Life of Frances Power Cobbe, as told by herself / with additions by the author, and introduction by Blanche Atkinson

by Frances Power Cobbe

I confess, however, that—on the other hand—the spectacle of feminine feebleness and futility when (as continually happens) it is exhibited without the smallest excuse from inadequate food supply, is indescribably irritating, nay, to me, humiliating and exasperating. Watch (for example of what I mean by “feminine futility”) a woman asked to open a just-arrived box, or a bottle of champagne or of soda-water. She has been given a cold-chisel for opening the box, and a hammer; but they are invariably “astray” when required, or she does not think it worth while to fetch them from up or downstairs, so she kneels down before the box and begins by fumbling with her fingers at the knots in the cord. After five minutes’ efforts and broken nails, she gives this up in despair, and “thinks she must cut it.” But how? She never by any chance has a knife in her pocket; so she first tries her scissors, which she does keep there, but which, being always quite blunt, fail to sever the rope; and then she fetches a dinner-knife, and gives one cut,—when the feminine passion for economy suggests to her that she can save the rest of the cord by pushing it (with immense effort) an inch or two along the box, first at one side and then at the other. Then she hopes by breaking open the top of the box at one end only, to get out the contents without dealing further with the recalcitrant rope; and she endeavours to pull it open where the nails seem least firm. Alas! those nails will never yield to her weak hands; so her scissors are in requisition again, and being inserted and used as a wedge, immediately break off at the points, and are hastily withdrawn with an exclamation of agonising regret for the blunt, but precious, instrument. Something must be thrust in, however, to prize open the box. The cold-chisel and hammer having been at last sought, but sought in vain, the kitchen cleaver, covered with the fat of the last joint it has cut, is brought into play; or, happy thought! she knows where her master keeps a fine sharp chisel, and this is pushed in,—of course against a nail which breaks the edge and makes it useless for ever. The poker serves sufficiently well as a hammer to knock in the chisel, or the cleaver, and to bang up the protruding lid of the box; and at last one plank of the top is loosened, and she tears it off triumphantly, with a cry of rejoicing: “There! Now, we shall get at everything in the box!” The goods, however, stubbornly refuse to be extricated through the hole on any terms; and eventually all the planks have to be successively broken up, and the long-cared-for cord (for the preservation of which so much trouble has been undergone) is cut into little pieces of a foot or two in length, each attached to a hopelessly entangled knot, while the box itself is entirely wrecked.

The case of the soda-water, or champagne bottle is worse again; so much so that experience warns the wise to forbear from calling for effervescent drinks where parlour-maids prevail. The preliminary ineffectual attempt to loosen the wires with the fingers (the proper pliers being, of course, missing); the resort to a steel carving-fork to open them, and, in default of the steel fork, to a silver one, which is, of course, bent immediately; the endeavour to cut the hempen cord with the bread knife with the result of blunting that tool against the wire; the struggle to cause the cork to fly by wobbling it with the right hand, while clasping the neck of the bottle till it and the contents are hot in the left; then (on the failure of this bold attempt) the cutting off the head of the cork with a carving knife, and at the same time a small slice of the operator’s hand, which, of course, bleeds profusely; the consequent hasty transference of the bottle and the job to a second attendant; the hurried search of the same in the side-table drawer for the corkscrew; her rush to the kitchen to fetch that instrument where it has been nefariously borrowed and where the point of the screw has been broken off; the difficult (and crooked) insertion of the broken screw into the cork; the repeated frantic tugs at the bottle, held tight between the knees, finally the climax, when the cork bursts out and the champagne along with it, up in the reddening face and over the white muslin apron of the poor anxious woman, who hurries nervously to wipe it off, and then pours the small quantity of liquor which remains bubbling over the glasses, till the table-cloth is swamped;—such in brief is Feminine Futility, as exhibited in the drawing of corks! Luckily it is possible to find parlour-maids who know how to use, and will keep at hand, both cold-chisels and corkscrews. But they are exceptions. The normal woman, in the presence of a nailed-down box or a champagne bottle, behaves as I have depicted from careful study; and the irritation she produces in me is past words, especially if a man be waiting for his beverage and observing the spectacle of the helplessness of my sex. If “Man” be “a tool-making animal,” I am afraid that “Woman” is a “tool-breaking” one. I think every girl, as well as every boy, ought to be given a month’s training in a carpenter’s shop to teach her how to strike a nail straight; what is the difference between the proper insertion and extraction of nails and of screws; why chisels should not be employed as screw-drivers; how far preferable for making holes are gimlets to hairpins or the points of scissors; and, finally, the general superiority of glue over paste or gum for sticking wooden furniture when broken by her besom of destruction!

