Spinsterhood

“ Love in the heart of the spinster, subjected to constant rebuffs and coldness, began to change to hate, and his father, finding that the heart of his son was obdurate, and his nature most obstinate, made suit to the spinster of high degree himself, and was smiled upon. ”

“ Northover.
"We're oftener in fault than the Frames, however. Sometimes the spinner's to blame herself—she may be out of sorts and heavy-handed and slow on her feet and can't put up her ends right, or do anything right; and often it's the fault of the other girls and the 'rove' comes to the spinner rough; and often, again, it's just luck—good or bad. If the machine always ran perfect, there'd be nothing to do. ”

“ How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her household,
Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet cloth of her weaving!
So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the Autumn,
Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fingers,
As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune,
After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of the spindle.
"Truly, Priscilla," he said, "when I see you spinning and spinning,
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others,
Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in a moment ”

“ The girl was inwardly terrified, for she could not have spun the flax, even if she were to live to be a hundred years old, and were to sit spinning every day of her life from morning to evening. And when she found herself alone she began to weep, and sat so for three days without putting her hand to it. On the third day the Queen came, and when she saw that nothing had been done of the spinning she was much surprised; but the girl excused herself by saying that she had not been able to begin because of the distress she was in at leaving her home and her mother. ”

“ Sabina laughed.
"It's use, Mrs. Northover. Some take to it like a duck to water. I did for one. But some never do. If you come to the Frame frightened, you never make a spinner. They're like humans, the Spinning Frames; if they think you're afraid of them, they'll always bully you, but if you show them you're mistress, it's all right. They have their moods and whims, just as we have. They vary, and you never know how the day will go. Sometimes everything runs smoothly; sometimes nothing does. Some days you're as fresh at the end as the beginning ”

“ The young women who were the cause of all this trouble were never more than eighteen or twenty years of age. Mature spinsters of twenty-five figured as envious deterrents in the happy affair. Many a story-book marriage has been spoiled by the jealousy of the wrinkled rival of twenty-five. ”

“ In the first spinning device, a mass of fibre was arranged on a forked stick, and, as drawn therefrom by hand, it was twisted between the fingers and wound on a spindle. During the reign of Henry VIII. of England, however, the spinning-wheel replaced the distaff and spindle, and in every cottage and palace it became an indispensable article of household equipment. The young women in all walks of life were taught to spin. Spinning became the female occupation of the age, and it is interesting to note that the modern term spinster, meaning an unmarried woman of advanced age, here had its origin. ”

“ At the end of the third week one night, as she was terribly downcast, suddenly a little man half an ell long, with a beard one and a-half ells long, slipped in and said, "Why are you worrying yourself, you good, pretty spinning-girl?" "That's just what's the matter with me," replied the girl; "I am not a good spinster, and still they will believe that I am a good spinster, and that's the reason why I am locked up here." ”

“ So entirely has this power of the language died out, that it survives more apparently than really even in ‘spinner’ and ‘spinster’; seeing that ‘spinster’ has obtained now quite another meaning than that of a woman spinning, whom, as well as the man, we should call not a ‘spinster’, but a ‘spinner’ [177] . Deceptive Analogies It would indeed be hard to believe, if we had not constant experience of the fact, how soon and how easily the true law and significance of some form, which has never ceased to be in everybody’s mouth, may yet be lost sight of by all. ”

“ The French spinster is a negligible factor. The English spinster has conquered her territory and become a force to be reckoned with. But the American spinster is the standard-bearer of the tribe. Her incessant activities and her radiant self-satisfaction have made her appear more dominant than she is, and have caused her critics much needless apprehension. When Mrs. Van Vorst wrote, in 1903, “Our factories are full of old maids, our colleges are full of old maids, our ball-rooms in the worldly centers are full of old maids,” Americans read these words with placid unconcern. ”

“ Do you believe the spinster never considers what her lot might have been, when she looks around and sees other women happily married, and sitting by no lonely 171fires, as she is doomed to do, through the years, the long, solitary, uneventful years? ”

“ Whenever any pal of mine talks twaddle about what women can't do, I shall bring him to see you at work."
"I could do something better than spin if I got the chance," she said, and he applauded the sentiment highly.
"Of course you could, and I'm glad you've got the pluck to say so. I knew that from the first. You're a lot too clever for spinning, really. You'd shine anywhere. ”

“ Churchouse discourse on the lore of their trade.
Some, indeed, were bored by the subject and stole away to play beside a fountain and lily pond, where the gold fish were tame and crowded to their hands for food; but others listened and learned surprising facts that set the thoughtful girls wondering.
"You mustn't think, you spinners, that you are the last word in spinning," he said; "no, Alice and Nancy and Sabina, you're not; no more are those at other mills, who spin in choicer materials than flax and hemp—I mean the workers in cotton and silk. ”

“ The presence of thousands of very cheerful and completely adapted spinsters in England, therefore, far from being a good sign, is in reality a very deplorable one; for it argues that in them Nature was not powerful enough to offer any determined fight before allowing herself to be completely conquered. ”

“ I shall not at all mind going out with the plough if it be necessary, and you—you can spin, you know; nothing I admire so much as a graceful figure at a spinning-wheel; you shall have one made of ebony, and—but can you spin? ”

“ The limits of accuracy are not as closely defined as in straight machine work, but there are times when good fits are absolutely necessary, as in cases where two shells must slip snugly together. In this chapter we have taken up only the plain every-day kind of spinning, and were we to follow its work in the gold and silversmith’s trade, we would see it evolve into a fine art. In order to insure really good work coming from the spinning lathe, there is a wide range of knowledge that the spinner must have. ”

