They talk about a woman’s sphere
As though it had no limit.
There’s not a place in earth or heaven,
There’s not a task to mankind given,
There’s not a blessing or a woe,
There’s not a whispered yes or no,
There’s not a life, or death, or birth
That has a feather’s weight of worth,
Without a woman in it.
A Miserable Young Woman.—To those who, without any real knowledge of music, make the air around them hideous by their everlasting strumming on a piano, the following passage in Carlyle’s life may prove instructive:—“The miserable young woman in the next house to me spends all her young bright days, not in learning to darn stockings, sew shirts, bake pastry, or any art, mystery, or business that will profit herself or others; not even in amusing herself or skipping on the grass plots with laughter of her mates; but simply and solely in raging from dawn to dark, to night and midnight, on a hapless piano, which, it is evident, she will never in this world render more musical than a pair of barn clappers! The miserable young female!”