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Geraldine Jewsbury in Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, 1846-47 - Geraldine Jewsbury · The Principles of Secularism

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  Speaker 1: Part one of Geraldine Jewsbury in gerald Shilling Magazine eighteen
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  Speaker 1: forty six to eighteen forty seven. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Today
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  Speaker 1: published in gerald Shilling Magazine, Volume three fifteen. The most
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  Speaker 1: striking feature in the present day, far more than that
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  Speaker 1: of railways even, is the utter chaos into which all
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  Speaker 1: previously received principles and opinions are reduced. There is no
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  Speaker 1: recognized rule of faith. All that for eighteen hundred years
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  Speaker 1: served the world for moral principles are as it were,
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  Speaker 1: withdrawn from circulation. To be resolved afresh into their elements
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  Speaker 1: and prove their authority. They must speak intelligibly in the
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  Speaker 1: dialect of today, or the spirits that is in them
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  Speaker 1: will not appeal to the hearts and wants of men,
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  Speaker 1: will not serve them to shape their conduct by in
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  Speaker 1: the clashing of interests than the turmoil of active life.
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  Speaker 1: Every day, every hour is for each one of us,
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  Speaker 1: filled with passionate details which hurry us along without our
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  Speaker 1: seeing too clearly whither they lead. And it needs something
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  Speaker 1: stronger larger than they, all sympathizing, all pervading to form
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  Speaker 1: a rule of life to which we may each one
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  Speaker 1: of us continually resort in all seasons of perplexity and difficulty.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing one sided, nothing of limited sympathy, nothing in short,
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  Speaker 1: that is sectarian, will answer the requirements of a rule
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  Speaker 1: to guide and counsel all men in the varied phases
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  Speaker 1: of life as it is developed in each. For the
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  Speaker 1: last three hundred years, men have been breaking loose from
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  Speaker 1: the rock to which afore time they were anchored, and
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  Speaker 1: have resolved themselves into sex and religions, and shades of
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  Speaker 1: religion and no religion, each one trying to construct an
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  Speaker 1: ark for the saving of his own soul out of
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  Speaker 1: the wreck and fragments of other systems. To bring matters
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  Speaker 1: to this pass, principles have been at work, which, though
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  Speaker 1: not definitely bearing on moral and religious questions, have had
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  Speaker 1: a grand influence in bringing the minds of men to
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  Speaker 1: their actual states of discontent and expectation. The practical republicanism
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  Speaker 1: of commerce, the collision, the increased activity of men's mode
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  Speaker 1: of life, has broken down the barriers between all classes,
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  Speaker 1: bringing every manner of men into contact with each other.
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  Speaker 1: So that they have gradually learned to regard all things
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  Speaker 1: in a more general light. Dogmas which have long been preserved,
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  Speaker 1: cut and dried in the hot sickness of sermons and
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  Speaker 1: moral essays, have no longer any effect. However ingeniously applied
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  Speaker 1: right and wrong have not changed their nature, but they
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  Speaker 1: are found to be more relative than positive, and are
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  Speaker 1: not to be dealt with by the sharp, sweeping denunciations
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  Speaker 1: and vague assertions hitherto lavished upon them. Men have begun
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  Speaker 1: to perceive that there is a truth, a side on
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  Speaker 1: which it asserts its claim to humanity in what is wrong,
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  Speaker 1: as well as in that which calls itself right. Points
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  Speaker 1: that were once of vital interest and objects of the
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  Speaker 1: most bigoted partisanship, have become matters of indifference. And though
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  Speaker 1: the attainment of unity and the universal brotherhood of humanity
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  Speaker 1: is still the philosopher's stone of morality, yet the center
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  Speaker 1: of indifference, the common ground on which all men meet,
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  Speaker 1: is widening every day. Men are daily more ready to
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  Speaker 1: sacrifice their little pets parterres of private speculation and allow
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  Speaker 1: them to merge into the general life of the whole.
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  Speaker 1: Men do not, as yet perhaps quite love their neighbors
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  Speaker 1: as themselves. But neither do they quite hate them so
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  Speaker 1: much for not being after their own likeness. Controversy on
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  Speaker 1: isolated points of doctrine does not flourish. Men have too
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  Speaker 1: much at stake in these days to have the heart
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  Speaker 1: to play its logic or quibble in syllogisms. They have
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  Speaker 1: no guide, overseer nor ruler. The old faith in which
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  Speaker 1: their fathers dwelts has vanished from them. They may no
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  Speaker 1: longer lead their lives by it. They are encamped in
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  Speaker 1: the wilderness gone forth, not knowing whither they went, and
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  Speaker 1: their numbers are daily increasing. All recognized sects are gradually
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  Speaker 1: losing their hold, grown old and ready to vanish away
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  Speaker 1: is the device inscribed on each onto none of them
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  Speaker 1: is it given to have the large utterance of the
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  Speaker 1: early gods. There is no room in them for the
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  Speaker 1: mighty heart of humanity to take refuge. This place is
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  Speaker 1: too straight for us, said the sons of the Prophets
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  Speaker 1: in the days of Elisha. We are the children of
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  Speaker 1: the Prophets, And it is the cry of men now.
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  Speaker 1: Only a very little while since mister Newman and his
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  Speaker 1: company entered the Catholic Church, he has examined long and well,
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  Speaker 1: He has looked to the right hand and to the left,
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  Speaker 1: and finally has made his venture of faith. It is
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  Speaker 1: the grown man trying to return to the past and
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  Speaker 1: take shelter there. Instead of pressing onwards. He has endeavored
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  Speaker 1: to become as a little child, if so be, he
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  Speaker 1: may thereby attain the Kingdom of heaven. But childhood is
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  Speaker 1: a blessing only once in a lifetime. How can a
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  Speaker 1: man enter a second time into his mother's womb and
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  Speaker 1: be born the unknowing, loving or believing? How heart of
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  Speaker 1: a little child can never return again. One hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty Jews were baptized into Christianism. The other day. They
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  Speaker 1: came out of their old faith, hoping to find a
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  Speaker 1: larger room amongst us. All men are waiting and expecting.
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  Speaker 1: They know not what they are waiting, as those that
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  Speaker 1: watch for the day. Eighteen hundred years ago, the world
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  Speaker 1: was waiting as we are waiting now. The old forms,
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  Speaker 1: the old beliefs had lost their power. Men were without
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  Speaker 1: God in the world, and the sense of their desolateness
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  Speaker 1: pressed heavily upon them. One came and said, follow me.
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  Speaker 1: It is written of him that he knew their hearts,
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  Speaker 1: and for more than a thousand years men have felt
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  Speaker 1: him to be their guide. If in these days one
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  Speaker 1: would arise, who could gather together in one the hearts
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  Speaker 1: and aspirations of all men, who should be able to
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  Speaker 1: speak peace to him that is far off, and to
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  Speaker 1: him that is near, who can know our hearts and
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  Speaker 1: make articulate all that is now struggling in human souls.
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  Speaker 1: Who is there who would not arise and follow him?
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  Speaker 1: End of today? End of Part one, Part two of
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  Speaker 1: Geraldine Jewsbury in Gerald's Shilling Magazine, eighteen forty six to
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  Speaker 1: eighteen forty seven. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Things of Importance published in Gerald's Shilling Magazine, Volume three,
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  Speaker 1: number sixteen. This is a comprehensive category, and the items
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  Speaker 1: are as various as the contents of an old clothes shop.
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  Speaker 1: Everybody in the world has his things of importance, but
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  Speaker 1: he finds it's hard to persuade his neighbors that they
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  Speaker 1: are not trifles about which no wise man would ever
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  Speaker 1: trouble himself. And yet from the everlasting bustle that goes on,
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  Speaker 1: one might fancy that nothing was ever transacted on the
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  Speaker 1: surface of the earth, but things of importance. Geographers tell
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  Speaker 1: us that the heights of the highest mountains in the
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  Speaker 1: world are in proportion to their size, not more than
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  Speaker 1: the inequalities on the rind of an orange, and the
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  Speaker 1: affairs of life keep the mountains in countenance. The important
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  Speaker 1: things that fill the whole field of vision today, with
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  Speaker 1: their imposing bulk, dwindled down from the colossal to the
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  Speaker 1: merely mortal. When today becomes yesterday, and on the morrow,
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  Speaker 1: they become absolutely invisible to the strictest investigations of history
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  Speaker 1: or scandal. In the experience of every man, the important
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  Speaker 1: things of today are degraded into the trifles of tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: Nearly every occurrence of life is more in debt to
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  Speaker 1: the momentum of falling from the passing moment than for
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  Speaker 1: any specific gravity of its own. If it did not
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  Speaker 1: make one smile, it might well make one laugh. To
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  Speaker 1: look back on all the things of importance that have
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  Speaker 1: agitated us in their time. Where are they now? The
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  Speaker 1: joy and sorrow have perished with them. They have vanished
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  Speaker 1: even from our memory, and are now no more to
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  Speaker 1: us than the scenes of a well written novel or play. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: we come to regard them with precisely the same sort
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  Speaker 1: of feeling. It is the same with our wishes. A
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  Speaker 1: man may possibly desire no more refined vengeance on his
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  Speaker 1: enemy than to grant him the wish that lay nearest
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  Speaker 1: his heart five years previously. So long as life remains,
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  Speaker 1: men will put forth fresh desires every day, as trees
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  Speaker 1: put forth fresh leaves every spring. But the same destiny
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  Speaker 1: is laid on each that the old. In both cases
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  Speaker 1: must fall often die. Men must mold to their feelings
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  Speaker 1: and desires in the course of nature, And very miserable
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  Speaker 1: and good for nothing they feel at such seasons. But
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  Speaker 1: vitality is very strong, And as long as life remains,
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  Speaker 1: men must go on wishing and hoping and transacting their
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  Speaker 1: things of importance, till death comes to place them under
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  Speaker 1: other conditions of being of which we know nothing. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: whilst it is going on, the most important thing in
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  Speaker 1: the eyes of all concerned man, woman or confidante, is
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  Speaker 1: a love affair, a real fit of desperation. Be it
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  Speaker 1: understood not the tepid sentiment of preference, such as well
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  Speaker 1: brought up young ladies are instructed, is all they ought
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  Speaker 1: to indulge in if they wish to continue respectable. Decidedly,
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  Speaker 1: there is nothing in life worthy to be compared to
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  Speaker 1: a strong passion that calls into activity every faculty of
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  Speaker 1: body and soul. It is like the bursting for a volcano,
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  Speaker 1: showing all the strength and fire that lay hidden below
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  Speaker 1: the surface. It is not a thing that can last long.
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  Speaker 1: The whole world must infallibly go to the juice. If
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  Speaker 1: it did, it dies away, leaving at first the appearance
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  Speaker 1: of desolate barrenness. But after a while there springs up
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  Speaker 1: a richness and fertility of soul that was not so before.
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  Speaker 1: By those very individuals, the passion of love comes to
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  Speaker 1: be regarded as a mere dream, or as a milliner
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  Speaker 1: once phrased a dress cap a charming delusion with beautiful blue.
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  Speaker 1: They retain of their former fires, only a comfortable warmth,
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  Speaker 1: fit for domestic purposes. If it were possible to place
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  Speaker 1: in array all the men and women on whom a
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  Speaker 1: grand passion had been lavished, all the objects of an
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  Speaker 1: unfortunate attachment, the amazements of everybody would be extreme when
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  Speaker 1: they beheld the show of very ordinary mortal which would
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  Speaker 1: appear to their disenchanted view in love. It is an
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  Speaker 1: emphatic truth that nothing is, but all things seem when
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  Speaker 1: the heat of passion has passed away, the objects, when
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  Speaker 1: beheld in the cool light of reflection, generally seem greater
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  Speaker 1: bores than the average run of the sons and daughters
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  Speaker 1: of Adam. Few who have been the objects of passionate
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  Speaker 1: love ever turn into sterling friends. The things we most
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  Speaker 1: eagerly grasp at are like the pebbles in a sparkling brook.
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  Speaker 1: So long as the sun shines on them, and they
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  Speaker 1: glitter with moisture, they look to be very precious things.
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  Speaker 1: But in a little while they become dry and dim.
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  Speaker 1: One finds them good for nothing but to make roads
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  Speaker 1: withal to tread under our feet every day. History is
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  Speaker 1: nothing but a museum for the fossil remains of things
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  Speaker 1: that were of importance in their day and generation. But
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  Speaker 1: we can seldom realize that rank will assurance. It gives
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  Speaker 1: that the most important of important things will petrify into
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  Speaker 1: matters of fact, only interesting as they, in their turn
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  Speaker 1: are types of similar griefs or interests that will touch
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  Speaker 1: those who come after us to the end of time.
