Sempstress

“ But the most industrious persons cannot always obtain occupation. Breaks in employment perpetually occur, especially in the case of females. Servants out of place, laundresses and charwomen, milliners and sempstresses, alike dependent on families visiting London only for the season, all may be included in this list; simply to relieve them in distress would be to increase the evil; it is a different thing to find them work, hence the formation of the
WORK SOCIETY,
of which the intention is to purchase, by subscription, flannel, calico, &c. ”

“ From the humble, bashful servant-maid, who has been seduced by the fellow servant, in order to win her over to a diabolical design laid by another as low in infamy if not condition as himself, for the ruin of her young mistress, and which too often through her persevering wicked agency becomes successful, up to the dashing woman of pleasure, maintaining a proud establishment by the base traffic and barter of female innocence,—all is a bloated mass of wickedness and falsehood. ”

“ Innocently and wholesomely equipped to encounter evil, cool and clear eyed mistress of herself so far, she had felt, with happy contempt, that her fate was her own to control, and had wondered what the word "temptation" could mean to any woman. ”

“ Suffering, as she was, the most excruciating pains, she was not even allowed to be her own mistress, but was regarded as something which everyone fancied he had a right to look at and to pass judgment upon,—often with no good results to anyone, but greatly to the prejudice of her soul and body, because she was thus deprived of so much rest and recollection of spirit. ”

“ Sempronio, a confidential servant, understanding the cause of his master’s trouble, advises him to apply to an old woman, with whom the unprincipled valet is secretly in league, and who is half a pretender to witchcraft and half a dealer in love philters. ”

“ It is our rule, and we never depart from it."
There was another brief period of irresolution, and then the place of abode was given. This was first entered, with her name, in a book, and then the three shirts were handed over. The seamstress turned away on receiving them, and walked quickly from the shop.
The appearance of this young applicant for work would have appealed instantly to the sympathies of any one but a regular slop-shop man, who looked only to his own profits, and cared not a fig whose heart-drops cemented the stones of his building. ”

“ The seamstress was touched. The tears I shed moved her tender heart; and feeling that I gained ground, I became more and more pathetic. "Ah! her infidelity will cause my death: pity, commiserate a wretched husband; I conjure you, do not conceal from me her retreat, and I shall owe you more than life." ”

“ I am not anybody's mistress. I am my own mistress, and do exactly as I please, whether he or any other like it or not. There lives not the man who shall say to me: Here is a line, and over it, thou shalt not step. And whatever I do, I do, of my own free will, not of obedience, but of my own consent. I have given my body and soul away, but my will is mine.
And I said with emphasis: I have bought thee at the price of a kingdom, and become a beggar on thy account, and mine thou art, by right. Dost thou actually tell me, I am to lose my kingdom, and get absolutely nothing in exchange? ”

“ We were both victims to the same overshadowing evil—she, as mistress, I, as slave. ”

“ I could no longer resist the conviction of her shameless guilt. All her sighs and tears, professions of love and devotion, the fond tenacity of her embrace, the deep-seated earnestness and significance in her looks—all went for nothing in her failure to utter the one only, and all-important communication.
Let no woman, on any pretext, however specious, deceive herself with the fatal error, that she can safely harbor, unspoken to her husband, the secret of any insult, or base approach, of another to herself! ”

“ You want to clutch things and have them in your power. You want to have things in your power. And why? Because you haven't got any real body, any dark sensual body of life. You have no sensuality. You have only your will and your conceit of consciousness, and your lust for power, to KNOW.'
He looked at her in mingled hate and contempt, also in pain because she suffered, and in shame because he knew he tortured her. ”

“ If I am cold and unyielding, I am masculine and neglected—if I am gentle and pliant, my confidence is abused and my person dishonored. What can society, which is thus exacting, accord to me, then, as a mere woman? What shame will it not thrust upon me—a woman—and as I am? ”

“ So screened from all imputation of fraud, she was furnished by him with artful instructions how to sound the inclinations of her young mistress, how to recommend his person and qualifications by the sure methods of contradiction, comparisons, revilings, and reproach; how to watch the paroxysms of her disposition, inflame her passions, and improve, for his advantage, those moments of frailty from which no woman is exempted. ”

“ An aristocratic lady residing on the family estate in Ireland advertised for a governess for her daughters. The successful candidate was a young French lady of talent and fascinating manners. She had not long taken up her residence with the lady and her daughters when she inspired the nephew of her mistress with a tender passion. A gentleman of principle, and only possessing slender means, he resolved to control his sentiment and in no way reveal it. ”

“ I do not know a soul that I can face. My subordinates themselves have turned upon me. What language have I heard to-day, what illiberality of sentiment, what pungency of expression! She came once; I could have pardoned that, for she was moved; but she returned, returned to announce to me this crushing blow; and, Somerset, she was very inhumane. Yes, dear fellow, I have drunk a bitter cup; the speech of females is remarkable for . . . well, well! Denounce me, if you will; you but denounce the dead. I am extinct. ”

“ In short, gentle reader, I have a certain healthy respect for this seamstress class, and would hardly like to run the risk of painting her portrait.
And granting that "the style is the man," and therefore the woman too, study well this dialogue, which is true to life. See what you can make out of it, and govern yourself accordingly afterward, if Theresa considers herself injured by your deductions ”

“ I made answer, “if Sempronia thinks there is any thing serious between the widow and you, she must think you a pretty rascal, for the violent love you made to herself at the Villa. But I am sure she will easily perceive, by your countenance, that you do not regard Rubellia, handsome as she is, with any extraordinary admiration; whereas—if you were not conscious of it, I am sure she must have been so—there was never a face of more passionate love than yours, all the time you were in her company. ”

