who must 
 
174 Woman's Worth 
 
 spend all their time in earning these can not turn aside to 
 cultivate the amenities of literature. Upon you — you, to 
 whom all these good gifts come without money and without 
 price — upon you devolves the duty of serving your country, 
 and repaying to society tenfold what it has given you, by be- 
 coming repositories of knowledge and of taste, shining lights 
 of social life, women whom the wisest men shall seek, whom 
 the weakest shall not shun, and whom only the wicked shall 
 fear, but whom they shall fear exceedingly. 
 
 It is but a conjecture, yet I offer the conjecture that if the 
 father finds his three or four daughters as conversant as 
 himself with the history and philosophy of politics, holding 
 opinions as decided and as well founded and fortified, talk- 
 ing French poetry with his French visitor, and German met- 
 aphysics with the German visitor, each in his own tongue, 
 suggesting difficulties to the astronomer, and adding curios- 
 ities to the museum of the professor — it is but a conjecture, 
 yet I conjecture that this father would by these manifesta- 
 tions be as soon deterred from abusing his daughters as he 
 would by the consciousness that he had three or four citi- 
 zens walking around the house with a ballot in their hands ! 
 
 To the petted, caressed, and indulged serfs may there not 
 be suggested the possibility of some good work to be wrought 
 upon the bloated aristocrat, the remorseless and relentless 
 t3rrant who thus pets, and caresses, and lodges, and dresses 
 them? 
 
 He is a human being even if he is their father, and, as a 
 human being, perhaps not wholly hardened to gracious influ- 
 ences. It is not much to be the father compared with what 
 it is to be the mother. Still it is something ; and where the 
 father does the best he knows how, and learns better as fast 
 as he can, it is a good deal. The father who is now stand- 
 ing prisoner at the bar seems to be one of the first of his 
 class. He does all the material duty of a father in provid- 
 
and Worthkssness. 175 
 
 ing for the material comfort of his child, and he goes a long 
 way in the performance of all other duty by loving, caress- 
 ing, and indulging her. Is it really a worthier, a nobler 
 thing for his daughter to go into a type-setting establish- 
 ment, and handle bits of metal all day, than for her to stay 
 in his house, to brighten his home, comfort his heart, kindle 
 his sympathy, medicine his weariness, freshen his ideas, dis- 
 pel his despondency, pour youth into his age, and keep him 
 mellow, and receptive, and alert ? I think work on mind is 
 more dignified, more womanly, and, for a woman, more eco- 
 nomical than work on matter, even if that mind be your own 
 father's. If there be also a mother ; if, besides, there are 
 three or four brothers and sisters, with an occasional aunt 
 or uncle, how can any bright, wide-awake, well-educated girl 
 be at a loss for employment ? With a family affectionate, 
 well disposed, and well conditioned ; with a society intelli- 
 gent, free, and accessible ; with the world of literature, art, 
 and science thrown open to every explorer ; with a future 
 as great in promise as severe in requirement, be sure it is 
 not opportunity that fails, but ability to see and seize it. 
 
 When a man who has inherited an abundant fortune lives 
 narrowly, dresses meanly, and shuns the interests, the amen- 
 ities, the responsibilities of life, we do not call him a great 
 man, but a small man, a miserable man, a miser. If a young 
 man, in good health, of good education, refined associations, 
 and ample means, should, at the age of twenty years, choose 
 to become a miner," or a coal-heaver, or a hod-carrier, we 
 should not call it nobleness or independence. We should 
 merely think that it showed, a low taste. He is not earning 
 his living, because he has his living without earning it. A 
 living is the first, least, and lowest object of desire. It is 
 the common aim to secure that, and then build upon it the 
 beauties, graces, and sweetness of living. So it seems to 
 me that a woman who turns away from the living which her 
 
176 Woman's Worth 
 
 father provides, and gives her time and strength to provid- 
 ing one for herself, is wasting the advantages to which she 
 was born, and falls below the standard of divine — that is, of 
 natural — requirement. Instead of beginning her ascent from 
 the half-way house where she finds herself, she goes to the 
 foot of the mountain and climbs up. If the question is be- 
 tween idleness and dress-making, by all means let a girl 
 leave her comfortable home and apprentice herself to a 
 dress-maker, but let her not demand admiration for her 
 grandeur of character in so doing. It is better to be a 
 dress-maker than to be an idler, but it requires a far higher 
 order of mind and heart to do the social work that awaits 
 the woman of leisure than to make gowns. It is better to 
 do the lower work than none at all, but it is not better than 
 to do the higher work. If a girl goes into a shoe factory to 
 run a sewing-machine, it is chiefly a matter of hours, pieces, 
 routine. If she lives the best life at home, she must ob- 
 serve, infer, compare, forbear — she must, in short, enlist ev- 
 ery faculty of mind and heart, and this is far more complex 
 than routine work. If she must enter the factory because 
 her father is poor or churlish, that is another question ; but 
 if she goes because she chooses it, she simply confesses 
 thereby her incapacity for a more exacting career, and ranks 
 herself beneath many a poor girl who toils because she must 
 — toils under protest, and loves high all the while she lives 
 low. 
 
 I do not think these cases are common in life. The girls 
 one usually meets in society are, happily, quite ready to take 
 the good the gods provide them. Petted and caressed daugh- 
 ters, whose comforts are provided and whose tastes are grat- 
 ified, will sometimes become artists, writers, teachers, sisters 
 of charity, but I never knew one who was possessed with 
 the desire of earning her own living. There may be such 
 women, but probably the closest scrutiny would discover 
 
and Worthlessness. 177 
 
 that, almost without exception, women earn money from ne- 
 cessity, not choice. They do it to piece out the scanty in- 
 come of husband or father. They do it because he is nig- 
 gardly, tyrannical, and insulting, and any menial service to 
 a stranger is better than dependence on such kinfolk. They 
 do it from love, or from disdain for help or defense, but 
 never of pure liking and free choice. The honored and be- 
 loved wife, the beloved and cherished daughter, not only 
 never ought, but never does, feel discomfort in dependence. 
 She has no desire to renounce serfdom or to break chains, 
 for there is no serfdom to renounce, no chain to break. 
 Probably she seldom thinks of it at all; but if she does 
 think of it, she thinks only how much happier is her lot, who 
 is nourished through the ministry of love, than her neigh- 
 bor's, whose life is only a thankless round of buying and 
 selling. Girls born to wealth are ready enough to be idle, 
 ready enough to be ignorant, and more ready still to be friv- 
 olous. Unhappy girls break away from narrow homes — 
 from selfish, domineering fathers ; from wayworn, heart-wea- 
 ry mothers ; from coarse, hated, and hopeless surroundings 
 — to fight feebly or bravely, but single-handed, the hard bat- 
 tle. The one needs to be roused and incited to higher aims, 
 to better thinking, to wiser and wider living j the other as 
 sorely needs to be recognized, instructed, encouraged ; but 
 neither the one nor the other is enamored of pure self-sup- 
 port. Without assuming to have made the slightest investi- 
 gation, I count it not hazardous to assert that of all the re- 
 spectable young working-women in the country, the most 
 excellent and intelligent, nine out of ten would relinquish 
 with joy their money independence in the prospect of be- 
 coming the " loving and beloved" wife of a man who was 
 able to maintain them, while the caressed and petted daugh- 
 ters who would rush into self-support as a refuge from their 
 caressing and despotic fathers is a class of the community 
 
 H2 
 
178 Woman's Worth 
 
 seldom met, except in the columns of certain earnest and 
 benevolent newspapers. 
 
 Fax distant be the day that shall make it otherwise. Far 
 distant be the day that shall send girls out from their fa- 
 ther's roof to make their own way in life, as boys make 
 theirs. Immeasurably further that day that reckons it no 
 reproach to the husband for the wife to feel her dependence 
 upon him an unpleasant thing. Badly as women do man's 
 work, men do woman's work still worse ; for it is a far more 
 complicated, intangible, and indefinite thing. Women them- 
 selves do it not too well, largely because our imperfect civ- 
 ilization has as yet kept them bound so closely to the rough- 
 er toil of man. But if women, having been so long dragged 
 into that arena as straggling, struggling prisoners, shall now 
 organize their forces, and voluntarily march in with intent 
 to stay there as their fitting and final place — why, water will 
 run up hill and fire will flame downward. Under certain 
 stress of influence, water will run up hill, and a fierce breath 
 will fan the flame awry ; but Nature is never permanently 
 disturbed, and, in spite of all human hydraulics and pyro- 
 technics, 
 
 " Rivers to the ocean run, 
 
 Nor.stay. in all their course ; 
 Fire, ascending; seeks the sun ; 
 Both speed them to their source." 
 
 Note. — It is but fair to say that, since the above was printed, an en- 
 ergetic young lady writes to me, "/ am one of the many women whom I 
 could show you who are ' possessed with the desire of earning their own 
 living.' . - 1 would not be dependent on my father (there are few fathers 
 his equals . . . . ) if he were a millionaire to-morrow. . Solely from the 
 'desire of earning my own living,' I would go into a factory if I could 
 not get my own shoes, and hats, and books in any other way. I never 
 supported myself to ' piece out the scanty income' of my father, or ' be- 
 cause he was niggardly, tyrannical, insulting' (as well might-an angel in 
 heaven be !), or ' from love or from disdain for help or defense,' but from 
 
and Worthkssness. 179 
 
 ' pure liking and free choice.' There's no man alive on whom I would 
 be dependent till my last sickness knocked me helpless. If I had mar- 
 ried it would be just the same. In fact, it seems to me more unnatural 
 to be dependent on one's husband than one's father." 
 
 To which I would simply add the suggestion that when these princi- 
 ples are carried out in practice to their legitimate conclusion, we shall 
 not wait long for our last sickness, but be knocked helpless in limine, 
 and I, for one, should not much care. 
 
i8o Woman's Worth 
 
 HOME TRAINING. 
 
 If there is any person who has a keener sense than the 
 present writer of the faults of men in their own families — 
 their selfishness, their brutality, their downright dishonesty 
 — that person is to be pitied. Yet is there not something 
 touching in the situation ? A man works all day with brain 
 or hand, or both, year in and year out, forecasting, planning, 
 anxious ; and not his ships on the sea or his shops on the 
 land, but some tender, fragile wife, some little chit of a child, 
 it is who holds all his happiness in her feeble hands. He 
 exiles himself from home eleven months in the year, six 
 days in the week, shutting himself in dreary chambers, liv- 
 ing in dismal boarding-houses, not that his children may be 
 fed and taught, but that life may be gay and blithe to them ; 
 that they may have the dainties and luxuries which he could 
 not otherwise afford them, and for which he himself has no 
 especial taste. His enjoyment is not in kid gloves and fresh 
 ties, but in his children's enjoyment of them. Often, when 
 he is peevish, tyrannical,, and inconsiderate, it seems more 
 the result of the false teachings and wrong surroundings of 
 generations than any spontaneous outburst of original sin in 
 himself The selfishness is more superficial, if it is at the 
 same time more obvious and disagreeable, than the unself- 
 ishness. Deep down out of sight is a root of pure affection, 
 a capacity for self-abnegation ; but nobody ever thought a 
 man had any thing to do with such things as self-abnegation. 
 His mother believed it was her prerogative, and never taught 
 him the virtues of daily and hourly consideration for others ; 
 and as for the father — fathers have been rowing in the same 
 
and Worthlessness. i8i 
 
 boat for generations. So the man, kind at heart, and mean- 
 ing only good to his fellows, goes helplessly on, making him- 
 self odious by small tyrannies and unrepressed impatience, 
 simply because self-sacrifice and self-repression have never 
 been drilled into him. If wife or child be sick, he will move 
 heaven and earth to heal them. Then he denies himself 
 instinctively J does not know that it is denial. Sleepless 
 nights and anxious days, lavish expenditure and the tender- 
 est and most unwearying care, count for nothing to save the 
 lives or restore the health of those whose tastes and feelings 
 he has ruthlessly trampled on a thousand times, and will 
 trample on again as soon as they are strong enough to bear 
 it. Here is good missionary ground for an enterprising 
 Christian young woman to occupy, and not the less so that 
 the heathen pays all her expenses, and does not know that 
 he is her field of operations. 
 
 If the daughters of a house are "abject, timid, dissatisfied 
 women, whom it is a pleasure to abuse because they can't 
 help themselves," it is simply because they are not bright. 
 They are what is called in vulgar phrase " under par." They 
 are the very persons who ought not to vote — not because 
 they are women, but because they are idiots. A grown-up 
 woman who will stay at home and let her father abuse her 
 is an object of pity, and should be sent to South Boston to 
 receive the protection of the law, rather than to Beacon Hill 
 to make it. 
 
 A thousand times less even can the ballot do for a wom- 
 an, a thousand times less is a woman fit for the ballot, who 
 is not her husband's equal at home. Nothing but character 
 can give her this position, and nothing but her own weak- 
 ness — weakness of will or of wit— can take it away. True, 
 a man's peevishness, perverseness, and pertinacity will often 
 make headway against immense superiority of nature in a 
 woman — indeed, because of this superiority. The great 
 
1 82 Woman's Worth 
 
 heart yields where a petty heart would resist, and there is 
 silence instead of sputtering. How this is done was never 
 better told than in Miss Mulock's " Brave Lady," a book 
 wonderful for the minuteness, the awful fidelity with which it 
 transcribes the experience of a grand woman crucified by 
 marriage to a mean man. But even there — so sure is supe- 
 riority to conquer in that most difiicult of races, the long 
 run — Miss Mulock, all conservative and duty-bound as she 
 is, a writer who not unfrequently exasperates one by a con- 
 ventional true-womanliness, a sweet submission, and defer- 
 ence to marital and masculine superiority that is simply 
 fatuous in a woman of her power, and is to be forgiven only 
 to her English training — even Miss Mulock is obliged to re- 
 lease her heroine from the logical necessity of leaving her 
 husband by discovering in him a heart-disease after the last 
 trunk is packed. To be sure, the stumbling-block may seem 
 but visionary. If Heaven has sent a heart-disease to a 
 worse than worthless husband, the utmost that can be re- 
 quired of a wife is that she should hot jump at him from be- 
 hind the door. That, however, is an indifferent matter. The 
 point established, so far as Miss Mulock can establish it, is 
 that a woman who is superior to her husband, and we may 
 infer also one who is his equal, must live with him on a foot- 
 ing of equality, or she can not live with him at all. Laws 
 far more oppressive than our own did not hide Josephine's 
 ability from Mr.' Oldham, nor could divine sovereignty have 
 revealed it to Edward Scanlan except as he already saw it 
 through a glass, darkly. 
 
 Few men, it is to be hoped, are so hypocritical and imbe- 
 cile as Edward Scanlan. Those few should be dealt with 
 summarily. Many even of the irritating domestic despots 
 have integrity and ability. What they lack is right training. 
 Now, if a man of real worth happen to have these audacious 
 plantation manners, shall his wife give in to them ? Yes, if 
 
and Worthlessness. 183 
 
 she has no respect for herself and no regard for his charac- 
 ter. But if she values her own growth in grace, if she be- 
 lieves her husband capable of becoming a polished corner- 
 stone in the temple of the Lord, let her set about polishing 
 him at once. If he thinks that she lives upon his bounty, 
 let her not try to earn money in by-ways, that she may avoid 
 calling upon his bounty, but let her be instant in season 
 and out of season to uproot and overthrow his notion that 
 he is bestowing bounty. A woman takes a man for her hus- 
 band of her own free will, and she has no right to give up 
 his soul to weeds and wilderness because the soil is hard to 
 cultivate. Until she has proved beyond question that he is 
 a hopeless desert, she should not desert him. But to do 
 neither the one nor the other — to see his selfishness, and to 
 pamper him in it ; to suffer from his false opinions of their 
 relations, and yet to confirm him in them ; to endeavor to 
 compete with him in buying and selling, instead of showing 
 him how far more vital, how infinitely more intricate is her 
 work than all his buying and selling — this implies a reck- 
 lessness of moral and conjugal obligations not pleasing to 
 contemplate. If she can not convert him she may control 
 him. If she can not renew, she can at least repress. If 
 she can not open his heart, she can close his lips. If she 
 can not bring him to walk with her happily in the right 
 path, she ought to prevent him from taking any comfort in 
 the wrong. 
 
 The trouble is that women too often hold the same erro- 
 neous opinions as their husbands. They, too, fancy — or at 
 least admit — that pecuniary dependence involves inferiority 
 of position. Because their husbands earn the money, and 
 themselves spend it; because' their husbands claim to be 
 the real owners of property, and class the wife as a recipient 
 of favor, they let it go so, think it is so, act as if it were so. 
 Thus men walk blindly, led by blind leaders. 
 
184 Woman's Worth 
 
 Just as well might the rough and rocky foundation claim 
 to be superior to the marble temple that rises upon it state- 
 ly and beautiful. The foundation supports the temple ; the 
 temple does not support the foundation. The foundation is 
 not dependent upon the temple ; the temple is dependent 
 on the foundation. Therefore the temple is the inferior and 
 subordinate structure ! 
 
 The queen is dependent upon her subjects. The work 
 she does for them is almost as intangible as the ideal wom- 
 an's work, but nobody considers the queen degraded there- 
 by. It is because she is queen that all her realm pays trib- 
 ute to her. Would her position be exalted, or would she do 
 more for her kingdom by apprenticing herself to a linen- 
 draper ? She might, indeed, earn her wage, but she would 
 have to give up being queen. 
 
 If there is really no need of queens, let the queen turn 
 linen-draper. If there is really no better work for women, 
 let them become hewers of wood and drawers of water, and 
 thus obtain equality with men. Let thei marble dome grub 
 in the earth alongside the granite foundation, and witch the 
 world with noble architecture. 
 
 The demand on the part of female writers and speakers 
 that women shall earn their own living, the assertion that 
 they must earn their own living in order to retain their self- 
 respect, ought not to surprise one, and is, indeed, rather an 
 encouraging token. Any thing is better than for a wife to 
 remain unprotesting in the degraded and dishonoring posi- 
 tion assigned her in too many families. If the only way out 
 of it were through ditch-digging, she would much better dig 
 ditches than stay in her place content. No doubt ditch- 
 digging is easier work than converting many of these hard- 
 headed husbands to right ideas of their own place in the 
 world after they have gone on for years imagining them- 
 selves the sole rightful, and making themselves the sole real, 
 
and Worthlessness. 185 
 
 authority in the family. But if women would only begin 
 right ! Nature seems to have been aware that man in his 
 ordinary estate is not malleable, and when she is about to 
 bring him into " the Woman's Kingdom" she has recourse 
 to special means of grace ; she causes him to undergo a 
 preparatory process of softening and sweetening, which the 
 unregenerate call being " in love," and which relegates him 
 to the woman's care, pliable, yielding, and, indeed, amazing- 
 ly susceptible to her wise and gracious influence. This is 
 the tide in the affairs of women which, taken at the flood, 
 leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their lives 
 is likely to be bound in shallows and in miseries. This is 
 the time for a woman, not to assert her equality, not to an- 
 nounce her sovereignty — for that might imply a possible op- 
 posite opinion — but to assume it. The time during which 
 her authority is unquestioned should be sedulously employed 
 in making it unquestionable. It is at the beginning that 
 wrong action can be hindered. It is the rising of a wrong 
 spirit that should be repressed. A woman is the mistress 
 in her own house ; and if her authority be disputed, or, worse 
 still, despised, the world had better stop revolving than she 
 yield to the insubordination. But if she has gone on for 
 years giving way before it, she may nearly as well hope to 
 turn the stars from their courses as the man from his ways, 
 though it never can be too late to try to mend. The very 
 first outcropping of a disposition on the part of the husband 
 to look upon their property or their income as any more his 
 than hers should be indirectly, if possible, but resolutely and 
 really, put down. When a woman is married to a man, the 
 idea is that they are made one. If they are one, she, at the 
 very least, becomes endowed with all his worldly goods. If 
 they are two, they have not scripturally been married at all. 
 But would not this involve control of business, justify, or at 
 least permit, extravagance on the part of the wife, and place 
 
1 86 Woman's Worth 
 
 the husband completely at her mercy ? Yes, if the problem 
 of life is to be wrought out by arithmetic. Yes, if a social 
 principle or a rule of ethics be as exact, as exhaustive, and 
 as immitigable as the multiplication table. I do not know 
 how to express the rightful ownership of a woman in her 
 husband's property without using language which should al- 
 low a disastrous interference with his business, neither can 
 I express strongly enough my opinion that a man should 
 manage his business himself without using language which 
 should involve an exclusion of his wife from the control of 
 their property. And, unfortunately, language is no more un- 
 manageable than facts. Men will conduct their affairs on 
 principles so unsound that ruin and disgrace must follow, 
 while their wives see, understand, and deplore the causes 
 which bring ruin, and vainly strive to apply the checks that 
 would prevent it, or the remedies that would restore prosper- 
 ity. Yet the general fact remains that the man is the right- 
 ful natural manager in business, and the woman the right- 
 ful natural manager at home. And in actual trial there is 
 not only no trouble involved in this arrangement, but there 
 always must be trouble without it. Economy, improvement, 
 harmony, and happiness are impossible under any other re- 
 gime. A wife is never more unbecomingly occupied than 
 in meddling with her husband's business, and a man is nev- 
 er more despicable than when he is bothering around in the 
 house. The phrase is not elegant, I know, but it is elegant 
 enough for the thing phrased. There is no reason why a 
 man should not control his business himself, except that he 
 is unfit for it ; and, if he is unfit for it, his wife should not 
 have married him, in the first place. If a man has not con- - 
 fidence enough in a woman to intrust his house to her care, 
 he should not have asked her to be his wife at all. If either 
 has made a poor choice, he must simply make the best of 
 it. This classification of responsibility means neither isbla- 
 
and Worthlessness. 187 
 
 tion nor autocracy on any subject whatever. The wife 
 whose position is precisely what it ought to be is the one 
 who makes her husband's comfort, convenience, and pleas- 
 ure the first principle of housekeeping. The man who is 
 most successful in conducting his business is the very one 
 who is likely to talk it over every now and then with his 
 wife. The wife who has only to go to the bureau-drawer 
 or to send to the bank for money, with a clear understand- 
 ing of the resource whence bank and bureau draw their sup- 
 ply, and of the plans and requirements of the future, is the 
 very wife who will make that money go the farthest and 
 bring the most. In the ideal family there is constant, in- 
 stinctive, conscious, and unconscious consultation. The hus- 
 band and wife are in all each other's thoughts. Authority 
 never appears, for it is never appealed to. The husband 
 and wife simply go on from day to day leading the life which 
 is natural, doing the things that are considerate, helpful, rest- 
 ful, heartening, that make business interesting as well as lu- 
 crative, and home stimulant as well as happy. And when 
 you see these homes — homes free from the ostentation of 
 love, but full of its richness — little worlds of busy thought, 
 and activity, and opinion, not devoid of perplexity, not ex- 
 empt from trouble, but always nurturing a character free, and 
 fresh, and strong, and wholesome — it seems as if this is the 
 only kind of home that ever could be. 
 