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  Speaker 1: For no emotion of either joy or sorrow is a
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  Speaker 1: private property. There is no monopoly in nature we are
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  Speaker 1: all one family, though to be sure, we occasionally meet
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  Speaker 1: with those whom we do not feel any pride in
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  Speaker 1: claiming for relations. Hence it is that men are libelously
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  Speaker 1: said to hate their own likeness in a brother's face.
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  Speaker 1: But it is no such thing. It is not the
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  Speaker 1: likeness they object to, but the very little justice that
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  Speaker 1: is done to it. Who is there who does not
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  Speaker 1: from his soul protest against a caricature or even a
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  Speaker 1: photographic portrait. Nurses tell little children that beauty is but
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  Speaker 1: skin deep, and we may rest assured that the importance
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  Speaker 1: of the most important people in the world is of
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  Speaker 1: even greater tenuity. A very little goes a great way,
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  Speaker 1: and a square inch of the reality may be beaten
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  Speaker 1: out to an extent exceeding that of gold leaf. The
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  Speaker 1: people and things of the most augustined ages are not gold,
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  Speaker 1: only gilded with importance. The staple material of which they
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  Speaker 1: are made up is the same. In all times people
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  Speaker 1: have such a mania for fancying themselves and their concerns
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  Speaker 1: exceptions to the general rule. Whereas every man is an
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  Speaker 1: average specimen brick of the individual amount of real importance
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  Speaker 1: invested in the sons of men, to be sure the
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  Speaker 1: inheritance of each is infinitesimal. But what of that each
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  Speaker 1: man has the gift to see himself with microscopic eyes
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  Speaker 1: which magnify a thousandfold. This is a wise provision of nature,
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  Speaker 1: For nobody would have the heart to transact his own
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  Speaker 1: affairs if he only saw them as they appear to
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  Speaker 1: other people. No wonder, then our affairs I mismanaged when
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  Speaker 1: we turn them over to somebody else to do for us.
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  Speaker 1: When we take our walk abroad and see all the
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  Speaker 1: labor that is done under the sun, what is the
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  Speaker 1: impression that it makes upon us? We wonder that people
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  Speaker 1: can be found to take interest in such things, and
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  Speaker 1: we criticize unmercifully the smallest discrepancy between the program and
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  Speaker 1: the performance of our neighbors. When one reflects on the
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  Speaker 1: amount of labor and pains that have been expanded on
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  Speaker 1: what have eventually proved failures, it almost makes one tremble.
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  Speaker 1: A very tragical history might be written on unsuccessful men
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  Speaker 1: if the world could be made to feel any interest
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  Speaker 1: in those who fail. And yet it requires an amount
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  Speaker 1: of actual talent even to achieve a failure. How many
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  Speaker 1: people are there who trouble their heads about the list
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  Speaker 1: of patents that are regularly declared not one in a thousand.
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  Speaker 1: And Yet if we could realize the amount of patience
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  Speaker 1: and labor, and time and money, and hope and fear
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  Speaker 1: and sickness of heart that have had to be endured
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  Speaker 1: before a single item in that list could be produced,
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  Speaker 1: one would be apt to wonder that the madhouses are
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  Speaker 1: not as wide as tofettes. And yet nine tenths of
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  Speaker 1: all this costly labor has been in vain and comes
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  Speaker 1: under the compendious category of inventions that did not answer.
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  Speaker 1: But still these things are hidden from our eyes. For
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  Speaker 1: if there were no man to undertake in hope labor
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  Speaker 1: that appears profitless in the eyes of others, the world
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  Speaker 1: would soon come to a dead standstill. King Solomon was
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  Speaker 1: wearied for want of some business of his own to transact.
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  Speaker 1: He was a stander in the game of life, for
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  Speaker 1: he had soon played himself out, and that accounts for
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  Speaker 1: the terrible sagacity with which he discerns the worthlessness of
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  Speaker 1: all that is done under the sun. Such a keen
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  Speaker 1: conviction of the intrinsic uselessness of all things is not healthy.
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  Speaker 1: It is a wisdom not intended for us. We look
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  Speaker 1: out of our window at the people passing along the
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  Speaker 1: streets and sit idly in judgment on their personal appearance
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  Speaker 1: and general aspect, without in the least realizing that they
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  Speaker 1: are each and all cherished and respectable totalities to their
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  Speaker 1: individual selves, that there is a personality in their very defects,
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  Speaker 1: infinitely touching to the owners thereof. If the law of
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  Speaker 1: self preservation were not implanted in the heart of each,
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  Speaker 1: it is to be feared that very few of us
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  Speaker 1: would stand much chance of salvation if we got into danger.
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  Speaker 1: Every man feels as if he were the sole person
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  Speaker 1: and the universe. The rest of the inhabitants have only
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  Speaker 1: a real existence in his eyes so far as they
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  Speaker 1: help or hinder him in his own path, and he
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  Speaker 1: has merely an historical belief in the personality of the
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  Speaker 1: men and women who do not come near him. Himself
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  Speaker 1: and his own sensations are the only points he realizes.
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  Speaker 1: Take the most insignificant traveler. Who ever sets foot on
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  Speaker 1: the deck of a steamer and set him down in
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  Speaker 1: the heart of all the rushers, will he feel of
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  Speaker 1: less importance in his own eyes amongst the hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of strange beings who are gabbling their uncouth dialects
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  Speaker 1: and leading their lives as best they may than he
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  Speaker 1: did when in his own parlor, his feet cased in
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  Speaker 1: their worsted work slippers, his coffee pot steaming up its fragrance,
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  Speaker 1: his muffin overflowing with butter, and his well trained wife
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  Speaker 1: downstairs to the moment to preside over the breakfast, and
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  Speaker 1: anxiously inquiet caring what he would like for dinner. No,
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  Speaker 1: never a bit of it. He is always the same man,
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  Speaker 1: and the impression people and things make upon him is
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  Speaker 1: the only idea he has of their intrinsic importance. If
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  Speaker 1: he wrote a book about what he has seen, he
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  Speaker 1: will appear therein as the center, whilst the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the world passes like a panorama before him. A man's
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  Speaker 1: sentiment for himself never fails. One sometimes wonders that the
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  Speaker 1: world does not get out of patience with the folly
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  Speaker 1: and stupidity daily transacted upon it, And so no doubt
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  Speaker 1: it would, for the world is not altogether peopled by fools,
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  Speaker 1: but every man is patient and long suffering towards his
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  Speaker 1: own share of folly. The virtue of mankind in that
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  Speaker 1: respect is certainly exemplary. Everybody is, however, of importance, for
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  Speaker 1: at least one period of their lives, and that is
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  Speaker 1: why else they are babies. It makes one half sorry
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  Speaker 1: that people should grow up into hardened men and women.
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  Speaker 1: The man who was hanged the other day was once
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  Speaker 1: the finest baby that ever was born, and it would
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  Speaker 1: be possible to trace back his career step by step.
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  Speaker 1: And as the weight of every day that brought its
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  Speaker 1: own evil with it was cleared away, we should come
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  Speaker 1: at last to the human nature that lay beneath the
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  Speaker 1: human hearts that called our own brother. The most insignificant people,
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  Speaker 1: people for whom their neighbors feel profound contempt, have a
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  Speaker 1: soothing belief in a special providence retained expressly to attend
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  Speaker 1: to their peculiar egotisms. It is lucky this source of
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  Speaker 1: comforts cannot fail, for if it were given to a
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  Speaker 1: man to see how very little his best friend identifies
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  Speaker 1: himself with his interests, he would never have the heart
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  Speaker 1: to live out half his days. It would be an
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  Speaker 1: unadulterated truth, too much above proof for mortal senses to bear.
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  Speaker 1: Nature is very good to all her children, for is
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  Speaker 1: half the hardships of the world our imaginary she fences
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  Speaker 1: men round with an armor of hopes and illusions, to
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  Speaker 1: keep them from being hurt, or at least to soften
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  Speaker 1: the pain. It behooves then every man to deal gently
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  Speaker 1: by the harmless vanities of his neighbor, seeing that he
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  Speaker 1: also is encompassed about with the same. There is nothing,
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  Speaker 1: so far as we can perceive, amongst the affairs of men,
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  Speaker 1: of sufficient importance to be of any intrinsic moment to
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  Speaker 1: the well being of the universe. Nothing that will materially
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: influence its course. Let the world lay that to heart
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and grow modest. On the other hand, nothing can be
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: considered a trifle that brings either joy or sorrow to
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the meanest individual. Therefore, would be well if each one
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: of us, instead of thinking great things of ourselves, would
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: be more tolerant and kindly affection to each other. We
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: are all more nearly equal than we may be inclined
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to think. If we were to do as the Apostle
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: recommended eighteen hundred years ago, the world would not be
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the least bit nearer the pit of destruction than it
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: is now. That the people in it are each heroes
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: in their own esteem, nay, it is possible that things
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: might work more smoothly, and that there would occur fewer
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of those cataracts and breaks which, as it is, sometimes
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: threaten to throw the times out of joint end of
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: things of importance. End of Part two, Part three of
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Geraldine Jewsbury in Gerald's Shilling Magazine. This LibriVox recording is
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Social Barbarisms Hiring a Servant published
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in gerald Shilling Magazine, Volume four, number twenty three. The
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: world is very wicked, and has been so this long while.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Indeed nobody can recollect the time when it was good.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: But the wickedness does not seem equally divided. For by
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: all that is said, it would seem as if servants
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: had monopolized more than their share of original sin and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: acquired wickedness. To hear the talk that goes on about
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: them amongst respectable masters and mistresses, they seem to be
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: a race of wicked brownies, endowed with a special malignity
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: against those whose household work they perform. Everybody who keeps
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a servant complains of their intense badness, with an emphasis
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: proportion to the number their ill fortune obliges them to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: employ it is a topic that comes home to everyone's
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: business and buzzom. If two men meet together, the chances
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: are they will mention the weather. But if two women
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: begin to talk, servants are the topic on which all
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: their sympathies are warmed. To hear their comparisons of plagues
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and their catalogs of evil deeds is like looking through
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: some great social oxyhydrogen microscope and seeing the monsters which
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: are known to us have been besetting our parlor, kitchen,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and hall, with the additional comfort of knowing that they
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: are not safely imprisoned in a drop of water which
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: we can swallow and so make an end of that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: are actually rampant and at liberty, most of us having
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: one or more going tame about our house, and no
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: visible mode of delivering ourselves. It really is an awful
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: lookout if only half that is said of them be true,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: and there is our own private experience to corroborate it
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: in the sufferings we ourselves have endured at their hands,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and comes directly a most indisputable fact that servants are
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: a very bad set. Indeed, could not as a body
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: be much worse on this side of the gallows. But then,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: as nothing is self created, nor can continue in the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: world's self existence. There must be some cause whereby they
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: come to this pass, and some tap root, whence they
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: are nourished, which keeps them going on at such a
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: bad rate. Dean Swift warned his friend not to expect
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: all the virtues under the sun for twenty pounds a year.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: But since his time it would seem as if the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: virtues had altogether declined going out to service. It sounds
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: very grand in a sermon to hold vice in subjection,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: yet when it takes the shape of a domestic servants,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: it is a very bad handful. Indeed, when a man
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: is very ill, he feels as if no human speech
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: could give utterance to his potent sufferings. But when the
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: doctor comes and puts all the complaints in a few
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: technical phrases, the dignity of the disease is departed. The
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: patients who fancied his sufferings a special infliction of providence
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: finds them written in the chronicles of the wise Men
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of Gotham, and the remedy flourishing in the prosaic pages
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: of the Pharmacopeia. When an evil can be reduced to words,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: it is wonderful, how manageable it, Luks, we do not
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: profess to be very wise, But nevertheless that does not
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: prevent our feeling tempted to say a few words on
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the present condition of servants question. It does seem a
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: solecism in the working of our Christianity, a barbarism in
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the heart of our civilization. That too, classes of human beings,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: masters and servants, subsisting in such intimate relation, so mutually
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: dependent on each other, having such daily and hourly in course,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: should be entirely destitutes of mutual regard, should be, in
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: fact in a state of mutual enmity, the masters putting
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: no trust in the servants, and the servants looking on
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the master or mistress as their natural enemies, ready to
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: take every advantage of them. All this apparent incorporation into
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: one family is a mere matter of temporary convenience, and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: symbolical of no sort of friendly union. It is altogether
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a monstrous and unnatural state of things. No wonder it
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: works so ill and produces such bitter complainings on both sides, For,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to use a servant's own phrase, there is no love
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: lost between them. It is the total absence of everything,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Like the love that ought to bind one human being
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: to another, which lies at the root of the evil.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: No amount of wages or of mutual convenience principle will
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: supply the place of that fellow feeling, which alone can
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: make any sort of social contract or relationship between two
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: parties work well. Such virtues may be found very convenient
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: in persons who have mutual dealings with each other, but
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the instant they are considered as nothing more than convenient
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: qualities and made marketable, they lose their worth and become
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: mere mechanical facilities for transacting business. They lose their vitality
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and become mere petrifications of what was once heavenly in
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: its growth, a desecration of the most precious things, which
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: works its own avenging. In the present relation between master
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: and servants, the master has this great advantage that his
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: staff of virtues are entertained entirely for his personal good,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the saving of his own soul, and the beautifying of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: his own reputation. With servants, it is not so, their
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: virtues and god qualities are regarded only as so many
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: conveniences and advantages to the party who engages them. They
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: are examined, inquired into and tested, as if they were
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: so many points on which human cattle must be warranted
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: sound to be fit for domestic service. A servant is
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: hired in exactly the same spirit as a horse or
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: a dog is bought. No sort of responsibility is felt
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: at receiving a fellow creature under our charge. No sort
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of accountability is recognized for the way in which servants
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: are to be directed and governed whilst under our control.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: We do not go to a bazaar and buy slaves,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: as they do in the East, but we trade in
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: all the higher moral and spiritual qualities, hiring them for
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: ten or twenty pounds a year, and considering them merely
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: as so many convenient qualifications in a set of beings
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: into whose power we and our possessions are in some
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: degree placed. We require a servant to be honest, because
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: without that our most earnest watchfulness cannot defend ourselves and
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: our tea caddies from depredations. They must be sober, because
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: otherwise our wine cellars will not be sacred, and a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: drunken servant, besides other practical disabilities, may chance to set
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the house on fire, and so on. Through the whole