“ Mrs. Northover stared to see the nature of a Spinner's duties and the ease with which she controlled the great, pulsing, roaring frame of a hundred spindles. Sabina's eyes were everywhere; her hands were never still; her feet seemed to dance a measure to the thunder of the Frame. Now she marked a roving reel aloft that was running out, and in a moment she had broken the sliver, swept away the empty reel and hung up a full one. Then she drew the new sliver down to the point of the break and, in a moment, the two merged and the thread ran on. ”

“ We have undertaken the more important task of discovering her relation to society when once the rôle of spinster has been assumed. Whether she has remained a spinster from deliberate choice, therefore, or whether she is a spinster owing to the loss of her fiancé at sea or in a railway accident, matters but little. The fact is that, as the result of circumstances which may or may not have been beyond her control, she has remained unmarried. As a spinster she will inevitably develop characteristics more or less true to type. ”

“ Then Ward spoke.
"Where the hell's your luck now, Spink?"
"What's become of your theory that half speed in a fog is any better than going at it at my rate?" asked Spink. "You haven't a leg to stand on, and I don't propose to take advice from you again. You've disappointed me sadly! My luck is where it was, except in the matter of my officers, and it's notorious that I have no luck with them. We're out of the Swan without a life lost, we've got heaps of grub, plenty of blankets, and a fine comfortable iceberg under us. ”

“ But the dispenser of nocturnal visions delights in joking, and though impalpable arms may seem to surround the sleeping spinster and a tender kiss may be imprinted upon her lips, it is not once in seventeen days that the caresses are bestowed by the writer of the letter. It is a politician whose distorted picture [Pg 127] has appeared in the evening paper, some man the girl despises, the postman, or worse yet, the tramp who has begged bread at the door. ”

“ Ironsyde came to the works one morning to watch a new Twist Frame and a new operator. The single strand yarn for material from the spinners was coming to the Twist Frame to be turned into twines and fishing lines. Four full bobbins from the spinning machine went to each spindle of the Twist Frame, and from it emerged a strong 'four-ply.' It was a machine more complicated than the spinner; and, as only a good billiard player can appreciate the cleverness of a great player, so only a spinner might have admired the rare technical skill of the woman who controlled the Twist Frame. ”

“ There in a little room sat an Old Woman with a spindle, busily spinning flax.
178 “Good day, old Dame,” said the King’s Daughter; “what are you doing there?”
“I am spinning,” said the Old Woman, and nodded her head.
“What sort of thing is that, which rattles round so merrily?” said the maiden, and she took the spindle and wanted to spin too. But scarcely had she touched the spindle when the magic decree was fulfilled, and she pricked her finger with it. ”

“ Spink sighed.
"I'm the most unfortunate man that ever commanded any blasted hooker that ever sailed the seas," he said. "Day tries me more than you do, Ward. There are times I regret I ever knew him. I must have been brought up badly to have such a disposition as I have. Well, well, it can't be helped, a man is what he was meant to be, there is no get-away from that. But I should admire to see you plug him. Oh, I say, it's fairly thick, ain't it?"
It was a deal thicker than much of the pea-soup served up in the Swan, though Spink rather prided himself on the way the men were fed in her. ”

“ In the ‘good old days’ before the invention of the spinning-jenny and the steam-engine, when working-men were slaves, and the rich had not the luxuries they have now, spinning was the work of the mistress of the house. Many good stories begin with an account of a fair maiden at a spinning-wheel, and a very ancient rhyme refers to the days ‘when Adam delved and Eve span.’ When a young lady was growing of a marriageable age, in the days of the spinning-wheel, she made preparation for her nuptials by spinning the material for sheets, tablecloths, napkins, and all manner of household necessaries ”

“ Price, with her frank laugh, "that's the duty of one of your relations—your niece, for instance—or cousin—if one of them is a woman."
"But," persisted Spindler, "you see, they're strangers to me—I don't know 'em, and I do you. You'd make it easy for 'em—and for me—don't you see? Kinder introduce 'em—don't you know? A woman of your gin'ral experience would smooth down all them little difficulties," continued Spindler, with a vague recollection of the Kansas story, "and put everybody on velvet. ”

“ Since my father and Henry Ironsyde's father established these mills, which are now justly famous in the county, the natural result has happened and women have come here in considerable numbers. Women preponderate in spinning places, because the work of spinning yarn has always been in their hands from time immemorial. And they tend our modern machinery as deftly as of old they twirled the distaff and worked the spinning-wheel; and as steadily as they used to trudge the rope walks and spin, like spiders, from the masses of flax or hemp at their waists. ”

“ Spindler is a young man who has made quite an exhaustive study of the Little Theatre Movement throughout the country; [Spindler moves back towards his former position, and Paula, over at the right, takes a piece of fudge from a box on the little table below the casement-window.] and is working very hard to bring about something of the same kind here. [Ritter inclines his head, and Spindler listens to Mrs. Pampinelli, wreathed in smiles.] And is going to succeed, too, aren’t you, Mr. Spindler?
Spindler. [With a kind of pert assurance] Never fell down on a big job yet. ”

“ Many people still question the economic value of hand spinning. But I believe that the results of our experiments may perhaps lead them to reconsider their views. I will here put down the statistics of our own class. Among our students, there are five playful children, who spin only when the spirit possesses them. But all of them spin good yarn fit for warp. Hardly any spin yarn below 10 counts. Many spin yarn of about 15 counts. Now-a-days the boys are giving four hours to spinning. Formerly they used to work six hours daily, but then there was a tendency to occasional slackness. ”