 Alas ! that it is not. Alas ! that its rarity is largely be- 
 cause women will not come to their own — to that which 
 would be theirs for the coming, and which no ballot could 
 ever give or take away. Looking at those unhappy men 
 whose wives and mothers have permitted them to grow up 
 crabbed, morose, unreasonable, domineering, illiberal, one 
 might speak like David in haste, and say. If a man is not 
 good by nature he can not be good by grace. Yet I sus- 
 pect there is no creature more amenable to training, as 
 
1 88 Woman's Worth 
 
 there is certainly none more dependent upon training, than 
 man. The irreclaimable are few. By far the greater num- 
 ber might, by firm, gentle, wise treatment, be made as good 
 and agreeable in the common as they are in the casual re- 
 lations of life ; might be made as reasonable at home as 
 they are polite abroad ; and if by no patience and no possi- 
 bility can gentle treatment make them good, then, as I have 
 already hinted, let heroic treatment make them submissive. 
 Here nothing avails but a courage that amounts to reckless- 
 ness. This women seldom have till the last gun is fired. 
 They are more afraid of public speech than private suffer- 
 ing. They will toil and moil, coax, storm, overreach, con- 
 trive, argue, tease, shame, scold, but keep on ; and the hus- 
 band does not mind the teasing and scolding, and does not 
 know of the overreaching and contriving, and really cares 
 for nothing at all so long as the wife keeps on. The only 
 thing he would care for she does not do. She does not 
 plant herself fair and square, without words, but with an un- 
 alterable resolution, on her reserved rights. A farmer will 
 go out in the morning with three or four hired men, and 
 leave his wife, without any servant, to do all the work, 
 which she does not complain of, but also to bring in wood 
 and water, which she does complain of. Now if, instead of 
 complaining, and bringing wood, and making up for lost 
 time by extra hurrying, she would leave her cooking-stove 
 at the precise point where wood or water gave out, and 
 spend the rest of the morning in pleasant reading, welcome 
 her husband when he comes home hungry to dinner with 
 that cheerful smile that we read so much about in the news- 
 papers, and say pleasantly, " Charley, dear, you did not leave 
 me any wood. I will be setting the table while you are 
 building the fire again, and we will have dinner all ready in 
 two hours," how much more likely would Charley be to fill 
 the wood-box next day before he drove his team afield ! A 
 
and Worthlessness. 189 
 
 masterly inactivity is more effective than scolding. If a 
 wife is denied access to or power over the common income, 
 and, instead of striving to keep up appearances on a nig- 
 gardly and grudged allowance, which, after all, may be the 
 result of pure inexperience, would swiftly, deftly, and em- 
 phatically bring dress, table, husband, every thing down to 
 the allowance, wearing only calico gowns, and pinning a 
 towel around the children's necks — ^putting the deficiencies, 
 that is, where her husband could perceive them — I think he 
 would speedily relinquish his solitary grandeur, and pray 
 madam to become chairman of a committee of appropria- 
 tions. Once a man gave his wife five dollars to buy a little 
 lad's first outfit. She stretched it as far as it could be 
 stretched, cut up her own cambric gowns, and for the rest 
 assumed indifference, and made, after all, a brave display. 
 The five dollars was perhaps enough to buy one little slip. 
 Suppose, now, she had bought the little slip, and said to her 
 husband, " It is to be hoped, my dear, that our son will bring 
 a hardy constitution with him, as there is nothing awaiting 
 him in this world but one muslin frock" — which will proba- 
 bly astonish the nurse, and make lively talk among the 
 neighbors — "but, if you like it, I have no objection, and no 
 doubt there will be a contribution taken up for him in church 
 before winter sets in !" 
 
 There are undoubtedly cases in which defective law 
 causes suffering in families, but we are utterly beguiled by 
 words if we suppose that, in the every-day family life, be- 
 cause the husband votes and the wife does not, the husband 
 has therefore any real power- over the wife ; that because 
 the father is a citizen, and the daughters are not, he takes 
 opportunity to abuse them. If he domineers over them 
 now, he will domineer them into voting his way. If they 
 have not spirit enough and wit enough to hold their own 
 against him now, they will surely follow him, a timid, ab- 
 
I go Woman's Worth 
 
 ject, and dissatisfied procession, to the polls. And good 
 enough for them, and good enough for all women who are so 
 foolish and weak as to let men tyrannize over them, when 
 nature and grace alike call upon women to tyrannize over 
 men! 
 
and Worthkssness. 191 
 
 XL 
 FEMALE SAGACITY IN POLITICS. 
 
 The ballot is the head and front of the "Woman Move- 
 ment." Work and wages, education, property rights, all 
 are subordinate to or comprehended in the one demand for 
 female suffrage. It is not claimed that the suffrage will im- 
 mediately redress every wrong, but it is claimed that wrongs 
 will not and can not be righted without it. The demand 
 for the suffrage is based, first, on woman's natural right to 
 it ; secondly, on the ground that it is effective, and, indeed, 
 necessary for the purification of politics and the uplifting of 
 society j and, thirdly, that woman needs it for her own pro- 
 tection against unjust laws. 
 
 The question of natural right is an abstract one, and may 
 be argued forever without changing one's preconceived opin- 
 ion. Some persons even deny that there exists such a thing 
 as natural right to vote ; but if it do exist, it is difficult to 
 see why a woman does not possess it in precisely the same 
 measure as a man. Certainly no argument has ever been 
 presented by the opponents of female suffrage that seems to 
 me to have a particle of weight. But the matter appears to 
 be of slender practical importance. When women have ac- 
 quired the power to vote, their right to do so will pass out 
 of discussion ; and so long as they are not able to do so, 
 the right is of little use. 
 
 As to the second point, the improvement of politics, are 
 
 we equally at the mercy of pure reason .' Must we simply 
 
 ■ say that women are better than men, and, therefore, when 
 
 women become officially connected with politics, it follows 
 
iga Woman's Worth 
 
 as the night the day that politics will become clarified ? 
 Must we, that is, walk by faith alone till the rising sun of 
 woman's enfranchisement shall turn faith into sight ? 
 
 We are not here left wholly without witness. The char- 
 acter and effect of participation in politics by women are 
 not wholly matters of conjecture. Women have now for 
 many years directly concerned themselves in politics, and 
 the champions of female suffrage boast of victories already 
 won — years ago, through the influence of women, under the 
 marshaling of men ; later, by the direct efforts of women, 
 organized by their own leaders upon their own principles. 
 When, therefore, we are called upon to say whether the de- 
 sired improvement in society will be furthered by placing 
 men and women in the same position — not as men and wom- 
 en, but as citizens, with identical duties and identical respon- 
 sibilities, or, rather, for this is not an adequate statement of 
 the case, whether society will be advanced by woman's se- 
 curing or by man's assigning her what have been consider- 
 ed his own peculiar duties and responsibilities in addition to 
 those which she already has in common with him and those 
 which are peculiarly hers, and which she can not delegate 
 to him, then it is fair and fitting to look not only at what 
 women may be expected to do when they have gained full 
 political rights, but at what they actually have done in the 
 use of political weapons and the exhibition of political wis- 
 dom. 
 
 I have watched with unflagging interest, with such intelli- 
 gence as was vouchsafed me, and from what vantage ground 
 I could command, every phase of the movement that came 
 within the sphere of my observation. That movement has 
 advanced from weak and despised beginnings to a point 
 where it is discussed with seriousness, recognized by par- 
 ties, deferred to by leaders, and acknowledged in some quar- 
 ters as a not very remote future possibility. 
 
and Worthlessness. 193 
 
 From this careful observation of its course thus far, I can 
 not see that any thing in its treatment of difficult questions, 
 or in its conduct of delicate affairs — in the ends which it pro- 
 poses, the methods which it selects to accomplish those ends, 
 or the manner in which it pursues those methods — gives us 
 the smallest prospect of an introduction to a higher grade 
 of political life than that which we are already occupying un- 
 der the dynasty of man. I fail to see that it is more com- 
 prehensive in vision, more inexhaustible in research, more 
 radical in thought, more scientific in method, more conscien- 
 tious in action ; that in discussion it is more sober, candid, 
 just, and courteous ; that it displays more information and 
 less inflammation, more of philosophy and less of personal- 
 ity ; that it is more accurate in presentation, and more con- 
 scientious against misrepresentation ; that it is more judi- 
 cious in the selection of agents ; that it appeals to higher 
 motives, or teaches a wiser mode, or points to a wider field 
 of activity. It appears to me, on the contrary, that the wom- 
 an's party copies with singular fidelity the old ways of the 
 old parties, which ought never to have been entered at all. 
 Women, so far as they are already in politics, are doing right 
 over again, and often with a peculiar feminine facility, the 
 very things which have been done by men, and which ought 
 never to be done at all, while I have not been able to dis- 
 cern the introduction by them of a single improvement or 
 sign of improvement in political thought or action. Univer- 
 sal purity, freedom, and happiness are indeed noble ends for 
 any party, but no party in the country confesses or profess- 
 es any other ends. When we look at the means by which 
 the woman's party proposes to reach the desired results, we 
 find that they are either general, and, therefore, practically 
 worthless, or specific, but empirical, and often worse than 
 worthless, or they are the same means which men have been 
 employing and are continuing to employ. This has nothing 
 
 I 
 
1 94 Woman's Worth 
 
 whatever to do with the right of woman to the ballot. A , 
 man is not forbidden to cast his vote because he casts it for 
 the wrong person or the wrong measure ; no more should a 
 woman be. But when the vote of women is urged upon the 
 nation as its means of grace and hope of glory, it is requisite 
 and necessary to infer somewhat from such preliminary 
 grace and glory as have been displayed. If the dawn is 
 darkness, why shall we suppose that at evening time it shall 
 be light ? 
 
 Nor do these statements, if admitted to be true, involve 
 the inferiority of woman to man. It does not imply inferi- 
 ority to fail where he has not succeeded. It simply indi- 
 cates that at present she is not politically his superior. It 
 dismisses again to the domain of abstract reasoning the idea 
 that government and society are to be uplifted by the direct 
 professional participation of woman in politics, and leaves it 
 with presumptive evidence against it. 
 
 " If women were allowed to vote, hold office, and make 
 laws, they would be the means of purifying politics and ele- 
 vating the standard of morality among our officers and rep- 
 resentatives ; and we should, therefore, have better laws, and 
 criminals would not be so often permitted to escape their 
 just punishment." 
 
 So says a female suffrage newspaper ; and I ask for a 
 sign, unbelieving Jew that I am, and read on eagerly through 
 a column or more describing the defects and declaiming 
 upon the disasters of our present laws, till I come to the 
 conclusion ®f the whole matter in the final paragraph : 
 
 " When women are permitted to vote, they will not be long 
 in changing the unjust and tyrannical laws which men have 
 made for them, and we may confidently fexpect that they will 
 soon find some way to prevent intemperance and the sale 
 of poisonous liquors, to shut up gaming-houses, and will 
 prove that the arm of the law can be made powerful enough 
 to overthrow even the social evil itself. . . . And our legis- 
 
and Worthlessness. 195 
 
 lative halls will not so often behold such disgraceful scenes 
 as at present, and our representatives will be obliged to be 
 more dignified and more alive to the duties which they are 
 sent to perform." 
 
 Certainly the absolute and speedy prevention of the three 
 great vices of society is worth forming a new party for, No 
 one will deny that the rapid success of women in bringing 
 about a millennium which men have been trying and failing 
 to bring for centuries would be a victory brilliant enough to 
 justify all their eagerness to share in the fray. 
 
 But when we ask the plan of the campaign, we find noth- 
 ing but glittering and sounding generalities. All these de- 
 sirable things are to be done, and done soon, but the only 
 way in which they are to be done is — some way I Appe- 
 tites, habits which have hitherto baffled legislation, despised 
 affection, defied religion, are to be speedily overthrown, 
 and prevented from further encroachments, in some way. 
 The incredulous must be pardoned if they withhold their 
 faith until that way is more definitely marked out. 
 
 Another organ of the same party is sufficiently specific, 
 and affirms : 
 
 " It will be understood that we are a unit to help elect in 
 every town the man who is our friend ; to help defeat in ev- 
 ery town the man who is indifferent. Soon no man who is 
 not our friend will stand a chance of nomination. George 
 William Curtis says, ' Behind every demand for the enlarge- 
 ment of the suffrage hitherto there was always a threat.' It 
 will be so in the present case. Our threat must be an act- 
 ive, determined organization, in dead earnest to dig a polit- 
 ical grave for every man who opposes the enfranchisement 
 of the women of Massachusetts." 
 
 The party, it seems, will follow the simple standard of that 
 fine old English gentleman who classifies his acquaintance 
 by one rule : " D — d scoundrel, sir ; he is opposed to me !" 
 or, "First-rate fellow, Smith ; he is my friend !" It does not 
 
196 Woman's Worth 
 
 question a man's principles or character. It is enough that 
 he be "our friend." However stainless and" able he may 
 have proved himself, however well he may have wrought for 
 his country in the service of truth, freedom, and honor, he 
 shall give way to any charlatan who may choose to ride into 
 office on the hobby of woman suffrage, and who is perfectly 
 indifferent on what he rides, so he rides in. 
 
 And is there not shown, in the construction put upon Mr. 
 Curtis's words, an entire failure to comprehend their real 
 scope ? What sort of threat is it that has lain hitherto be- 
 hind every demand for the enlargement of the suffrage ? In 
 recovering from our late civil war we were sore pressed. 
 On the one side was the danger of putting the ballot into 
 the hands of an ignorant and inexperienced class, out of 
 whom intelligence, integrity, straightforwardness, independ- 
 ence had been well-nigh crushed by generations of slavery. 
 On the other side were the ranks just conquered in rebel- 
 lion, whose monopoly of the vote would be likely to betray 
 the newly-won states into the hands from which they had 
 been so hardly wrested. The danger from disloyalty seem- 
 ed more imminent than the danger from ignorance, and 
 emancipated slaves were intrusted with the suffrage. Dis- 
 aster to the nation was the threat which lay behind the de- 
 mand for negro suffrage — a demand made not so much by 
 the negroes themselves as by the nation which incurred the 
 risk. The threats which have induced England to enlarge 
 her suffrage have in like manner concerned the public safe- 
 ty. A strong and resolute populace has made its wishes 
 felt. Armed mobs have alarmed the custodians of the na- 
 tion. Tumult, and violence, and quiet, fierce determina- 
 tion, and despair born of suffering, have menaced the whole 
 fabric of society, till old power recognized new power, and 
 granted it self-direction in self-defense — relinquished a part 
 of its prerogative to retain its continued existence. 
 
and Worthkssness. 197 
 
 But our threat has nothing to do with national danger or 
 national honor. No pillar of society seems about to give 
 way, no foundation-stone rocks in its place. Our threat is 
 a political grave for our opponents. Our threat is loss of 
 place to some office-holder or disappointment to some office- 
 seeker ! 
 
 What is this but an appeal to the lowest personal ambi- 
 tion of the lowest political hacks ? How will such an argu- 
 ment be likely to purify politics and put better men in au- 
 thority? Are these considerations calculated to induce 
 men to seek the truth, and let all the ends they aim at be 
 their country's ? What sort of politician would probably 
 be evolved from the man who would form his opinion and 
 shape his action under the influence of such a threat ? Must 
 not the result be that, while any real thinker, high-minded 
 and clear-sighted, would stand unmoved, or moved possi- 
 bly into an antagonistic position, the demagogue, ambitious 
 and unscrupulous, would hasten to lay hold of so easy a 
 help over hard places, and use it vigorously for his own 
 aggrandizement ? Are politics to be purified by a mode of 
 operation which have a tendency to exclude the men of 
 careful and conscientious thought and exact speech, and 
 attract those whose opinions arise from consequences rath- 
 . er than evidence, and who are ready to become all things to 
 all men if by any means they may gain office for them- 
 selves ? 
 
 After all, is there not a touch of grotesqueness in the sit- 
 uation ? A cause in search of a danger wherewith to re-en- 
 force its ranks must be reduced to its lowest terms when to 
 past national peril of the gravest moment it parallels the am- 
 bition of the virtuous citizen to be sent to general court or to 
 be made a city alderman. Even a non-election to the gov- 
 ernorship or a defeat for Congress is hardly to -be compared 
 to the rehabilitation of slavery or a forced return to anarchy. 
 
198 Woman's Worth 
 
 There is perhaps no question of public interest on which 
 the woman's vote promises more direct improvement than 
 the question of the prohibition or regulation of the sale of 
 liquor. It is a point that has been debated for years, has 
 been legislated upon with appalling frequency, and seems 
 yet further from settlement than when the Maine Liquor 
 Law was supposed to have exorcised the evil spirit forever. 
 Let women vote, we are assured, and the matter will be 
 speedily and permanently arranged. This would be a boon 
 indeed ; for a perpetual settlement — that is, a real settle- 
 ment — can be only upon the right foundation; otherwise 
 there is no settlement at all, but temporary adjustment, re- 
 newed upheaval, and constant unrest. Have men been 
 bungling over it with ignorant heads and unskillful hands 
 all these years ? '^Fiace aux dames ." 
 
 "I am convinced," says the Woman's Organ, "that if 
 woman's intuition and emotional force were free to speak 
 through the ballot, this greatest crime of the age [the liquor 
 traffic], which is doing more than all other crimes and causes 
 combined to make woman's heart and home desolate, might, 
 in its commercial sense, be banished within ten years." 
 
 I confess I do not precisely understand what is meant by 
 banishing this crime in its commercial sense ; but the no- 
 tion that a woman's vote can do in ten years what her voice • 
 has failed to do in ten thousand years seems to me to ban- 
 ish any suspicion of common sense. Undoubtedly, if you 
 appeal to the woman whose heart and home have been made 
 desolate by a drunken husband, her woman's intuition would 
 speak with great emotional force, and say that the simple 
 and absolute prevention of drunkenness was the entire sup- 
 pression of the liquor traffic. Without wine or spirit it is 
 impossible to be drunk. Forbid wine and spirit to be sold 
 or made, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, drunk- 
 enness is swept from the face of the earth. 
 
and Worthkssness. 199 
 
 Nothing can be plainer — not a mathematical axiom, not 
 the multiplication table itself; and the only wonder is that 
 we should have waited so long, and suffered so much in 
 mind, body, and estate, before discovering or applying a rem- 
 edy so simple and so accessible. In all the prognostica- 
 tions of good to arise from woman's vote on temperance, I 
 have seen no hint of any other mode of action. Women set 
 their face like a flint against intemperance, and they will 
 suppress it by sheer force. They forecast no plans to de- 
 stroy a love of liquor, or to increase self-control and self-re- 
 spect, but they will simply make it impossible for their hus- 
 bands and fathers to buy liquor. 
 
 When a suffering woman passionately advocates the burn- 
 ing down of the grocery which supplies her husband with 
 the bad rum that is destroying him ; when a company of 
 energetic women, out of patience with the inefficiency of the 
 laws, and with the self-indulgence and self-destruction of 
 their husbands, go in a body to the dram-shop and empty 
 its contents into the gutters, one is not shocked. Human 
 nature is not infinitely elastic, and breaks if put upon too 
 great a stretch. But when a body of women, who are de- 
 manding active participation in political management for 
 the purpose of securing wise laws — ^when they propose to 
 incorporate this vigilance committeeship into our civil code 
 on the strength of their intuitions, one is tempted to be im- 
 patient. Has history, then, no lessons which women are 
 bound to respect ? I have yet to see die first evidence that 
 any woman who has pronounced judgment in this matter 
 has ever taken count of any thing in it except the object to 
 be gained, and her " noble purpose" to gain it. One would 
 never suspect from the prohibitory arguments used that there 
 exists a vast and complex human organism, delicate but un- 
 conquerable, upon whose mysterious and unchangeable laws 
 must be based all measures for its benefit, or they will come 
 
200 Woman's Worth 
 
 to naught. One would never suspect that for centuries hu- 
 man wisdom and human benevolence had been studying 
 that organism, investigating those laws, and, though still far 
 from a complete knowledge, had arrived at some conclu- 
 sions which can not be overthrown. Nothing of this — not 
 even a reference, not even a recognition that such a state of 
 things exists — can I find in the arguments of the woman 
 party. It is true that many men are equally innocent in 
 regard to it, but women are coming cinto politics to supply 
 the deficiencies of men. What if they only increase the 
 bulk by adding to them their own ? If a cause is beset with 
 danger because it lies on the exact boundary-line between 
 individual liberty and public safety, and because the evil that 
 threatens on one side is immediate and obvious, while the 
 evil that threatens on the other is remote, unseen, far-reach- 
 ing, are we any thing helped by never so great re-enforce- 
 ments of pure but unthinking partisans, who see only the 
 obvious and never the hidden danger, only the individual 
 suffering and never the individual inviolability ; who have 
 not familiarized themselves with past experiment and past 
 effort, but throw themselves into battle for what was long 
 ago lost just as enthusiastically as if the fight were but this 
 day begun ? Intuition has undeniably its own field to work 
 in, and a woman can find ample use for all that Heaven has 
 bestowed upon her ; but to run a political party upon it 
 seems the very height of intellectual indolence, amounting 
 almost to crime. Have not women under the old regime 
 been sufficiently pampered with this pap ? Have not wom- 
 en from time immemorial been taught that brain-work was 
 too severe for their " delicate organization ;" that study and 
 thought were for men ; that they could jump at all the knowl- 
 edge that was necessary for them, that necessity being re- 
 duced to its minimum ; and been taught it with a result to 
 be met in the hosts of illiterate, incapable women whose fri- 
 
and Worthkssness. 201 
 
 volities and follies furnish a text for every newspaper in the 
 land, and (more disastrous still) will enstamp themselves 
 with unerring distinctness on the generations to which they 
 give birth ? For those who desire and design to keep wom- 
 en away from political action and influence, it is well enough 
 to enfeeble and deteriorate them with the notion that intui- 
 tion is sufficient ; but it is startling, indeed, when those who 
 are urging them on preach the same doctrine. No man 
 would commit the building of his house to intuition or even 
 to a keen rnoral sense. Shall we then commit to it the 
 building of this great national temple, under whose roof-tree 
 alone can life, and fortune, and sacred honor find sanctuary ? 
 Masculine ignorance lies in wait on every hand to destroy 
 it. What shall we say when womanly intuition comes to the 
 re-enforcement of masculine ignorance ? 
 
 The relations of labor and capital are becoming of vital 
 public interest. They concern the happiness, the very ex- 
 istence of thousands of homes. It is not strange that the 
 question has laid hpld of politics, or that it has attempted 
 to lay hold of legislation. The woman party has taken it 
 up with an earnestness and a unanimity second only to 
 those with, which it makes its first requisition upon the suf- 
 frage. Its battle-cry on labor is as direct and simple as its 
 battle-cry on liquor. All those complications which for 
 years have baffled alike the political economist and the prac- 
 tical philanthropist disappear before the talismanic formula, 
 Equal wages for equal work. Nobody is disturbed by any 
 question as to what constitutes equality of work, or whether 
 quality or equality be the more important. Nobody troubles 
 himself or herself by any irrelevant conjectures about de- 
 mand and supply. All is as plain as the sun in the sky. 
 Give to woman the ballot, and no longer shall the grammar- 
 school-master have thirteen hundred dollars a year, while 
 the grammar-school-mistress has five hundred dollars ; but 
 
 I2 
 
•202 Woman's Worth 
 
 the lion and the lamb shall have the self-same salary. Give 
 to woman the ballot (I have never heard this said ; but, of 
 course, it naturally follows, and is as certainly meant) — give 
 to woman the ballot, and no longer shall Bridget receive her 
 three dollars a week, while Patrick has two dollars a day ; 
 but Bridget and Patrick alike shall be paid their fifty dollars 
 a month. How the ballot is to accomplish this we are not 
 yet informed. No one has definitely mapped out this Prom- 
 ised Land ; but we are fervidly assured it is there, albeit 
 just beyond our secular vision. One female writer, rebuk- 
 ing the hard-heartedness of those who coldly point out wait- 
 ing work to suffering women, gives us her more excellent 
 way. I quote from memory her indignant assurance, that 
 when a woman, poor and unoccupied,, came to her with her 
 sad stor}', " I did not point her to my kitchen. I threw my 
 arms around her neck and wept with her." But whether 
 this mode of relief is permanent and efficacious, whether it is 
 susceptible of incorporation into our civil code, or of wide 
 introduction into our political system, may admit of doubt. 
 In spite of special cases, there is at present small reason to 
 believe that the time will ever come when laborers in gen- 
 eral will combine and cry rather than " strike," and capital- 
 ists will hug instead of resisting. 
 
 But hugging or haggling is a point of local and tempo- 
 rary interest. The real gist of the debate touches a darker 
 depth than this. There is a dangerous element in the dis- 
 cussion, to which women are but adding strength. 
 
 Masculine ignorance, plastic in the hands of partisan am- 
 bition, breathes covert or open threats of violence j in a free 
 country does not disdain to use force against its fellows, 
 and does not see that it is arousing for the laborer his most 
 formidable foe. It implores the interference of legislation, 
 not discerning that the imniediate good it craves would, 
 even if obtained, be a thousand times overbalanced by the 
 
a7id Worthlessness. 203 
 
 evil of bringing legislation into the field. And at this crisis, 
 when it needs all the resources of culture and patriotism to 
 steady affairs ; at this crisis, when it is almost a crime for 
 an educated person to couple legislation and labor ; at this 
 crisis our emotional woman comes rushing into the fray, and 
 demands the ballot for the purpose of procuring equal wages 
 for equal work. That no one explains how the ballot is to 
 adjust matters signifies nothing. The fatality lies in ap- 
 pealing to the ballot for adjustment. It is the resource of 
 ignorance and narrowness. It is the resource of women. 
 