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: catalog we look at all their qualities as they affect
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: us and our own interests in their practical working, But
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: as far as concerns the servants themselves, the human beings
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: from whose soul these qualities are emanating, we take as
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: little account of them, and feel as little interest about
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: their individual history, their hopes, schemes, and prospects in life,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: and know as little of them as we do about
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the dogs and cats which walk in and out of
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: our rooms, or the poultry in the courtyard. When we
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: discharge as servant, we ask no more questions of what
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: becomes of him than when we sell a horse to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: someone who can pay for it. Servants live in closer
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: intimacy with those whom they dwell than the nearest relations.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: They dwell under the same roof for months and years.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: They see closely and know the character of each individual,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: as neither lover nor friend can pretend to do. Yet
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: with all this there is no fellowship, no identification of interests.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: The connection is liable to be dissolved any instance. They
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: receive their wages and go forth. None knows whither, and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: most likely servants and masters never behold each other's face again,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: for it is held a principle of good housekeeping not
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: to allow old servants to come about the place. What
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: can be more frightful than this state of things? When
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: we think of it, everybody would lay claim to common
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: human as it is called, And yet domestic servants have
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: we fear a terribly short allowance meeted to them. We
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: are not speaking of any individual acts of cruelty tangible
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: enough for the law to provide for in a way
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: more or less clumsy, but of the intense want of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: fellow feeling exhibited with regard to servants. Ladies who would
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: be indignant at any imputation on their humanity make no
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: scruple of declaring that so long as a servant does
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: her work, they never interfere with her, and that, for
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: their part, they seldom speak to a servant. Others declare
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: they'd never allow laughing or loud talking in the kitchen.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: The dress of servants is under strict surveillance. A lady
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: of our acquaintance once parted with an excellent servant because
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: she refused to part with a band of black velvet
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: which she had a fancy for wearing round her neck.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Few mistresses allowed followers to their servants, although flirtation, and
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: lovers may be their own staple amusements when spoken hardly
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: to with or without reason, Servants are apt to be
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: dismissed at a moment's warning if their frail nature takes
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: fire and prompts them to answer again. For the most
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: angelic mistress will declare she can stand anything but insolence
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: in a servants, they are taken into a family to
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: do their work, like so many animated dusters and brooms
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: or kitchen ranges. No kindness or interest is expected from them,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and indeed any manifestation of feeling on their part is
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: regarded with suspicion. They are not treated with as possessing
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: any human feelings, and the indignant remonstrance of servants in
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: seasons of great provocation that they have feelings like others
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: is not uncalled for. Some mistresses dislike good looking servants.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Others think it sets off their house to have handsome ones.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: But it is quite a quality to be liked or disliked,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: never considered a human personality. The horror servants have of
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: falling ill is painful to see. For if the disorder
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: be fever or anything contagious, they are sent to the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: hospital or fever ward. If they have an accidents that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: incapacitates them from work, they are discharged, if possible, before
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: actually laid up to keep clear of the charge of
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: positive inhumanity and what becomes of sick servants. Nothing can
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: be conceived more homeless, helpless, and forlorn than their condition,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: far worse than that of ordinary poor people, for they
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: have generally speaking been well fed and kept in a
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: state of bodily comfort and accommodation. So they are like
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: canairy bird's, unable to help themselves, and feeling doubly the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: high hardships to which they are exposed when turned adrift.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Servants have seldom any home to go to when out
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: of places, and what bonds of relationship they may have
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: are generally of the slightest kind. Their lodging houses are
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: generally speaking, nothing better than houses of ill fame. No
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: classes of person hang so loosely on society as domestic servants.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: They have no one to care for them. They are
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: become strangers to the houses where they once dwelt. For months,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: or it may be years, they belong to nothing and nobody. Therefore,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: is it any wonder they should become hardened neutralized and
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: thoroughly demoralized by the habit of changing from place to place,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: till all idea of a permanent home is lost come
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to seem an impossibility. Consider moreover the frightful hardships to
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: which they are exposed if on leaving in one place
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: they are not provided with another. For as we have said,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: they have no homes, and their lodgings are not better
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: than brothels. If we think of the close contact in
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: which this class of people come with ourselves, with our children,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: for try as we may, it is impossible to prevent
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: all communication, we may well shudder that the frightful evil
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: lying within our very doors, and to which the supine
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: indifference and selfish indolence of those who stand towards them
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: in responsible position of masters and mistresses, has conduced, and
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: not any remarkable depravity in the unhappy beings themselves. The
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: present generation of servants is thoroughly demoralized, and the evil
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: will go on increasing unless some change in the relation
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: between master and servant takes place. The improvements must begin
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: from above. It is the masters and mistress who must
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: reform their whole system of treating their domestics. Before any
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: improvement can be looked for in the servants themselves. They
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: are the victims to a vicious and selfish system. The
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: present mode of treating them is Unchristian in the highest degree.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: The relation between master and servant is not a bond
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: of mutual convenience, but a sacred responsibility. And no man
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: or woman has a right to take human beings into
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: their service and throw them off without taking some sort
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: of care what becomes of them, without seeing them safe
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: in some sort of haven. We have confined our remarks
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: principally to the case of female servants, and have said
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: nothing of the thousands of footmen thrown out of place
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: at the end of every London season, permanently influenced in
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: their health from late hours and exposure to all kinds
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: of weather, the intense bodily exhaustion care by standing so
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: many hours each day, the combination of extreme fatigue and
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: moral indolence. Depraved alike in body and mind. They are
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: drafted off to the hospitals to live or die, no
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: one caring for them. A man can always make his
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: way somehow or another. They are in all cases better
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: off than women. Female servants are so dreadfully to be pitted.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Their fate is fearful. As a body, they are as
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: bad as they can be, hard, foolish, and demoralized. But
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: they have become so in consequence of the cold blooded, false,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: even cruel kind of relationship that has arisen between them
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and their masters. It is their greatest misery that they
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: are bad. There are certain points in the actual working
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: of our present social system which are far worse than
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: any which exists under any systems we stigmatize as barbarous
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: and ung Christian. We have no slaves. Our servants are free,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: but the actual freedom consists in having nobody bound to
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: care for them, no one moved to do so by interest,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and no humanity to supply the place of it. In
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the East, a female slave who bears a child to
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: her master becomes at once a free woman, and he
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: is bound to provide for her. Amongst us, there is
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: a feeling of reprobation against a man who should abuse
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: his position to seduce his servants, but there is no
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: help for it. If he does, he is bound to
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: no reparation. The woman must endure the consequences and get
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: along as well as she can. In point of fact,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: whatever may be the value of female chastity. It is
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: a virtue nobody thinks of insisting upon in a servant.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: It is well known that it rarely, almost never exists.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Therefore no questions I ever asked about it. If a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: woman be discovered in a lapse whilst in service, she is,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: as a matter of course, discharged at once with much
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: virtuous indignation. But if she be a good servant in
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: other respects, it is no practical disability to her, as
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it entails no inconvenience on her next mistress, who would
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: have to wait a long time if she were rigidly
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: to inquire into such matters. This is a frightful state
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of things to contemplate existing in the bosom of a
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Christian country, in the home of almost every individual of
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the educated and higher classes. It is an evil that
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: comes close home to us all and goes on generating
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and increasing day after day. The generality of servants, as
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: they now exist, are aught fit inmates for a decent family,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: and chublocks and patent detectors placed on our sideboards and
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: cupboard words speak very distinctly to that point. Common looks
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and keys. As a lady said to us the other day,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and no longer any safeguard. Masters and mistresses have themselves
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: to thank. They have behaved as though they were little gods,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and the distance between themselves and their domestics infinite, as
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: if there were no sort of relation between them but
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the work they wanted done. Human beings cannot live together
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: on such terms. The consequences Servants league together and make
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: common cause against their masters, to defraud them in every way,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and do nothing they are not obliged to do. Evils
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: generate evil. There is no specific for remedying the mischief.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: No definite line of conduct can be laid down. The
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: change required must begin in the spirits in which domestics
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: are hired and treated. Those who begin the will, we
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: are aware, have much to endure. A forlorn hope must
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: always be served either by heroes or martyrs. And they
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: who attempt, in their own example to reform the present
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: system of treating servants must expect to be disappointed and
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: imposed upon, and very possibly to see very little fruit
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: of their labors. The evil has now been too long
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: growing to yield the first efforts. Servants, as they now stand,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: are as a body enough to discuss the most philanthropic
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: they are so ignorant and prejudiced that they seem hardly
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to have any human feelings to work upon, and it
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: will require a long course of good treatment before they
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: will be able to understand it, or to believe that
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: it does not conceal some snare. They possess in general
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: no one quality that can be depended upon. Hence the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: complaints of their ingratitude and the bitter disire appointments in
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: those that have for a while seemed exceptions to the
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: ordinary run of servants. Their moral sense is very torpid
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: at the best. Are the common inconsistencies and shortcomings of
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: human nature seem exaggerated in them. Much patience and forbearance
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: and charitable construction of words and deeds is needed with
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the best of them, and it must be recollected that
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: servants have no laws of good breeding, no education to
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: restrain the expression of what they feel tempted to do.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Great allowance needs to be made on this score. If
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a feeling of conscientiousness can be developed, all practical workings
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: of good qualities will follow. For what seemed to be
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: good qualities in them now are too often mere appearances
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: induced by the restraint and necessity of their position. A
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Quaker lady, a most estimable woman who is matron of
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: a servant's home on a limited scale, instituted by a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: few friends to afford an asylum to respectable female servants
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: out of place, told us she was obliged to give
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: it up on account of the conduct of those who
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: became inmates. They were all servants coming out of decent places,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: who could have good characters, and who hoped to get
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: into good families. Again, their licentious and disgusting conversation, the
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: brutal and stupid pleasure they seemed to take in the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: destruction of furniture, linen, and so forth for which they
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: were not responsible, their impudent and disobliging manner, and above all,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the awful lies we would hope in which they indulged
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: concerning the families they had left, made her tremble at
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: the idea of their being received among decent people. And
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: yet on application their characters would be found satisfactory. Because
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the restraint of their position and the distance at which
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: their mista had held themselves had prevented any insight into
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: their true nature. All this frightful evil must be grappled with.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: We must not expect to get hold of the best
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: in our attempts at reform. Nor must we be discouraged.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: If some turn out devils incarnate on our hands, we
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: must examine into them more closely, and of course, naturally
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: we will not be surprised to find latent evil which
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: might escape detection. In the superficial bond which commonly exists
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: between mistress and servants, anyone received into our family in
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: the capacity of a household servant ought to be treated
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: as a fellow being, not as an inferior. The discipline
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: may be as strict as it will, the work may
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: be as severe as it will. It is not on
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: such points we would interfere. But the party hired to
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: fill that position ought to be received as a member
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: of the family, as having for the time a unity
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: of interest with it, as an object of care and
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: regard to the head of the family who has hired her,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: found by a tie of fellowship, not of mere work
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: and wages. This may sound utopian, but there is no
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: other secret whereby good and faithful servants are to be made.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: They are placed in a subordinate situation, and have a
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: right to a paternal interest and governance at the hands
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: of those they serve, they cannot be kept subordinate and
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: left to shift for themselves. At the same time, if
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: the masters and mistresses, from a cold blooded indolence a
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: disgust to the manner and language of servants as they
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: now exist, shrink from all communication with their domestics, wrap
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: themselves up in indifference to all that concerns them, keeping
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: aloof at an impassable distance, looking only to the regularity
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: with which their household work is performed, they can expect
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: nothing better than what they now meet with. Servants are
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: not so trained that they may, with safety be thrown
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: on their own self governance. It is not mere bodily
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: consideration that they require kindness of a superior to an inferior,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: of a benefactor to a beggar. That is not the
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: sort of thing that is required at all. It is
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: horribly grating and will not produce the desired results of
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: an attached and faithful servants. The grand thing required in
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: our social relation with our servants is that they shall
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: not feel themselves isolated, with no interest in the family,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: and no affection or human feeling expected from them, and
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: none felt towards them. Nothing required from them except their
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: work nobody can conceive the desolate effect of such a
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: position unless they have tried it. Better. Part of human
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: nature cannot flourish under such circumstances, and does not this
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: state of things works its own avenging, as all evil does.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Masters are the victims to the vices of their servants
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: when they chance to be bad, and the slaves to
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: them when they possess a modicum of good qualities. When
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: they do nothing outrageously bad, they are humored and their
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: caprices studied to keep up a mercenary sort of good humor.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Lest knowing their own value, they should take pet and
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: leave their offending masters to the mercy of the fraternity.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Servants know quite well that there is no heart kindness
