Hertha hesitated.
“I cannot really say,” she replied. “It would have been more difficult to decide. At least, it seems as if it would have been so. But imaginary positions are not what we have to deal with. And when there are what appear to be almost equally balanced claims upon us, as sometimes, though not often, occurs, well, perhaps in such a case it does not matter so very much, in the highest sense of all, which path we take if we do it heartily and conscientiously. You would not have been left in doubt long, I feel sure, if such had been your case.”
“And it is not, so we need not trouble about it,” said Winifred, practically. “But one thing more, as we have come upon this. Do you think all girls who are not literally forced to earn their bread should stay at home and lead the old routine humdrum lives—I mean, of course, those who have no great or special gifts? Have you no sympathy with all the feeling of the day about women?”
“The very greatest and deepest,” said Hertha. “But it is an immense subject, and cannot be treated in wholesale fashion. Individual lives differ so tremendously. All I can say about it roughly is that love of excitement and change and novelty should not be mistaken for real, deliberate desire to make the best and the most of the powers we have. And it should never be forgotten that ‘home’ is the place we are born into—in a very special sense woman’s own kingdom. Outside interests should radiate from and revolve round home—that is the ideal. When home has to be given up, it should be done regretfully, as a sad necessity, whereas the wish to escape from it is, I fear, in many cases nowadays, the great motive.”
“But girls are not alone to blame for that,” said Winifred. “Think what some parents are: tyrannical and selfish, scarcely allowing a daughter to have a mind or a soul of her own.”
“I know that some are like that,” said Hertha.
“If a girl does not marry, she is treated as if she had no right to have a self at all! But, where parents are reasonable, I doubt if any home-life need be narrow and stifling, and all the rest of it. Monotony is not necessarily an evil. There is immense monotony in all good work, at least in the qualifying one’s self for it. I think what makes home-life so trying and unsatisfying to so many unmarried women is the want of the sense of responsibility, the not feeling that it really matters, except for themselves, whether they are idle and frivolous or not. It is that sense of responsibility which makes even a dull, commonplace, married life attractive. The wife feels herself somebody, a centre.”
“Yes, I am sure it must be,” said Winifred. “But how is it all to be set right? There are so many girls who can’t marry nowadays, they say.”
“Well, they must bear it. Cheerful acceptance of evils, irremediable for us, though in the long run they may be set right again, is, after all, a very big part of our life’s work, is it not? And as to actual, practical work, ‘usefulness’ in the noblest sense, I have great faith in its coming to those who take at once whatever comes in their way. It is like capital. Money makes money, we are told. Well, I believe that doing work brings work to do. But I did not mean to preach like this.”
“I am glad of it. I will think about it,” said Winifred, gently.