 There are many other matters of national and interna- 
 tional concern which the leaders of the woman party have 
 touched lightly, if at all. These are the only two promi- 
 nent political questions on which their future action is plain- 
 ly foreshadowed. It was not, indeed, indispensable that 
 they should do so much. They might have fought the bat- 
 tle out on general principles, if they had so chosen. If a 
 man or a woman has a right to act, he shall not be forced 
 to say how he will act before he exercises that right. But 
 as the leaders of the woman party have of their own free 
 will announced their intended course, we, the people most 
 concerned, may pronounce judgment upon it. That their 
 discussions and decisions have helped to swell the flood of 
 ignorance, passion, and unreason which already menace us 
 with a serious danger is but a small part of the evil. It is 
 not so much that any special advocacy is unwise — it is that 
 they advocate on a false ground. It is not so much that 
 they may emotionally vote wrong — it is that they assume 
 in entire good faith that womanly intuition and emotional 
 force are an admirable basis on which to exercise the right 
 of suffrage. They exhibit no perception of the fact that it 
 is because women have counted their intuitions and their 
 emotions as their sole capital that, they are so weak, in- 
 sipid, and uninfluential, as we too often find them. "When 
 
204 Woman's Worth 
 
 women of pure character and noble purpose," they say, "par- 
 ticipate in practical political campaigns, a great step will be 
 made toward enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the dis- 
 franchised sex.'' They seem not to discern that pure char- 
 acter and noble purpose, though indispensable, are insuffi- 
 cient, and fatally insufficient; that a pure and noble-pur- 
 posed woman may do her cause and country as much harm 
 as a bad man. Instead of endeavoring to strengthen wom- 
 an on her weak side, they rather apotheosize her weakness 
 as the true strength. She is not exhorted to bulwark her 
 intuitions with reasons, to correct her emotions by judgment, 
 but simply to crystallize both into laws. Indeed, one of the 
 leaders, in addressing the members of a Republican Con- 
 vention, whom she " supposed to be above the ordinary level 
 of the Republican party and men of political sagacity," frank- 
 ly avowed that she never liked to speak simply to political 
 sagacity. The cause which she had to present was just, 
 and that was enough. " Simply to political sagacity." Are 
 women going into politics, then, with political insagacity for 
 a weapon, and a watchword ? It must be the one or the 
 other. There is no middle ground. Is it enough that our 
 cause is just ? Rather, it is notoriously not enough. All 
 things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. 
 Perhaps no great battle was ever won on the ground of 
 simple justice. A system of laws is a system of checks, 
 and balances, and averages, of the nicest and closest calcu- 
 lations. The engineering of a great party, the existence of 
 a party, demands the utmost political sagacity — a sagacity 
 which strikes every note of human nature, from the highest 
 mental perception to the lowest emotional force. Paying 
 all reverence, and most eagerly aspiring to this highest, most 
 comprehensive quality of the statesman, the only one which 
 embraces within itself all that is necessary to action, we 
 shall be in no danger of reaching too near perfection. Hu- 
 
and Wortncessness. 205 
 
 man nature is pretty sure to fall short, even if its standard 
 be high ; but the party that sets out with contempt for it, 
 the party that proposes to dispense with it, and vote the 
 straight-out womanly -intuition -and -emotion ticket, must 
 have exceptional luck, indeed, to conduct this great nation 
 with safety and honor along its tortuous and intricate path. 
 
2o6 ■ Woman's Worth 
 
 XII. 
 PRESS -WORK. 
 
 There is ' one department of political action, not least 
 in importance or opportunity, which is easily accessible to 
 women, which they have already entered, and in which they 
 occupy no inconsiderable or inconspicuous ground. I refer 
 to the department of political writing — more definitely call- 
 ed political correspondence — more definitely known, per- 
 haps, as Washington correspondence. In its capacity for 
 use and abuse, in its opportunity for good and evil, it is 
 difficult to imagine a more tempting field for the display of 
 womanly wisdom, prudence, and purity in the way of reform- 
 ing influence. 
 
 The power which centres in newspapers is appalling. It 
 is as strong for evil in the hands of evil men, as it is for 
 good in the hands of good men ; and evil men have not 
 been slow to find it out. It goes to the ends of the earth, 
 and brings to the humblest hearthstone the latest discovery 
 of science, the latest contribution of history, the latest com- 
 bination of power. It tells to the workman resting under 
 the trees at midday how the whole world fares, and in- 
 trenches on visible and tangible ground the brotherhood of 
 man. It is ardent and eager. It rends the veil from hy- 
 pocrisy, it voices the general conscience, it opens to thor- 
 ough and wholesome discussion all plans and plots that 
 concern society. But, unhappily, it is also reckless, re- 
 vengeful, dishonest. It is careles of truth, and delicacy, 
 and privacy. It pries and tattles. It corrupts the taste. 
 
and Worthlessness. 207 
 
 and vulgarizes the manners. It makes and mars reputa- 
 tions for personal or partisan ends, or from the mere com- 
 mercial value of scandal and " sensation." It uses its pow- 
 er for a menace, and its opportunity for a stab. It has even 
 descended to minister to the vanity of the vainest, to the 
 weakness of the weakest, and to degrade intelligence to 
 drivel. 
 
 Let me give one or two examples — not to prove, but to 
 illustrate. I shall take them not from such newspapers as 
 strike their roots in wickedness and feed on iniquity. There 
 are such, but they are generally well known ; they are not 
 quoted as authority, and their opinions have little weight. I 
 select the newspaper which is, perhaps, in all the country, 
 the most calm in advocacy, the most judicial in tone ; which 
 assumes and appears to be moderate, courteous, far-sighted, 
 above the heat of the hour, and deaf to the clamor of party. 
 Certainly no paper has been more forward to emphasize the 
 importance of accuracy, to denounce violation of courtesy, 
 looseness of statement, and disregard of individual rights. 
 It has been steadfast in enunciating correct principles, and, 
 if it be not high-minded, truthful, and honorable, it is Peck- 
 sniffian to the last degree. Yet in such a paper as this one 
 may read the following paragraph : 
 
 "To THE Editor of the : 
 
 " Sir, — A writer in your last week's issue speaks 
 
 by name of three leading railroad men, of whom Mr. A. B. C. 
 is one, and characterizes them as ' avaricious, unscrupulous, 
 often dishonest, and always unreliable.' As one who has 
 had some opportunities of knowledge on the subject, I beg 
 to say, in behalf of Mr. A. B. C, that there is nothing in the 
 private character or public record of that gentleman to war- 
 rant a paper like the in affixing to his name such 
 
 damaging epithets." 
 
 Then comes the editorial statement : 
 
 " The charges are certainly such as should not be made 
 
2o8 Woman's Worth 
 
 against any body unless supported by specifications, and we 
 regret their appearance, which was due to an oversight." 
 
 I do not know how, in so small a space, a greater public 
 and personal wrong could be perpetrated. An editor uses 
 his paper to proclaim to all the inhabitants of the land that 
 a certain man is habitually a liar, and occasionally a thief; 
 and, being confronted with a denial of his statement, neither 
 proves nor retracts it, but quietly " regrets" that he made it ! 
 More than this, the " regret" is so framed as to leave an im- 
 pression on the mind of the reader that, after all, the charge 
 may be true. 
 
 A man might just as well " regret" that he had slain his 
 neighbor as that he had thus attempted to slay his good 
 name. What shall he do ? Stand in the pillory an hour 
 every day for a month, with a rope around his neck, and 
 proclaim to the assembled crowds, " I am the man who, with 
 a full knowledge of the greatness of the crime, bore false 
 witness against my neighbor." "False," because a man 
 who asserts what he does not know to be true is radically 
 as untruthful as he who asserts what he knows to be false. 
 This first ; then, having thus robbed a man of honor, he 
 should immediately investigate the matter, at whatever per- 
 sonal inconvenience to himself, and either prove that the 
 man was justly dishonored, or reinvest him with integrity in 
 the most explicit manner. 
 
 The same paper says again : 
 
 "When we read from time to time in the papers that 
 Mr. B. was associating with German scholars, and making 
 speeches to Germans in the German language, and other- 
 wise entering fully, freely, and with perfect familiarity witl;i 
 its ways and ideas, into German society, we felt he was tres- 
 passing a little too far on our patience, and we have been 
 expecting for some time that he would come to grief. Ac- 
 cordingly, we are not surprised to find that the proposi- 
 tion, which, we believe, emanated from him originally, and 
 
and Worthkssness. 209 
 
 which the President has embodied in a message to Con- 
 gress, to send to the new German Empire a mission of equal 
 rank with that of Paris and London, will, if carried out (as is 
 probable), involve Mr. B.'s retirement by involving the sup- 
 pression of the present Prussian mission. The new place, 
 it seems, is wanted for Judge O. ; and he ought to have it, 
 because he will bring to its duties a thoroughly fresh and 
 unbiased mind, owing to a thorough want of diplomatic ex- 
 perience, and a fair ignorance of the German tongue. He 
 will thus enter on his duties without any entangling allian- 
 ces or prejudices, from which Mr. B. can hardly be free." 
 
 Here the assertion is made in the most offensive manner 
 — that is, by implication, and with a sneer — that Judge O. is 
 unfit for the position which is supposed to be assigned him, 
 by reason of inexperience and ignorance. Diplomatic inex- 
 perience in a foreign service organized — or, rather, unorgan- 
 ized — like ours means nothing whatever ; but what shall we 
 say of this autocrat of all the newspapers when we learn that 
 Judge O. spoke the German language exclusively for the first 
 fifteen years of his life, that he still addresses crowded Ger- 
 man assemblies in their own language with an eloquence 
 which arouses them to enthusiasm, and at the very moment 
 when this paragraph is pointed out to him he holds in his 
 hand a letter from a distinguished German scholar, consult- 
 ing him about some delicate point of German philology ! 
 
 Here the editor uses his paper and his commanding posi- 
 tion to spread through the land a statement which he either 
 knows to be false or does not know to be true, and draws 
 from it an inference which the fullest establishment of the 
 fact would but partially justify. The statement is somewhat 
 prejudicial to the person concerning whom it is made, and 
 the inference is extremely prejudicial to the government of- 
 ficers. It simply implies that they choose their servants for 
 unfitness, and dismiss a man as soon as he is discovered to 
 have peculiar qualifications for his place. The statement is 
 
210 Woman^s Worth 
 
 untrue, and the inference falls to the ground. What, then, 
 becomes of the editor, who, by the extent of his knowledge, 
 the soundness of his views, the wholesomeness of his incul- 
 cations, and the grossness of his transgressions, gets himself 
 to be esteemed almost a saint, and makes his own damna- 
 tion sure ? 
 
 I have referred to definite and demonstrable untruths, 
 circulated by a leading newspaper as truths, to the great 
 detriment of individuals. I will mention one or two exam- 
 ples of a more common, more general, but equally mislead- 
 ing mode of statement. 
 
 In the same paper occurs the following paragraph : 
 
 "We have no wish to depreciate Congress unduly. We 
 have no doubt its desire to do right is generally underrated 
 by the newspapers ; but nobody claims for the great body 
 of the members familiarity with financial history or political 
 economy. There is nobody, too, who has ever attempted to 
 master these subjects, or who knows any thing of the lives 
 of the great explorers of these fields of political science, who 
 is not aware that proficiency in them is only to be bought 
 by years of laborious study and constant observation of all 
 their phenomena at home and abroad. Now, as Mr. K. 
 pointed out the other day as the result of his own sad ex- 
 perience, members can not, in the present condition of the 
 civil service, give even the smallest amount of serious atten- 
 tion to the great economical problems now before the coun- 
 try. All the time they spend out of their seats is devoted 
 to interviews with the worthless class who are hunting for 
 offices, or to correspondence with constituents on the sub- 
 ject of" claims." They are, consequently, as helpless in the 
 presence of tariff speculators as a band of untutored savages 
 in the presence of a body of skilled riflemen armed with re- 
 peaters. And yet the revaluation of the property and busi- 
 ness of every man in the community is committed every 
 winter regularly to this body." 
 
 This is an assertion which can not be proved unless we 
 appoint a bo'ard of examiners to question Congressmen on 
 
and Worthkssness. 211 
 
 financial history and political economy, and thus ascertain 
 the exact depth of their ignorance. But, granting it to be 
 true, it would seem that a community which year after year 
 intrusts its business to men who are not " familiar" with the 
 business, to begin with, who are in a situation where they 
 can not give "even the smallest amount of serious attention 
 to it," are simply a constituency of fools, and are adequate- 
 ly represented by a delegation of savages. 
 
 But the same paper, noticing in another column a biog- 
 raphy of a deceased member of Congress, gives as an illus- 
 tration of the " carefulness and laborious industry with which 
 Mr. Choate laid the foundations of his fame and usefulness" 
 " the fact that when at the age of thirty he was elected to 
 Congress, he made a memorandum oifadenda ad munus nu- 
 per impositum, which begins as follows : 
 
 " ' I. Personal qualities. Memory. Daily Food and Cow- 
 per dum ambulo. Voice ; manner, exerdtationes diumcB. 2. 
 Current politics in papers — cum noiulis, daily. Geography, 
 etc. " Annual Register," past Intelligencers. 3. District : 
 Essex South, population, occupations, modes of living, com- 
 merce — the treaties — and principles on which it depends. 
 4. Civil History of the United States in Pitkin and original 
 sources. 5. Examination of pending questions: Tariff, Pub- 
 lic Lands, Indians, Nullification. 6. American and British 
 eloquence — writing practice.' " 
 
 Then follow, says the editor, " more than twenty pages of 
 the closest writing, with abbreviated and condensed state- 
 ments of results drawn from many volumes, newspapers, 
 messages, and speeches, with propositions and arguments 
 for and against, methodically arranged under topics, with 
 minute divisions and subdivisions ; as, for example, a dis- 
 cussion under the head of 'The Tariff,' beginning with an 
 analysis of Hamilton's report, made in 1790, followed by a 
 history of internal improvements, a statement of their cost, 
 a discussion of the constitutional power of making them, and 
 
212 Women's Worth 
 
 a history of the legislation affecting them. A good deal of 
 worse rhetoric than Choate's would be required to overlay 
 such preparation as that." 
 
 This second paragraph is not a complete refutation of the 
 first. Doubtless constituents and claims have increased 
 since the days of Mr. Choate, who was probably not forced 
 to spend absolutely all his time with worthless office-hunt- 
 ers and clamorous .constituents, and who,, therefore, might 
 have given a very small amount of serious attention to eco- 
 nomical problems while he was in Congress. But, having 
 accepted the principle that proficiency in these things is only 
 to be bought by years of laborious study, and constant ob- 
 servation of all their phenomena at home and abroad, it is 
 a little confusing to hear the next moment that a busy law- 
 yer could do any thing worthy of account between the time 
 of his election to and his appearance in Congress, and that, 
 too, without leaving his own district ! ^^I would suggest, also, 
 that this systematic, industrious, and elaborate preparation 
 was not known to the world till many years after Mr. 
 Choate's death, and that he was, perhaps, the last man of 
 whom such laborious preparation would have been suspect- 
 ed. May not, therefore, future biographies show that some 
 of the well-meaning but helpless " savages" now in Congress 
 are not quite so " untutored" as is conjectured ? I am very 
 sure that any member elect, male or female, who shall enter 
 Congress with the expectation of finding a body of men well 
 meaning and innocent, but ignorant and helpless in the pres- 
 ence of tariff or any other speculators, will be far more like- 
 ly to come to grief than he who prepares himself to encoun- 
 ter such politicians as Mr. Choate's training would help to 
 form. 
 
 But his brother editors fare still worse than Congress at the 
 hands of this gentleman. Congress, for aught we see, does 
 the best it knows how. Of certain book-notices he says : 
 
and Worthkssness. 213 
 
 " They are well -written, too ; and though, of course, the 
 publishers pay for them, and they are not in any good sense 
 critical, nor to be relied upon by any one who would learn 
 the exact value of the book noticed, still they can be read. 
 And even they may be profitably read, if the reader will re- 
 mind himself now and then that they are p^d for, and are 
 eulogistic and not critical. This, however, is saying no more 
 against them than may be said against the so-called critical 
 notices which appear in nine out of every ten newspapers in 
 the country. Most American criticism is dishonest criti- 
 cism ; and the matter is not at its worst, either, when the 
 dishonesty is the result of our national good-nature or of ig- 
 norance, for hardly a book issues from the American press 
 concerning which editors do not for money say things which 
 they know to be false, and which they intend shall deceive." 
 
 I can not say whether or not this is true. I have never 
 seen it contradicted. But, if nine out often newspapers can 
 be hired by publishers to deceive their readers, there is sure- 
 ly a very loud call for the purification of the press as well 
 as the purification of politics. 
 
 So much for the world and the flesh. Hear now what a 
 doctor of divinity says in the columns of a religious news- 
 paper : 
 
 " And now, standing by his grave, I desire, in the most 
 public and unreserved manner, to retract an unwarrantable 
 criticism upon the personal character of Mr. Dickens made 
 by me in the first number of the New Englander. The rath- 
 er crude estimate there made of his literary ability and his 
 then published works (it was almost thirty years ago) may > 
 stand for better or worse, according to the test of time. But, 
 roused by the popular indignation at his 'American Notes,' 
 and misled by some expressions in that work, and by exag- 
 gerated rumors touching his personal habits, I was betrayed 
 into the representation that he drank to excess. I do not 
 now believe that such a charge was then warranted, nor that 
 it has been warranted by any thing in his subsequent life. 
 And I have come also to recognize in him a deeper soul of 
 truth and goodness, and a nobler, purer sympathy with what 
 is highest and best, than I then gave him credit for. 
 
214 Woman's Worth 
 
 " I might well believe that nobody of late years has read 
 that article, and that nobody who read it at the time remem- 
 bers or cares about it now ; but when the news of his death 
 came, recalling how much of enjoyment and quickening I 
 owed to Mr. Dickens, I took down the volume and read it 
 with a tingling regret. It is of no account to him, and of 
 very little to any body else ; but when the invisible stone- 
 cutter shall mark the next name to be registered for the 
 grave, I should be unwilling to pass out of the world with 
 the feeling that I had done any man an injustice, however 
 unwittingly, for which I had not made the fullest atonement 
 and reparation. 'And so,' as Tiny Tim said, ' God bless us 
 all.'" 
 
 I have no tenderness for Mr. Dickens. I do not believe 
 in his deep soul of truth and goodness, or in his noble and 
 pure sympathy with what is highest and best. " I desire, in 
 the most public and unreserved manner,'' to declare that a 
 regiment of little Nells and Tiny Tims can not redeem the 
 man who, publicly dishonors the mother of his many chil- 
 dren. Mr. Dickens, holding the pen of a ready writer, told 
 his story glibly to the world. Mrs. Dickens, suffering the 
 deepest wound a woman can know, has remained steadfast- 
 ly silent. The wife's silence is full of dignity ; the hus- 
 band's speech bristles with disgrace. He feels no shame 
 in saying that he lived with a woman as his wife, exacting 
 from her all the duties and enforcing all the sufferings of a 
 wife, until he had consumed the vigor of her youth, and 
 then turned her away, and announces to the world that she 
 was unfit for him ! He feels no shame in saying virtually 
 that, while this woman was living in his house as his wife, 
 another woman was also in his house, holding in regard 
 both to himself and his children a position which belonged 
 to the legal wife and mother. England is beating her ob- 
 stinate head against marriage with a deceased wife's sister, 
 but here it is a living wife's sister superseding the living 
 wife. It was Mr. Dickens himself who made this public 
 
and Worthies sness. 215 
 
 property. By his last will and testament he even stretched 
 his dead hand out of the grave to injure his discarded wife; 
 and neither in this world, nor the next, nor the world after 
 the next, shall a man escape the cordial hatred of at least 
 one heart for such coarse and shameless selfishness. 
 
 But our doctor of divinity is moved by none of these 
 things. Thirty years ago people were very angry with Mr. 
 Dickens ; and, on the strength of some ambiguous expres- 
 sions and exaggerated rumors, this clergyman spread abroad 
 the printed report that he was a drunkard. Now people 
 are very fond of Mr. Dickens ; and the clergyman says he 
 is not a drunkard, and never was, and thinks he has per- 
 formed the whole duty of man. For thirty years I have to 
 fight against the assertion made by the religious press that 
 I am addicted to a beastly vice, and, having fought it suc- 
 cessfully, and won my way, the religious press stands by my 
 grave and says I never was guilty, and thinks it has made 
 the fullest atonement and reparation, let alone magnanim- 
 ity. 
 
 I do not know much about original sin or total depravity, 
 the Trinity, atonement, or justification by faith. I believe 
 them all ; but when it comes to understanding them as you 
 understand the multiplication table, or a friend's letter, I am 
 free to confess that I do not really understand one word of 
 it. But I do perfectly understand that the man who reck- 
 lessly, revengefully, publicly, for any purpose whatever, bears 
 false witness against his neighbor, is originally sinful, totally 
 depraved, and will never be justified by any faith ; that a 
 legislative assembly ignorant of its business, and unable to 
 give the smallest amount of serious attention to it, is the 
 sign of a country ripe for revolution, and can scarcely be 
 saved by a newspaper press nine tenths of which is in the 
 market for sale to the highest bidder. 
 
 Now then, again, Place aux dames t 
 
2i6 Woman's Worth 
 
 The columns of the newspapers are as widely and as fully 
 open to woman as to man. Neither publisher nor editor 
 cares for the sex of a writer. The possession of the ballot 
 could not give to woman any greater freedom to print her 
 opinions on politics, religion, manners, or morals, and the 
 extent of such influence is immeasurable. It can not be 
 otherwise than that her defective education and her limited 
 experience should be seen here, and we have no right to ex- 
 pect the breadth of thought or vigor of style which come 
 only from long training. But we may expect to see that 
 " refining, ennobling element wanted in politics, that wom- 
 an's finer nature, intuitive perception, and aptness for moral 
 truth can alone supply ;" that " innate refinement" which is 
 to "give to ambition a more elevated object than mere love 
 of power." There is no reason why the greater conscien- 
 tiousness, accuracy, modesty, peaceableness, unselfishness 
 — the charity which thinketh no evil, the sensitiveness which 
 forbids to ascribe bad motives, the instinctive sagacity which 
 impels wise choice, qualities which have long been conceded 
 to women, and which are to purify and elevate politics — 
 there is no reason why all these should not have free course 
 to run and be glorified in the columns of the political or so- 
 cial newspaper. 
 
 I take up a copy of that which is spoken of as the most 
 lively, vigorous, and able of the woman papers, and find it 
 offering itself as a "great organ of popular thought and prin- 
 ciple, whose columns [shall] be open to the fullest and 
 freest expression of the writer's knowledge and conviction 
 upon any and all subjects, persons, and estates." 
 
 Here surely is a plan of operations comprehensive enough 
 to meet illimitable ambition. Violation of individual rights, 
 carelessness of privacy and delicacy, have been great and 
 growing sins of the press ; but the world has always consid- 
 ered that 
 
and Worthkssness. 217 
 
 "Sins for want of legislation 
 Are not quite like sins by law." 
 
 It was reserved for a woman's newspaper to come out with 
 the public announcement that individuals have no rights 
 which newspapers are bound to respect. Hypocrisy is the 
 tribute which vice pays to virtue ; but in the red glare of 
 such a new light as this one is disposed to call hypocrisy it 
 self a virtue. Certainly righteousness has made but a sor- 
 ry gain when the villain pulls off his mask, not to reform, 
 but to practice vice openly. Men are constantly breaking 
 down the barriers which religion, and honor, and instinct 
 have erected ; but women ignore honor and instinct, and 
 deny that there should be any barrier at all. Whatever any 
 person happens to know or chooses to infer about any other 
 person, he shall be at perfect liberty to send abroad in the 
 newspapers. How hatred, envy, malice, and all uncharita- 
 bleness could give' itself looser rein than this, how a code 
 more unprincipled could be promulgated, or a license more 
 reckless be established, it is difficult to imagine. That the 
 paper is not indulging in glittering and sounding generali- 
 ties, but knows what it says, and says what it means, is 
 proved. by its following: up this announcement with two col- 
 umns of personal abuse of a private gentleman in regard to 
 his personal and private affairs — abuse whose vulgarity is 
 not lost in its atrocity, abuse alike of his benevolence and 
 his business, abuse that deals in motive as freely and confi- 
 dently as in fact, and abuse that does not so much as 
 shadow any authority beyond " as we learn," " as we hear," 
 " we have heard from what should be good authority," " it is 
 said." 
 
 Such a transaction as this would, I believe, among men, 
 condemn its perpetrator to infamy. No man of honor would 
 lay down such a law or write such an article. No respect- 
 able newspaper in the hands of respectable men would print 
 
 K 
 
2i8 Woman's Worth 
 
 it. That a woman's newspaper does it without misgiving 
 argues a hardness of heart or a blindness of mind that prom- 
 ises ill in the way of purifying or elevatingsociety. 
 
 Again, in the same paper occurs the following paragraph .: 
 
 " The other day I overheard a gentleman say to one of 
 the women clerks in the Treasury Department, ' I saw you 
 at the Convention. How did you like it ?' ' Very well in- 
 deed. We had some smart women there, hadn't we ?' 'You 
 say we had some smart women there. You don't mean to 
 say that you are a " woman's righter" too, do you ?' . ' Show 
 me the thoughtful working-woman that is not. '. ' Why, there's 
 
 Mrs. , she came from the working-classes.' " ' Yes ; 
 
 but she does not belong to the working-classes now, and 
 seems to forget that she ever did. Just let her have a fam- 
 ily to support, as J and hundreds of others ha,ve, and she'll 
 quickly change her tune.' This is the spirit that animates 
 them all." 
 