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: in all this, and value the indulgence at its true worth.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: One half the trouble expended in scheming and humiliating expedients
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: for keeping a useful servant in good humor, would, if
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: done with a different spirit, suffice to attack them for
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: life and death. If we were to treat with servants
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: not as beings far down at a telescopic distance in
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the social scale, but as fellow beings associated with us
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: by the accidents of life, with their interests combined with ours,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: chublocks and patent detectors would become superfluities. The servants in
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: England are as a body, the very worst in the
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: whole world, and why because they are treated as inferior
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: until they are made inferior. The servants on the continent
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: look at their master's family with a very different feeling
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: to what they do in England. They feel bound up
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: and identified with them. They feel members of the family.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Their manners are more pleasing, and their tone is altogether superior.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: They are naturally no better, but they are considered and
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: spoken to as fellow creatures, not as menials and inferior.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: No substitutes can be found for fellow feeling. No patent
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: German silver benevolence can supply the place of genuine human hearts.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: It behooves each and all of us to put our
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: hand to this needful work. We may meet with stupidity
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: and ingratitude, and seem to labor in vain, but patience
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: will work wonders, and if we persevere, we shall have
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: less complaints of the depravity and worthlessness of servants. We
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: must be tolerant of shortcomings very like our own, and
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: whether we see fruits of our labor or not. We
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: must recollect that this is not an optional duty which
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: we may take up and lay down as we will,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: but one wide and deep as humanity itself, and entailed
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: on all who are in a position to keep domestics
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: from the one made of all work up to a
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: ducal establishment. Meh second Verclapoever, so Sunday four. And it
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: is not in nature that masters are to be allowed
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: to monopolize Lidy four with impunity. End of social barbarisms,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: hiring a servant end of Part three, Part four of
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Gerald in Jewsbury in Gerald's Shilling Magazine eighteen forty six
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: to eighteen forty seven. This libriuvox recording is in the
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: public domain. How Agnes Warrel Was Taught to Be Respectable
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: published in Gerald's Shilling Magazine, Volume five, number twenty five.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: People get ruined, as it is called, every day, and
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: what becomes of them afterwards? Life Real life does not
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: end in a clean cut catastrophe like a novel or
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: a tragedy, which has a convenience of making a decent
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: end of the complicated embarrassments which have crowded on the hero.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: The events of real life are neither framed nor glazed
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: in tableau, nor yet compressed into three volumes and bound
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: in boards to prevent their extension. But they go on,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: and no ending is seen to them. The coup de
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: grass is seldom given, and the luckless wretches linger on,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: dragging along their maimed course as best they may, out
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: of sight and out of mind of those whose sympathies
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: have been amused by the first grand crash of their fates.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Not a daily newspaper appears without a list of bankrupts,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: some fraudulent, unlucky in virtue, of which the wife refurnishes
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: the drawing room and the husband sets up a carriage
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: and goes about with a keen sense of the comfort
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: and morality of being out of debt. In other cases,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: rich merchants, who have lived like princes become honestly ruined,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: vanishing from the eyes of men when they have passed
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the commissioner and had their certificate signed. But where is
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: it that ruined people go to. Are they thrown off
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: from the social body like unhealthy secretions, or are they
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: absorbed into it? Or how is it that they continue
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: to make their place good in the land of the
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: living These are questions that have often perplexed us, and
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: we have never received an answer. But there are many
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: still more painful circumstances seldom touched on in novels. Heroes
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: and heroines never transact anything but regular business, and the
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: rascals are dismissed into a life of contempt and obscurity.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Yet we are free to confess we feel a painful
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: curiosity about some of the scoundrels of real life. Men who,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: after having raised themselves to high places of respectability, exceed
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: the legitimate license of the way of business, hurried on
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: by temptation and opportunities of evading some immediate and pressing difficulty,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: make themselves liable to laws with very ugly names, and
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: from persons highly thought of, riding about in unexceptionable carriages,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: giving good dinners themselves invited to eat others elsewhere become
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: the scandal and horror of all their acquaintances, tried in
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: a criminal court, sometimes hanged, and not unfrequently transported, leaving
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: their wives and families in a condition beyond expression deplorable
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: for the men themselves. We entertain small sympathy the weight
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: of their ruin falls on their families, their sons and
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: daughters entering on life with the millstone of an evil
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: reputation round their neck, and for them and their after
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: fate we have always felt a painful interest. The sins
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: of the fathers visited on the children is one of
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the tragical unities always rigorously observed by fate in the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: drama of real life. The following history is quite true,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: and though the introductory circumstances are disguises, yet even they
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: are not invented. Philip Warrel was for many years a
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: highly esteemed merchant in a larger manufacturing town. He was
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: a man of great energy and enterprise, but he was
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: in too much haste to be rich, the rock on
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: which so many reputations have made shipwreck. He speculated largely
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: in most of the schemes that were going, and was bold, sagacious, fortunate,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: and in consequence regarded as a most respectable man. He
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: filled several corporate offices with great credit. He was one
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: of the board of guardians and trustees to several charities,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: and many small tradesmen had confided their savings into his
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: hands to be profitably invested. A commercial crisis arose before
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: it was anticipated. Many houses fell strange. Rumors began to
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: be whispered concerning the firm of Warrel and Company, from which, however,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: all the partners had either died off or retired, and
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Philip Warrel remained the only representative. He was known to
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: have entered largely into the American trade and was supposed
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: to be deeply involved in the failure of one or
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: two large houses there which had just been declared. In
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the midst of the various reports that were on foot,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: it transpired that mister Warrel had absconded. He had been
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: seen in his carriage with his wife driving in a
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: direction out of town, and did not return nor make
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: his appearance the next day nor the day after at
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: his office. The greatest excitement prevailed through the town. Suspicious
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: circumstances came to light, and finally a magistrate's warrant was
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: issued and mister Warrell was discovered, brought back, and was
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: committed to the county jail to take his trial for
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: forgery and embezzlement of the trust money of certain charities.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: After many delays, the trial came on. He had a
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: clever counsel, but the case was too clear. He was
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: found guilty and sentenced to transportation for life. Everything he
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: possessed was seized and sold, and the whole town was
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: in a fever of excitement and indignation, for nearly everybody
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: had lost money by him. His wife, to whom he
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: had been always very indulgent, was nearly heartbroken, but with
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: a faithfulness and credulity almost beautiful, refused to believe that
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: her husband was anything but a victim to malice and hatred.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: She determined to leave the country with him. Her brother
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: promised to adopt her only child, a girl of ten
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: years old, and provide for her. The mother at first
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: wished to take her along with them, but Philip Warrell
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: could not endure the idea of his child seeing him degraded,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: and the poor woman having to choose betwixt her husband
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: and her child, clung to the former. The convict ship sailed,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: and Agnes, worse than an orphan, was taken by her
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: uncle to his own home in a distant part of
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: the country. It would have been better for Agnes never
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: to have been born than to be left as she was,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: to the harsh charity of relatives, indignant for the disgrace
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: inflicted on their family by her father. But many people,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: if they were asked, would find they would rather never
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: have come into the world at all. So on the
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: whole it is as well, there is no choice in
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the matter. Agnes bitterly lamented her separation from her father
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: and mother. She was told they would soon return to her,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: But children do not understand being comforted by hope. She
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: had been a spoiled child, and this was her first grief,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and she was miserable till her grief itself out. But
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: even then she did not cease to be unhappy. Her aunt,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: without being absolutely ill natured, was cold and egoistic, and
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: anxious to make a very genteel appearance unlimited means, and
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the addition of another inmate to be provided for entirely
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: was a great nuisance. And then the circumstances under which
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: she came were so disgraceful that Missus Maitland's store of
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: amiability was sorely tried. The town where the Maitlands resided
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: was a dull, decorous cathedral town, and zeal after scandal
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: was too great to allow any successful mystery being made
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: of Agnes and her relationship. The only way was to
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: disguise it in the most becoming virtue available for the purpose,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: but that did not hinder the very shocking affair for
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: poor Missus Maitland, being discussed at half a dozen tea parties,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and all having come to the conclusion that she could
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: do no less yes, and that it would be very
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: awkward to see her under such peculiar circumstances. A general
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: rush of morning callers was the result, each hoping to
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: hear private particulars which had not come out in the newspapers,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: and to learn what Missus Maitland intended to do with
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: her niece and what the child was like. Missus Maitland
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: put a good face on the matter, and adorned herself
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: with so many Christian virtues, and showed so much becoming
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: sensibility no saint in the calendar could have held up
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: his or her head beside her. A good lady of
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: our acquaintance once said that the chief happiness of going
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to heaven was that we should all feel such justifiable
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: self complacency, and Missus Maitland was certainly on the high
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: road to that sort of beatitude, and grew quite resigned
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: to her brother in law's transportation. Agnes was put in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: the school room along with her two cousins only. It
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: was decreed that they were to be young ladies, and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Agnes was to be a governess when they grew up.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: They were taught plenty of French music and dancing, and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Missus Maitland heard them their catechism on Sundays as six
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: verses in the Bible and the collect for the day.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: They were repeatedly told to be good, but in what
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: that consisted was left rather in the vague, and so
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: the girls grew up. Agnes found a great difference between
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: being a petted only child and a companion to two
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: imperious young ladies with vivid ideas of their own superiority,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and who tyrannized and domineered over her unmercifully. Missus Maitland
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: did not intend to be unkind, nor to make distinctions
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: between Agnes and her own daughters, but in a thousand
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: unintentional ways, Agnes was made to feel that her cousins
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: were of more importance than herself, in fact, that she
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: was of none at all. Agnes was a very affectionate child,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: but giddy, idle, and with not the least taste in
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: the world for making herself useful. She grew up exceedingly pretty,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: far too pretty, indeed to be left to her own discretion.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: She had a profusion of rich brown hair, a dazzling complexion,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: and one of the prettiest and most seducingly smiling mouths
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: in the world. Her large blue eyes looked quite conscious
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: of their power to do mischief, and her figure was
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: tall and well formed. When Agnes was fifteen, her cousins
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: were old enough to be introduced into company, so the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: governess was dismissed and Agnes was placed as a half
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: border in a seminary for young ladies, where she would
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: be broken in to the duties of tuition. As her
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: aunt phrased it. Agnes was too good hearted to feel envious,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: but she did not the least in the world relish
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: her lot. She had quite as much taste for gay
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: as as her cousins, and could not feel, by any
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: means thankful for being sent out as under teacher, though
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: her aunt told her she ought to think herself very fortunate.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: When she came home at the holidays, one of her
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: cousins was going to be married, and good naturedly insisted
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: on having Agnes as a bridesmaid. That the poor thing
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: might have a little enjoyment after being moped up in
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: a schoolroom for half a year. Her aunt was in
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: too good a humor to refuse her consent. At what
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: with the finery, the vanity, and the visiting that had
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: to be transacted during a long summer vacation, Agnes was
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: more indisposed than ever to go back to her drudgery.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: After a time, she was considered competent to take a
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: situation in a family, and one was found for her.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: But the salary was only twenty pounds a year without
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: her washing, and for this she was to be governess
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: and bond to a little girl of eight years old,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: and something like de chambre to the mama. At least
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: that was the practical translation she found attached to the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: words making herself generally useful. She made tea in the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: parlor when there was company, but she was expected strictly
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: to refrain from attracting any sort of attention from young men.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Agnes had more need of a duenna herself than to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: act in that capacity, even to so small a damsel
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: as her present charge. But she was pretty and good tempered,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and the child was fond of her, which covered many sins.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: But Unluckily, the husband of her mistress showed herself too
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: sensible of her beauty, not in any very reprehensible way.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: But it is the high privilege of human beings, who
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: are the only rational creatures in the universe, to have
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: their presence poisoned or sweetened, as it may be, by
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: the thought of the future. So the good lady in question,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: though she saw no harm now, did not to know
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: but what there might be sometime, So she took to
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: being cross and fanciful. The husband was consequently put on
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: his perverseness, and Agnes was touched in her vanity, And
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: out of these small beginnings there might have been the
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: devil to pay in the end. But missus Smith one
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: fine morning gave Agnes warning, saying she was going to
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: send NeSSI to school. Agnes returned to her aunts and
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: was some time out of a situation, and visited with
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: her unmarried cousin. Had entered into all the vanity and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: dissipation that fell to their means, had got effectually disgusted
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: with her own position. She had been told by her
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: aunts the history of her father, and also warned by
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: her not to hold her head too high, as few
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: persons would like to connect themselves with a disgraced family.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: This had rankled in her heart, and her young life
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: was eaten up with a secret repining and restlessness. No
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: strong principles had ever been inculcated, no high notions of
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: what really was good or bad. She had been taught
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: nothing to stand her instead under the temptations and difficulties
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: likely to beset her path. Wisdom, fortitude, and high principle
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: were required by her position, and she had not even
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: heard whether there be such things. Her vanity Frossa had
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: her pretensions mortified at every turn. Conscious of her beauty
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: and not without a degree of talent, she had literally
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: nothing but the sense of respectability to stand between her
