the neatly manufactured doll, or poupée, as the French term it, was never seen, the little girl instinctively dresses up a piece of bone, and fondles it with an affection as ardent as that shewn by an English female child for a poupée of the most life-like and costly description. What is this but an inherent idiosyncrasy in the female mind, obviously implanted for a beneficent purpose. The girl playing with her dolls is the incipient mother loving and nurturing her children.
So is it in tracing girls up to womanhood. In their education, their domestic training, their style of dressing, and love of personal adornment, are recognised the position they are destined or hope to assume. Acute and clever as they may be, they seldom fail to make themselves as attractive as possible. From youth to age, dress runs in their head. The largest mercantile concerns in the world are got up and maintained purely for decorating their person. We find no fault with this prevalent taste, unless when it degenerates into something grotesquely absurd, as it occasionally does under the impulse of fashion. Every woman is entitled to make the very best of herself, to insure if possible the admiration of those whose good-will she especially cares for. But all such, and often very costly efforts, as regards dress are significant of the fact, that professional labour lies not within the course of life appointed for women. Their rôle is in the region of the heart – the domestic circle – not within the hard lines in which men find it incumbent on them to struggle for a subsistence.
Doubtless, through various exigences, large numbers of women betake themselves to professional employment of some kind. They become domestic servants, governesses, teachers, dressmakers, shop-assistants, and so on. While still young they work in factories. But we repeat that whatever they do in these several respects is done on the principle of a temporary make-shift; the predominant hope they indulge being that they will some day settle down as the happy and respected mother of a family. In this candid view of the matter it is hardly to be expected that women – taking them all in all – will ever make that resolutely persevering effort to attain the proficiency in a profession which is universally aimed at by men. To expect anything of the kind, is to hope for more than human nature can justify. In the notification which has been made respecting wood-engraving, it is specified that young ladies must make up their minds to study six hours a day for six years. Of the propriety of this obligation, we have no doubt. What concerns us to know is, how, besides paying fees, young ladies driven to the expedient are to live in the meanwhile, and how many will persist in giving six years of assiduous diligence in learning a profession which any day may be tossed aside on marriage, the paramount object in life, being happily achieved.
As far as we know, there are few or no instances of any regular trade being successfully appropriated entirely by women. Such, indeed, is not to be looked for, and, properly speaking, no blame ought to rest on females for essentially following a primarily assigned duty. We have known cases in which, from motives of benevolence, young women alone were invited to conduct a trading experiment, and they failed, not from want of skill, but want of perseverance. The members of the establishment broke away piecemeal, and went to other and more attractive pursuits. Where young men are employed along with young women in any commercial undertaking, there is less chance of disruption; and the reason why is so obvious as to need no particular explanation. No accusation can be made on this account. Celibacy is a violation of every instinct and sense of social obligation. It is often nobly submitted to as a duty by females, but the instinct is indestructible and to be respected.
When one reflects on the many reasons why young women are not, as a general rule, likely to give that close and lasting attention to any branch of scholarly or mechanical art qualifying them to excel, the vehement objections sometimes made to female professionals seem not a little ridiculous. We should like to see the subject treated in a more practical and sympathising spirit. A little consideration might shew that only in a few remarkable instances – such as that of Mrs Somerville – do women possess that resolute spirit of study which leads to eminence in scientific or other learned pursuits. The thing is not to be done off-hand, or by fits and starts, and half-formed resolutions. Look at the hard and tedious work that young men must undergo before attaining proficiency in the practice of medicine. Success with them is a matter of life and death. No one can reasonably expect that any large number of young ladies are ever likely to make similarly enduring efforts.
To us there is something melancholy in the exigent circumstances that often in this old country drive ladies to look for subsistence in pursuits not very accordant with the delicacy of their sex. The redundancy of unmarried young women should set people thinking on the causes for so much enforced celibacy. That is a broad department of inquiry somewhat strangely neglected. Neither emigration nor drafting for the army will account for the phenomenon. We have space here only to hint at one or two prevalent errors – or call them failings – in which society is intimately concerned as regards the number of female celibates.
Let us first point to the extravagant modes of living – extravagance in dress, extravagance in house-furnishing, extravagance in nearly everything – that has conspicuously gained ground among the middle classes within the past forty years, and in the face of which marriage has become a much more serious affair for men to encounter than it ought to be. There, plainly enough, lies the basis of innumerable mischiefs. For such a state of things, both sexes must bear the blame. Fathers of families are seen mis-expending means, and leaving daughters unprovided for, but with tastes and habits which are incompatible with their position, the result being that they are reluctantly obliged to swell the already overswollen ranks of governesses. On the other hand, the lofty expectations erroneously entertained by many young women, drive away suitors who have still to make their way in the world. Hence, from various preventable causes, the vast numbers of young unmarried women crowding public places of resort.
Pondering on these social mistakes, who need feel surprised that women of an independent spirit should try to make their way as professionals. Applauding, we yet pity their meritorious endeavours. Only a few out of groups of aspirants are likely to be eminently successful; and we are prepared to learn, that as opportunity offers they will drop into the line of duty for which they were destined by the imprescriptive ordination of nature.
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS
I did the best I could in the way of adorning for dinner with some of my dear mother's old lace, and a cherry-coloured bow or two on my black silk dress, and flattered myself that I was presentable enough for a family party. But on entering the drawing-room, I was somewhat dismayed to find Lilian in full evening dress. To my unaccustomed eyes her elaborate toilet appeared more suited to a ball-room than for dinner, and my taste in this case served as well as knowledge, for I know now that it was too much for home-dress, according to the decrees of Society. I think she saw what was passing in my mind, for she apologised in her half-shy graceful way by asking me to excuse it. It was 'a fancy of papa's to see her so; and she liked to gratify his lightest fancies now.'
Mrs Tipper had also made more change than seemed necessary for home toilet; and did not look at home in her rich moire and too massive jewellery, put on haphazard as it were: brooches stuck in upside down and on one side, as though it were enough for them to be there; rings, bracelets, &c. glittering with diamonds and other precious stones, not combined in the best taste.
But I soon had something to think of besides our toilets. Lilian whispered to me that 'he' had arrived; and when presently Mr Trafford entered the room and was introduced to me, my attention was concentrated upon him. Interested as I already was in Lilian Farrar, I was more than curious to see her lover. Moreover I was altogether inclined in his favour. No one could be more prepossessed in another's favour than was I in Arthur Trafford's; and yet I had been in his society barely half an hour before I was conscious of being not a little disappointed. Whether my expectations had been too exalted, or there was some graver cause for the disappointment, time would shew. I certainly had expected to find Lilian's lover and Mr Wentworth's friend very different from the fashionable-looking young man before me.
His bearing was that of a gentleman, and he was handsome – some might say very handsome. I would not allow even that much, in my disappointment, telling myself that his head wanted more breadth; that his features were too delicately chiselled for manly beauty; and that his hands were too small and soft and white. The very grace of his figure