 For the name which I have put in blank the paragraph 
 gives the name in full — a name that should never cease to 
 awaken grateful emotions in this country, but the name of a 
 woman who is known to be actively opposed to female suf- 
 frage. In this paragraph the idea is presented that this 
 woman was once a poor girl, belonging to the " working- 
 classes," but had since risen to prosperity and renown, and 
 that, in her desire to forget, and make "others forget the low 
 estate from which she sprung, she was opposing the cause 
 of the class to which she once belonged. In a country like 
 ours few charges could be more obnoxious or opprobrious, 
 and I may say more ingenious than this. If true, it argues 
 a vanity, a vulgarity, a baseness of mind which ought to neu- 
 tralize one's influence ; but if false, it is embarrassing to 
 disprove. No lady would like to come forward and deny 
 that she ever belonged to the laboring class, as if such be- 
 longing, were disgraceful, were a slander to be repelled ; 
 apart frotn the fact that no lady would like to come forward 
 
and Worthkssness. 219 
 
 at all, and apart from another fact, that nobody could define 
 exactly what is meant in this country by the laboring class. 
 Probably the lady in question never saw this paragraph ; 
 but it happens that she is one of the few who are reared 
 from their birth in affluence and luxury — the daughter of a 
 family of high social position, of distinguished public service, 
 representing generations of culture, and enjoying a national 
 fame. This woman writer, therefore, has published against 
 another woman, her political opponent, an offensive person- 
 al slander, either knowing it to be false, or not knowing it 
 to be true — in either case equally slanderous, and in neither 
 case founded on stronger authority or further investigation 
 than an "overheard." 
 
 Thus does woman's finer nature, intuitive perception, and 
 aptness for moral truth supply the element wanting in mas- 
 culine politics and masculine newspapers. That they do 
 not produce ideal serenity or suavity in female deliberations 
 must be inferred from the published complaint of one of the 
 most prominent leaders. " What," says she, " with the in- 
 veterate hatred and persistent malice of my sisters, and the 
 contemptible self-importance and overweening self-sufficien- 
 cy of my brothers, have I had to cheer me in the course I 
 have marked out?" "Art thou in health, my brother?" 
 asked a v/ily male politician ; but all the same he smote his 
 brother in the fifth rib, and he died. Evidently the courte- 
 sies and tendernesses of kinship shall not prevent the hap- 
 py family from speaking its mind ; but it is not easy to see 
 how political manners are to be improved by adding the 
 persistent malice of our sisters to the. contemptible self-im- 
 portance of our brothers. 
 
 Is it the innate refinement of women which produces such 
 a criticism as the following in one of the most moderate and 
 high-minded of the woman papers upon a series of articles 
 opposing female suffrage ? 
 
220 Woman's Worth 
 
 " They might be supposed such as some superannuated 
 old maid of disappointed hopes and of blasted aspirations 
 might easily be imagined to indulge in, with a view of aveng- 
 ing herself on her more favored sisters." 
 
 Will the asperities of political discussion be softened, and 
 the passions of political excitement soothed, when these re- 
 fining and ennobling side-issues are brought to bear upon 
 the settlement of claims and the adjustment of duties ; when 
 the advocate of a high tariff shall have to defend herself not 
 only against charges of undue desire to protect her own 
 coal-lands, but of matrimonial designs upon the bachelor 
 protectionist from Arcadia ? And with what a naive uncon- 
 sciousness does the writer reveal her own opinion that, after 
 all, the state of thraldom to a man is one for hope and as- 
 piration, and that the favored sisters are those who are un- 
 der its direct yoke ! 
 
 A third woman's paper closes a column devoted to the 
 " twaddle" of an opponent with a lofty conception of motive 
 and an intuitive perception of moral truth which woman's 
 finer nature can alone supply. 
 
 " Between the lines of 's writings I think we can 
 
 read, ' It would be well to find something to write smartly 
 about. Now / receive all the recognition / want, or, rather, 
 used to receive. If these womaii*s rights women are to be 
 every where recognized as doing a good work, I shall cut a 
 sorry figure with the quips and squibs I have written— or, 
 rather, no figure at all. Well, a smart person, such as I am, 
 ought to be saying something ; and the men, many of them, 
 and the fashionable women, most of them, and a good many 
 of the papers — these, if I say smart things about women, 
 disparage them, etc., etc., will give me all the recognition I 
 want.' " 
 
 Woman newspapers, passing judgment on each other, re- 
 fine upon the coarse, old-fashioned, masculine methods of 
 controversy by admonishing their opponents in the follow- 
 ing gentle, " innate" manner : 
 
and Worthkssness. 221 
 
 "We know of nothing more contemptible than for the 
 proprietors of a paper to descend to vent their spleen upon 
 a contemporary by going among newsmen, and endeavoring 
 to prevail upon them to discard it from their list of papers 
 kept for sale by misrepresentations. But to such shifts does 
 a journal professing to be an advocate of woman's suffrage 
 resort to preserve its life against the encroachments of the 
 
 . Vain endeavor ! The has sustained shocks 
 
 compared to which the present exhibition of impotent rage 
 is as a mole-hill to a mountain. 
 
 " Neighbor ! you are a very good paper so far as you go, 
 and we gladly recommend you to those readers whose men- 
 tal stomachs can not yet digest strong food, or which have 
 become dyspeptic from injudicious aliment ; but your limits 
 are by far too contracted by bigotry, intolerance, prejudice, 
 and Pharisaical godliness to suit minds which have burst 
 the bonds of custom and practice, and boldly struck out for 
 truth, and which accord to every body what they claim foir 
 themselves. It may also do you a service to remind you 
 that every body do not believe your simple assertions,. un- 
 supported by any fact. Ponder this well, and do not die 
 unrepentant." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Without presuming to lecture any body, we may be al- 
 lowed to say .... that the and other papers of its 
 
 class should have a little more regard for common honesty, 
 and not forget, in their personal malice, to be consistent ; 
 
 for there are some people who even read the that 
 
 are not so stupid as to be blind to it It informed- us, 
 
 not long since, that the determining of this case should be 
 with 'pure hands.' Verily a Daniel would come to, judg- 
 ment ! Let it be from this time forth understood through- 
 out the length and breadth of this land that the editors of 
 the are those perfect ones whom the Lord hath ap- 
 pointed and sent to Boston to judge the earth ; and let no 
 rash woman lift her voice for any right she may think her- 
 self possessed of until she shall have journeyed to Boston, 
 been tried, found pure, and thus labeled by these holy and 
 wise (?) judges, who are more troubled about what they sur- 
 mise women may have been than about what they are." 
 
22 2 Woman's Worth 
 
 It is not necessary, as it is certainly not agreeable, to mul- 
 tiply quotations. Those which I have given are not excep- 
 tional in tone. Of the three suffrage newspapers published 
 by women, one is generally temperate and not undignified ; 
 the second is not inaptly represented by these extracts ; and 
 the third descends so low that the paragraphs I have given 
 represent it on the heights. I have seen, I admit, only two 
 or three numbers of that paper, but a single one of those 
 contained three articles each of which should be enough for 
 the condemnation of any man's newspaper in which it should 
 appear, and to banish from honorable business and social 
 circles any man who should confess himself to be its author. 
 The articles are not quotable either in letter or spirit ; they 
 have nothing whatever to do with female suffrage, or free 
 love, or any other disputed point. It is simply a foul taste 
 creating and embracing an opportunity for indulgence. If 
 any one choose to ascertain for himself how far this judg- 
 ment be correct, he can consult the paper — which it is not 
 necessary more particularly to specify — of March i8, 1871. 
 
 There may be differences of opinion regarding modes of 
 warfare. Since writing the above, I have, I confess, been as- 
 tonished to see one of the three articles to which I have re- 
 ferred, and that, perhaps, the worst of the three — an article 
 which to me appeared thoroughly filthy and otherwise inde- 
 cent — transferred bodily from the woman paper in which it 
 originally appeared to the columns of an eminently conserv- 
 ative weekly paper, published by men in an equally conserv- 
 ative city, and constantly opposed to the cause of woman's 
 rights. This paper quietly prints- the article, without appa- 
 rently seeing in it any thing objectionable except its source. 
 That, with a carefulness or carelessness little honorable, it 
 conceals, but the article itself it copies as desirable reading 
 for its own subscribers. Just the same, however, this style 
 of political and journalistic discussion seems to me to be 
 
and Worthlessness. 223 
 
 equally wanting in feminine grace and masculine strength ; 
 as deficient in native delicacy as in literary finish ; seems to 
 be blunt and brutal rather than fine and womanly ; seems 
 to be a tussle with bludgeons and cleavers rather than a 
 meeting of noble minds and a comparison of elevated views. 
 
 But the proprietors and editors of these papers — the au- 
 thors of these discussions and criticisms, are women, ac- 
 knowledged leaders of the movement, standing in the fore- 
 front of battle, and giving the word of command. Through 
 such channels must come the refinement and nobility which 
 women are to contribute to politics, and there is no visible 
 reason why the first installments of that contribution should 
 not. already have appeared. That all female politicians, or 
 all woman's rights newspapers, or all parts of any one news- 
 paper, are coarse and indelicate, no one will aver j but who- 
 ever examines the matter will find that coarseness, inaccura- 
 cy, ill feeling, and ill manners are just as prominent and, oc- 
 cupy proportionally as large a space in the political counsels 
 and political papers of women as in those of the correspond- 
 ing class of men, and that the effect thus far of women's 
 active participation in politics has not been an infusion of 
 modesty and refinement, of moral elevation and spiritual 
 sanctity, of sweetness and light. 
 
 The department of newspaper writing known as reporting 
 and correspondence has of late years fallen more and more 
 into the hands of women. In the hands of men it had great- 
 ly deteriorated. From being an honest and honorable col- 
 lector of items which have a legitimate if local and tempo- 
 rary interest, the reporter has come to be one who does not 
 disdain to hide under a table for the purpose of overhearing 
 and reporting the conversation of the dinner-guests in the 
 next room. It has come to be possible for a man bearing 
 a name of historic renown, that would of itself disarm sus- 
 picion, to visit a private house on the footing of a gentleman, 
 
224 Woman's Worth 
 
 and then send to his newspaper a minute description and 
 criticism of his hostess by name, and a pretended and de- 
 tailed report of the conversation. There are others, who 
 would not descend into these lower depths, who yet do not 
 think it unbecoming the estate of those who were made a 
 little lower than the angels to employ their vigorous intellect 
 and their sinewy strength in informing a breathless audience 
 that Mrs. A., the elegant lady of the Grand Mogul, was as- 
 sisting to receive, and looked charming in a splendid black 
 gros-grain silk, with court train, heavily trimmed with folds 
 of green velvet ; that Mrs. Ex-Sultan B. looked queenly in 
 a lemon-colored moire-antique silk; that Mrs. C. looked 
 charming in a white silk, long train ; that Mrs. D. was, if 
 last, not least in beauty and tasteful arrangement of toilet, 
 in a lavender silk, court train ; that Mrs. E. received her 
 friends as usual yesterday, and the dressing of the hostess 
 was superb — just what good taste and unlimited wealth 
 would dictate — and a fine collation spread for those who 
 desired to partake ; that Mrs. F. was " at home" in elegant 
 style, and her dress was of fine texture and of elegant make, 
 and her toilet tastefully and elaborately made, and the good 
 things of life were offered to those who desired to partake ; 
 that Mrs. G. presented to her many friends a fine entertain- 
 ment, and they were well provided with the good things of 
 life to eat and drink, and her attire was elegant, and her toi- 
 let tastily and beautifully arranged ; that Mrsi H. welcomed 
 her numerous friends, and the dressing of the hostess was 
 magnificent, and an elegant repast was spread for those who 
 desired to partake. 
 
 There was a time within the memory of men still living 
 when the standard of social morals was such that a man 
 was summarily dismissed from society for having sent to the 
 public prints a description of the ladies at a ball, though he 
 used only initials for names. Now the reporter presents 
 
and Worthkssness. 225 
 
 himself, with note-book and pencil, as openly and serenely 
 as if he were the mainspring of our institutions, and, having 
 taken a bird's-eye view of the situation in the parlors, and 
 swept in a rapid list of the cards from the servants, he de- 
 parts to work up his court trains and high corsages at lei- 
 sure, or to make further observations in the next house ; 
 and all with that quiet assumption of legitimacy and that 
 absolute ignoring of outlawry that would be amusing if its 
 results were only a little less annoying. If remonstrated 
 with, he remarks, with wide-eyed innocence, that he has his 
 living to get ! though, to be sure, the highwayman might 
 make the same plea. Or he carries the war into Africa by 
 turning upon you and affirming that the ladies like it ; that 
 he should give offense if he did not report their dresses ; 
 that he has been sent for, previous to a party, and furnished 
 by the host with minute descriptions of dress and decora- 
 tions, that no item of self-glorification should go unrecorded ! 
 What a field is here for the refining and ennobling influ- 
 ence of woman ! Are there women who enjoy the vulgarity 
 of publicity ; who love to see their homes invaded, their hos- 
 pitality recorded, their dresses unfolded to the curious gaze ? 
 So much the more should right-minded women win them 
 away from so false a standard by a scrupulous reverence for 
 the privacy thus lightly esteemed, by an intelligent ,aind dis- 
 criminating observation, and by a graceful and attractive 
 presentation of that which is worthy and enduring. Wheth- 
 er, moreover, such women do or do not exist, it is certain 
 that there is a large class of women in our chief cities, and 
 particularly in our chief city, to whom this style of letter- 
 writing is a source of annoyance and disgust ; who desire 
 from correspondents nothing so much as the mercy of their 
 silence. A female writer has, therefore, not only an oppor- 
 tunity to ennoble numbers of her sex by the dignity of ex- 
 ample, but she may also be sure of a large and strong fol- 
 K2 
 
226 Woman's Worth 
 
 lowing among a long-suffering but sufficiently respectable 
 class. 
 
 No man has gone so low in the depths of epistolary deg- 
 radation that a woman has not gone lower. Men corre- 
 spondents are inane, but they are generally good natured. 
 They flounder about amid point lace and moire antique with 
 masculine intrepidity, and, it must be added, with masculine 
 insensibility. They turn your cherry velvet into pink silk, 
 but without any conscience of sin. They put you in a ma- 
 roon gown without a moment's warning, and derange all 
 your harmonies with the most amiable intentions ; for their 
 crescendo is as gushing and guileless as their diminuendo. 
 Your last season's rumpled and faded finery comes out as 
 " superb dressing." Your modest house is a " spacious man- 
 sion." Your sedate horses turn into prancing steeds under 
 this magic wand j and you yourself — a quiet, domestic, and 
 not over-self-confident person — hardly recognize your por- 
 trait in the "votary of fashion'' or "queen of society"- into 
 which you have suffered a sea-change. If your correspond- 
 ent has unwittingly robbed Peter, he has lavishly paid Paul. 
 If his insipidity has flavor, it is a flavor of sweetness. He 
 irritates and exasperates you ; but he does it gently, as if 
 he loved you. He must get his living out of you, but, be- 
 yond that, he would rather please than displease. 
 
 It was a woman's name that was appended to a letter 
 which mentioned certain estimable la;dies only to ridicule 
 their physical peculiarities^adies who were, in a sense, 
 guests of the nation, and to whom, therefore, civility was pe- 
 culiarly due. It was a woman who employed her pen and 
 her position to ridicule the person and dress of another 
 writer, a gifted and excellent woman, with a coarseness, a 
 bitterness, a malignity which it would not be speaking too 
 strongly to call infernal. It was a woman who thrust her- 
 self into the presence of a widowed mother and her grown- 
 
and Worthkssness. 227 
 
 up son, to whom this nation owes nothing but respect and 
 deference, if only for the name they bear, and boldly and 
 baldly questioned the young man as to his mother's pecun- 
 iary resources and marriage possibilities. It was a woman 
 who pried into the trousseau of a beautiful and modest young 
 lady, and on the wings of mighty winds sent flying all abroad 
 a complete list of her wardrobe, regardless alike of common 
 decency and of the feelings and reputation of the person 
 most concerned. It was a woman who occupied column 
 after column of the newspaper with narrations of the past 
 history of her still living female friends, never faltering be- 
 fore what are generally considered the most secret and even 
 sacred facts, recounting with equal nonchalance the family 
 struggles with poverty and the number of offers which a lady 
 received before her final acceptance. And it is a woman 
 who comes out in a conservative newspaper to defend these 
 things on the ground of reason, and right, and common 
 sense, and to denounce as mock modesty and affectation the 
 reluctance which some women still retain to seeing their 
 names or any facts of their personal history exposed to the 
 public gaze. 
 
 I need not add to these specifications, nor can I any far- 
 ther designate them without repeating and increasing the 
 harm, they must already have caused; but I do not hesi- 
 tate to affirm, as the most painful and unexpected result of 
 my own observation, that the grossest violations of courtesy, 
 modesty, delicacy, and decency, attributable to correspond- 
 ents, have been perpetrated by women. 
 
 It might happen that women should here and there be 
 found who .would not feel it derogatory to themselves or 
 their profession to use their pens for the gratification of per- 
 sonal malice, personar revenge, or public curiosity, and yet 
 that the general influence of this irruption of women upon 
 the political press should be elevating. Here and there a 
 
228 Woman's Worth 
 
 " sister" may go to greater lengths than any " brother" with- 
 out affecting the fact that in general sisters are more mod- 
 erate, impartial, clear-sighted, comprehensive, and dispas- 
 sionate than brothers. 
 
 As the pens of correspondents have fallen into the hands 
 of women, has there been manifested a disposition to cor- 
 rect the tendency of correspondence toward deterioration 
 into gossip ? In spite of the indiscreet and unwomanly rev- 
 elations made by some female writers, do we find the gen- 
 eral result to be an increasing respect for individuality, a 
 gradual disuse of personality, a deference to the claims of 
 courtesy, to the. divinity that doth hedge a man and a wom- 
 an by virtue of their manhood and womanhood, and which 
 is not forfeited by any amount of public service ? Do we 
 see an intelligent recognition and observance of the forms 
 of society which^ though sometimes apparently arbitrary. and 
 sometimes really irksome, do yet constitute the best avail- 
 able and the certainly indispensable protection of the indi- 
 vidual against society, the reign of constitutional law as 
 against anarchy, without which life becomes intolerable and 
 fruitless? When we hear that a woman is attached to the 
 staff of reporters,' do we feel that now we shall creep out 
 from under the,dinner-table,.disentangle our feet from court- 
 trains, take it for granted thatrevery body wears his best 
 clothes in company, and enter the circle of real interests, of 
 grave considerations, of close scrutiny, and careful compar- 
 isons, and keen analysis, and high aim, and just award ? Do 
 public officers, members of state or national Legislatures, 
 and all who directly concern themselves in the ship of state, 
 feel an assurance that, when women are on the witnessing 
 stand, official acts and deliberations are subjected to a wiser 
 scrutiny ; that trivial or irrelevant facts will be left in the 
 background, and only those which are pertinent brought far- 
 ward ; that falseness^ chicanery, and sophistry will stand a 
 
and Worthkssness. 229 
 
 -greater chance of being detected, and sense, and honesty, 
 and comprehensiveness a greater chance of being recog- 
 nized ; that personal liking and disliking will be laid aside, 
 and motives and methods judged abstractly ; that clap-trap 
 will lose power, and quiet ability come to the front; that 
 business shall be understood, and progress signified, and 
 work not to be mistaken for idling, nor an itching for noto- 
 riety be mistaken for spirited patriotism ? 
 
 It must be admitted that women will find it no easy task 
 to outstrip the best class of male correspondents. It will 
 not be denied that there are among the latter men of em- 
 inent ability and integrity, who can see and report with 
 equal clearness;, who understand that the part of a corre- 
 spondent is not to nurse prejudice, nor indulge predilec- 
 tion, nor confirm opinion, nor even to enforce doctrine, but, 
 as far as possible, to put his reader in possession of the sit- 
 uation ; who are able to comprehend it because they are 
 the peers of those who make it ; men whose views are 
 wont to be correct, whose judgment is based on their views, 
 and,- therefore, likely to be sound, and whose opinions and 
 co-operation are therefore apt to be sought in shaping ac- 
 tion ; men who do not boast of their power or prowess, who 
 apparently do not think of it, who are simple, direct, and 
 unconscious in their business, and whose influence, spring- 
 ing from qualities rather than position, is as wholesome as 
 it is widespread. 
 
 Am I wrong in believing that this class is not perceptibly 
 increased by re-enforcements from the ranks of women? I 
 do not deny that among female correspondents there are 
 women of spotless character and brilliant parts ; but, as 
 things are, is it possible they should equal men in the pos- 
 session of political influence and of political intelligence ? 
 The man is in constant contact with men, and face to face 
 with events. If he is at the capital, he goes every where — 
 
230 Woman's Worth 
 
 to committee-rooms, to the departments, to the newspaper 
 offices — at all hours ; wherever measures are under discus- 
 sion, there is he, to judge for himself. He becomes as fa- 
 miliar with the working of the machinery as the machinist, 
 and he follows the course of legislation with entire under- 
 standing. A woman takes observations from the galleries, 
 where, with close attention, she can perhaps make out the 
 words of one speaker in ten in the one house, and in the 
 other vainly wishes she could hear ten speakers in one. 
 That is, a fragment of such part of legislation as appears on 
 the surface she sees, but of that large part which goes on 
 out of sight she necessarily learns only by hearsay or from 
 the male reporter. Nor is it easy to see how it can well be 
 otherwise. 
 
 Even if she have a thorough understanding of parliament- 
 ary law, and if she be so constant and enthusiastic in her 
 attendance upon legislative assemblies as to understand all 
 the windings and turnings of bills and all the meanings of 
 motions, she still labors under serious disadvantages. Un- 
 less she can forget she is a woman, and make every one 
 else forget it too, and mingle as a man among men, it seems 
 impossible that she should compete successfully with men. 
 Women write eloquently and well upon patriotism, states- 
 manship, and the higher life, in the abstract;, but when they 
 come to definite measures, and .make application of their 
 principles, they are just as likely to blame and praise in the 
 wrong place as are men, and just as likely to blame and 
 praise in the wrong place as in the right one ! 
 
 There are women who write better letters than men could 
 do under the same circumstances, but the circumstances are 
 an insuperable fact. No law hinders. Custom has nothing 
 to do with it. It is simply that the woman, is a writer and a 
 lady, and can not bring herself — never, thinks of bringing 
 herself — to do what men do instinctively in the line of the 
 
and Worthlessness. 231 
 
 same profession. And, if she did it, it would not be the 
 same thing. 
 
 Scenic politics, then, is chiefly what is left to her of real 
 politics, if, indeed, that be real politics. Certainly it is that 
 part of politics which least needs cherishing. It is politics 
 just dipping into personality — personality the least offens- 
 ive, it is true, but politics the least improving, either to poli- 
 tician or constituent. Congress is public property, and I 
 suppose we have a perfect right to gaze at its members from 
 the galleries, and pen-photograph their sphinx-like faces, 
 their haughty lips, their beetling brows, their opal eyes, and 
 their majestic noses, for circulation in the rural districts. 
 But has this kind of criticism a tendency to make or to keep 
 public men upright ? So far as it has any influence at all, 
 is it not to call off attention from careful, conscientious, im- 
 partial work, and to make a man rather aspire to present a 
 good appearance on the public stage ? Already that tend- 
 ency is sufficiently strong. A " spicy scene," a piquant rep- 
 artee, will be telegraphed from one end of the country to 
 the other, when careful research and solid argument, that 
 really advance the case and would really inform the people, 
 are buried past resurrection in the columns of the Congres- 
 sional Globe. But women fall into this current, and float 
 along with it rather than resist it. They do it not only in 
 Congress; but they do it every where. If they are reporting 
 the proceedings of their own conventions, they will give you 
 the color of the feather in Phoebe Cozzen's hat, but Mrs. 
 Howe's weightiest epigram they will leave you to learn from 
 a chance comer or from a male reporter. If you remon- 
 strate with them, they say the publishers want it. It is per- 
 sonality that is most in demand. Every fresh batch of eyes 
 and noses, of ample cloaks and leonine hair, is in response 
 to a fresh call. They are valued as letter-writers because 
 they do this kind of thing so well. And it has even hap- 
 
232 Woman's Worth 
 
 pened that a man has been asked at head-quarters whether 
 he could not fashion his letters a little more like those of 
 his wife — head-quarters not being aware that the lady in 
 question was his wife. 
 
