Georgiana Hill

“ Now, why should not our English women be employed upon a labour for which their sisters in Switzerland prove themselves so eminently adapted, and thus provide, to a large extent, a remedy for the distresses of our labouring population, and open out a new channel whereby they may elevate their condition and benefit mankind? In London 50,000 females are working under sixpence per day, and above 100,000 under one shilling per day. So long as nearly every remunerative employment is engrossed by men only, so long must the wretchedness and slavery of women remain what it is. ”

“ The prosperous, well-housed citizenesses of the eighteenth century probably spent much of their spare time in idle chatter—it was a great period for gossip—and in tricking themselves out to imitate the fine ladies of whom they got glimpses at church and in the public gardens. They rose late because it was fashionable, leaving their servants to do the work that their grandmothers would have shared. There is as much lost as gained in the uprooting of social habits while the people are still unripe for changes. ”

“ There was so little circulation of literature that in London much of the reading was done standing at a bookseller’s stall, a method obviously impossible to women. With such scanty education as was considered appropriate to the weaker sex, with no books but of the most dreary kind, written for young people, it was little wonder that the generality of girls grew up without any habit of reading, or of regarding literature as an essential element of their daily lives. We cannot think of the average woman in the last century as finding much of her pleasure in any intellectual occupation. ”

“ It was the revulsion of noble minds from the coarseness, the unpitying indifference to wrong, and contempt for weakness, which characterized the Middle Ages. Like a new gospel, chivalry dawned upon a world in which the virtues of Paganism had declined, while its vices still triumphed.
But chivalry had another side. The pure reverence for woman passed into romantic admiration, into a worship of physical beauty, into mere passion. Woman, from being little less than a saint, became a toy. The teaching of the Church and the spirit of chivalry both acted adversely on the position of woman. ”

“ In truth, not beauty, but novelty governs in London, not taste, but copy. A celebrated woman of five foot six inches gives law to the dress of those who are but four feet two.... There is nothing so common as to hear the ladies of this nation assure you that such a shape is quite out of fashion, and the present reigning mode is the slender or the large; as if the creative power, like the hands of mantua makers, had cut the human person by a new pattern and thrown away the old.... ”

“ The middle of the seventeenth century, when women first began to appear on the stage in England, was a period of unexampled laxity. It was not simply that morality was at a low ebb, and that the passions reigned uppermost. That was the case in feudal times when the intellectual side of humanity was only half awakened, and the range of interests and ideas, of taste and knowledge, was limited by physical obstacles. The world was a sealed book to mediæval men and women. But the seventeenth century had no such excuse. ”

“ It was the reign of the senses. Beauty was the road to greatness for women, and to beauty and wit all other qualities yielded. The great ladies who stand out most prominently on the canvas are the royal favourites, the exquisite frail beauties who dazzle the vision and eclipse the women of sterner mould. Women forgot that they had any other rôle to play but one—that of syren. ”

“ It was a rough world in which women found themselves at liberty to come and go, to taste new pleasures, enjoy fresh luxuries, hear new opinions, and think new thoughts. But, at least, it was a world of action, of striving, of pushing forward. Despotic as was the throne, oppressive as were the new landowning class, a freer spirit prevailed. Social changes work gradually, and their influence is not at once perceived ”

“ The stern and awful discipline of the sword, far from degrading, produced a nobler type of womanhood. Through the trials entailed by ruined fortunes and blasted careers, through the agonies of bereavement, women passed triumphant, but they were not proof against the war of social forces. The conflict of feeling between the opposing parties on other than State questions sent both to extremes. The Royalists, in their hearty hatred of austerity, rushed into a wild worship of the senses. The Puritans, to express their horror of the worldliness of their foes, assumed virtues they did not possess. ”

“ From the beginning the Church was quick to recognize the value of women’s adherence, and the importance of the services which they could render. By raising women, the Church created a power for its own uses. And women were as quick to respond. They gave themselves freely. Whatever the Church has done for women has been repaid by them tenfold. Their labour, their property, their lives were placed at the disposal of the Church. They gave something more—their freedom of thought, their independence of action. Their minds, as well as their consciences, were in the keeping of the priest. ”

“ As the stage-coach system developed country people came more to London, and Londoners began to pay periodical visits to watering-places, whither they carried the dissipations of town life. The love of scenery is a taste that has been largely developed within the present century. When people travelled formerly, if it were not for business, it was to comply with fashion and for the excitement of a change, but not to revel in the beauties of Nature. ”

“ To be false to conscience was to poison the very root of their being. The Roman Catholic martyrs died loyally in the service of the Church—that Church which was tottering from blows without and corruption within—they died as servants of a spiritual power that had ruled Europe.238 The glamour attaching to the traditions of a Church which had had no rival in Christendom hung round their faith. The Protestant martyrs died like soldiers in a cause which they had espoused from intense conviction of its rightness. ”

“ The brave defence of castle and home by the women, the patient endurance of hardship, the courage in presence of danger, the quick wit which could avert misfortune, make the Civil War of the seventeenth century peculiarly rich in striking incident. ”

