THE LITTLE HEALTH OF LADIES. 



363 



which the poor creatures endure. Much more 

 often it is the mere lack of the affection and care 

 and tenderness for which they pine as sickly 

 plants for sunshine. Sometimes it is the simple 

 oppression of an iron will over them which 

 bruises their pleasant fancies, and lops off their 

 innocent whims, till there is no sap left in them 

 to bud or blossom any more. Not seldom the 

 misery comes of frequent storms in the house- 

 hold atmosphere — for which the woman is prob- 

 ably as often to blame as her companion, but 

 from which she suffers doubly, since, when they 

 have passed, he goes out to his field or his mer- 

 chandise with what spirit he can muster, poor 

 fellow ! while she sits still where the blighting 

 words fell on her, to feel all their bitterness. Of 

 course it is not only unkind husbands who make 

 women down-hearted. There are unkind people 

 in every relation, and the only specialty of a 

 woman's suffering from unkindness is, that she 

 is commonly almost like a bed-ridden creature, 

 for whom a single thorn or even a hard lump in 

 her bed is enough to create a soreness. To those 

 who can get up and walk away, the importance 

 which she attaches to the thorn or the lump 

 seems inexplicable. 



This balking of the heart is, I suppose, the 

 worst evil in life to nine women out of ten, 

 whether it take place after marriage in finding 

 an uncongenial husband, or before marriage when 

 a lover leaves them in the lurch and causes them 

 a "disappointment." This word, I observe, is 

 always significantly used with reference to such 

 events, among a certain class of women, as the 

 disappointment par eminence. When a lady fails 

 to get her book published or her picture hung at 

 the Academy, nobody speaks of her as having 

 undergone a " disappointment." I have no doubt 

 the grief of losing the lover is generally worse 

 than these ; but I wish that pride would teach 

 every woman under such circumstances not to 

 assume the attitude of an Ariadne, or settle down 

 after a course of sal-volatile into languor and 

 little health till she is found at sixty, as M. About 

 deliciously describes an English old maid, " tant 

 soit peu dessechee par les langueurs du celibat." 

 Of this kind of thing I would fain hope we might 

 soon see the end, as well as of the actions for 

 breach of promise, which are a disgrace to the 

 whole womanhood of the country. 



But besides heart-sorrows, real and imaginary, 

 there are other departments of women's natures 

 wherein the balking of their activities has a de- 

 plorable effect on their physical as well as mental 

 condition. Dr. Bridges once gave an admirable 



lecture at the Royal Institution, concerning the 

 laboring and pauper class of Englishmen. He 

 made the remark (which was received with emo- 

 tion by the audience) that it was not enough to 

 supply a human being with food and shelter. 

 " Man," he said, " does not live by bread alone, 

 he must have hope." May we not say likewise, 

 " Woman does not live by bread alone — nay, nor 

 by the richest cake? " She, too, must have 

 hope — something to live for, something which 

 she may look to accomplish for herself or others 

 in God's world of work, ere her night shall fall. 

 A Hindoo Tady, lately speaking at a meeting in 

 India, compared Mary Carpenter's beneficent 

 existence to a river bearing fertility to many 

 lands, while the life of a woman in the zenana, 

 she said, resembled rather a pond. Surely every 

 woman worthy of the name would desire to 

 be something more than the pool, were it only 

 a little trickling rill ! But in endless cases she 

 is dammed up on all sides, and none the less 

 effectually that the soft mud of affectionate pre- 

 judice forms the dam. If her friends be rich, 

 she is sickened with excess of luxury, but pro- 

 hibited from stooping down out of the empyrean 

 of her drawing-room to lend a finger to lift the 

 burdens of a groaning world. If the family in- 

 come be small, and the family pride proportion- 

 ately great, she is required to spend her life — not 

 in inspiriting, honorable money -earning, but in 

 depressing, heart narrowing money-saw ing. When 

 the poor soul has borne this sort of pecuniary 

 stay-lacing for a dozen years, and her forehead 

 has grown narrow, and her lips pinched, and her 

 eyes have acquired a certain anxious look (which 

 I often fancy I recognize) as if of concern about 

 sixpences, then, forsooth, the world laughs at 

 her and says, "Women are so stingy !" How glad- 

 ly, in a hundred cases, would that poor lady have 

 toiled to earn — andnottos«i'e — and have been no- 

 bly generous with the proceeds of her industry ! 



We have heard a great deal of late of the 

 danger to women's health of over-mental strain 

 or intellectual labor. I do not say there is never 

 danger in this direction, that girls never study too 

 much or too early, or that the daughters of wom- 

 en who have never used their brains may not 

 have inherited rather soft and tender organs of 

 cogitation to start with. I am no enthusiast for 

 excessive book-learning for either women or men, 

 though in books read and books written I have 

 found some of the chief pleasures of a happy life. 

 Perhaps if it were my duty to supervise the edu- 

 cation of girls I should be rather inclined to say, 

 like the hero of " Locksley Hall : " 