 Yes, but the worst crime of which we can accuse a man 
 is yielding to temptation. Not the most wily and wicked 
 politician that ever wrought evil wrought it except for the 
 sake of procuring some good to himself How are women 
 to introduce incorruptibility into politics if at the first stroke 
 of the publisher's wand they consent to descend ? Why is 
 it worse for a man to vote below his best than it is for a 
 woman to write below her best? Why is itworse for a pol- 
 itician to " talk buncombe" than it is for a woman to write 
 it ? // takes I To be sure it does. The very worst letter 
 to which I have referred — the one whose pen was dipped in 
 venom to describe a comrade — ^was copied into other papers 
 as a " charming" letter. But are women coming into polit- 
 ical and public life to confirm or to combat trivial taste and 
 low inclination ; to render public service more effective, or 
 to obtain a share of the spoils ; to minister more skillfully 
 to the love of gossip, or to substitute for it something worthy 
 of both men and women ? 
 
 In regard to social laws and individual rights, is the influ- 
 ence of women better than that of men ? There are women 
 who are scrupulous and honorable, but is the proportion 
 larger than that of scrupulous and honorable men ? The 
 women who do sin sin with a high hand and a stretched- 
 out arm apparently unattainable by men. A man recog- 
 nizes rights and proprieties, and pays to them the. small 
 tribute of hiding under the table. He knows he has no 
 business there — or, rather, he thinks he has business there, 
 and means to prosecute it; but he advances no claim, pre- 
 sumes on no politeness, and deliberately, and I may say 
 bravely, runs the risk of being turned out of doors. . 
 
and Worihlessness. 233 
 
 But your female correspondent, on the occasion, for in- 
 stance, of an afternoon reception at the President's, goes to 
 the White House, enters the reception-room, stations her- 
 self at the end of the line of hostesses as if she were one of 
 the receiving ladies, and stands there with paper and pencil 
 ready to impale every unhappy fly who, unlike her proto- 
 type, is forced to come slowly flitting by. And the unhap- 
 py flies know it, and can not help it. It is like seeing your 
 scaffold go up nail by nail before your chamber window. 
 You could stand decapitation ; but the process of prepara- 
 tion is the one straw too much. But a woman can not be 
 turned out of doors. I say that the man under the table is 
 less exasperating, and better bred, and not less " elevated" 
 than the woman at her post of observation. 
 
 When you go to an evening party, and see a woman 
 standing in the hall, holding her paper high up against the 
 wall and writing vigorously, in the most conspicuous place 
 and attitude,' commanding with her guns all egress and in- 
 gress ; when you see a woman at a ball bearing down upon 
 you brandishing her note-book, and calling out in tones loud 
 enough to be heard by all the by-standers, " Can't stop to 
 talk now. I'm correspondent of the New Zealand Honey- 
 comb I" when a woman accosts you in a public convey- 
 ance, and informs you that she is correspondent of this, 
 that, and the other newspaper, and author of such and such 
 books ; when a woman constructs from her position a per- 
 gonal threat, one longs for the good old times when women 
 were secluded and did not know the alphabet, and their hus- 
 bands were allowed to use " moderate correction." Perhaps, 
 when the novelty of appearing in print is worn off", wom- 
 en will cease to brandish their pens in our faces. They 
 will feel that it is as ill bred to obtrude their authorship as 
 it would be to obtrude their income, their wealthy relatives, 
 their past career, or any bther personal facts ; that not only 
 
234 Woman's Worth 
 
 is this obtrusiveness unnecessary to good work, but is well- 
 nigh incompatible with it. Certainly there are none to 
 whom it is more offensive than to the better members of 
 their own class. But, while the acclimating process is go- 
 ing on, those who feel that the lack of reticence or mag- 
 nanimity in one woman is the loss of all women can but be 
 penetrated with a lively regret and. shame, not unmingled 
 with dismay. 
 
 So far as the department of Washington correspondence 
 offered woman a field for the display of intellectual acute- 
 ness and social wisdom, it has been largely neglected. Wom- 
 en have apparently restrained their ambition to doing deftly 
 and as a regular business the inane work that men did clum- 
 sily and incidentally. For the laughter "and applause of gal- 
 leries they have been willing to make the judicious grieve. 
 In dealing with politics, they have attempted well, though 
 circumstances may have prevented a complete success ; but, 
 with few exceptions, in dealing with society they have not 
 even attempted well. Dreary catalogues of dress and jew- 
 elry, eulogistic or depreciating descriptions of personal ap- 
 pearance, glittering' and sounding generalities of wealth and 
 splendor, are all that they seem' to have aspired to. Given 
 certain reception days, and certain public men and their 
 wives — who in the eyes of these women are equally public 
 — and unlimited command of silk and satin, and you have 
 ample material for a Washington letter. No matter wheth- 
 er the man were at the reception or not. He might have 
 been, and in the letter he is. It is generally safe to pre- 
 sume that the rural districts will never know that every 
 thing did not happen precisely as reported. Very seldom 
 occurs such a contretemps as last winter,' when minute ac- 
 counts of holiday festivities were brought to grief by the un- 
 expected non-occurrence of the festivities ; the interruption 
 of which, however, was so late that the history of their hap- 
 
and Worthkssness. 235 
 
 penings came out all the same as if they had actually hap- 
 pened ! 
 
 Of the real significance of society — of that which makes 
 our capital city brilliant, distinguished, or peculiar — you 
 learn as little from the letters of most women as from those 
 of men. And this is surprising. Here you would imagine 
 women to be on their riative heath. It may be because the 
 best writers touch on society but lightly; but those who 
 give themselves to it, so far as I have seen, give themselves 
 entirely to the sensational and the silly. You might gather 
 from them that Washington was a carnival of gayety, a whirl 
 of frivolity and parade, a confusion of color and glitter, luxu- 
 rious and voluptuous, if not selfish, heartless, and unprinci- 
 pled. You would not gather that not only human nature, 
 but human condition, is very much the same there as else- 
 where ; that Washington holds upright citizens, and careful 
 mothers, and eager school -girls, and happy homes; that 
 thrift, and economy, and good neighborhood, and good fel- 
 lowship exist there ; that the claims of God and man, re- 
 ligion and benevolence, are not forgotten ; that friendliness, 
 and chit-chat, and bright talk, and mental stimulus abound ; 
 that the glitter of party-giving and party-going is but a small 
 part of the light that shines ; and that, though one may, per- 
 haps, more easily there than elsewhere, rush into foolish ex- 
 citement and frivolous pastime, it is of his own frivolous and 
 foolish will, since nowhere can he find more abundant ma- 
 terial for varied and reasonable pleasure, or feel that, with 
 his intellectual as with his personal wardrobe, his best is not 
 too good for presentation. 
 
 The power of the press to delight and benefit, to annoy 
 and injure, is practically determined only by the temper, 
 breeding, and ability of those who write for it. No eulogy 
 is so nauseous, no libel so gross, no gossip so scandalous, no 
 item so frivolous that it can not somewhere find a ready 
 
236 Woman's Worth 
 
 market. For the tale-bearing, the black-mailing, the general 
 sensationalism which mar the comeliness and diminish the 
 value of journalism women are not to be blamed. They did 
 not introduce them. Neither, it appears, for the redemption 
 of journalism from these vital diseases are they to be cred- 
 ited. They have as yet shown no disposition to eradicate 
 them. 
 
and Worthkssness. 237 
 
 XIII. 
 REPRESENTATIVE REFORM. 
 
 If women had the suffrage, it is asserted that they would 
 choose better men for officers than those now in service. 
 " The very thing we want," says one lecturer, " is to bring 
 into our politics some elevating influences. Do you believe, 
 if women had the right to vote, you ever could put up such 
 men as are put up for office ?" 
 
 And the Woman Suffi-age pledge, which ladies from all 
 parts of the Union are invited to sign, confirms this view : 
 
 " And, believing that character is the best safeguard of 
 national liberty, we pledge ourselves to make the personal 
 purity and integrity of candidates for public office the first 
 test of fitness." 
 
 Nothing in the history of the Woman Suffrage Party re- 
 moves this from the class of points yet to be proven. It is 
 so far mere hypothesis — ^with the presumption against it. 
 My own opinion is that, when women vote, bad men will find 
 no more difficulty in getting into office than they at present 
 encounter, and bad women far less. How can a party which 
 starts out with the professed intention " to help elect in ev- 
 ery town the man who is our friend ; to help defeat in every 
 town the man. who is indifferent," so that " soon no man 
 who is not our friend will stand a chance of nomination" — 
 how can such a party make personal purity and integrity 4:he 
 first test of fitness ? How often have we heard that women 
 have good memories, and will never forget Governor A. — 
 Governor A.'s offense being that he voted against some 
 measure of the Woman Party. It is never alleged that Gov- 
 
238 Woman's Worth 
 
 ernor A. is impure or dishonest ; that his vote was sold, or 
 that it was given from any but conscientious and patriotic 
 motives. It is simply that his vote was adverse to the par- 
 ty's wishes. I do not say that women, any more than men, 
 should vote for their political opponents, but I do say that 
 this assertion sounds more like a personal threat than like 
 dispassionate discussion, is a style of argument not in vogue 
 among the better class of unregenerate male politicians, and 
 is not an improvement on their style. 
 
 "There is' not in Washington a more corrupt lobbyist than 
 Mrs. B.," said a gentleman in private life, not officially con- 
 nected with politics, not unfriendly to Woman Suffrage, and 
 a warm friend of Mrs. B., who was a lady of purity and in- 
 tegrity, unquestioned and unquestionable. There can be few 
 women in this or any land brighter or better .than she ; but 
 is it likely to be a wholesome thing for men to see woman 
 taking, in ignorance and innocence, a course of political ac- 
 tion which would for themselves be dishonest and disgrace- 
 ful ? And will not good women, even more than good men, 
 be deceived by bad men ? If women can blindly adopt 
 measures radically wrong, may they not with equal blind- 
 ness vote for equally objectionable men ? No one can affirm 
 that they will ; but there is no ground for affirming that.they 
 will not. Good women, speaking from' their moral con- 
 sciousness, promise good • officers ; but in the candidates 
 whom' women have already elevated, and the political friends 
 whom they have already adopted, it is difficult to see more 
 discrimination or greater rigor of selection than are evinced 
 by men. 
 
 " I hope," says an enthusiastic female lecturer, " I hope 
 that I may live to see Theodosia in Congress." And she 
 would then; doubtless, exclaim.'with heartfelt sincerity, "Lord, 
 now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes 
 have seen thy salvation." But to me it seems that the day 
 
and Worthlessness. 239 
 
 which sees Theodosia in Congress will be visibly disastrous 
 to the Woman Suffrage Party, or else invisibly disastrous to 
 the best interests of the country, irrespective of party, for 
 Theodosia has shown no one qualification of a legislator 
 except the power- to make a speech. That, indeed, is nec- 
 essary. The man who is not only to frame a law, but to se- 
 cure its adoption, must be able to speak clearly and forcibly 
 on the field of battle. But, besides this, he must have some- 
 thing to say. Now Theodosia had never disclosed any com- 
 prehension of the requirements, the limitations, even the very 
 fabric of government. With our foreign relations and the 
 greater part of our domestic interests she had never troubled 
 herself. That is, with by far the larger part of those mat- 
 ters which it is the business of Congress to adjust, she had 
 evinced; no familiarity, whatever, as, indeed, there was no 
 reason to demand that she should ; but also, in the few po- 
 litical questions which she had touched, she had displayed 
 powers cf reasoning and practical sagacity far below the av- 
 erage of male politicians. Now it is one thing to make an 
 address in a quiet hall to an audience assembled for the ex- 
 press purpose of hearing you, who are bound to be resoect- 
 ful and to make no reply ; an audience composed in large 
 part of men and women unable to siseak in public them- 
 selves, unaccustomed to consecutive thought, and on whom 
 fluency/makes a far deeper impression than fallacy; and 
 composed in small part of persons whom courtesy and pro- 
 priety restrain as. effectually as inability'. It is quite anoth- 
 er thing to be; associated for months at a time, on terms of 
 perfect equality — an equality which neither gives nor takes 
 — with scores of men, each with his own purpose, and all 
 meaning business. Most of these are the prominent and 
 successful men of their own district. They are sent to Con- 
 gress not to be courteous and attentive, but to represent cer- 
 tain interests, to secure -certain measures. They not only 
 
240 Woman's Worth 
 
 have, or must act as i£ they had, a conviction that these 
 measures are desirable ; but their own personal and political 
 future depends upon the success with which they advocate 
 them. Theodosia has now to speak privately in committee- 
 room and publicly in Congress to men just as eager and 
 fluent as herself j men who have a keen scent for a false 
 statement ; who at the first point where her logic is weak 
 will " beg to ask a single question ;" who will, in one word, 
 bring all their force to bear in combating her and in further- 
 ing their own plans. If Theodosia reveals on " Alabama" 
 claims, land-grants, pig iron, national banks, whisky tax, and 
 gunny-bags the same uncertainty in point of facts and the 
 same unsteadiness in point of reasoning that she has re- 
 vealed upon the platform, it seems to me that there will 
 very speedily be nothing left of Theodosia. One sometimes 
 sees in Congress a persistent member uttering dreary plati- 
 tudes to empty benches, while a few members sit in their 
 seats busily writing and reading ; or one sees a full house 
 apparently amusing itself by passing between tellers, or "ta- 
 king the ayes and noes," sometimes by the hour together, 
 and it seems like utter inefficiency and child's play. But 
 try to slip through unobserved a bill for your private benefit, 
 and the chances are ten to one that the apparently careless 
 members will show a surprising understanding of what is 
 going on. It is the fashion in many circles to speak slight- 
 ingly and sneeringly of Congress, and, indeed, of all public 
 service and public servants. Whether it is wise to send to 
 Congress men who deserve slight and sneer ; whether it is 
 just, as well as wise, to send superior men and characterize 
 them as inferior ; and whether, in any case, it is likely to ad- 
 vance the dignity and value of public service and the best 
 interests of the country to denounce and degrade its legis- 
 lative assemblies, is a point that may admit of doubt. Per- 
 haps this is considered the only way to induce in public 
 
and Worthkssness. 241 
 
 servants a salutary humility. I should prefer to try the ex- 
 periment of the Vicar of Wakefield, who wrote his wife's epi- 
 taph over the fireplace while she was yet in health, in order 
 that, if she were not all that it portrayed, she might become 
 so. This, however, is but a matter of individual taste and 
 judgment. What is not a matter of taste is that there is no 
 body of men or women in the country who take a man's 
 measure more quickly or more accurately, no place where 
 mere reputation counts for less, or where a man sooner finds 
 his true level, or is more surely forced to earn his laurels 
 before he wears them, than in the Congress of the United 
 States. The standing of a man there appears to be in no 
 wise determined by his standing outside. He may be great 
 at home, and yet ground to powder at his first session. He 
 may be little accounted of at home, and have weight with 
 his fellow-members. 
 
 When Theodosia enters this body she enters it as a man. 
 She must win hfer case by her own efforts — by knowledge of 
 history, politics, finance, business, human nature, and parlia- 
 mentary law ; by force of will, by strength of lung, by phys- 
 ical endurance. A " Washington correspondent" describes 
 the House of Representatives on a certain occasion as "sim- 
 ply a mad-house, a bear-garden, a menagerie j" and a wom- 
 an paper, on the stjrength of such description, justly enough 
 remarks that it does not " see how it would be possible for 
 women. to conduct public business in any worse manner 
 than this." Let me entreat women not to found any ex- 
 pectations of reform on such statements. This correspond- 
 ent was surely carried away either by traditions of past dis- 
 order or by the desire of making a sensation. The House 
 on the occasion referred to was not in the least like a bear- 
 garden, a mad-house, or a menagerie. There was nothing 
 incoherent, indecorous, or unbecoming. There was intense 
 eagerness, persistence, resolution. A dozen men were striv- 
 
242 Woman's Worth 
 
 ing for the floor at once; there was quick consultation, 
 modified action to meet emergencies, and, to the mere spec- 
 tator, great confusion. But even the spectator might learn 
 that there was a method in the madness — that, through all 
 the apparent confusion, the course of business was going 
 on as steadily and sturdily according to Constitution and 
 amendment, in as strict subordination to law and logic, as 
 if there had been the Reign of Silence. 
 A female writer in a woman paper says, 
 
 " If woman was allowed a participation in the privileges 
 and honors of politics, gallantry, which Nature forces man 
 to concede to her, would check this reckless ambition for 
 power and supremacy, and oblige him to lay aside some of 
 his self-sufficiency, here as elsewhere, out of mere civility ; 
 besides this, the propensity being deficient in the nature of 
 woman, would flourish just the element wanted in politics to 
 put to shame and do away with this corruption, while her in- 
 nate refinement would give to ambition a more elevated ob- 
 ject than mere love of power." 
 
 The meaning of this paragraph is somewhat shrouded in 
 the words ; but it seems to be that when a woman runs for 
 governor or senator, men will yield their own claims and let 
 her win, just as they now give up their seats to her in the 
 crowded car or church. 
 
 I have some faith in the gallantry of my countrymen, 
 though there have been times when gallantry, justice, and 
 decency went down together.' It is not two years since, in 
 a court of justice, under the forms of law and by the ofiicers 
 of law, outrages were perpetrated upon women which should 
 have made the ears of every one that heard it to tingle. It 
 is not three years since blind rage arid brutal ridicule froni 
 one end of this nation to the other were showered by men 
 upon a woman, the latchets of whose shoes they were not 
 worthy to unloose. And for what ? For that which, at its 
 very worst, was an indiscretion. If this woman had been 
 
and Worthlessness. 243 
 
 herself guilty of the crime which she disclosed of another, 
 she could not have been more severely censured. For that 
 which no one alleged to be any thing worse than an error 
 of judgment, and which has never been proved to be even 
 that, a woman whose goodness is as sublime as her genius is 
 brilliant, who has never touched pen to paper but for the 
 furtherance of truth and humanity — a woman whose name 
 is one of the brightest gems in her country's crown, and 
 whose light is gone out to the end of the earth-:— for such 
 a cause, such a woman was reviled and maligned by men 
 who may almost be said to have owed their political exist- 
 ence to her genius. They had not even national spirit 
 enough to stand up for their own countrywoman against the 
 assaults of the British ; but, just as Hawthorne told us of 
 Miss Bacon, " Our journalists at once republished some of 
 the most brutal vituperations of the English press, thus pelt- 
 ing their poor countrywoman with stolen mud," so, in this 
 case, our journalists each picked up his handful of mud and 
 followed the English lead, like a faithful puppy yelping in 
 the wake of a growling mastiff. Oh ! then the old-time faith 
 in American gallantry and American justice received a blow 
 from which it will not speedily recover. You made it for- 
 ever easier, my countrymen, to dispense with your approba- 
 tion and to encounter your disapproval. 
 
 But when it comes to the point of expecting gallantry to 
 stand aside, and let women win, I demur. Even if men 
 might be counted on to this extent, would it be the best 
 thing ? If a man advocates a measure with false dates, and 
 misplaced facts, and distorted history, and obtruded senti- 
 ment, is it not better for the country, and better even for 
 himself, that he should be torn to pieces on the spot than 
 that he should be salved and slavered with compliment ? 
 What we want in politics is real work, thorough work, hon- 
 est work, not mere sham. The woman who has more use- 
 
244 Woman's Worth 
 
 ful knowledge, more political sagacity, more practical power 
 than men may be a real accession to Legislatures,'but any 
 expectation of victory founded on the assumed courtesy of 
 men seems to me at once futile, and, if not futile, fatal. It 
 is sometimes alleged against Congress that every man is 
 bent on his own cause, and no one thinks of the universal 
 interest. But it is the best thing that can be said of Con- 
 gress. The only way to take care of the universal interest 
 is for each one to take care of his own. What is the coun- 
 try but the combination of all ? The best way for Maine 
 to look after the sugar of Louisiana or the wheat of Minne- 
 sota is to look after her own lumber. Pennsylvania fights 
 tooth and nail for coal and iron. Let her fight. That is 
 what she is in Congress for. Let Georgia fight tooth and 
 nail for cotton. And when women go, let them also go 
 prepared to fight tooth and nail. Let them not be de- 
 ceived by any representation of the imbecility or the bar- 
 barity of Congress. Let them not expect an easy victory 
 over savages or idiots ; and let them, above all things, dep- 
 recate the magnetic captivation of an admiring auditory. 
 They should be prepared to encounter a body of men not 
 mentally below the average of any American community — 
 and perhaps, on the whole, it would not be a tempestuous 
 enthusiasm for deliberative assemblies that should rate them 
 a little above — men who, in social life, do not, as a general 
 thing, put their knives in their mouths, and with whom, if we 
 are to enter heaven on the strength of good character and 
 good works, one would as soon cast in his lot as with any 
 other community, called by whatever name. But they should 
 be prepared also to encounter men who, whatever may be 
 their diversity of gifts and graces, are profoundly in earnest 
 to accomplish their own objects, and to defeat objects tliat 
 conflict with their own; men whose key-note is competition 
 rather than courtesy ; who in the hedt of debate do not al' 
 
and Worthkssness. 245 
 
 ways defer to their foes, or even to their friends ; who are 
 often forcible even to bluntness, and who are not least sharp 
 when they are most civil ; men who, in perfect good humor, 
 and quite within the bounds of propriety, are wont to address 
 each other, and to carry their own over their comrades in 
 a style to which women are not accustomed from men, and 
 by which, if used toward themselves, they could hardly fail 
 to be shocked. Women papers have a way of enhancing 
 the merits of women by speaking of them as little-girl re- 
 porters, little-girl sculptors, little Greek professors ; and, if 
 his journalistic petting seems a good and pleasant thing, I 
 do not know that it does any especial harm. But if these 
 little girls are to be sent to Congress, and are to exercise 
 any but a belittling influence upon politics, their little-girl- 
 hood can not be too speedily laid aside. They should di- 
 vest themselves of every thing which shadows of diminutive- 
 ness and every thing that borders upon endearment, and 
 stand only upon their knowledge, their sagacity, their prac- 
 tical legislative power. 
 
246 Woman's Worth 
 
 XIV. 
 THE NECESSITY OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE. 
 
 The third ground on which the ballot is demanded for 
 woman is that she needs it for her own protection against 
 man. Men, left to themselves, make laws for women which 
 are unjust and oppressive. Women must have the law-mak- 
 ing power in their own hands in order to secure fair play. 
 
 I deny this wholly. I deny it in full view of the fact that 
 men have made laws unjust to women ; that the only fear 
 of personal injury felt by women is of bad men, and that a 
 very large part of the suffering and sorrow of women comes 
 from the selfishness or ignorance of the good men with 
 whom they are connected. In the face of all this, I affirm 
 that American women, as a class, do not need protection 
 against American men, as a class ; that, if they do need it, 
 they will never get it, either from the ballot or from any 
 other source ; and that, on the whole, the law, as it stands, 
 is more favorable to women than it would have been if 
 women had made the law for themselves. 
 
 If we have come to the point that women must defend 
 themselves against men, we may as well give up the battle 
 at once. One man is stronger than one woman, and ten 
 men are stronger than ten women, and the nineteen mill- 
 ions of men in this country will subdue, capture, and exe- 
 cute or expel the nineteen millions of women just as soon as 
 they set about it. It is not even, like the suppression of 
 the late Rebellion, a question of time. They could do it in 
 half an hour any day. What is the use, then, of women's 
 talking about protecting themselves against men ? 
 
and Worthkssness. 247 
 
 Tlae slaves of the South received the suffrage for their 
 protection, but protection against whom ? Against the pow- 
 er that gave them the suffrage ? That is absurd. It is as 
 if a woman should say to a man, " I believe you are a bur- 
 glar, and mean to rob me. Give me a gun, that I may de- 
 fend myself against you." If he means to rob her, it is idle 
 to expect him to give her the gun. If he gives her the gun, 
 it is proof that he is no burglar, and she does not need to 
 defend herself against him. 
 
 But women do not propose to fight laws into existence. 
 They propose to vote them. But voting power is based on 
 fighting power. The rule of the majority is at bottom the 
 rule of force. Sixty thousand voters yield to a hundred 
 thousand voters not because they believe them to be wiser 
 than themselves, but because they know them to be stron- 
 ger. When they do not believe them to be stronger, they do 
 not yield. They resist, and we have a rebellion. It is the 
 knowledge that there is a physical force underneath the 
 vote strong enough to uphold the vote that gives to the 
 vote its power ; so that the ballot is not simply the expres- 
 sion of desire, but the measure of strength. If the men of 
 this country wish to oppress the women, will they be de- 
 terred from it by women's saying at the polls, or any where 
 else, that they do not wish to be oppressed .-' The strength , 
 which women have to enforce their vote, compared with 
 that which men have to smother it, is simply contemptible. 
 Until women can march faster and further, and throw up 
 earth-works more quickly, and stand longer in the trenches, 
 and fight harder in the field than men, they must depend 
 for justice upon the good will of men. 
 