“ Powerful as was the Church in the Middle Ages, it was not able to protect women outside the shade of the cloister. And it will be readily understood how great was the influence of the priest in an age when the mass of the people were so little able to think and judge for themselves; in an age when belief in the supernatural encompassed daily life with terrors, when the common laws of nature were dim mysteries, when disease and misfortune were ascribed to the malevolence of witches and evil spirits. ”

“ It was the beginning of a gradual transformation which with every century, with every generation, takes some new form, and is sometimes called progress, sometimes revolution, but which moves on with the same relentless persistence as the laws that govern the earth. ”

“ If this folly went no farther than disguising both our meats and ourselves in the French modes, I should bear it with more patience, and content myself with representing only to my country folks that the one would make them sick and the other ridiculous; but when even the materials for the folly are to be brought over from France too, it becomes a much more serious consideration. Our trade and manufactures are at stake, and what seems at first only very silly is, in truth, a great national evil and a piece of civil immorality. ”

“ She now bears an active part in all the great movements—political, religious, philanthropic; her co-operation is sought in public work, and her presence welcomed, rather than resented, in all new social enterprises.
In the lighter side of life—in its recreations, which are now more in the nature of work than play—women have a much wider field than formerly, and take their pleasure as best suits them, without let or hindrance. They are free to act according to their necessities and tastes, wherever common sense and fitness lead them, without finding the barrier of sex laid across the path. ”

“ Many of the mistresses of Charles II. and his courtiers belonged to the theatrical profession. But the century which delighted in the fascinations of Nell Gwynn, in the beauty of Moll Davies, which watched the performances of Prince Rupert’s mistress, Mrs. Hughes, saw also the famous Mrs. Betterton, of unquestioned virtue, and such actresses as Mrs. Bracegirdle and Elizabeth Barry. There never has been a time when the stage has been without women of high repute as well as brilliant talent to uphold its honour.
It is not until the reign of Charles I. that there is any record of women artists. ”

“ The support of the poor has now become a social rather than a personal obligation. It has been converted from a pious duty into a State practice. The religious element, in spite of the influence of the Church, has much diminished. Charity still covers some of our sins, but not the multitude it was wont to envelop. Souls are no longer saved by a distribution of loaves and blankets, or weekly doles to the poor. The element of personal service, which was once thought essential, has also faded into comparative insignificance. Charity may be done by deputy, by a stroke of the pen. ”

“ If working parties had no other object than the ostensible one of providing raiment for the poor, or clothing savages, they would not continue to flourish.
In olden times great ladies sat in their tapestried chambers, toiling painfully to convert the coarse cloth spun in their own households into smocks and gowns for dwellers in the windowless, smoke-begrimed hovels of the neighbouring hamlets. The great ladies of the present day, from their cosy boudoirs, issue schemes for the enrolment of women all over the country into gilds and societies for providing clothing for the poor. ”

“ The great industrial revolution, which began in the last century, and has progressed with such rapid strides, has had its special bearing on the position of women. The material improvements brought about by machinery and developing trade, have lifted the middle-class woman out of the purely domestic sphere by lessening her household duties, and so leaving her free for other occupations. She hasxii ceased to be a producer. But the working woman has been simply drawn more and more from family life, to be absorbed into the ranks of outside workers. ”

“ In the intervals between needlework and housewifery, there would be strolling in the garden on fine days, weaving garlands of flowers—a favourite mediæval pastime; and in summer weather, when the lanes were passable, rambles outside the domain and occasional rides. It is easy to understand how much more essential was the garden to the enjoyment of the women-folk in days when out-door exercise was comparatively difficult. ”

“ Whether rightly or wrongly, the bulk of the clergy in the seventeenth century seem to have enjoyed little of the prestige attaching to the priestly office, and their social position showed some curious anomalies. It was not because they were out of harmony with the national life. The higher clergy who were in possession of fat livings were, naturally, on good terms with the world, and were quite in sympathy with the tastes and habits of their neighbours, not merely countenancing but sharing in the amusements of the laity. ”

“ A man with a wife and family living the domestic life of an ordinary citizen is brought at once to the level of common humanity, priest though he be. He loses that glamour which attached to him when he was cut off from his fellows and set apart on another plane by virtue of his office. Women, more than men, have been in all ages prone to superstitious reverence for ecclesiastical authority. ”

“ The Church was both lethargic and corrupt. For the first time in English history we come upon a period when there was no dominant spiritual influence. Religion, like everything else, was a matter of formalism.
Slowly the great characteristics of social life in England had changed. Romanism and feudalism had governed it in earlier times. Then came the Renaissance, with its vivifying power, followed by the reign of sensuality and the opposing force of Puritanism. It seemed as if the nation were exhausted; passion had spent itself, moral feeling was deadened, enthusiasm was quenched. ”

“ But women have always delighted in playing and singing, even in those early periods of our history when music in this country was chiefly a thing of ear and memory, there being hardly any musical literature and very few professional instructors. In the middle ages, throughout the Renaissance period, and down to the last century, music was part of polite education for both sexes. At the present day a gentleman may go comfortably through life with no more, if as much, knowledge of music as a Board School child, and not be accused of lack of breeding. ”