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: and harm. Her father's relations were all in an inferior
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: station of life, for he had raised himself by his
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: own industry. Her mother's relatives had never expressed much concern
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: about her, glad to have the trouble taken off their hands.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Unless people are plagued into it, they will never, of
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: their own accord do a thing thing they don't like,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: And as they had not been applied to, they had
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: stood aloof till they should be asked. But in a
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: few months after Agnes left her situation, and old aunts
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: invited her to come on a visit. It is a
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: miserable thing when people have to look to their agreeable
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: qualities as their means of getting a living, when what
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: should be spontaneous has to be considered as a stock
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: in trade. We never read an advertisement for a situation
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: as companion in which the cheerfulness, amiability, and obliging disposition
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: and conversational powers of the advertiser are enumerated without a
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: feeling of painful shame that for a piece of silver
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: and a morsel of bread, the moral qualities should be
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: hired out like a secondhand piano or instructions in French,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: and drawing so much an hour to whoever will pay
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: for them. It is the last degradation to lose the
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: right to have one's good feelings grow naturally and as
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: the spirit moves them, and to bestowed only on those
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: who can excite them. Agnes went to her unknown aunts
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: with strict injunctions to make herself agreeable, had to study
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: her humors. The ant was what is called a decidedly
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: serious woman. Had a good woman enough in her way,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: but she thought all worldly amusements wrong dancing decidedly sinful,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: all singing except serious songs or sacred music objectionable, and
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: as for going to the theater, that was an abomination
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: not to be named. Agnes was taken to evening lecture
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: to distribute tracks at the neighboring cottages, to missionary meetings
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: and Bible meetings and missionary breakfasts and sewing societies, and
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: she had to read all the religious intelligence of the
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: day aloud to her aunt, and heavy books on small
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: doctrinal point. So she was bored to death, and her
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: aunts was much distressed at the very worldly state of
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: her mind, and talked seriously to her every day, and
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: without ceasing pointed out the wickedness and vanity of frothy
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: novels and midnight reveling and painted worldly pleasures so differently
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: to anything Agnes had ever seen, that her eloquent warnings
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: were sadly wasted. Agnes had no companions of her own age,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: and in her position, she had no right to think
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: of what she liked and disliked. Agnes had once or
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: twice been to the theater, and in the bottom of
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: her heart there was one desire, and that was to
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: be an actress. She had never breathed it, except once
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: to her cousin, Harriet Maitland, who was excessively indignant at
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: such an idea. Her aunts had got to hear of
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: it and lectured her warmly on the disrespectableness of such course,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: and begged that she would not dream of adding to
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: the disgrace of the family. Agnes was frighted, but not
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: turned from her desire, and now shut up in a
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: dull house with no sort of amusement. The idea of
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: the stage seemed like a vision of enchantment, and the
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: desire to be an actress grew all the more intense
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: for being compressed at the bottom of her heart. She
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: had had several admirers and fallen in love as she
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: fancied with sundry young men who had come in her way,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: but no offer of marriage had fallen to her lot.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: She had a great store of romance and inflammable fancy,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: and was dying of annui. Beside. She had read plenty
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: of novels, and altogether sick and disgusted with her position,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: she dreamed only of emancipating herself from control and brightening
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: up her destiny a little. In short, the young lady
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: was without any sort of rational occupation, in an effervescence
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: of fancy and a yearning for some sort of excitement.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: That made it the greatest possible blessing that no means
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: of getting into mischief fell in her way. But as
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: the devil would have it, she caught a cold after
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: she had been about two months with her aunt, and
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: the cold turned into an ulcerated sore throat, and the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: old sedate family doctor, having many patients on his hands,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: just then sent his partner, a very dashing young man
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: only just come to the town, to see miss Agnes.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: The acquaintance did not end with the recovery of the patient.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: Agnes took a great fancy for visiting outlying districts of
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: her aunt's poor people, and took to carrying them tracks
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: with great zeal. But she met her new acquaintance every
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: day and soon imagined herself desperately in love to him.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: She confided her aspirations after the stage, and he promised
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to do all he could to assist her. He was
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: engaged to be married to another woman of large fortune,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: but he could not resist the amusement of a clandestine flirtation.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: It came to her aunt's ears that she was seen
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: walking with mister Patterson in the fields and lanes when
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: she ought to have been elsewhere, and Agnes was sent
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: home in disgrace. Mister Patterson had too great a respect
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: for his prospects in life to stand up as the
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: young ladies champion. He exculpated himself to her aunt at
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: the expense of poor Agnes's reputation for prudence. He complained
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: bitterly that she had beset him and thrown herself in
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: his way, and that he had never met her by appointment.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: He was believed, and Agnes disgraced. Her aunt and cousin
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: were very bitter at her return, and did not confine
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: their virtuous indignation to themselves. Their theory of moral sentiments
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: was too good to be wasted on a single auditor.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Had poor Agnes found all the small town o feit
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: of her folly and prone to believe a great deal
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: more than had ever happened. Agnes was made so miserable
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: by constant worryings that she was just ready to do
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: anything to get away out of it all. Unjustly suspected
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and suffering all the practical punishment of guilt, her good
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: name was tarnished before she had learned its value. In
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: the midst of all this, she received a letter from
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: mister Patterson full of regrets for the untoward exposure, but
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: the main object was to give her the results of
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: his communication with the country manager. A clandestine correspondence was
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: thus added to her other sins. It was discovered by
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: the postmistress, who, suspecting the matter, sent one of the
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: letters to Missus Maitland. And then there was a general explosion.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: No pity, no mercy. Agnes was sent in deep disgrace
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: away into the country to be boarded with two cross
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: old ladies distant relations to her father. Here she still
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: remained within the last three years. Her history is not closed,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and what the sequel will be seems problematical enough. If
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: any further passages of her life come down to our knowledge,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: we will report them. Meanwhile, she is deeply to be pitied.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: It is not her fault that she is vain and frivolous.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: She was brought up to believe that making the best
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: appearance at the smallest cost was the one great problem
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: in life she had to solve, and the grand axiom
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: given to guide her was the simple phrase appearances must
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: be kept up, placed through no fault of her own,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: in painful circumstances, a thoroughly false position which required the
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: utmost strength of sold to endure, together with the nicest
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: discretion to work any sort of bearing. She never had
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: one sentence addressed to her capable of stirring the heart
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: of a rational creature. She was left with all her
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: natural levity and her not unnatural love of indulgence and
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: gaiety to fight with her complicated position as well as
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: she could. All her defense against temptation being the sense
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of respectability instilled from her cradle, and all the rule
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: of life given to guide her being expediency. She had
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: hardly a common chance to save her so alive, she
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: was not worse educated than the average number of women
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: in the present day. They are all taught much the
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: same lessons, and it depends on fortuitous circumstances whether they
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: continue in the ranks of the virtuous women, or whether
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: they fall to be one of those who paint a
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: moral and adorn a tale, for no strong guiding principle
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: is instilled into them, along with their history and geography.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: End of Part four, Part five of Geraldine Jewsbury in
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Gerald Chilling Magazine eighteen forty six to eighteen forty seven.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: This liberyvox recording is in the public domain. How Agnes
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Warrel was taught to be respectable continued some account of
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: the life Agnes led with the two Old Ladies to
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: whom she was sent to learn proper behavior, published in
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Gerald Chilling Magazine, Volume five, number twenty seven. When Agnes
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: went upstairs to bed the first night of her arrival
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: at the house of the two cross Old Ladies, aforesaid,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: a sense of dreariness and sickness of heart came over her,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: such as she had never known. For the first time,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: she realized that she had been sent away from the
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: only relatives she had, and that they had cast her off,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: and there was no one else in the whole world
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: who cared for her or took any thoughts for her.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: That as she sat there in that chill, prim little room,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: with its white sloping ceiling and narrow strip of threadbare
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: carpets round the bed, miserable as she was, there was
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: no prospect of anything brighter or better. That she belonged
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: to nobody and had been sent like a piece of
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: lumber up into a garret to be out of everybody's way.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: Till now she had never paid much attention to all.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: She had been daily told of her father's disgrace. But
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: this night it came upon her heart and crushed out
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: all hopefulness or self respect that lurked there. She was
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: miserable and desolate, and in disgrace herself a sense of guiltiness,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: for she could hardly tell what was added to all
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: the rest. And she sat down upon her still cordied
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: bot and wept bitterly. She had known little but sharp,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: hasty speeches. She had always been kept in a constant
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: state of reproof. But henceforth she would not even have that.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: There was no one in the world to whom, even
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: in thought, she might stretch out her arms or address herself.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: Her long, bright hair had fallen down, and her tears
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: streamed like shining beads down the tresses that lay over
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: her bosom. But her candle began to burn low and
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: quiver in the socket, and hastily starting up, she began
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: to try at the cords that fastened her trunk, but
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: before she had disengaged them, she was left in total darkness.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: By this time, she was thoroughly chilled, and partially undressing herself.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: She found her way shivering to the hard bed with
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: its scanty white hangings that stood in one corner. It
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: was long before she fell asleep. The two old days
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: ladies had finished their family worship and were sitting in
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: grim and astonished impatience before the shining teapot, which seemed
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: to have caught an indescribable likeness to its owners. At length,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: the door opened and poor Agnes, with swelled eyes and
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: pale face, entered. She was fully alive to the solecism
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: she had committed against the domestic convenance, and began an apology,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: which was listened to as if it were quite needed
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: this time. It does not much signify, said the elder.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: But another morning, I hope you will not be absent
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: from family prayers. It is such a bad example to
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the servants. After breakfast, Agnes went upstairs to unpack, and
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: as she placed her company dresses in the prim chest
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: of drawers lined with newspaper, she felt, much as one
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: might fancy, an unfortunate soul which has fallen under the
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: di pleasure of a magician, had been shut up in
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: a stone jar all her faults and faculties were closely
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: bound round her, but they were of no use. She
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: could not move in the numbing atmosphere of all pervading dullness.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: The tears she had shed overnight had relieved the miserable
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: state of depression. She only felt now very dull and hopeless. Still,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: she determined to try her best to be a good girl,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: as nursemaids phrase it, and to like the old ladies
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: if they would let her. She had a thoroughly affectionate nature,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: which was nearly starved out of her by the great dearth.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: She had found of persons who would let her love them.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: She descended to the sitting room, where the two ladies
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: were engaged on a large piece of what they called
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: plain sewing, and Agnes took a seat at the work table, and,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: like the curly locks of the nursery rhyme, began to
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: sew up a seam. It was an extremely neat room,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: but without one particle of taste visible in the arrangement
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: of the grave prim furniture, which was of an ugly
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: and very old fashion. A bookcase filled with books of
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: uniform size and bindings stood in a recess by the fireplace.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: But they were all books nobody would ever want to read.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: A long history of England in many volumes filled one shelf,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: and encyclopedia of every possible and impossible thing filled the shelf.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: Beneath there seems some books which have been written solely
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: with a view to their being impounded in a bookcase.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: That it may be said that no gentleman's library is
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: complete without them. The genius of dullness seemed the presiding
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: larrys of this asylum for books hard to be read.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: There was a dictionary, and ford ICE's Sermons to young Men,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: also to young women. A number of small magazines, long defunct,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: bound adding to their years. But there was not a
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: single book anyone would take up and say, oh, I
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: wanted to see this. There was no chance of finding
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: anything unexpectedly. It was a bookcase without any hope. Everything
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: stood stiff and declared its appointed place. Visible at a
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: glance through the glazed doors, a print of the Princess
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Charlotte and another of her husband hung against one of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: the walls. Some ornaments of old fashioned dressed in china,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: little cupids with blue scarves had pots of roses, were
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: marshaled at equal distances on each side of a plain
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: time piece. The chairs stood in their lawful places against
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: the wall, but none of them seemed to have been
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: invented for being comfortable. A table covered with a perfectly clean,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: but rather faded, checked red tablecloth stood in the center
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: of the room, with a blotting book and inkstand upon it,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: but no books were lying about. A work table was
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: placed under the window which looked into the still grass
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: grown street, and at this table the three ladies were
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: seated at their work. Plain sowing is by no means
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: a stimulating employment, and requires to be flavored with either
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: scandal or scolding. Poor Agnes, a pretty giddy young thing
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: lying under a cloud, sent to them to be taught
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: to conduct herself discreetly, was too tempting a victim not
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: to be subjected to all les poundfoort de d'ur of
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: all the lectures and systems of propriety and morality, too
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: old ladies of the very best starch could apply. But
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: first we had better describe Agnes's new guardians. The elder
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: lady was a composed grave matron with a pair of large,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: round black eyes that looked as if they could never shut,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: but saw everything, and had the peculiar faculty of giving
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: no sort of indication of what was passing within. She
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: never seemed to be either vexed or pleased, but kept
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: up a precise, steady scrutinizing manner, as if she were
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: a secret emissary from Rhadamanthus and was treasuring up verdicts
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: at the bottom of her soul for his instruction. When
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: she returned, she passed for being a miracle of sense
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: and strong understanding, on the strength of seeming entirely unimpressible
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: by anything she saw, heard, or understood. Those sort of
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: people drive one to desperation. One may break one's heart
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: in the effort to get some sort of demonstration out