 This would be a fearful sword hanging over women, a 
 most unequal arrangement of forces, if there were not im- 
 planted in man a good will toward woman as deep as his 
 life, as strong as his strength, as inalienable as himself 
 
248 Woman's Worth 
 
 This good will is often erratic' in development, in some 
 cases seems to be almost entirely suppressed, in savage 
 tribes may be very feeble, in all tribes needs wise treatment, 
 but increases and flourishes exactly in proportion as the 
 higher nature of man is developed, and in civilized and 
 Christianized countries may be counted on with entire cer- 
 tainty. This goes a great way toward equalizing matters. 
 It gives to woman a gre9,ter hold upon man's strength than 
 he has himself. His good will toward her is so great that 
 he will work harder and endure more for her sake than for 
 his own. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, but 
 woman -preservation is the first law of civilization. The 
 men on a sinking ship will save the women, and go down 
 themselves, not because women are considered more valua:- 
 ble than men, not for any reason whatever but simply be- 
 cause men never think of doing any thing else. If the crew 
 of a vessel should let the women perish, and themselves 
 sail into port in safety, they would be mobbed at the first 
 quay on which they landed. When Captain Herndon told 
 his men that he proposed to save" the women and go down 
 with the ship, did they demur ? I have heard that they re- 
 sponded with a sudden outburst of cheers, heart answering 
 to heart with instinctive heroism. I do not know how that 
 may be, but they manned the boats with a picked crew, 
 they sent every woman away to life, and themselves, four 
 hundred and twenty-seven men, went down to death. 
 
 And their countrywomen must protect themselves against 
 their countrymen ! 
 
 Individual men, under stress of temptation, or through ig- 
 norance, will do great wrong to individual women. Men 
 combined in society, no doubt, often unwittingly injure wom- 
 en ; but I do not believe that any body of men ever assem- 
 bled in this country, or ever will assemble, with any purpose 
 or wish to wrong or oppress the women of the country, or in 
 
and Worthies sness. 249 
 
 any way to take advantage of their weakness or ignorance 
 to their own furtherance, or with any other wish or purpose 
 toward women than to protect and benefit them. 
 
 But look at the laws which men have made for women — 
 the laws of marriage, the laws for property, the laws for the 
 guardianship of children ! I do look at them, and I see 
 them steadily and even rapidly gathering about woman to 
 secure her freedom and to protect her rights. From year 
 to year, without retrogression, the march of improvement 
 has gone on. In no other respect has the nation signalized 
 its advance more clearly than in the ever-increasing liberal- 
 ity and wisdom of its laws regarding women. Unjust laws 
 still mar our statute-books, but the performance of the past 
 is full of promise for the future. There are states to-day 
 in which the laws not only protect, but favor women, and 
 every where is shown a disposition to redress wrong and 
 secure right. 
 
 It is a great mistake to judge of the motive and scope of 
 a law from its working in an indivfdual case. I have no 
 doubt that, as a general thing, law is the expression of the 
 best thought and the best purpose of the age which enact- 
 ed it. I have no doubt that, as a general thing, even those 
 laws which to-day we consider disgraceful, were really, in 
 their time, the working of reform ; were an improvement on 
 the customs which preceded their establishment. I dare 
 say, if we could know all about it, we should see that the 
 law permitting to the husband " moderate correction'' of his 
 wife was not to induce husbands to beat their wives, but to 
 restrain them from beating them immoderately. The laws 
 which seem to give husbands an undue control over the 
 persons, property, or children of their wives were no doubt 
 preceded by laws or customs which gave unlimited control. 
 When we speak indignantly of " the laws which men have 
 made for women," we may as well be indignant also over 
 
 L2 
 
250 Woman's Worth 
 
 the laws which men have made for men. Has the law in- 
 flicted any greater outrage on woman than it has on the in- 
 nocent man who is kept in jail as a witness while the crim- 
 inal goes at large ? A law can not rise much higher than 
 the age and country which frame it. It must partake of 
 the defects of that age. I do not know that there has ever 
 been a time when the women of a nation were further ad- 
 vanced than the men in jurisprudence ; and, unless such a 
 time has been, we have small reason to suppose that wom- 
 en would have made better laws than men. 
 
 It is to be remembered that scarcely a law can be framed 
 which may not bear hard on particular cases. It is impos- 
 sible for finite beings to fit laws to every exigency. They 
 can, at best, only approximate justice. They can only aim 
 at the greatest good of the greatest number. Even where 
 a law seems arbitrary and unjust, there is often another side 
 which is less opprobrious. Looking at the laws for mar- 
 ried women, we must remember that not only has the state 
 to consider married women, but that husband, children, and 
 society have rights which it is bound to respect. If any 
 thing seems utterly wicked and cruel, it is robbing a mother 
 of her children. To-day our hearts are wrung with the 
 story of a mother thus robbed by a legal guardian on the 
 occasion of her second marriage. To-morrow a father dies 
 frenzied with grief because he can not snatch his children 
 from his divorced wife ; and his story is not a merry one. 
 It seemed an unjust and degrading thing for a married 
 woman not to be allowed to hold property independent of 
 her husband, and one state after another changed its laws 
 to enable her to do so ; but testimony goes to show that 
 the principal practical use made of the law, thus far, has 
 been to enable the husband to put his property into the 
 hands of his wife, and thus live, on the enjoyment of it, and 
 do business on the strength of it, without having it liable 
 
and Worthlessness. 251 
 
 for his debts or subject to the risks of his business. In 
 Connecticut a woman is actually thrown into jail because 
 she refuses to give up her personal property to her hus- 
 band, he and his two daughters by a former marriage being 
 already supported on the proceeds of her real estate ; and 
 the women of Connecticut are therefore exhorted to arise, 
 demand equal and just rights for both men and women, and 
 banish forever from your statute-book laws which can be 
 made the instrument of such injustice ! But in New York 
 a married woman holds, independent of her husband's con- 
 trol, thirty thousand dollars. This money she received from 
 him when he was in good business and in full health. He 
 became paralyzed ; and she at once took a paramour and 
 sailed to Europe, leaving her husband an annuity of three 
 hundred dollars, and supporting her paramour out of the 
 proceeds of the fortune which her husband had given her. 
 Shall not, then, the men of New York arise and banish for- 
 ever from their statute-books laws which can be made the 
 instrument of such injustice ? When fiction comes to the 
 field, we are called upon to sympathize with a sick husband, 
 who is unable to " tend store" where he is partner, but is 
 able and willing to stay at home, keep house, " chop hash," 
 and mind the children. The wife is healthy, able, and will- 
 ing to become partner, and tend store in her husband's 
 stead, and the other partner is desirous she should. She 
 proposes to buy her husband out ; but the laws do not per- 
 mit a contract between husband and wife ; so he makes her 
 a present of all he is worth, and every thing goes smoothly, 
 till it is suddenly discovered that a married woman can not 
 be a partner, when every thing stop's, the husband grows 
 worse and worse', they can think of nothing to do but live 
 on their principal, and " Shame on the Old Bay State for 
 the laws its men have made !" 
 
 Leaving out of view the peculiar mental £ink which en- 
 
2^2 Woman's Worth 
 
 ables them to devise a mode of escape from the impossibil- 
 ity of a contract between husband and wife by a gift to the 
 wife of all her husband's property, but does not permit them 
 to see any way of getting a living unless she can be a legal 
 partner in the shop, how easy is it to give the story another 
 twist ! The sick man has presented all his property to his 
 healthy wife. She goes into the store under the new law 
 as partner. The new firm. is unskillful or unfortunate, and 
 principal and interest go down together ; or she falls in love 
 with the partner, who is likely to be more cheerful and en- 
 gaging than the sick husband, chopping hash at home ; and, 
 as she is not liable for his support, notwithstanding he has 
 given her all his money — for, while the laws have steadily 
 enlarged the liberty of the wife, they have never, I believe, 
 diminished her immunities — she turns him out of doors, 
 where " damp door-step settles on his lungs," and he dies 
 in the poor-house. I think a wife is just as likely to do this 
 as a man is to put his wife in jail for not giving him her 
 money. Or, we may imagine a sagacious and fortunate 
 husband doing business up town, and suddenly finding him- 
 self penniless and his children beggared by an ambitious, 
 extravagant, and incapable wife doing business down town. 
 These things are mentioned, not to prove that our laws, 
 as they stand, are perfect, but to indicate that they may be 
 unequal without being necessarily or intentionally unjust ; 
 to indicate, also, that there are on all these questions two 
 sides. Society is to the last degree complicated and deli- 
 cate. The relations of husband and wife are so peculiarj 
 their interests are so identical, even though they do not 
 maintain for each other a romantic affection, that I do not 
 see how it is possible for the law to consider them two en- 
 tirely distinct and independent individuals, like two men, 
 without injuriously affecting the interests and claims of oth- 
 ers. The Old Testament and the New agree in declaring 
 
and Worthlessness. 253 
 
 that they twain shall be one flesh ; and if the formula were 
 written after the facts, to fit the case, it could not have been 
 more concise or accurate. We can not legislate for that 
 which is essentially one as if it were in all points two. Di- 
 vine law is utterly regardless of our protests and insensible 
 to our arguments, and holds just as strong when we ignore 
 as when we obey it. 
 
 No law exists which can not be made the instrument of 
 injustice. Under the best and wisest laws individuals may 
 suffer. No law can be framed which shall completely shield 
 man or woman from the consequences of ignorance, inca- 
 pacity, or folly. You can place the control of property, the 
 rights of contract, with husband or wife, or both, and it will 
 still remain that, if a woman marry a brutal, coarse, selfish, 
 or lazy man, she will suffer for it, in mind, body, and estate ; 
 if a man marry a frivolous, unprincipled, uneducated wom- 
 an, she will drag him down. No change in laws can affect 
 the fact that in marriage the character of the parties is of 
 the first importance, and the settlement of their property is 
 but subordinate. If they are wise and good, they are more 
 likely to be happy than if they are foolish and selfish. If 
 they are sick, they will suffer more than if they are well. 
 All that law can do is to help people as far as possible 
 against the consequences of folly, weakness, and wicked- 
 ness, whether their own or another's. Notwithstanding all 
 the clamor against it, this is what the law aims to do, and 
 what in large measure it does. Our American law is, in 
 the main, beneficent, and not oppressive. It steps in be- 
 tween a woman's self- surrender and self-devotion to the 
 man she loves and the possible consequences of her act, 
 and retains for her certain rights and makes for her certain 
 claims which a woman would seldom think of doing for her- 
 self. When a girl is in love with a man, she does not 
 dream of defending herself against him. She would gladly 
 
254 Woman's Worth 
 
 give him all her money, and only wish she had more to 
 give. If there were no law at all on this subject, and the 
 disposition of her property were left to each woman at her 
 marriage, in nine cases out of ten she would relinquish the 
 whole care and control of it to her husband, without any 
 limitation whatever. But the law knows what she does not 
 know. To the law her hero is no hero, but z. fallible man, 
 who may bring her to grief and poverty ; so it hedges him 
 about with restraints which, though often insufficient, are 
 greater than she would ever impose. There is no need, as 
 there is no use, in crying shame on the Old Bay State for 
 the laws its men have made. Defective though they be, 
 the Old Bay State nowhere, on the whole, makes a better 
 figure. than on its statute-books. Nowhere. do its men ap- 
 pear more conscientious, more bent on justice, than in fash- 
 ioning the laws regarding women. They have not reached 
 perfection. They have not yet secured equity. Nor do I 
 think equity is to be secured by equality. Women ought to 
 have more than equality. They are heavily weighted in 
 the race, and they ought to have advantage. The husband 
 owes to his wife support. The wife does not owe it to her 
 husband. The law ought to put its hand into the husband's 
 pocket and take out enough for the wife's maintenance, 
 whether he will or not; but I can not see any reason why 
 it shoiild put its hand into the wife's pocket at all. This, 
 however, is only on the ground that women and men are 
 not equal ; that man has the facilities and woman the disa- 
 bilities for business ; that it is a man's part, and not a wom- 
 an's, to earn money. ' If this is not so — if men and, women 
 are to be on the same plane — then I see not why. the wife 
 should not be responsible for the husband's support, as well 
 as the husband for the wife's ; why her property should not 
 go to pay his debts as entirely, as inevitably as his goes to 
 pay hers ; why she should not be equally with himself liable 
 
and Worthlessness. 255 
 
 for the support of the children ; why, indeed, there should 
 not be an entire readjustment of the laws of property and 
 of obligations which shall involve a public investigation of 
 family affairs compared with which the publication of the 
 income tax would seem inoffensive and delightful. How- 
 ever this may be, impartial and exhaustive investigation and 
 fair comparison will show that far more clamor is raised 
 against the laws than the laws themselves give occasion 
 for ; that suffering arises far more from the weakness and 
 wickedness of individuals than from laws ; and that, where 
 the laws are still insufficient for. woman's protection, they 
 are so not because men desire and design to injure women, 
 but because they do not yet know what is for benefit and 
 what for detriment ; that they have thought far more deeply 
 and broadly for women than women have for themselves ; 
 that they have taken far more pains to protect women than 
 women have taken for their own protection ; and that the 
 earnestness, the vigor, and the success with which they have 
 adopted and executed such plans of reform as have been 
 presented to them is a sure sign that women have only to 
 determine and designate what is for their advancement to 
 secure it at the hands of men. 
 
 But why not secure it for themselves rather than ask men 
 to secure it for them ? Why retain women in a state of 
 tutelage, not to say pupilage ? Without detracting from the 
 wisdom and good will of man, why not add to it the wis- 
 dom, self-knowledge, and self-interest of woman ? Admit- 
 ting that women alone would do no better than men alone, 
 it may still remain that men and women together are worth 
 more than either alone. If we agree that men do not know 
 what women need and want until women tell them, why 
 not ally them at the ballot-box, permit woman there to ex- 
 press her will, and thus do the work directly, rather than 
 keep her away from the polls, and execute her will only by 
 the roundabout method of man's agency ? 
 
256 Woman's Worth 
 
 Simply because man's agency seems a more direct and 
 economical way than woman's personal action. Compared 
 with the whole ^ass of law, that part of it which bears, or 
 even which seems to bear, unjustly on woman is very small. 
 A woman might as well turn farmer, and undertake the 
 plowing and ditching herself, because she wants a tulip-bed, 
 as undertake the whole field of politics because the part 
 which relates to her needs fresh seeding down. In general, 
 it will be admitted by all that the property interests of man 
 and woman, except as affected by marriage, are identical. 
 The greater portion of the law and of politics concerns 
 matters in which the claims of man and woman are not an- 
 tagonistic. In all our international, and in the greater part 
 of our national affairs, the best thing for men is the best 
 thing for women. In the establishment of peace or the dec- 
 laration of war, men have certainly as much at stake, as 
 women. In the adjustment of the tariff, in the disposition 
 of public lands, in the regulation of national banks, of inter- 
 nal revenue, of civil service, of commerce and navigation, 
 of municipal government, men have no interests distinct 
 from those of women. Those decisions and that legislation 
 which advance the prosperity of men, advance equally the 
 prosperity of women, whether they are active business man- 
 agers or mere owners of property. In these matters, per- 
 haps, the question of sex enters not at all. In most of 
 them a majority of women take no interest, nor does it seem 
 essential that they should. They are matters on which 
 twenty men may throw as much light as ten men and ten 
 women. A man may be profoundly ignorant of the temper-^ 
 ament and nature of woman, and yet be wise in respect to 
 laying taxes on iron and steel ; but if women are to inform 
 themselves and to vote on the few questions which directly 
 concern them, they must do it also on the many questions 
 which concern them but indirectly. In giving an account 
 
and Worthkssness. 257 
 
 of her labors, one of the female-suffrage missionaries report- 
 ed that she found among women scarcely any opposition, but 
 a great deal of ignorance. They seemed to have heard little 
 about the movement going on to secure them the ballot; but 
 when she explained the case, they admitted that it was rea- 
 sonable, and put their names to her petition. But after the 
 suffrage is secured the same work of instruction must be 
 wrought upon these women to show them how to direct 
 their effort for the amelioration of the laws. If this mis- 
 sionary had made a digest of all the objectionable state 
 laws ; had shown where they were oppressive, and how they 
 should be altered to secure justice and dignity to woman, 
 without injuring any other class ; had embodied this in a pe- 
 tition to the Legislature, and had then gone around among 
 women explaining her design, and asking their signatures, 
 would she not have helped women far more directly and 
 speedily 'i I do not believe a single state Legislature exists 
 which would dare to refuse, or which would even wish to re- 
 fuse, any thing for which the women of their state should 
 thus express a desire — the women of the state; not, of 
 course, any mere clique of women. If they would refuse it, 
 they certainly would not give women the ballot. If they 
 would not let women have their way in one thing, it is not 
 probable they would put into their hands an instrument 
 whereby they might get their way in all things. If they 
 would not refuse it, then women have a method whereby 
 they can speak their minds, when they have any, and yet 
 need "not be obliged to make up their minds on points to 
 which they are indifferent. It is only now and then that 
 questions come up for which women naturally care. On 
 those occasions they find no difficulty in expressing them- 
 selves. Perhaps they come out with all the more influence 
 because they come but seldom. No one had any doubt 
 what women thought, how they loved, on which side they 
 
258 Woman's Worth 
 
 stood, during the late war. Alike North and South they 
 made themselves felt as strongly without the ballot-box as 
 men did with it. On the question of protection or free 
 trade they have said little ; perhaps because they have not 
 the power to vote, but perhaps also because they have little 
 to say, and what little they have they find just as well said 
 to their hand. On the subject of ship-building they feel no 
 enthusiasm ; the salt of San Domingo does not arouse their 
 sympathy. 
 
 But women, it is said, ought not to be in the attitude of 
 petitioners. It is not dignified for them to beg men to do 
 for them what they have a right to do for themselves. But 
 they are petitioners in any case. They must beg even for 
 the vote. Right or wrong, men have the power, and women 
 have it not. It is no more undignified to ask man to reach 
 you an apple from the shelf, than it is to ask him to place 
 his footstool for you to stand on and reach it yourself. Do 
 you say that the apple is as much yours as his, and ought 
 never to have been put out of your reach ? But it is out of 
 your reach, and you can not get it unless he gives it to you. 
 That fact is as fixed as fate, and women had as much part 
 in fixing it so as men. 
 
 We talk as if the present state of society were the result 
 of some arbitrary outside influence, which has repressed and 
 altered the nature of things. Women, we say, are equal to 
 men, but they have been subdued to inferiority by wrong 
 training and false public opinion. Men, it is true, have 
 done the great deeds, but women have never had a fair 
 chance. Give them the same education and the same tra- 
 ditions that men have, and put men to the narrow life and 
 petty service of women, and we should soon see what we 
 should see. 
 
 Very true ; and yet, if women are naturally equal to men, 
 how came they to be actually unequal ? Who prescribed 
 
and Worthkssness. 259 
 
 the wrong- training, and who made the false opinion, and 
 how came women into the narrow path ? Man and woman 
 started in life together. If they were equal, why did she not 
 show her hand ? There was no public opinion then to warp 
 her thought. Eve had just as good an education as Adam. 
 No petty traditional cares came to belittle her purpose or 
 to fritter away her days. That was the time for her to make 
 a stand, if she proposed to make one at all. After all these 
 years, it is no use to cry out that she could do all things if 
 she only had the chance. She had the chance once, and 
 she did not do them. This is the simple fact, and no 
 amount of rhetoric alters it. Men have made the discover- 
 ies, and invented the machinery, and built the cities, and 
 acquired the honors, and subdued the world, because they 
 could. Women have not, because they could not. Men 
 are masters of the situation because they are stronger than 
 women, and there is no good in beating about the bush. 
 Men have the education because they would have it. They 
 have not the thousand small cares because they would not 
 have them. Women have had neither the strength to grasp 
 the one nor to reject the other. What men gave them they 
 took, and what men refused them they went without, and 
 they could not help themselves. Nor has any thing yet 
 happened to invalidate this superiority. If women attempt 
 to measure swords with men, they will be beaten. If woman 
 could not hold her own against man in the beginning, she 
 can not hold her own now. Things are as they are, not 
 from any outside interference, but from their own inherent 
 nature. There is nobody outside but God. 
 
 In competition with man, woman makes no show at all. 
 If that is her case, she has no case. All prophecy of what 
 she will do goes for nothing in face of the fact that for six 
 thousand years she has not done it. No possible legisla- 
 tion, no conceivable contingency can give her a fairer field. 
 
26o Woman's Worth 
 
 a more equal position with man than she had at the begin- 
 ning. 
 
 My inference is that her work lies in another direction. 
 Her field is on another plane. I believe in her glory, hon- 
 or, and immortality ; and I believe profoundly and unalter- 
 ably in her superiority to man, but not in the role of man. 
 
 When it is objected that if women vote on the few points 
 in which they are interested they must also vote on the 
 many points in which they are not interested, the reply is 
 made that they ought to be interested in all. Women are 
 equally concerned with men in the character of government. 
 They ought to have an equal knowledge of, and an equal 
 share in politics. To say that they have no desire to vote 
 amounts to no more than did the old slaveholding assertion 
 that the slaves did not desire to be free. Speaking of this 
 alleged unwillingness, one of the leaders says, " As if this, 
 being true, justified the domination of the strong, and the 
 servile acquiescence of the weak ! As if this, being true, 
 did not prove an immense loss of self-respect, self-control, 
 personal independence, and wholesome responsibility on 
 the part of the women thus ignobly praised !" 
 
 But I utterly repudiate the idea that the unwillingness of 
 women to vote implies servility or a lack of self-respect. 
 There may be thoughtless and spiritless women who care 
 nothing about it one way or the other, and there appear to be 
 those who think hostility to it a winning and womanly thing. 
 But beyond these stand the women who think, and think the 
 other way ; who, whether or not pecuniarily dependent, are 
 mentally independent ; who are resolute and self-possess- 
 ed. When of such women we predicate servile acquies- 
 cence in the domination of the strong, we speak nonsense. 
 No line of argument in the suffrage cause is more fatuous 
 than that which assumes the women of this country to be in 
 any sense slaves. If the laws on the statute-books were 
 
and Worthlessness. 261 
 
 forty times worse than they are, it would be equally fatuous. 
 Such an assumption is an,insult, and no argument. It has 
 scarcely truth enough to sting. It hardly arouses resent- 
 ment ; it slightly excites contempt ; it never convinces the 
 reason. It may inflame the suffering, and impose upon the 
 weak, but it does not advance the cause in those quarters 
 where advance must be made if the result is to be benefi- 
 cial. The women of this country are as free in word and 
 deed as the men, so far as the ballot affects freedom. Their 
 ownership of property is in many cases as absolute, and 
 where there is a difference, it is a difference of degree, not 
 of kind. The wife does not hold her property free from her 
 husband's control, but neither does he hold his free from 
 her control. The restrictions may not be equal, but both 
 are restricted, each by the other. By a foolishly-worded 
 marriage-vow — a relic of barbarism — she promises to obey 
 him ; but she is just as legally married without the promise, 
 and when she does make it, it never practically amounts to 
 any thing. If she will, she will, and if she won't, she 
 won't. Her obedience or her command depend upon her 
 disposition and character, and upon those of her husband. 
 Wives, and perhaps women, are to some extent forbidden 
 to hold office ; but it is not wholly because they are women, 
 nor necessarily because women are considered inferior to 
 men. Many men are equally forbidden, and some men by 
 reason of no inferiority. All members of both houses of 
 Congress are legally disqualified for holding office during 
 their term of service, but it involves no discourtesy to the 
 members. The idea which underhes the law is doubtless 
 that one man can not well perform the two sets of duties, 
 and it is not unreasonable to suppose that this is precisely 
 the idea which underlies the legal disqualification of women. 
 Looking at their actual social status in this country, it is as 
 easy to believe that they are forbidden on account of the 
 
262 Woman's Worth 
 
 superior service which they render to the state in other di- 
 rections, and with which office-holding might conflict, as it 
 is to believe that they are forbidden on account of inferior- 
 ity, or for the purpose of enslavement. Women know that 
 they are not slaves. Bad as are some of the laws in some 
 of the states, there is none in which women do not possess 
 the essentials of liberty ; none in which a woman may not 
 exercise entire freedom of thought, of word, and, for the 
 most part, of deed, hampered only by bonds which are the 
 results of her own acts or character. All the laws which 
 unjustly restrict her she may in the most public manner 
 denounce, and use all her efforts to destroy, and to substi- 
 tute for them such as are just, while the changes which 
 have been effected in these later years show that denuncia- 
 tion is not the dashing of impotent rage against an immova- 
 ble body, but may become a skillful instrument for fashion- 
 ing the grim block into a shapely statue. To say that 
 woman has no voice in making the laws which govern her 
 is not correct. She has no vote, but in every other respect 
 she has a voice as free, and clear, and penetrating as man's. 
 To inform the mother of a family, the woman who stands at 
 the head, ruling, guiding, watching, influencing, controlling 
 her husband in twenty matters for one in which he controls 
 her, taking in society precisely, the position which her abili- 
 ties fit her to take, that she is a slave, or even a child ; to 
 tell a woman who does not take the position for which she 
 is fitted because she has not leisure, who spends the long 
 days in serving, and cooking, and care-taking for little chil- 
 dren who do notknow,ehoijgh to be thankful, and for a hard- 
 working husband who has, all his life been- used to seeing 
 women work, and is not overmuch troubled thereby, who is 
 an equal partner in the family firm, and whose mind has 
 equal force in the family councils ; to tell a woman whose 
 life has been one long grind of endurance from a tyrannic- 
 
and Worthkssness. • 263 
 
 al, miserly, petty husband; to tell a young girl, iiree and 
 merry, or an unmarried woman of mature years, of active 
 life, of definite purpose, or " anxious and aimless," through 
 lack of purpose, that they are one and all slaves because 
 they can not vote, argues an indistinctness of vision or a 
 misuse of words that bodes ill to any cause. It gives a 
 made-up air to the whole grievance. It looks as if there 
 were no ground of complaint. It looks as if women were 
 so well off that real fault could not be found with their con- 
 dition, and therefore a demonstration is arranged to prove 
 that they are logically what really every one knows that they 
 are not, and what, without the denunciation, no one would 
 ever suspect them of being. Unhappily, there are restric- 
 tions which ought to be removed — restrictions from which 
 these false issues divert attention, and to whose removal 
 they become therefore real obstacles. 
 
