that such things are, or might be, going on still. They forget the prosaic fact that the continually increasing use of all sorts of machinery for the supply of household wants, has completely altered the aspect of our domestic interiors. The rounded life of our grandmothers, full of interest and variety and usefulness, is a thing of the past. Some of us may look back upon it with regret, but it can never be recalled. How can women, living in towns where they can buy almost every article in domestic use cheaper than they could make it, unless they reckon their time and eyesight as worth nothing at all, work with spirit at tasks which are obviously futile? It is not in human nature. It is not in women's nature even, mysteriously inconsequent as that nature is believed to be. I may seem to be wandering from the point, but it will be seen, I hope, that if the old avocations, involving abundant exercise of all the faculties, are being taken away, it becomes necessary to supply their place by new interests and occupations. A hundred years ago, women might know little of history and geography, and nothing at all of any language but their own—they might be careless of what was going on in the outer world—ignorant of science and of art—but their minds were not therefore necessarily inactive. Circumstances provided a discipline which is now wholly wanting, and which needs to be supplied by wider and deeper cultivation. I dwell upon this point because I am sure that busy people, and especially busy men, have a very faint and feeble conception of what dulness is. They overtax their own brains, and by way of compensation they have invented the doctrine of vicarious rest, according to which men are justified in wearing themselves out so long as women can be kept in a state of wholesome rust. We hear a great deal of the disastrous effects which would follow if women were to abandon the habits of elegant leisure by which the balance is supposed to be redressed. The otium sine dignitate of drawing-rooms presents itself to men's minds in enviable contrast with the bustle and turmoil of an active career. They "hearken what the inner spirit sings, There is no joy but calm." And they think dulness is calm. If they had ever tried what it is to be a young lady, they would know better.
The system tells in different ways, according to the individual character. Some girls fret and pine under it; others, satisfying their souls with husks, are content to idle about from morning till night, acquiring, as has been already said, indolent and desultory habits, hard to break through when in later life the demand for steady methodical exertion comes upon them. Some take to works of charity, doing some harm, and no doubt also some good. Their usefulness is at any rate seriously lessened by the want of the cultivated judgment to guide and control benevolent impulse. Some, I gladly admit, lead noble lives, filling their leisure with worthy pursuits, and in spite of difficulties, tracing out for themselves a useful and happy career.
It may seem to be entering upon somewhat low ground to speak of women's talk, but it may not be out of place, seeing that, as things