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: of them, But all in vain. There they sit, in
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: stony and petrified, superiority to all the vitality going on
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: around them. This was Aunt Priscilla, a very composed and
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: consolate widow of many years standing. Indeed, who the mister
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: Priscilla had been, whose co courage had encountered such a
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: concentrated essence of feminine virtue, was only dimly known. It
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: had been too much for his constitution, for he had
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: been dead so long that nobody confessed to having seen him.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: She was dressed with scrupulous exactness in black silk and
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: a net cap trimmed with lilac ribbon. And Gertrude the
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: Younger was a round faced, rosy and torn swapper, jovial
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: looking dame of about forty. She would have been good
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: natured looking had it not been for a suppressed, malicious
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: look in the eyes, which had the habit of lighting
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: up with glee at the first word of gossip or scandal.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: She had a catlike way of coaxing on wary victims
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: to lay themselves open to her sympathy, which, so soon
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: as they departed, hardened into a pitiless probe to manifest
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: the length and depth of their shortcomings. There was something
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: almost cordial in the genuine zest with which she told
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: a tale of scandal. Her scandalous revelations had an air
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: of friendly confidence which was almost touching, so long as
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: you were not the victim of them. She was a
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: first rate housekeeper, and very fond of giving maternal advice
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: to young, inexperienced married women who found themselves unable to
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: fight with sulky housemaids and rebellious cooks. But woe and
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: double woe to the hapless confiding one who came to
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: pour out her grievances and entreat her counsel. Such reports
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: were instantly afloat about her waist extravagance, bad management, and
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: matrimonial quarrels that even the art of keeping down the
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: inflammation of the weekly bills was too dearly learned. Still,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: she was not a bad woman. She only had more
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: energy than she knew what to do with, and had
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: an absolute need of some sort of excitement. She had
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: never been married, and was now quite resigned to her
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: state of single blessedness, and found her solace in making
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: and breaking matches for all her acquaintance. She was dressed
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: in a large shawl patterned gown with a cap that
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: looked altogether impossible. His component parts were so complicated, Agnes
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: stitched away in a subdued frame of mind, without venturing
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: to begin a conversation. Are you fond of needlework? Asked
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: Aunt Priscilla in her clear, inflexible voice. Sometimes, but not
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: particularly answered Agnes. It is so dull sewing when one
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: is by one's self well rejoined, Miss Priscilla, I must say,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: I think one of the worst features in the present
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: day is the increasing distaste of young women for rational
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: and useful employment. In you, agnes, it is particularly unbecoming.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: What have you to expect all your life? If you
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: marry and become the mistress of a family, which is
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: what all young women look forward to, you will find
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: yourself woefully deficient. A woman has only a domestic life
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: to expect. Few are intended to be authoresses, and therefore
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: it is my opinion that the excessive devotion to books
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: and accomplishments, which is cultivated in their education, is a
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: highly undesirable method of forming rational young women. It only
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: makes them idle and irregular in their habits, and gives
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: them no real strength of mind. Yes, said miss Gertrude,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: I must say, I think you are right. You show
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: your usual sense. Young girls marry and know no more
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: of housekeeping than their cats. Dees, missus Godwin, poor young thing.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: She came down the other day with tears in her
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: eyes to ask my advice how she was to manage
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: with her cook, who will never let her go into
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: the pantry, and who used only last week seven pounds
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: and a half of fresh butter, and they only four
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: in family. Altogether, and no company, and the wasting candles
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: and butchers meat is frightful. Only fancy her asking me
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: if I thought eight and twenty pounds of meat too
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: much to go in a week. But then, as I
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: told her, she should look after things herself instead of
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: sitting reading in the parlor, she told me she always
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: knocked at the kitchen door before she goes. In goodness,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: gracious only to think of such poor things. But at
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: the head of a family, no wonder men get ruined.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: I should not be surprised, mark my words, if mister
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: Godwin takes to drinking all through the extravagance of his wife.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: She told me how ill tempered he was at the
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: bill from Marklands for vegetables and poultry. Only fancy she
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: had gone and bought asparagus when it was six shillings
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: a hundred, or did enough for them in the kitchen
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: as well, because she felt awkward at having nice things
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: cooked for the par alone, Ah, said Aunt Priscilla. She
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: thinks of nothing but dressing herself and trying to write poetry.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: What a flighty young woman that miss Barker is, cried
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: Aunt Gertrude, looking through the blind she is always walking out,
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: and she actually came inside the stage all the way
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: from Barnet, along with a young officer who got in
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: a few miles this side of town and got out
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: again just before the coach came to the stopping place.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: He got in for no good. I'll be bound. There
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: was something very mysterious about the whole thing there. He
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: asked about lodgings. But I'll get to the bottom of it.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: See see, sister, cried Priscilla. Mister and missus Butler are
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: coming to call. They're crossing the street. How infirm she walks.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: I should not wonder if they come to ask us
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: to tea A ring at the bell occurred at this moment,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: and an old lady and elderly gentleman were hushered in.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: They were received with open arms by the two aunts,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: for they were opposite neighbors and a source of constant
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: interest and excitement to each other. The arrival of Agnes
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: the day before had been an event fraught with interest
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: to them, and they had had a lively altercasion as
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: to whether Agnes wore a cloak or a scarf, and
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: their visit this morning was entirely to see Agnes and
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: hear all they could learn respecting her well. And so
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: you've got your pretty niece at last, I said to
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: Simon this morning, at breakfast, we will just pop over
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: and ask her to come in with her aunts to night.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: It will be more friendly than just leaving her to
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: be brought by them, as if she were a work
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: bag or a lap dog habitter. Make your acquaintance, young lady,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: said the pompous old gentleman, bowing till the little brown
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: bobwig which he wore nearly touched the buckles of his
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: black small clothes, which he persisted in wearing because he
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: believed he still ill preserved a leg, which to put
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: in trousers would be ingratitude to Providence and hiding his
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: light under a bushel, which he held the most deadly
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: of all sins. He was nearly seventy, but spare and erect,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: and full of a deadly, lively vivacity which was terribly oppressive.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: He prided himself on being still as active as a
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: young man. This sort of well preserved vitality is more
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: wearisome and far more painful to behold than the natural
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: decay of humanity. It is like nothing natural. The graces
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: of childhood petrified into a caricature. He was very irritable
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: and impatient, and snapped his meek little wife at every turn.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: Agnes was duly introduced and the usual questions asked and answered.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: At last, after a desultory chat, when the old lady
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: missus Butler, had ascertained beyond a doubt that the gown
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: of Agnes was made of French merino, and that the
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: buttons down the front were steel and not glass, she
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: felt her mind set at ease, and rose to go.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: My dear, My dear, cried the old man. You are
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: so giddy have you recollected to invite miss Agnes for
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: this evening, when we shall have the honor of making
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: a small refection to welcome her amongst us, and to
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: introduce her to several of our worthy neighbors. Missus Butler
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: shook hands with Agnes and quietly told her she should
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: be glad to see her, and then they departed. So
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: we are to have supper tonight, said Aunt Gertrude. I
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: wonder what they will give us, No doubt they have
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: received their annual barrel of oysters from London, and we
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: are invited to help to eat them. The two opposite
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: families generally spent an evening a week at each other's
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: house to play at whist, but supper afterwards was only
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: to celebrate high and solemn occasions. Tea at six dry
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: biscuits and a glass of wine at nine o'clock was
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: the ordinary arrangement, this with evening lectures on two other evenings,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: which they never missed, and a tea, drinking and gossip
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: once a week at a sewing meeting, which was held
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: alternately at the house of half a dozen members who
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: had formed themselves into a charity for doing the poor
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: people of the town formed the circle of the amusements
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: and recreations that awaited Agnes this evening. However, Agnes was
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: not destined to eat the oysters, for just as she
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: and her aunts were putting on their shawls and bonnets
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: and clogs to cross the street, a redheaded girl the
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: little servants made of Missus Butler was seen rushing to
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: the door. A frantic ring was heard at a gasping
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: entreaty that Miss Gertrude would come over directly as Missus
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: was tuck in a fit what they call a paraalassa stroke.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: This stroke was the occasion of a great change to
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: the butlerablishment, and had much to do with the future
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: lot of Agnes. Strange that the fate of a woman
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: she had not seen till that morning should influence the
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: fortunes of Agnes. But are we not all living in
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: a kaleidoscope? And the least touch suffices to change the combinations.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: Aunt Gertrude lost no time in obeying the frantic summons
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: of missus Butler's little redheaded servant, but trotted across the
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: road as quickly as a pair of fractured clogs would allow,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: followed most slowly by her sister Priscilla, whom even this
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: exciting event had not moved from her stoical superiority. The
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: door had been left open for them, and they entered
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: at once into the little, stuffy, oddly shaped sitting room
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: full of family relics and family rubbish, such as a
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: succeeding generation with remorselessly reverence spanishes from the parlor to
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: the second best bedroom, and thence again to the attics,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: and finally to its last home in the lumber room.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: The poor old lady was sitting in her accustomed armchair
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: on one side of the fireplace, with her face drawn
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: frightfully awry and seemingly quite insensible to all around her.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: Her husband, in a condition of helpless excitement, was alternately
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: sitting down on his own armchair on the opposite side
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: and jumping up again, utterly unable to understand what had occurred.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: As she entered, Aunt Gertrude heard him saying, in a querulous,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: half pitiful, half angry tone, dear, dear, dear, this is
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: very distressing. I entreat you, missus b to tell me
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: what you would wish to be done. But if you
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: look in that ridiculous way and refuse to speak, how
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: am I to know? I am sure I wish to
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: do all I can for you. Shall I put some
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: more coals on the fire. Your hands are quite starved,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: Dear dear, I wish somebody would come way of doing something.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: He attempted to lift the copper coal scuttle, but in
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: his agitation he dropped it, and all its contents fell
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: with a distracting crash amongst the bright fire irons and
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: over the hearth rug. This completely overcame him. He sat
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: down once more and began to cry pitifully, without perceiving
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: his two neighbors, who were now standing over poor Missus
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: Butler and trying to rouse her to speak to them. Luckily,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: at this moment the surgeon was seen to pass by
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: the window and was called in. Mister Butler had been
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: too distracted to think of anything so practical as sending
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: for him. The old lady was removed upstairs and proper
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: remedies applied, and Gertrude, who did not want for good
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: nature in her way, volunteered to sit up with her,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: whilst Agnus was sent over to make herself useful. Their
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: cares were not long needed. A second stroke followed during
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: the night, and the poor old lady died the next day,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: about the hour she had been first seized. The arrangement
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: of the funeral, which devolved entirely upon them, consoled the
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: two good ladies for the loss of their old friend.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: It is quite astonishing the comfort that is in mourning.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: No woman ever felt altogether wretched. When she was to
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: legislate for a new dress. The two aunts found it
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: a very pleasant excitement to talk of the sudden death
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: of their poor friend and the dreadful loss it would
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: be to them. However, the excitements grew to rather a
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: painful height. When mister Butler also drooped and died. Agnes
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: had just begun to hope that her last crape frill
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: had been finished, and that no more reviving was needed
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: for Aunt Priscilla's black lutestring gown or Aunt Gertrue's tabinat,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: which were respectively to be worn to say the handsome
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: morning that mister Butler had presented to them. When news
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: came over one morning that the master was very bad, indeed,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: the doctor declared that nothing ailed the old gentleman. Still,
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: the old gentleman died. He had found everything and everybody
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: so new and strange. After the death of his wife,
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: he had felt like a lonely child among strangers. He
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: missed her, whom for fifty years he had been accustomed
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: to scold and worry and feel gently superior to. He
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: pined away, and in less than three weeks he had
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: rejoined his meek, faithful old wife in the family grave.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: All this sickness and death and funeral business, to say
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: nothing of the awful amount of stitching and remodeling of
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: ancient dresses that had fallen to her lot, was quite
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: enough to damp the spirits of a lively young thing
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: like Agnes. She, like the Isis amongst us, could only
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: see what was before her eyes, and did not dream
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: of the Pandora's box just opened for her by the
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: death of old mister and Missus Butler. In the afternoon
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: of the day of mister Butler's funeral, a traveling carriage
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: with four post horses, all covered with mud as from
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: a long journey through bad roads, drove rapidly up and
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: stopped at the door of mister Butler's house. A tall,
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: ungainly clumsy looking man alighted, and after a short and
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: as it would seem, impatient colloquy with the charwoman who
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: had been left in charge of the house, the stranger
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: re entered the carriage, which immediately drove off. Aunt Gertrude
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: was in the very act of lamenting the unaccountable absence
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: of mister Butler's nephew from the funeral when the carriage
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: appeared and suspended her tirade. While she cautiously looked over
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: the blind to see what was going to happen. That
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: will be mister Butler's nephew, said she, What a low
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: mechanical looking fellow. He is no wonder mister b who
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: was quite the gentleman and of an old country family,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: would never have anything to do with him. If he
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: be married, his wife will come in for that set
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: of garnets and pearls, said missus Priscilla, with a gentle
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: yearning after a legacy. But Agnes, child, what are you
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: looking at? It is not becoming in young girls to
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: be seen staring out of the window. For old women
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: like your aunts and myself, it does not so much matter.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: The stranger actually turned out to be the aforesaid nephew
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: of mister Butler, but he also had a name of
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: his own. He was called Emmanuel Wilkinson, and was more
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: extensively known by that than by the more respectable though
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: obscure fact that he had the worthy mister Butler deceased
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: for an uncle. He was mister Butler's heir and remar
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: aig in two days in town to arrange about the property.