 It is only the most stupid and degraded of slaves who 
 are content with slavery, who do not wish to be free. Do 
 the advocates of woman suffrage know what they are doing 
 when they liken their opponents to such ? Do they know 
 what sort of woman it is upon whom they attempt to fasten 
 the stigma of servility? Do they understand the meaning 
 of words when they assume the monopoly of self-respect 
 and self-control, and deny their possession to all other 
 women ? 
 
264 Woman's Worth 
 
 XV. 
 
 EXEMPTION OR IMPOSITION. 
 
 In the discussion of female suffrage, we hear much about 
 the privileges and honors of politics, little about its duties ; 
 much about the injustice which debars women from its 
 emoluments, little about the justice which exempts women 
 from its demands. It will not be denied that political pow- 
 er makes severe demands and prescribes exacting duties. 
 To conduct this great nation, with its varied interests, its 
 clashing nationalities, its numerous sub-governments, its 
 wide-stretching territories — to bear it on from day to day 
 without bankruptcy, without impinging upon other nations, 
 without falling a prey to the conflicting claims of its own 
 members — this is no sinecure. It employs a large class of 
 the best men in the country, it secures the best thoughts of 
 another large class of best men, it occupies a large share of 
 the attention and interest of every intelligent and conscien- 
 tious man, and in the last resort its call is paramount to all 
 others. The moment that women have the power to vote, 
 all this responsibility devolves equally upon them. It be- 
 comes at once their duty to inform themselves on every po- 
 litical subject, to hold themselves ready to answer the sum- 
 mons to all political service. It is true that men do not. 
 Men, untaught, unaccustomed to logical thinking, preju- 
 diced and opinionated, vote ignorantly, blindly. Intelligent 
 and honest men decline political duty, and even plume 
 themselves on it, though the public receive harm in conse- 
 quence. But women are entering the arena not to imitate 
 
and Worthlessness. 265 
 
 men, but to improve upon them ; not to do things as they are 
 done, but as they ought to be done. Ignorant legislation is 
 already our great menace. Women are not to increase its 
 quantity. They will be, equally with men, recreant to their 
 trust unless they comprehend intelligently all the issues 
 upon which they pronounce decision, and pronounce de- 
 cision upon all the issues submitted to their judgment. 
 
 Hitherto man has done this work alone. We must give 
 him the credit of never having asked woman to share it with 
 him. If he has claimed its honors, he has at least borne its 
 burdens. If he has never suffered woman to rule, he has 
 never asked her to serve. He has repeatedly blundered 
 into war, but he has fought it out himself. 
 
 To my thinking this is simply as it should be. I give 
 man no credit for generosity, only for justice. He ought to 
 do this work, for woman has another work to do, by virtue 
 of which she stands exempt from this. Her part is more 
 severe, more exacting, more important than his. He may 
 well take upon himself the whole burden of business, po- 
 litical and pecuniary ; she more than offsets it in bearing 
 the burden of motherhood. This, with what it involves, de- 
 mands, and permits, is so onerous that all other task-work 
 laid upon her is unnatural. I would absolve her from every 
 thing except that v/hich ministers directly to the spiritual 
 life of the race. Nature has spoken here with a clearness 
 which it is impossible to mistake, with a force which it is im- 
 possible to resist. 
 
 So many witless, wicked, and unclean words have been 
 uttered in these latter days touching woman's place, that no 
 folly, no madness even, on the part of women ought to ex- 
 cite surprise. When a mother, who has brought up children 
 to usefulness and honor, rises on the platform to give her 
 opinion as to what is best for women, and clergymen of 
 moderate abilities and precarious position tell her in reply 
 
 M 
 
266 Woman's Worth 
 
 that her true work is to go home and take care of her chil- 
 dren, or that she is advocating free love, the destruction of 
 marriage, and the dissolution of society, one feels that argu- 
 ment would be thrown away, and that the true womanly and 
 fitting response would be, in the language of the poet, 
 
 " To take them as you would mischievous boys, 
 And shake their heads together." 
 
 When our religious teachers count it a praiseworthy thing 
 to turn the most austere and momentous service of woman- 
 hood into a means of acquiring property, and hold up the 
 example for imitation, it is idle to reproach women for infi- 
 delity. If female suffrage obtains to-morrow, its most effect- 
 ual calling will have been from pulpits and religious news- 
 papers, which denounced it. Ministers are sometimes re- 
 proached for confining themselves too closely to the sins of 
 past ages, and letting the sins of the present go unchecked. 
 But, listening to a suffrage sermon, one mentally exclaims, 
 " Oh, if they only would never come nearer to us than Neb- 
 uchadnezzar !" The mouthings of mountebanks are neither 
 here nor there ; but when clergymen, even of parts and cul- 
 ture, undertake to preach woman, it is fearful and wonder- 
 ful to see what paralysis comes upon their perception, what 
 mildew blights their judgment, what dry-rot falls upon their 
 reason. Men may keep up any kind of a thinking, but all 
 they have a right to say is, " We will not be an obstacle to 
 women. Whenever the majority signify a desire to exercise 
 the right of suffrage, we will not resist." If they wish to 
 preach down woman suffrage, the way is to let women alone 
 and preach to men,- curbing their selfishness, enlightening 
 their ignorance, showing them how to be so pure, so gentle, 
 so just, so wise, so; strong that women shall be confident 
 and comfortable, free from anxiety and toil, never tempted 
 or forced by man's inefficiency to put their shoulder to his 
 wheel, but, gratified, satisfied, elated with the way he does 
 
and Worthies sness. 267 
 
 his work, and content and delighted to devote themselves to 
 their own. 
 
 As I do not desire at present to have an ecclesiastical 
 war on my hands, I make only this slight allusion in pass- 
 ing ; but, from a general survey, it would not be fair to leave 
 out the material aid which the woman party has received 
 from the clergy, and the corresponding obstacles which its 
 opponents have been obliged to surmount. 
 
 But fallacy can not change facts. It still remains that 
 the one divine institution, changed by no times, weakened 
 by no sophistry, profaned by no barter, is the family. In 
 motive and method it most nearly approaches our ideal of 
 God's idea. Of this, all other governments, national, state, 
 municipal, are but a clumsy and cumbrous imitation. Crown- 
 ing this fact rises another which no impertinence of repeti- 
 tion affects, that this is woman's kingdom. Man is an im- 
 portant officer, but woman is the reigning monarch. He is 
 the prime minister whose wisdom makes the kingdom pros- 
 perous. He is the brilliant general whose exploits bring it 
 renown. He is the unprofitable servant whose weakness 
 drags it to the dust. 
 
 In this kingdom woman is not only sovereign, but sover- 
 eign-mother. Man's work, if necessary, she can make shift 
 to do after a fashion. Her work he can not do at all. What- 
 ever of toil and sacrifice a man renders for his family, a 
 woman can also render ; but beyond this she bears a bur- 
 den, above this she wields a power which he can never as-- 
 sume. In the tabernacle of life man dwells in the outer 
 courts, woman ministers at the holy of holies. Her influ- 
 ence upon humanity is so primal, so intimate, so dominant, 
 that it might seem almost divine. She is second only to 
 the Creator. 
 
 Herein lies her superiority. In coarse and common serv- 
 ice, in the race of the swift and the battle of the strong, 
 
268 Woman's Worth 
 
 man imrneasurably outstrips her. In the higher service of 
 love, which lies above battle-field Elnd race-course, of whose 
 ministry Godjiimself is the only perfect exemplar, she holds 
 a position so a dvanc ed that man is not even her com petitor . 
 
 From such a point the question is not. Have not women 
 a right to enter upon the arena of politics ? but, Have men a 
 right to demand that women shall enter that arena ? From 
 such a point I not only admit, but, if called upon, avow, that 
 women as truly as men have the right to vote, but, above 
 and beyond this, they have a higher right which men can 
 not claim — the right not to vote. 
 
 Never do I more regret the dishonor into which wom- 
 an's work has fallen — or, shall I say, out of which it has not 
 yet arisen — never appears a misapprehension of values so 
 great and fatal as when I hear a woman publicly espouse 
 the suffrage cause by saying, " No longer will woman be 
 content merely to rear a family, and drudge and die." 
 Merely to rear a family ! When women come to look upon 
 the rearing of a family as a small thing, we are indeed far 
 from the kingdom of heaven. We have groveled to sad 
 purpose if the little needs, the petty cares, the mere materi- 
 al service which attend all families, and which dominate so 
 many, have made themselves to represent family life. To 
 rear a family, to establish a home, to make domestic life 
 what it ought to be, to give it that part in the social struc- 
 ture, in national excellence, in the elevation of humanity 
 which belongs to it, and for which there is no substitute, is 
 an object worthy the ambition and the energies of the best 
 and wisest woman that ever was or ever will be born. The 
 great work of both man and woman is the fashioning of im- 
 mortal beings ; but what can be done through business and 
 politics, though necessary, is but feeble and far off compared 
 with what can be done in the family. Nature, with infinite 
 pains and infinite delicacy, has given woman a peculiar fit- 
 
and Worthkssness. 269 
 
 ness for this work, and a peculiar unfitness for every other. 
 What I want is that we should heed nature, and magnify the 
 office of woman. My claim is that all the rough, clashing, 
 confusing work outside and inside — not only that which 
 men now do, but a great deal of that which is done by wom- 
 en, shall be assumed by men, that women may be left tran- 
 quil, and free, and fine for the delicate touches. Homes are 
 defective, harsh, forbidding, uninfluential, because the wom- 
 en who should preside over them are cumbered with much 
 serving in them. It disturbs me little to hear men say that 
 if women vote they must also trade, and toil, and fight. 
 Thousands of women could hardly find life more stern than 
 it is, and it savors of hypocrisy for men to warn off from the 
 political field by prophecies of hardship women who are al- 
 ready well-nigh overborne by hardship, and who only look 
 that way longing for relief. But what shall I say when wom- 
 en tell me that the nature of woman demands the toil, and 
 trade, and strife of the outside world as a higher and better 
 thing than the mechanisms of the soul ? I claim that wom- 
 en have a right to be independent of those upon whom they 
 have no claim, and of the brutality of those upon whom they 
 have a claim, but a higher and sweeter, a divine right to be 
 dependent upon those to whom such dependence is a savor 
 of life unto life, and for the sake of those whose dear cher- 
 ishing, whose moral life, and highest happiness, and finest 
 growth make such dependence necessary. But if women 
 disdain their prerogative, and choose to minister unto them- 
 selves in carnal things rather than minister unto others spir- 
 itual things ! Men speak often as if the responsibility and 
 result of home and family rested on woman. I deny it^ab- 
 solutely, seeing nowhere iij^ nature anj; indication of it, be- 
 ireving that^tTie stake is too great to^lefttg either sex, but 
 demands the harmonious efforts of both ; and believing that 
 manTpart, thougE less absSFEingTIess difficult, and in some 
 
270 Woman's Worth 
 
 sense less honorable than woman's, is no less incumbent on 
 him. Men deprecate high education for women, fancying it 
 unfits them to be good housewives. I crave thehighest, if for 
 no other reason, that they may thus be fitted to begood house- 
 wives. Do boys need a liberal education to become skillful 
 in their profession ? Women need it as much to become 
 skillful in theirs. No calling can absorb more wealth of re- 
 source than the woman's calling. None counts wisdom 
 more vital, folly more fatal. All knowledge is its province. 
 Whatever tends to enlarge the mind, as well as to increase 
 the sympathy, belongs to woman. Politics, art, science, all 
 are hers, subject only to her choice, subordinate always to 
 her freedom. She may be poet, painter, philosopher, sea- 
 captain, sempstress, lawyer, lecturer — whatever she has im- 
 pulse and power to become ; but none of these things shall 
 be laid upon her, for upon her the Creator has laid another 
 work which has the right to exclude them all. She shall 
 have the widest scope for selection, and ample opportunity 
 for preparation, whatever career she select ; real power in 
 any direction is power in this. And so certain is nature to 
 secure her aims, that all the impulse which women feel in all 
 other directions is insignificant compared with the common 
 impulse which moves them in this. Whether a woman gath- 
 ers a family around her, or whether she sits " on winter 
 nights by solitary fires," is but an incident ; but she was or- 
 ganized without regard to incident. Her strength and her 
 weakness point in one direction. Humanity is her field. 
 Deeper than her choice, more remote than her will, lie the 
 sources of her power. 
 
 When we plan to impose upon women the whole new 
 world of politics, from what department do we plan to re- 
 lease her in order to equalize the duties of men and women? 
 My hope is that she may move surely onward, out of her for- 
 eign bondage to degrading tasks into native freedom for el- 
 
and Worthkssness. 11 \ 
 
 evating work. I am willing even to journey through the 
 wilderness of trade and mechanics, and to admit that, for 
 some, there may be no other way to the Promised Land ; 
 but I can not admit that the wilderness is Canaan except 
 in comparison with Egypt. I see in the advocacy of suf- 
 frage no attempt to lift off old burdens, but only to add 
 new. From no kind of toil is there any movement to free 
 woman, but only to bring her under another yoke with man. 
 Her own load can not be lightened, and therefore she shall 
 have a fresh weight ! 
 
 Why should women persist in appraising themselves at 
 men's valuation, and that of the baser sort of men ? In 
 savage tribes, where the standard has hardly risen above 
 physical strength, it is not strange that women should be 
 menial in service and soul. In this age and country, where 
 women are often actually, and always theoretically held in 
 honor, largely exempt from pecuniary, and always exempt 
 from political labor, they ought to adopt the highest theory, 
 and insist that it be carried out. They ought to insist upon 
 freedom from toil, that they may worthily discharge the 
 duties of their spiritual office and all mental furnishing, that 
 their freedom may be a blessing and no bane. Instead of 
 this, we are bidden to fall back upon the theory of savages, 
 and look upon woman's exemptions not as preparation for, 
 but banishment from the most honorable offices. We de- 
 mand that women shall come to their own, not by enfor- 
 cing, but by relinquishing their prerogative. What they do 
 already of necessity from man's incapacity, they shall do of 
 set purpose by reason of their own capacity. And when 
 women, with not one jot or tittle of their own law abro- 
 gated, shall be set side by side with men, be made subject 
 to the same tasks, liable for the same debts, and obedient 
 to the same summons, we shall have secured the enfran- 
 chisement and the elevation of woman ! 
 
272 Woman's Worth 
 
 XVI. 
 THE ATTITUDE OF MEN. 
 
 It is reckoned a matter of course that men should op- 
 pose female suffrage. They have held power too long, and 
 learned to love it too well, to rehnquish it without a strug- 
 gle. They will not willingly share that which they have 
 hitherto monopolized. 
 
 If men we're indeed tyrants by nature, this would be their 
 natural feeling. There are stupid, ignorant, and tyrannical 
 men enough to give rise to the statement. Such men op- 
 pose the movement with arguments whose impudence and 
 coarseness are the shame, and doubtless the torture, of the 
 women to whom they belong. Men who have not ability to 
 govern themselves, who are a disgrace, a terror, or a trial to 
 their families, are loud in their outcry against the govern- 
 ment of women. Let us not be blind to the fact — nor yet 
 to that other. fact, that the best men too are its opponents. 
 Men just and calm,,who are never guilty of discourtesy, who 
 are lovely and pleasant in their home lives, and who radiate 
 light in the social circle ; who are not only deferent in man- 
 ner, but who practically honor women by their walk and 
 conversation; in whose character jealousy, envy, meanness 
 have no place — these men too, persistently, though perhaps 
 passively, and always politely, oppose. Is it too much to 
 say that the instinct of men is against it? They will admit 
 its reasonableness, they will even obey orders under its 
 leaders, but there seems to be nothing in them to respond 
 with enthusiasm to its appeal, and they seldom take it up 
 spontaneously. 
 
and Worthkssness. 273 
 
 [I believe, indeed, it is a man who announces that " there 
 are thousands of men and women in Massachusetts who 
 would walk barefoot from Berkshire to Barnstable, who 
 would sacrifice party, social position, money, reputation, life 
 itself, to establish woman suffrage in the Old Bay State to- 
 day," and I suspect that statement nxust be referred to en- 
 thusiasm. The money and life are easy to believe. We 
 can any of us pick out a dozen or two women among our 
 neighbors who would cheerfully mount the gallows for the 
 sake of securing the immediate passage of a certain act by 
 the Legislature, but these yery women have been so accus- 
 tomed to shoes and stockings that it would be simply im- 
 possible for them to walk across Massachusetts barefoot, 
 and they would not like to be seen doing it either !] 
 
 Masculine hostility or indifference to female suffrage may 
 be a vice, but it may also be an instinct. Masculine vice 
 shall receive no quarter, but instinct is divine, irrespect- 
 ive of sex. The hostility is at least worth taking into ac- 
 count. If there is a course of action to which a large class 
 of women feel no drawing, to which another large class are 
 opposed, and which a large class of men consider unbecom- 
 ing and undesirable for women, there is surely ground for 
 hesitation. As things are, may it not be said, in general 
 terms, that what men dislike in women, and what women dis- 
 like in men, is unlovely ? Men, we say, wish to keep wom- 
 en inferior for the better security of their own position, but 
 I never saw a man evince any repugnance to a woman on 
 account of her superiority. Men admire fine qualities, and 
 acknowledge remarkable attainments in a woman as heart- 
 ily as they do in a man. Doctors refuse to consult with 
 female physicians, but they refuse to consult with male phy- 
 sicians also ; and among the obstacles to female medical 
 practice, not the least formidable is the unexpected fact that 
 women will not have women-doctors. Artists detract from 
 
 M 2 
 
2 74 Woman's Worth 
 
 the merits of a female artist, but male artists quarrel among 
 each other. Outside and above the circle of professional 
 jealousy, masculine opinion is as likely to take up for the 
 woman as the man. Assumption of superiority, boldness 
 and badness of manner, self-laudation, men do not like. 
 Neither do women, nor probably angels. But men are as 
 proud of their daughters' proficiency in Latin and the high- 
 er mathematics as they are of their sons'. Yet these men, 
 who respect the judgment of their wives, give the best pos- 
 sible education to their daughters, and find their most cher- 
 ished, valued, and honored friends among women, retain 
 still an insurmountable repugnance to the proposed political 
 leveling. They are not afraid that wife or friend will be 
 contaminated by politics. They have too much respect for 
 both politics and women. It can not be jealousy or tyran- 
 ny. They are ' incapable of either. To charge it to such 
 motives does not help solve the problem. They are not 
 to be won over with hard words. They are sensitive — 
 men are sometimes, particularly towards women — and such 
 allegations give them a sense of wrong, and even of out- 
 rage. They know that they are not tyrants, that they wish 
 well to women, that they would gladly do whatever is right 
 and wise ; but they see an army of women charging fierce- 
 ly for the suffrage and making the heavens ring with cries 
 of injustice and oppression ; they see another army of 
 women, equally virtuous — and, in spite of contrary repre- 
 sentations, I will venture to say, equally intelligent — wholly 
 opposed to the suffrage, and they know not what they are 
 expected to do. They hesitate from doubt as to what wom- 
 en want, not from anxiety for their own prestige. They 
 may in their hearts hope the change will never come, but 
 they would not selfishly oppose it against the protest of 
 women. 
 
 Whatever be the cause of this antagonistic W uncertain 
 
and Worthies sness. 
 
 275 
 
 attitude, it can not be wise to ignore or overbear it. The 
 leaders of the party say frankly that men will never grant 
 the right so long as they can help it. I believe they can 
 always help it if they choose, but even if they, can not, and 
 suffrage should be extorted, could the result be otherwise 
 than unhappy? Antagonism between man and woman is, 
 of all things, unnatural. Attraction is the natural relation. 
 It seems immodest for woman to thrust herself into the 
 ways and walks of man. Necessity is its own hard and 
 sufficient justification ; but, if I am right, the necessity is 
 not here. Its existence is, at least, not certain. Feminine 
 interference, when needed, is not recognised as interference, 
 but help — is not rejected, but welcomed. If woman suffrage 
 is to be, let it come from man's call, not from woman's 
 clamor. Let it come because the wisdom and strength of 
 woman are so manifest, because she is seen to be larger than 
 her life, and because the councils of her country need her 
 aid. If, even in the home for which she is eminently and 
 primarily fitted, she does not take the initiative, but awaits 
 invitation and preparation, how much less should she rush 
 unbidden into the outer wilderness. Called by man to his 
 public life as earnestly as he calls her to the. support of his 
 inner life, her response might well be as ready, and her aid 
 as wholesome. Does this seem to be hyper-sentimental? 
 But the indifference and reluctance of men and women 
 certify that there is some sentiment, real, deep, perhaps to 
 be found in the end inexpugnable. Certainly, whatever we 
 shall have gained of valuable, we shall have lost somewhat 
 of invaluable when any improvement or enlargement shall 
 have caused that women cease to be, to the imagination of 
 men, worshipful, retiring, inspiring, and become aggressive, 
 pugnacious, self-centred. 
 
276 Woman's Worth 
 
 XVII. 
 
 RESULTS. 
 
 But I have a profound faith in the inviolability of natura 
 Neither man nor woman can ever be permanently unsexed. 
 Not all the laws of all the lands can add one cubit to the 
 stature of either. After the agitation is soothed, and read- 
 justment secured, men will remain men, and women wom- 
 en, just as much alike, just as widely unlike, and just as at- 
 tractive in their unlikeness as they now are, for nature is 
 amenable to divine and not to human will. But, while this 
 may give heart to those who fear universal derangement and 
 deterioration from the proposed change, it ought also to in- 
 spire caution in those who hope all things from the same 
 source. Nature makes no allowance for ignorance, and 
 condones no mistakes. While sciolists are experinaenting, 
 sentient beings are suffering. If to-day women should ac- 
 quire legal equality with men, and customs should enforce 
 social equality, would Heaven take heed and give us natu- 
 ral equality to correspond ? Will divine laws be changed to 
 match our human code? I know some say that by divine 
 law equality is already established, which is simply saying 
 that women are men, save for a little training. An earnest 
 pleader, arguing in numbers, bids us 
 
 " Remember, God bestows his care 
 Of sex regardless every where." 
 
