HER MAJESTY’S VISIT TO THE AMERICAN SHIP “RESOLUTE,” 1856
There are artists of all kinds—oil painters, water-colour painters, black-and-white artists, sculptors, workers in pastel, carvers; in a word, every art that exists is practised successfully by women. As for the less common professions—the accountants, architects, actuaries, agents—they are rapidly being taken over by women.
It is no longer a question of necessity; women do not ask themselves whether they must earn their own bread, or live a life of dependence. Necessity or no necessity they demand work, with independence and personal liberty. Whether they will take upon them the duties and responsibilities of marriage, they postpone for further consideration. I believe that, although in the first eager running there are many who profess to despise marriage, the voice of nature and the instinctive yearning for love will prevail.
THE ROYAL VISIT TO THE GREAT EXHIBITION, 1851
Personal independence: that is the keynote of the situation. Mothers no longer attempt the old control over their daughters: they would find it impossible. The girls go off by themselves on their bicycles; they go about as they please; they neither compromise themselves nor get talked about. For the first time in man’s history it is regarded as a right and proper thing to trust a girl as a boy insists upon being trusted. Out of this personal freedom will come, I daresay, a change in the old feelings of young man to maiden. He will not see in her a frail, tender plant which must be protected from cold winds; she can protect herself perfectly well. He will not see in her any longer a creature of sweet emotions and pure aspirations, coupled with a complete ignorance of the world, because she already knows all that she wants to know. Nor will he see in her a companion whose mind is a blank, and whose conversation is insipid, because she already knows as much as he knows himself. Nor, again, will he see in her a housewife whose whole time will be occupied in superintending servants or in making, brewing, confecting things with her own hand. For the young woman of the present day can make nothing: she cannot make her own dresses, she cannot trim her hat, she cannot cook, she cannot compound things delectable; the rolling-pin she knows nothing about, or the pastry-board. Love will be changed indeed. Man and woman will be of the same stature and of the same strength! I think not; there will always be the same differences in kind, but not so great in degree. The man will always look upon the world from his own point of view, the woman from hers; and these are never the same. Perhaps the greatest change is that woman now does thoroughly what before she only did as an amateur. I have said that she cannot make her own dresses. That is true, as a general rule; but the woman who can, does so professionally and thoroughly: and the woman who sews now, sews more beautifully, turning out work equal to that of her ancestress, the Anglo-Saxon lady. So, also, if a girl takes up painting, she “goes through the mill”; she studies it in earnest, she studies it as a man would. And so with everything; the shallow amateurish pretences are gone; women are thorough, women are professional.
I have spoken above of certain little affectations of sixty years ago. These have vanished. The Englishwoman of to-day enjoys an excellent appetite, and tackles her dinner valiantly; she has not yet learned to be critical over the dishes or over the wine, that will doubtless arrive. As for pretending to be hectic or consumptive she would scorn such a shallow mockery; her desire, on the other hand, is to appear strong and healthy.
There have been certain losses in this development. For instance, there has appeared among us, for the first time in the history of woman, the girl who does not care about her personal appearance. She wears uncompromising spectacles, instead of a dainty pince-nez, she cuts her hair short, she wears a jacket all angles; there is no roundness in her figure, there is no sweet look of Venus in her face. Now, even on the philosophic countenance of Hypatia men loved to discern that sweet and gracious look of Venus, which made her philosophy palatable and her lectures tolerable. Fortunately, this girl is as yet very scarce; generally, it is whispered, there are certain sufficient reasons for her indifference to dress; and it has even been remarked of her that, if she did not study and do her best to uglify herself, it would still be impossible, by any arrangement of hair or costume, for her to beautify herself.