My dear friend Emily Shaen wrote an excellent tract which I should like to see republished, urging that it is absurd to go on talking of the House being the proper sphere of a woman, while we neglect to teach her the very rudiments of a Hausfrau’s duties, and leave her to find them all out, at her husband’s expense, when she marries. The nature of gas and of gasometers, and how not to cause explosions nor be cheated in the bill; the arrangements of water-works in houses, pipes, drains, cisterns, ball-cocks and all the rest, for hot and cold water; the choice of properly morticed, not merely glued, furniture; what constitutes a good kitchen range, and how coal should be economised in it; how to choose fresh meat, &c., such should be her lessons. To this might be usefully added an inkling of the laws relating to masters and servants, debts, bills, &c., &c., and of the elementary arrangements of banking and investing money. It was once discovered at my school that a very clever young lady, who could speak four languages and play two instruments well, could not read the clock! I think there are many grown up women, well-educated according to the ordinary standard of their class, whose ignorance concerning the simplest matters of household duty is not a whit less absurd.

In 1881—I prepared and delivered to an audience of about 150 ladies, in the Westminster Palace Hotel, a course of six Lectures on the Duties of Women. My dear friend, Miss Anna Swanwick took the chair for me on these occasions, and performed her part with such tact and geniality as to give me every advantage. My auditors were very attentive and sympathetic, and altogether the task was made very pleasant to me. I repeated the course again at Clifton the same year, Mrs. Beddoe, the wife of Dr. John Beddoe the anthropologist who was then living at that place, most obligingly lending me her large drawing-rooms.

These Lectures when printed, went through three editions in England and, I think, eight in America, the last being brought out by Miss Willard, who adopted the little book as the first of a series on women’s concerns, published by her vast and wonderful organisation, the W.C.T.U.

My object in giving these Lectures was to impress women as strongly as might be in my power, with the unspeakable importance of adding to our claims for just Rights of all kinds, the adoption of the highest standard of Duty; and the strict preservation amongst us of all womanly virtues, while adding to them those others to the growth of which our conditions have hitherto been unfavourable,—namely, Truth and Courage. I desired also to discuss the new views current amongst us respecting filial and conjugal “obedience;” the proper attitude to be held towards (unrepentant) vice, and many other topics. Finally I wished to place the efforts to obtain political freedom on what I deem to be their proper ground. I ask:

“What ought we to do at present, as concerns all public work wherein it is possible for us to obtain a share?

“The question seems to answer itself in its mere statement. We are bound to do all we can to promote the virtue and happiness of our fellow-men and women, and therefore we must accept and seize every instrument of power, every vote, every influence which we can obtain, to enable us to promote virtue and happiness.

“... Why are we not to wish and strive to be allowed to place our hands on that vast machinery whereby, in a constitutional realm, the great work of the world is carried on, and which achieves by its enormous power, ten-fold either the good or the harm which any individual can reach; which may be turned to good or turned to harm according to the hands which touch it? In almost every case it is only by legislation that the roots of great evils can be reached at all, and that the social diseases of pauperism, vice and crime can be brought within hope of cure.

“You will judge from these remarks the ground on which, as a matter of duty, I place the demand for woman’s political emancipation. I think we are bound to seek it, in the first place, as a means,—a very great means,—of fulfilling our Social Duty, of contributing to the virtue and happiness of mankind, and advancing the Kingdom of God. There are many other reasons, viewed from the point of Expediency; but this is the view from that of Duty. We know too well that men who possess political rights do not always, or often, regard them in this fashion; but this is no reason why we should not do so. We also know that the individual power of one vote at any election seems rarely to effect any appreciable difference; but this also need not trouble us, for, little or great, if we can obtain any influence at all, we ought to seek for it, and the multiplication of the votes of women bent on securing conscientious candidates, would soon make it not only appreciable, but weighty. Nay, further, the direct influence of a vote is but a small part of the power which the possession of the political franchise confers. Its indirect influence is far more important. In a government like ours, where the basis of representation is so immensely extensive the whole business of legislation is carried on by pressure—the pressure of each represented class and party to get its grievances redressed, to make its interests prevail.... It is one of the sore grievances of women that, not possessing representation, the measures which concern them are for ever postponed to the bills promoted by the represented classes (e.g., the Married Woman’s Property Bill, was, if I mistake not, six times set down for reading in one Session in vain, the House being counted out on every occasion).