 Nothing is more palpably false. So far is God from being 
 regardless of sex, that sex appears rather to be the key-note 
 of creation. So far is he from bestowing his care regardless 
 of sex, that he seems to have been careful to confer immu- 
 
and Worthlessness. 277 
 
 nity upon the one and to impose tax upon the other. Look- 
 ing at it without regard to spiritual compensation, God is 
 the most partial of beings. He made one sex strong and 
 the other sex weak, and upon the weak he laid a heavy 
 burden, where upon the strong he laid none at all. Worse 
 than this, he made the burden of the weaker sex insepara- 
 ble, while the only burden of the stronger sex was so lightly 
 and loosely laid that it could always be shifted to the shoul- 
 ders of the weaker, and it always has, to a greater or less 
 degree, been thus shifted, so that the weaker has borne the 
 load of the stronger in addition to its own. With all this, 
 he left it to no one's choice whether to be male or female, 
 or whether to be at all, but of his own will begat he us. To 
 man he gave not only strength, but joy ; to woman, not only 
 weakness, but suffering. Man incurs pain only through dis- 
 ease, the result of folly or ignorance. Woman's highest 
 health and happiness come through the valley of the shadow 
 of death. The harshest law that man ever framed for wom- 
 an is tender and benevolent compared with the irreversible 
 natural law under which she lives, and moves, and has her 
 being. 
 
 Do I then arraign God ? I do, if social equality is the 
 complement of natural inequality. I do, unless political 
 decisions shall change physical conditions ; unless consti- 
 tutional amendments shall emanate from the courts of heav- 
 en to correspond with mundane legislation ; unless the de- 
 cree that woman's arm shall do man's work is attended 
 by another decree that it shall be endowed with man's 
 muscle. If it is God's will that women shall be on the 
 same footing with men ; that they shall go out as men go, to 
 earn their own living and make their own way, to bear the 
 brunt, and form the front, and face the foe, thenthere is no 
 God. There is only a great, cruel, partial, pitiless Man sit- 
 ting in the heavens, whom I hate, though I can not hinder. 
 
278 Woman's Worth 
 
 Happity, we are not reduced to the alternative. God 
 moves in a mysterious, but not in an arbitrary way. It is 
 impossible to fathom his motives, to see why evil should be 
 the inexorable attendant of good, why good and evil should 
 be so unequally distributed. Our popular understanding 
 of the Hebrew explanation is as little satisfactory as the 
 theological assertion that compensation is found in a supe- 
 rior moral power of endurance. The way to look for relief 
 is not in the direction of endurance, but of delight ; in the 
 unspeakable joy of a love so intense that sacrifice becomes 
 impossible. Be that as it may, on the hither side we are 
 not left in doubt. Why God made us as we are no one can 
 say. Having made us as we are, hfe has given sufficient in- 
 timation of our course. God — my God — says, " The wom- 
 an was not made for toil. Man alone shall eat bread in 
 the sweat of his brow. Woman shall work in calmness and 
 repose. Hers is the flower and fruit of human power, to 
 whose perfect unfolding all other human power shall minis- 
 ter." The imposition of task-work is man's doing, not 
 God's. It is the result of imperfect, not the object of per- 
 fect development. It is something which we are gradually 
 to throw off, not systematically to take on. We see this in 
 the invariable tendency of man as he advances in refine- 
 ment to cherish woman, in the natural content of woman to 
 be cherished. The instinct of love, the highest instinct of 
 all, leads a man to defend a woman from every thing that is 
 harsh, hard, repellant, and gives him a new incentive to win 
 fame and fortune.* The woman feels no such impulse. 
 
 * One of the most brilliant of the suffrage leaders — a man,' however 
 — in a letter to a labor-congress, says : " Eagerly do T share the senti- 
 ment that every man should support some woman — his heart's mate 
 whom he loves, and for whom he strives. The chivalry which makes 
 the strong sex the natural protector of the weak runs in every true 
 man's blood. * * * 
 
 " Finally, after having gallantly received her into the trade of her 
 
and Worthkssness. 279 
 
 Her love moves her to untiring but silent service. It is in- 
 genious and delicate, but it craves quiet and withdrawal. 
 It sees, and watches, and waits. It controls by indirection 
 — not the indirection of duplicity, but of instinct and wis- 
 dom. Its audacity is in affection and amusement. Its re- 
 buke is chiefly suggestive. Its fashioning comes in tender- 
 ness. Where a man will be downright, a woman is content 
 to be upright. 
 
 The misery of wrong-doing points the same way as the 
 happiness of right-doing. A woman under the yoke, wheth- 
 er she be overburdened with the cooking, washing, and serv- 
 ing of her family, or with plowing and mining — indeed, many 
 forms of housekeeping are more onerous and less remuner- 
 ative than many of the employments of men — a woman un- 
 der the yoke imposed by poverty or ignorance never be- 
 comes a man, but often she does become a worn-out wom- 
 an, shattered in nerves, health, temper. In some countries 
 it goes so far that she becomes a brutalized woman. In all 
 countries her comeliness is marred, her physical delicacy de- 
 stroyed, her real service lost. Thus Nature protests against 
 the spoliation. 
 
 When women are cursed with their granted prayer, the 
 hardest lot will fall to those whose lot is hardest now. It 
 is the working-woman for whom all is asked, but it is the 
 working-woman on whom the sword will be turned. She is 
 the unfriended or the insufficiently befriended. Working- 
 women are chiefly those whose male relatives are unable or 
 unwilling to support them. " The loving and beloved wife," 
 the " petted and caressed daughter" of the strong and suc- 
 
 choice, if then you can not bear to see her soiling her white hands with 
 its grime, and you want to get her out of it, why, seize the first golden 
 chance to marry her out of it, and, my word for it, she will then gra- 
 ciously leave you the monopoly all to yourselves !" 
 But now she says she won't ! 
 
28o Woman's Worth 
 
 cessful man, will be scarcely conscious of any change. In 
 her well-guarded home it matters little to her whether she 
 is loved by law or grace. But the unguarded woman must 
 fight her fight with the same real and relative disability as 
 now, but with an assumed, a legal equality which precludes 
 privilege, though it can not disarm fate. While she has no 
 vote, no defined power, her position is a constant appeal to 
 chivalry, a constant rebuke to brutality. When she has 
 seized the suffrage, her brutal employer and the not too gen- 
 tle by-standers will not fail to say, " Now you have got your 
 long-sought equality, make the most of it ; ask no favors, and 
 look out for yourself." Alas! but women are women still. 
 Change thy laws, thy state is still the same. Good men will 
 be good, but the bad and the selfish will have no cloak for 
 their sin. With woman somewhat deferred to, with greed 
 somewhat held in leash by shame, the life of the weak work- 
 woman is hard enough. Is it likely to be easier when she 
 has dismissed the advantages while retaining the disadvan- 
 tages of sex, challenged her foes to combat, and dulled the 
 swords of her defenders ? 
 
 But " there is no work in ihe world which a man will not 
 do better for having a woman at his side." That, too, I dis- 
 pute. There is no work which a man will not do better for 
 having a woman awaiting him at home ; but there are few 
 men, and, indeed, few women, who can stand constant asso- 
 ciation. It is the alternation of day and night that makes 
 both pleasant and even tolerable. It is the temporary sep- 
 aration that gives zest, and even worth to companionship. 
 Is a man better or happier for having a woman holding the 
 plow, or swinging the axe, or pegging the shoe, or hammer- 
 ing the anvil beside him, than for thinking of her, tidy, and 
 fresh, and bright at home ? Is the true ideal of home one 
 where the man and the woman shall both be out in the 
 world at work, and the house left empty and silent ? That 
 
and Worthlessness. 281 
 
 is no home at all. The mother's presence in the house is 
 not the fiat of tyranny or prejudice, but the natural craving 
 of the heart. Do you say that her life there is often but a 
 martyrdom ; that she is as heated and hurried in her kitchen 
 as her husband in his hay-field, and gets but a begrudged 
 tithe of his wages ? I know it a thousand times ; but let us 
 not, therefore, get her out of the kitchen into the hay-field, 
 out of the frying-pan into the fire, at any wages whatever, 
 still less at entirely uncertain ones. What I want is to take 
 her from both frying-pan and fire into peace of mind, and 
 tranquillity of nerve, and perfect physical comfort. But I 
 must confess that even with the discomposure, anxiety, and 
 overwork too often found, home is more home with the 
 mother in it than with the mother out. I blame no woman 
 for leaving it. If she has partially or wholly to support her- 
 self or her children, it is for herself to choose the mode, nor 
 shall the way be fairly blocked to any honest work ; but it 
 is only the least of two or of many evils. It is not the great- 
 est good. Men as yet need some help to their imagination. 
 There remains still room for a little illusion. It is better 
 for men, it is better for women, that each somewhat idealize 
 the other. Much is lost when life has lost its atmosphere, 
 and is reduced to naked facts. The most real relation be- 
 tween man and woman involves somewhat of wonderment 
 and mystery, leaves ever something to be divined. Dissev- 
 ered and defective as society may be, the most perfect 
 trades' union of the sexes that the philosophic brain ever 
 devised will not so nearly compass their real unity as has 
 been compassed by the blind instincts of the generations. 
 The one is a clever device, but it is a device, and can not 
 hold. The other is a hindered but healthy growth ; but it 
 is a growth, and growth means life, and life prevails. 
 
 We speak often of results as if they were immediate and 
 indisputable. We quote Judge Howe's letter from Wyoming 
 
282 Woman's Worth 
 
 as if that were conclusive regarding the effects of female 
 suffrage. In two or three years, after the novelty is over, all 
 will be quiet, and we shall marvel at the agitations of the 
 past. But two or three years and two or three generations 
 will hardly settle it. Whoever realizes how radical is the 
 contemplated change, will not fail to see that only the slow 
 growth of character can attest success or failure. It is not 
 whether a woman shall or shall not be justice of the peace ; 
 it is whether the plane of national life shall be higher. It 
 is pleasant to know that a half dozen female jurors were 
 dignified and decorous, conscientious and resolute, and that 
 lawyers and others were courteous to them, but it is not sur- 
 prising. American women are accustomed to be dignified 
 and resolute outside of jury-boxes, and to receive deference 
 from American men outside of court-rooms ; we should be 
 altogether struck dumb with amazement to find that their 
 presence in a court-room caused a sudden change of front. 
 But this does not determine whether a public abnegation 
 of sexj an indiscriminate commingling of men and wom- 
 en in all the walks of life, will intensify and increase in 
 each sex those traits which are recognized as most desira- 
 ble, will establish a purer and more intellectual society, a 
 more delicate, refined, and upright national life. We resent 
 the exclusion of women from colleges ; but when Harvard 
 and Yale are thrown open to girls, we have not gained the 
 victory. We have only occupied the ground. The battle 
 is still to be fought. It is impossible not to have grave 
 doubts of the result. I believe, first, last, and always, in 
 the highest education for women, and it is a waste to estab- 
 lish girls' colleges if existing ones will equally answer the 
 purpose. But it is a significant fact that the chief opposi- 
 tion to the admission of girls to a certain college came 
 from mothers who were unwilling to have their sons attend 
 " mixed colleges." I am told that, even in a college which 
 
and Worthlessness. 283 
 
 has been always open to girls, there is arising among the 
 professors a query as to whether this is, on the whole, the 
 wisest course. Theoretically it is unobjectionable. Sepa- 
 ration in study, association in recitation, would seem adapt- 
 ed to give the best results — would seem to be most in the 
 line of nature. But if there are qualities in human nature 
 which make such alliance impracticable ; if there are un- 
 derlying facts, of which no theory takes account, but which 
 experience brings inevitably to the surface ; if, for some 
 unexplained reason, mixed colleges prove less efficient for 
 either sex than those, which are prepared for one sex alone, 
 we must recognize the fact, and shape our institutions ac- 
 cordingly, at whatever inconvenience or expense. I shall 
 be only too well content if the main obstacle do not prove 
 to be the disinclination of girls to submit to the rigor of an 
 honorable college curriculum. When I see how indifferent 
 they often are to the advantages already presented ; when I 
 see how they drop out of the high schools in the second 
 and third years ; when I hear that of the thirty courses of 
 university lectures thrown open to women at Harvard, not 
 more than half a dozen have had a paying audience of half 
 a dozen each, I confess I am not sanguine. It is said that 
 the possession of the suffi-age will give new ambition, and 
 change indifference to eagerness. But it is not easy to see 
 why suffrage should do more for women than it does for 
 men, and, in spite of our rhetoric, it leaves men very much 
 as it finds them. The populace of New York seem to be 
 no more intelligent, self- controlled, patriotic, or aspiring 
 than they were on the day they were naturalized. The ig- 
 norant, drunken, and stubborn rustic has been voting as 
 long as the scholar and gentleman at his side. I see far 
 more light in the direction of the Vassar College — would it 
 were not called a college ! — and the Simmons Institute than 
 in that of the ballot-box. 
 
284 Woman's Worth 
 
 There is another kind of school, whose influence is scarce- 
 ly less than that of the college, which is even harder to open 
 to girls, yet without which it would be unjust to demand 
 from them the work of boys. A lad of fourteen, for in- 
 stance, is sent alone on a pleasure-tour to New York, Cleve- 
 land, Niagara, Chicago, to travel by himself, sleep at hotels, 
 pay his own bills, find his own trains — in short, to get out of 
 his week's vacation all that he can. Three boys of fifteen 
 and seventeen take their boat, tent, and provisions, and 
 spend their vacation in coasting, rowing and sailing by day, 
 landing at night, preparing their meals, making inland ex- 
 cursions, sleeping in their tents, and drinking great draughts 
 of health, information, and sagacity. A boy of sixteen goes 
 to Europe alone, with such help as letters and careful direc- 
 tions may afford, to study and travel for a year. We can 
 hardly overestimate the self-reliance, the curious, accurate, 
 and valuable knowledge which such experiences bring. Are 
 they possible for girls? Must not something more than 
 law, more even than public opinion, be changed before we 
 shall send girls of fourteen, sixteen, and seventeen out into 
 the world unattended, to observe, judge, and learn for them- 
 selves ? Would the most profound believer in woman's 
 equality with man send her young daughter on a pleasure- 
 tour through the country with no other anxiety than would 
 follow her young son on the same journey? And until we 
 can establish equality in the whole class of conditions of 
 which this is but a single example, is it not idle to expect 
 equality of results ? 
 
 We will have women introduced into our courts of law as 
 jurors, and at the first blush the presiding judge feels call- 
 ed upon to assure them that " it would be a most shameful 
 scandal that in our temples of justice and in our courts of 
 law any thing should be permitted which the most sensitive 
 lady might not hear with propriety, and witness." But does 
 
and Worthlessness. 285 
 
 not this at once put us on unequal ground? Is not the 
 temple of justice immediately changed to a drawing-room ? 
 It is very much to be desired that we should all and always 
 live under the drawing-room code of politeness and proprie- 
 ty ; but, taking society as it is, high and low, if courts of law 
 are to be temples of justice, how is it possible to exclude 
 from them many things which must be extremely painful to 
 sensitive persons, whether ladies or gentlemen ? Indeed, 
 courts of law are, in some sort, receptacles for impropriety, 
 the appointed places where hatred, envy, malice, and all 
 uncharitableness and uncleanness must be weighed, meas- 
 ured, and repressed for the health of society, and we can 
 not adopt the principle of excluding testimony on account 
 of its disagreeableness without subjecting clients to injus- 
 tice and society to injury. Thus nature rises at once stron- 
 ger than legislation. When you have secured equality be- 
 fore the law, you have not secured equality behind the law. 
 Though in the relations of love and friendship a man and 
 a woman can receive and return more confidence than two 
 of the same sex, in the relations of competition, hostility, or 
 indifference there must be, in high-minded persons, a defer- 
 ence, a restraint, a reticence not always favorable to the 
 elucidation of truth or to the arrival at durable conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 That some women of ability, education, and experience 
 are well fitted for political activity no one will deny. It 
 is not strange that such women, warm-hearted, benevolent, 
 and conscious of power, seeing the suffering around them, 
 should demand amplest scope. But if their freedom in- 
 volves a chain to vastly superior numbers who have nei- 
 ther their gifts nor their opportunities, is it too much to ask 
 that they should forego its full possession ? To say that no 
 one will force women to vote against their will is but partial 
 truth. When women have the power to vote, it becomes 
 
286 Woman's Worth 
 
 their duty. A moral coercion is put upon them which, if 
 women are what they are represented to be,- will operate, 
 and in any event ought to operate, as effectively as physical 
 force. I preach no such doctrine as that women ought 
 to " trust" their husbands, fathers, and brothers. No one 
 should intrust to another what he ought to do himself. 
 Men are not given to women to be trusted, but to be train- 
 ed. They may, indeed, be trusted as a part of their train- 
 ing — as Dr. Arnold trusted little Arthur to big Tom Brown, 
 not to protect Arthur, but to save Tom. It is simply that 
 women can not do every thing j that they have at least no 
 more fitness than men to mould affairs, and a great deal 
 more fitness than men to mould the human race ; that men, 
 with all their failures, succeed better in the lower work of 
 politics and business than they do in the higher work of 
 humanity ; and that it is, therefore, better that politics 
 should be left to men than that men should be left to them- 
 selves. Moreover, the freedom of the many requires the re- 
 pression of the few in only one direction. Every weapon 
 of warfare but one they may wield without stint. They may 
 promulgate their views, exert their influence to the height of 
 their ability and desire, through pulpit, press, and platform. 
 In politics they can command every thing but office — I be- 
 lieve, indeed, they are not wholly excluded from office; and 
 surely it is not office for which we are making all this ado. 
 Some of the most influential men in the old anti-slavery 
 times did not vote, and were as morally ineligible to office 
 as are women legally; and some of the most influential anti- 
 slavery reformers were women. Let a woman have real 
 power, and no party but will be glad to avail itself of her 
 pen and voice, and to pay her all personal honor, and am- 
 ple pecuniary reward. If she have a taste for mechanics, 
 or medicine, or law, for learning or science, let her cultivate 
 it to the last degree of excellence, assured that she who at- 
 
and Worthlessness. 287 
 
 tains skill in any department is not only enriching her own 
 life, but is helping all women ; for no argument is so incon- 
 trovertible as success. Every woman who does good work 
 of any kind — without or within, on land or sea — every woman 
 who commands high wages for her work ; every woman who 
 invents some new method of usefulness ; every woman who 
 succeeds in a trade or occupation hitherto unappropriated 
 by women ; every woman who successfully conducts busi- 
 ness, not because she particularly likes it, nor because it is 
 necessary to herself, but for the encouragement and assist- 
 ance of those to whom some business is necessary — all 
 these are rendering to their sex and to society invaluable 
 service. Every woman who goes honorably through a diffi- 
 cult course of mental or mechanical training gives an in- 
 centive to all women. Neither literary nor political intelli- 
 gence, nor practical skill, unfits a woman for home. They 
 make her more ready of hand, more fertile in resource. 
 Handicraft is not woman's best preparation for her natural 
 work, but neither is it the worst. When it is seen that the 
 highest education does not make a woman pedantic and an- 
 gular, but rather endows her with grace and tact ; that po- 
 litical knowledge, patriotic interest, and practical skill do 
 not make her opinionated, bellicose, self-asserting, but for- 
 bearing, appreciative, considerate, comprehensive, prejudice 
 against learning and politics will vanish. And the highest 
 universities calling to woman, and every facility for trade 
 and traffic afforded her, will never compel, will only invite 
 and allure. It can all be gained without diminishing the 
 freedom, imposing upon the conscience, adding to the bur- 
 den, or arousing the opposition of any woman, but not with- 
 out attracting the attention, and tempting the admiration 
 and emulation of all. And if, by-and-by, science and art 
 assume the alien work which now weighs woman down, and 
 leisure, and observation, and thought shall make her insight, 
 
288 Woman's Worth 
 
 her judgment, her quick sympathy so valuable that men 
 seek her co-operation in all their plans, then such co-opera- 
 tion will become but a part of her natural function, and suf- 
 frage — if it shall be called suffrage — will come harmonious- 
 ly and beneficently. But to come now with hatred, and 
 hooting, and howling from lewd fellows of the baser sort, 
 against the wish and the conviction of a majority of both 
 men and women, to a class already overburdened with un- 
 natural work, and in a society which has as yet but a rude 
 and vague conception of the difference between male and 
 female work — this is a process so unnatural that I see not 
 how the effects can avoid becoming disastrous except by 
 becoming insignificant. 
 
 Yet, if women insist upon the suffrage, men must grant it. 
 If women claim the consequences and the burdens, how can 
 they justly be hindered from exercising the powers .■" But 
 we have a right to demand that men shall not yield it at the 
 call of any clique, committee, or convention, but only of a 
 certified majority of women. They shall make sure that 
 women do want it, and not impose a burden on the mis- 
 taken supposition that they are granting a request. 
 
 With women, the danger is that the case go by default. 
 The hardship to which many women are subjected is real, 
 the remedy proposed is superficially reasonable, its advo- 
 cacy is persistent and palpable ; opposition, from the nature 
 of things, is more or less passive. Men are strong and 
 dominant, and they vote. Women have as good a right to 
 vote as men. Let them vote, and they also will become 
 strong and dominant. Thus lightly, and without at all com- 
 prehending the extent of the revolution which must follow 
 if the suffrage amounts to any thing, women may assume, or 
 permit to be imposed upon them, a task from which they 
 will find it difficult to disembarrass themselves. 
 
 In the mean time, is it not possible for women to forget 
 
and Worthlessness. 289 
 
 the foolish and exasperating arguments which have been 
 turned against them, and yet to respect the opposition out 
 of which those arguments sprung, and which is infinitely 
 wider and deeper than they? Never a cause escaped 
 wholly undisgraced by its own followers. False assump- 
 tions and degrading implications are no new things under 
 the sun. But truth is ever to be sought along the path- 
 way of error. Let us cease to take the wings of the morn- 
 ing and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth to find rea- 
 sons for the existing state of society, but admit simply and 
 frankly at the outset that things are where they are because 
 they are what they are. We shall then be in the line of 
 discovery and advancement. If the equality of man and 
 woman is the problem of the race, we have no data to 
 reason from. The past is wholly inconsequent, and the 
 future is but guess-work. But if we relinquish the idea 
 of equality, and substitute for it unity, apprehending the 
 perfect being as man created by God male and female, and 
 not two men or two women, even the fighting facts of his- 
 tory cluster into symmetry, the harshest discords soften into 
 harmony, and out of the depths of failure and anguish comes 
 the certain promise of peace. 
 
 Looking back along the progress of the centuries, we find 
 that woman has attained power and pre-eminence chiefly in 
 the realms of the spirit. Man has subdued the world, but 
 woman has subdued man. Mind and muscle have won his 
 victories ; love and loveliness have gained hers. No mon- 
 arch has been so great, no peasant so lowly, that he has not 
 been glad to lay his best at the feet of a woman. Is there 
 no significance in this ? Does it mean simply that men 
 have been trained to material victory, women to spiritual 
 conquests ? As well might we adopt the famous theory that 
 language was invented by a convention of learned societies 
 assembled for that purpose. 
 
 N 
 
290 Woman's Worth 
 
 The degradation and suffering of woman does not contra- 
 dict, but confirm this hypothesis. In the race as well as 
 the individual, spiritual development comes not first. The 
 sweetest saint in the calendar was a little animal for the first 
 months of his life. In the ruder stages of the human race 
 physical life is high, but spiritual life is faint and feeble. 
 Woman, man's inner, finer, dearer self, is held in abeyance. 
 She can be only spiritually discerned, but his spirit is scarce- 
 ly yet roused into life, and she becomes but a hewer of 
 wood and a drawer of water ; though even then the light 
 which he can not see shines sometimes into his closed eyes 
 and warms his torpid soul ; then, out of a barbaric past, 
 down the gloomy ages, trembles a legend of truth and ten- 
 derness that makes all ages kin. In the lowest, as in 
 the highest states of life, man treats woman precisely as 
 he treats his own spiritual nature. If all his powers are 
 bent to self-indulgence or to selfglorification, woman does 
 but minister to his pleasures, or emphasize his grandeur. 
 As he rises in the scale, she rises in his estimation. The 
 more noble, truthful, self-sacrificing, benevolent he becomes, 
 the more tenderly he cherishes, the more devoutly he serves 
 where once he exacted and despised. Then the story of 
 the Genesis is evolved. Out of his love springs her life. 
 She who was his prey becomes his protector. She saves 
 him from himself Fenced in by his care from outward 
 hurt and hinderance, she guards him, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, from his baser impulses, from his downward tend- 
 ency, from his reckless strength and regnant will. 
 
 Thus it has been, and thus it shall be under the sun. 
 The plant which flowered to grace, and color, and fragrance 
 amid the confusions of the past, drew its life from no chance 
 source, struck its roots into no shallow soil. Thorns and 
 brambles abound, and many a heart will faint before the 
 wilderness shall blossom into the garden of the Lord. A 
 
and Worthlessness. 291 
 
 thousand seeds may be planted, and a thousand saplings 
 transplanted, and no one of them utterly fail ; but it is this 
 one growth, springing spontaneously from the soil, tender, 
 yet hardy, as brave as beautiful, that shall rise, and broaden, 
 and bourgeon into the tree of life, whose leaves are for the 
 healing of the nations. 
 
 THE END, 
 
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