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: The three ladies were sitting as usual at work before
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: the window when a ring was heard, and shortly after
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: mister Emmanuel Wilkinson was announced. He had called to thank
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: the ants for their attention to his relatives, and also
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: to beg their acceptance of a few trinkets belonging to
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: his aunts. The pearl and garnet were not included. Agnes
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: was sitting in her usual place when he entered. She
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: had looked extremely pretty in her half mourning dress, height
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: of the throat and small cambric collar, whilst her shining
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: golden hair fell in clustering curls over her work. She
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: had always been accustomed to genteel, still life society, and
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: naturally thought mister Emmanuel Wilkinson, with his loud peremptory voice
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: and broad coarse accent, a most vulgar, unbearable person, and
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: wondered how her aunts would condescend to speak to him.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: He was, besides very ugly. His short, black, stiff hair
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: stood up from his forehead. His sallow face was deeply
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: marked with the smallpox. His thick lips and large mouth
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: showed his unsightly teeth whenever he spoke. He did not
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: seem to know what to do with his large bony hands.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: His feet, which was still more clumsy, were displayed in
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: more than all their legitimate space of ugliness by the
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: strapless trousers, which had worked themselves half way up the boots.
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: With all this. However, there was a look of shrewd
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: good humor about his eyes, which Agnes did not perceive,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: but sat still, taking a disgust such as only young
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: girls can take. It was unpleasant to her to remain
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: in the room with him. Her handkerchief fell, and he
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: picked it up with awkward gallantry. She could not bear
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: to touch it, and left the room to look for another.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: She sat of court in perfect silence, and had her
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: disdain entirely for her own benefit, as nobody thought her
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: of sufficient consequence to make any interpretation of it. Mister
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: Emmanuel Wilkinson, on his side, sat getting desperately smitten. He
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: thought her the prettiest and best mannered young lady he
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: had ever seen. He prolonged his visit to an unconscionable length.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: But as he was telling the two ladies all his
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: plans with respect to his uncle's property, how he should
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: build a mill and make the fine water power in
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: the meadow of better use than grazing a parcel of cattle,
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: but to which his uncle would never consent, And that
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: he should most likely build himself a handsome house, as
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: he liked the thought of residing on his own property.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: Now that he was a landed proprietor. Missus Priscilla and
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: Missus Gertrude listened reverently to these details, which would make
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: them oracles to the whole town. At length, Missus Gertrude
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: ventured to inquire what he had done with the house opposite.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: They felt more interest in what their next neighbors were
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: likely to be than in all the new mills ever built, Oh,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: replied mister Wilkinson. Nothing could have happened more Fortunately, a
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: very decent woman, when who has seen better days, as
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: a play to me, who will take the house as
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: it stands, fixtures and all? She wants to take lodgers.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: So if you ladies can befriend her, I shall take
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: it as a compliment, for of course, being my tenant,
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: I wish her well. She comes a stranger to the town.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: She seems a very inoffensive, quiet lady, and I let
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: her have the house at a bargain, for the things
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: would have fetched nothing at a sale. He now rose
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: to take his leave, shook hands with the old ladies,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: and promised to come and see them again. As he
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: passed Agnes, he stood half confused and offered his hand,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: which he did not dare to refuse, but the instant
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: he was gone, she rushed upstairs, washed it, and then
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: deluged it with eau de cologne to dissipate the shuddering
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: disgust she felt. She thought of mister Wilkinson with a
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: species of fright she could not account for. But he
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: was nothing to her, though, to be sure, her aunts
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: discussed nothing else the rest of the day except mister
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: Wilkinson and his plans. Weeks passed along, and the monotonous
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: life Agnes led with her aunts received no break. It
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: was not the absence of visits and gaiety which made
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: its monotony, but the entire absence of all objects worth
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: the interest of a rational soul. Nothing to stimulate the
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: intellect or to cultivate the affections. Their life was an
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: aried waste. Everybody was occupied in little details of household management, dress,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: tittle tattle. The narrow course of their personal interest engrossed them. News.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: No one read even a newspaper except the county Journal,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: and then no one in Agnes's circle at least dreamed
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: of reading even the abridged and diluted accounts of public events.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: Nothing beyond the local intelligence and the births and deaths,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: and the marriages. They were all highly respectable people who
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: would have been shocked to death at any immorality, and
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: have excommunicated any expression of opinion showing sympathy or tolerance
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: for anyone convicted of the smallest sin against the due
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: and solemn routine of thoughts, words, and deeds to which
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: they were dedicated. As horses to a mill. They had
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: no internal vitality to stimulate the torpor of their souls,
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: and therefore greedily sought by observations and criticisms after every
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: word and action of their neighbors to keep themselves amused.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: It was like drinking DRAMs on small beer, very temperate
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: and unstimulating beverage, amounting to almost teetotalism. But then they
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: could not get anything better, So nothing but the principle
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: was given in, and they could only understand what came
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: out in actions. The men were a little better as
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: regarded the amount of vitality and rational worth of their existence.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: They were principally country gentlemen on a genteel competence, and
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: professional men, for there were no manufacturers to contaminate the
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: gentility of the neighborhood, which was an agricultural district. They
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: were all high tories and talks of their own topics
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: amongst themselves. The women never joined, and there was an
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: entirely different style and manner when they for a few
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: moments looked away from their own talk and addressed the ladies.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: There was a subterraneous feeling of contempt, or at least indifference,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: to the judgments and opinions of women. They were looked
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: on as something altogether apart and not admit to equality
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: of intercourse. This was never expressed in so many words,
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: but it was a feeling that showed itself in a
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: thousand ways. It was a refined and ameliorated version of
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: the Indian wives who may not sit at table with
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: the men. They were very rigid in their notions of
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: what is proper in women, as all coarse minded men are,
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: which also marks all states of imperfect mental cultivation. They
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: suspected evil on the slightest appearance, and had an instinct
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: for putting a coarse construction on the most needless actions.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: In fact, the belief that all women would be bad
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: if they might seemed branded into their souls too deeply
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: to come out in words. It only tinged every thought
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: and feeling with regard to women who were held by
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: them in a state of moral serfdom. This it was
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: that layered the root of the dull, soulless inanity of
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: the women. Their apathet to all that was high and generous,
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: No wonder, their human nature stagnated in such an atmosphere,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: and was unable to animate their domestic life with higher
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: and worthier sentiments. Women are always a generation behind men
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: in their modes of thought, and the men it is
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: who must begin to have higher and nobler aspirations for
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: women before women can break through the dull, thick indifference
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: under which so many noble and delicate faculties, such high
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: minded devotedness and singleness of heart like crushed down. As
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: it is they act and react on each other. Men
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: are afraid of women becoming less agreeable, less useful to them,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: lest they should become less relative in their existence, lead
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: their own lives for their own soul's sake, and not
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: with an eye to the pleasure and taste of men alone.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: They are afraid of them being too strong and therefore
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: tolerates nothing but the reflex of their own minds and opinions.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: Reproduced and exaggerated. They get nothing fresh in their intercourse
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: with women. It is breathing over and over again the
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: same mental atmosphere, and humanity is kept below its legitimate level.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: So long as women receive all their light through the
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: refracting medium of the opinions of their brothers and lovers
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: and husbands, they will never attain either wisdom or insight,
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: and they will seem to justify the contemptuous speech we
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: once heard from a clever man, which was that he
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: never in his life heard a woman speak sense for
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: five minutes out of her own head. Clever women are
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: generally signal failures. They do not receive what they are
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: told with undigested meekness. They have too much activity in
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: their own mind for that, and change and twist what
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: instruction falls to their lot into very fantastic results. The
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: error that works mistake does not lie on the surface,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: and the faculty to reduce wisdom and clearness lie still
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: deeper and has never yet been worked out. If the
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: tone of female aspirations were raised, if they were incited
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: to be noble and fearless in heart, they would be
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: every bit as respectable as they are now, or as
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: doctor Gregory himself could desire for what is respectability but
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: a lead an image of the pure and noble instincts
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: which ought to have their dwelling place in the heart
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: of man, an attempt like that of heathen savages, to
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: represent by their misshape and idol, that which must dwell,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: like fire from heaven in the deep heart of man
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: before it can sustain a human soul. In the wearing,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: perilous toil of life. The stimulus of respectability fails in
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: the passionate emergence of reality. What a mockery is An
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: appeal to the respectability of the thing may to one
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: who is standing face to face with a great trial,
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: as if respectability could swallow up temptation. No, it needs
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: a mightier deity than this to control and direct a life.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: But we are putting the moral of our story in
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: the middle instead of the end, a terrible solcism in
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: the established etiquette of such things. A digression is always
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: tempting to him who makes it. It looks like a
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: sort of small inspiration. One follows it in the hope
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: of finding something not promised in the program. But now
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: to return to Agnes at the end of six weeks
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: after the house had been painted and papered and beautified throughout,
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: the new tenant arrived and took possession. She was a quiet,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: smeek little woman who evidently had, as mister Wilkinson's surmised,
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: seen better days, had much trouble and care. Also, the
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: two late made an early call upon her, and Gertrude
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: made many bustling and patronizing offers of good will and assistance.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: Missus Priscilla was mildly sententious, and they both returned home
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: declaring her a very respectable woman who knew her position,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: and whom they were determined to notice. Then came the
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: wonder and the question asked of each other a dozen
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: times a day, who would be the lodger? Time solves
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: every perplexity if he be only left alone, And in
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: less than a month two lodgers were installed in the house. Opposite.
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: One was a little, thin, wiry old maid who had
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: come to the town to give lessons in painting on
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: velvet and making wax flowers. She had the front parlor
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: and the second floor bedroom. In the drawing room was
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: a young man of about eight and twenty or thirty.
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: What he came for nobody could exactly tell. He made
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: excursions into the neighborhood and was away two or three days. Together.