“ She had the outward signs of one, indeed, the prim demeanor, the methodical habits, the sarcastic attitude toward the male sex; but burning in every fibre of her being, and evident in every page of her writings, is that fierce unrest, that inarticulate, distressful longing of a woman who craves love. ”

“ Certain weak mistresses vary their attitude towards their servants, first assuming a familiarity of manner which is disgusting, and which the servant does not mistake for kindness, and then a tyrannical severity which is as unreasonable as the familiarity, and, like it, is only a spasm of an ill-regulated mind. ”

“ A Mistress, and a Poem in her Praise, will introduce any Candidate: Without the latter no one can be admitted; for he that is not in love enough to rhime, is unqualified for our Society. To speak disrespectfully of any Woman, is Expulsion from our gentle Society. As we are at present all of us Gown-men, instead of duelling when we are Rivals, we drink together the Health of our Mistress. ”

“ Thou wanton girl, who wouldst seduce me from my duty and put me to an open shame!—who, led by passion or ambition, or the love of evil, hast not shamed to break the barriers of thy sex and speak as thou hast spoken—beware lest thou go too far! ”

“ The more he looked upon her loveliness, the more bitterly he realized that there must be a hundred men of her own class—her friends and intimates—who would have been only too glad to lend her the paltry sum required. ”

“ If every mistress would put on the servant's garb and go through the servant's life for just one day each year, a lesson in human sympathy might be learned that would help to sweeten human intercourse. ”

“ No reproach is inherited by the mistress who, day after day, tied up her female servant in an agonising posture, and had her beaten until there was no sound part in her body, securing her in the stocks during the intervals of torture. ”

“ He could not imagine for what Reason a Woman, who, if she intended not to be a Mistress, had counterfeited the Part of one, and taken so much Pains to engage him, should lament a Consequence which she could not but expect, and till the last Test, seem'd inclinable to grant ”

“ I have always found the instincts of women to be right, and I felt more gratified at this spontaneous outpouring of the sympathies of the sex, for our cause, than if all the male creatures of the earth had approved it, in cold and formal words. ”

“ Smellie has, as I have before observed, implicitly allowed the possibility of a temptation to men, and shall I not follow 242his laudable example of candor, and confess that there may also be weak women?
It is indeed true that in cases of extremities, such as most certainly are not the frequentest ones, any thought of immodesty may be intirely out of the question. The sad and suffering state of a woman agonizing with pain, at the gates one may say of death, leaves little room for licentious temptations. ”

“ It may be, and indeed has been, urged that the existence of such words as ‘seamstress’, ‘songstress’, is decisive proof that the ending ‘ster’ of itself was not counted sufficient to designate persons as female; for if, it has been said, ‘seamster’ and ‘songster’ had been felt to be already feminine, no one would have ever thought of doubling on this, and adding a second female termination; ‘seamstress’, ‘songstress’. ”

“ It was this very confidence in her own strength—this fearlessness of danger (and we repeat the lesson here, emphatically, by way of warning) —a confidence which the possession of a quick and powerful mind naturally enough inspires—that effected her undoing. It was not by the force of her affections that she fell. THE AFFECTIONS ARE NOT APT TO BE STRONG IN A WOMAN WHOSE MIND LEADS HER OUT FROM HER SEX!
The seducer triumphed through the medium of her vanity. Her feeling of self-assurance had been thus active from childhood, and conspicuous in all her sports and employments. ”

“ Even in the moment of recognising a certain natural feminine charm one sought for and found the stigmata of spinsterhood. She had no mannerisms, affectations, or silly tricks; and nevertheless.—But there is the bother of it. [4] How and why do we judge people or form any opinion concerning them? As soon as you think you know what a woman is you begin to think she looks like what you have decided her to be. ”

“ It should seem that the constant habit of being forced to serve, outwardly, where she really ruled,—the consciousness of her own brilliant and powerful faculties brought into immediate hourly comparison with the confined trifling understanding of her mistress, a disdain of her own forced hypocrisy, and a perception of the heartless baseness of the courtiers around her, disgusting to a mind naturally high-toned, produced at length that extreme of bitterness and insolence which made her so often "an embodied storm." ”

“ Think how ill your morals harmonise with your profession. Think how your mistress has [Pg 448] injured you in soul, body, and estate. Consider how much you have needlessly suffered for her sake. Think how often you have been deluded, despised, and neglected; what blandishments, tears, and lamentations you have poured out, and of the haughty, ungrateful arrogance with which she received them. If there was the least indication of humanity in her conduct, how trifling it was, more fleeting than the summer breeze. Consider how you have added to her fame and what she has taken from your life ”

“ Was there an antidote? If not, would her sister ever grow up? If she did grow up, would she grow up normally? Had she really, as Prudence thought, preserved her memory and understanding? Was she to be treated exactly like an ordinary baby? and, if not, in what respects should a difference be made? Should she be sent to school later on? Would her intelligence grow or lessen? All these racking questions, to which she could give no answer, tormented the younger Miss Semaphore continually. ”

“ They are seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the service of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it is almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud. Consumption points their place in the procession. With their sad sisterhood are intermingled many youthful maidens who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science has unavailingly searched its volumes, and whom breathless love has watched. In our ranks the rich maiden and the poor seamstress may walk arm in arm. ”

“ Villain that you are, you make light of your crimes. Oh! I am well aware that seduction—rape, even, under such circumstances as those in which you ravished me—are not deemed enormities in the fashionable world: they are achievements at which profligates like yourself laugh over their wine, and which render them favourites with the ladies! ”