'NOT THE WOMAN'S PLACE' 



Time was when there were but few forms of healthy, 

 normal enjoyment to which these words, pregnant of 

 prunes, prisms, and prisons, did not apply. Regard- 

 ing the matter dispassionately, by the light of litera- 

 ture as well as that of social history, it would seem 

 that the sole places on God's pleasant earth to which 

 this warning placard was not affixed were those 

 wherein The Woman was occupied with her dealings 

 with the other sex; directly, as in the ballroom, or 

 indirectly, as in the nursery. The indoor traditions 

 of the harem governed the diversions and relaxations 

 of the early Victorian ladies. The few exceptions 

 proved — to quote for the thousandth time the age- 

 worn aphorism — a rule that did not indeed need any 

 proving, being unquestioned. 



Let us consider, for example, the matter of Hunting, 

 with which I propose more especially to deal. There 

 was in England, in the eighteenth century, a Mar- 

 chioness of Salisbury who kept and followed the 

 Hertfordshire Hounds; in Ireland, at about the 

 same period, there was a Countess of Bandon of high 

 renown as a rider. In literature there was " Diana 

 Vernon," who is spoken of with awe as having " guided 

 her horse with the most admirable address and pres- 

 ence of mind," and even " cleared an obstruction 

 composed of forest timber at a flying leap." Later, 

 Surtees, and Whyte Melville, and John Leech evolved 

 between them a few beings who qualified their prowess 

 in floating over five-barred gates by suitable attacks 



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