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: He painted watercolor landscapes, drew plans, read books, and received
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: a great many letters. He was very good looking and
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: very gentlemanly in his address. The two ants made his
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: acquaintance on the same day that they went over to
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: view the display of wax flowers and painted velvet in
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: the front parlor, And so well were they pleased that
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: the whole party were invited over to tea that very afternoon,
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: in something more like an impulse of enthusiasm than had
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: deranged the steady current of their lives for years. The
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: ants were also taken with a desire to be the
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: first who had a bouquet of wax flowers under a
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: glass shade in the window recess of their drawing room,
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: and also to have a pair of ottomans and a
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: screen of painted velvet. To accomplish such dazzling results to us,
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: decreed that Agnes should go over and take lessons in
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: the occult arts. Agnes was thankful for anything that took
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: her away from the everlasting sewing that went on every
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: day from nine o'clock till three, and attended her lessons
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: with great zeal. The drawing room lodger often came down
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: to have a chat. He lent her books and showed
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: his drawings, and told her she might have any she
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: liked to copy. There was a great force of romance
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: smoldering down in the heart of Agnes. The least grain
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: of sentiments thrown in would have brought a hundredfold in return.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: But the drawing room lodger did not throw in the grain,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: and the heart of poor Agnes was destined to lie fallow.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: Amongst other works, she brought from his bookcase a volume
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: of plays, which she was obliged to read by stealth,
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: as her aunts would not have tolerated such perilous reading.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: This revived all her old longing for the stage. She
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: got up in the middle of the night to act
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: scenes from Pisaro at the castle of Saint Aldebrand. She
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: built castles in the air of which she was the heroine,
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: dreamed of the world and all the shining gaieties of balls, theaters, carriages,
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: and elegant dresses. In the midst of all this, mister
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: Emmanuel Wilkinson came to lay the foundation of his mill.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: He was now constantly backwards and forwards, and spent every
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: evening with the two old ladies. Agnes, by dint of
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: dreaming constantly of her castles and her novels, continued to
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: abstract herself pretty much from all that was going on.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: But her detestation of mister Emmanuel had not in the
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: least subsided, and it must be confessed, nothing could be
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: more unlike the heroes and angels of her imagination. She
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: had not the least idea of the impression she had
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: made on the tough heart of that worthy man. Her
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: astonishment was extreme when, one morning, as she was paring
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: to go to her wax flower lesson, missus Priscilla, with
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: a prim smile of satisfaction playing round her mouth, in
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: spite of herself, desired her to remain at home, as
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: she had something to communicate to her. Agnes sat down
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: in placid, wonder it had been so long since she
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: had heard anything pleasant or amusing that it never struck
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: her to hope. Missus Priscilla began in a clever, calm tone.
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: Though I do not think it desirable that young women
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: should have their minds filled with idle notions of suitors
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: and marriage. Yet when a girl is modest, well mannered,
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: and pleasing in her appearance, it is not surprising if
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: she attract the notice of the other sex. This is
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: a thing she may reasonably look for, and it is
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: the highest and most gratifying tribute a virtuous women can receive.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: And she is doubly fortunate when her admirer is a
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: man of sense and character, one able to confer upon
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: her a respectable position in the eyes of the world.
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: For a girl in your unfortunate family circumstances, the protection
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: of a sensible, worthy man is more than usually desirable,
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: and therefore it is with great satisfaction I inform you
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: that mister Emmanuel Wilkinson desires to make you an offer
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: of his hand, and he has most honorably and properly
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: communicated in the first instance with my sister, and we
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: both join in our best approbation and consider it a
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: singularly fortunate event for you. Of course, you have no
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: frivolous young lady objections to offer, and therefore we shall
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: give mister Wilkinson an opportunity of pleading his own suit
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon. I make no doubt you will receive him
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: as a delicate minded female, or to do you will
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: not seem too much elated by the compliment. A woman
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: must always keep up her dignity in the eyes of
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: the other sex, and not allow them to perceive the
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: interests they may have secured within her bosom. Modest, retiring,
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: and cold ought to be the bearing of a young
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: woman listening to her suitor, Agnes child, what is the matter,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: said missus Gertrude. Are you ill? No, said Agnes faintly.
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: But mister Wilkinson is so very ugly. A modest and
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: truly delicate minded woman never allows herself an expression on
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: the beauty of her lover, replied Missus Priscilla sententiously. And
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: beauty is a very frivolous thing beside the sterling and
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: respectable qualities of mister Wilkinson. But said Agnes desperately, he
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: is very disagreeable, and after I have married him, I
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: shall be sure to see somebody I could have liked better,
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: and then I could never be happy with him. My
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: dear Agnes, let me never have such a shocking speech again.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: What would any gentleman think who had heard you? When
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: a woman is married, it is her duty to love
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: her husband more than any one else in the world,
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: and no English maiden would even dream of doing otherwise,
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: she must be of an unhappy and depraved turn of mind.
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: If such an idea as that entered her head for
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: one moment, she would no more think of getting tired
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: of her husband than of her own father or brother. Yes,
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: but said Agnes, one is supposed to take her husband
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: from choice, and your relations you cannot help yourself about.
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: And then concluded she in a slightly heroic tone. I
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: do not love, mister Wilkinson, and never can. I don't
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: like to hear your head running on love, said Aunt Gertrude.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: None but weak silly girls talk about it, and above all,
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: never let a gentleman hear you. Men do not like it.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: It looks forward and impudence. Yes, chimed in missus Priscilla,
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: and let me tell you, although you may not be
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: leave me now that, however hot love may be at first,
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: it all goes off fast enough, and at the end
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: of six months you will only know from recollection whether
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: you married for love or not. Therefore, it is absolutely
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: essential that your choice be made with prudence, and you
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: allow yourself to be guided by those older and wiser
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: than yourself. But why need I be married at all?
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: Said Agnes. What else has a woman to look forwards to?
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: I should like to know, said miss Priscilla. Sharply a poor, helpless,
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: forlorn creature. She is, when left to herself, like a
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: stray cat on a high road, unless you have some prudent,
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: sensible man to take care of her. Very few women
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: have your Aunt Gertrude's strength of mind to make them
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: respectable by themselves. You ought to be grateful that such
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: an opening is made for you, said Aunt Gertrude. For
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: very few respectable men would like to marry a girl
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: whose father was trans supported. I don't mean to reproach
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: you with your misfortune, but to point out to you
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: how desirable it is that you should not throw away
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: such an eligible opportunity for making yourself respectable and independent.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: But no delicate minded woman would wish to be dependent
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: and a burden to her friends. And your unfortunate position
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: will be a hindrance to you ever making your own way. However,
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: you will think the matter over and come to your
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: senses by tomorrow, which will be time enough to return
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: an answer. Poor Agnes was no longer in a condition
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: to listen to such sensible harangus. She was sobbing violently.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: She only heard her aunt's permission to withdraw and left
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: the room, and the kind hearted housemaid found her a
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: few minutes afterwards in strong hysterics. Dear heart, miss Agnes,
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: don't take on, you'll be doing yourself a mischief, said
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: the mad when she had administered such restoratives as first
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: suggested themselves. And what is to become of me? Cried Agnes,
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: wringing her hands. I wish I were dead, I wish
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: I had never been born. Why did my mother ever
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: leave me behind her? How cruel she was to leave
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: me with nobody to care for me? She little knows,
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: dear miss Agnes, don't talk in that way, but just
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: tell me what is the matter. And she put her
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: stout arms round Agnes and seemed ready to cry for company,
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: only that the prospect of a secret consoled her. Agnes
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: told her all that had passed well, To be sure,
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: the old cats that I should call them so to
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: think of going to marry such a pretty young lady
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: as you to such an old fright. I would have
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: nothing to say to him if I were you, Miss,
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: Just stand it out. They can't marry you against your consent,
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: so just defy them. I would go out to say service.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: If I were you before, I would be made miserable
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: for life, though I was to ride in my coach
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: for it. But they will turn me out of doors,
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: said Agnes pitifully. Never mind, let them if they dare,
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: or the town would cry shame. And if they marry you,
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: they won't bear it for you. Take my advice and
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: just stand it out. And if they're stiff, show that
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: you can be stout. The step of miss Priscilla was
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: heard on the stairs, and her ally made a hasty retreat,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: leaving Agnes to encounter the fresh vials of her aunt's wisdom.
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: At the sight of her, Agnes became so much agitated
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: and excited that missus Priscilla was obliged to suspend her
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: remonstrance and ring the bell for the housemaid to undress
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: her and lay her in bed. A few drops of
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: laudanum were administered to compose her, and she was left
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: to herself. The next day, Agnes found herself in deep disgrace,
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: and for days and weeks every species of tyranny and
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: punishment were employed to conquer her ridiculous obstinacy, as they
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: called it. Her aunt, Missus Maitland, wrote letters full of
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: the most drying wisdom, extolling mister Emmanuel Wilkinson to the
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: skies and entreating her sweet niece to recollect the disgrace
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: of her father and not to lose such an opportunity
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: of settling herself and restoring the credit of the family.
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: Letters came from her cousins, eloquent on the advantages of
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: making a good match and assuring her that she was
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: the most lucky girl in the world. But not a
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: creature spoke to her of the duties and responsibilities that
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: would be entailed on her, the respects for those were
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: supposed to follow naturally and of itself in the wake
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: of such a respectable connection, and to be the legitimate
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: consequence of her respectable family education. Nothing was dwelt upon
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: except that she would have a home of her own,
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: that her husband would be rich and would have everything
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: she could wish for, and that she could have no
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: reasonable objection to mister Wilkinson, a worthy, respectable, sensible man
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: who was doing her an honor by being attached to her.
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: Agnes resisted obstinately for a while, but the daily worry
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: of the continual dropping of sentences of worldly prudence, the
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: absence of anyone to sympathize with her, the dull vista
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: of years of her whole life spent with relatives who
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to get rid of her, the petty tormenting which
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: was unmercifully exercised towards her, all conspired to break her
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: spirit and make her desirous to get anywhere, to be away.
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: She was once or twice on the point of yielding,
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: when a visit from mister Wilkinson, whom her aunts insisted
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: upon her treating with civility, brought back her intolerable loathing
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: and reinforced her resolution. One morning, her aunt Gertrude, who
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: was reading the newspaper, found an advertisement for a teacher
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: in a Yorkshire school. She seems struck with a bright idea,
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: Laying down the paper, she said, turning to Agnes in
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: a persecuting tone and with an accent of suppressed displeasure,
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: although conscious that it was perfectly allowable. Now, Agnes, my
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: sister and myself cannot put up with all this any longer.
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: Our lives are made miserable by your sullenness and obstinacy.
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: If you persist in being blind to your own advantage,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: which is all we have in view, you must take
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: your own way. You cannot blame us. This is the
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: last time we shall speak of it. Some consideration is
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: due to mister Wilkinson. Take till tomorrow to consider what
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: you will do. If you refuse him, then we must
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: take some steps towards getting you a respectable situation in
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: a school. Here is an advertisement for a teacher, and
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: in that case you shall apply for it. Now you
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: may retire to your own room. Agnes slowly and sadly withdrew.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: In about an hour, her aunt Gertrude came quickly into
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: her with a small packet in her hand. See Agnes,
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: said she in a more good natured tone than she
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: had used for weeks. Surely you are ruining the best
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: prospects a girl in your position ever had, and all
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: for the sake of a whim. Look here what mister
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: Wilkinson desires our permission to present to you his aunt
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: set of pearls and garnets, all newly set and looking
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: fit for a countess. And this letter too, so kind
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: and proper mister Wilkinson had for once shown his tact.
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: He has stayed away himself and written a kind letter,
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: hoping she would soon put an end to his societ fence.
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: It did the business. The next morning, Agnes wrote, under
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: the inspection of her aunt's a distinct acceptance of his proposals.
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: Everybody now seemed to vie who should make the most
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: of Agnes and show her the most attention. She was
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: going to be married and to have a house and
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: carriage of her own. Her aunt's Maitland, wrote that she
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: must be married from their house, as they lived in
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: better style than Missus Priscilla and ant Gertrude, who were
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: also invited to the wedding. Mister Maitland presented her with
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: one hundred pounds for her outfit. Everybody was delighted, and
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: in the unwonted excitement of being made much of and
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: the pleasure of buying new dresses, Agnes grew half reconciled
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: to the step she was taking. When mister Wilkinson was
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: out of the way, the day came at last, there
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: was no drawing back. Agnes was married, and mister and
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: Missus Emmanuel Wilkinson drove off in a handsome chariot, and
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: four with postilions in red jackets. They were to go
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: to London and Paris, and Angnes was loaded with commissions
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: for her cousins. Here we will take leave of our heroine,
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: as she is now a married woman in a highly
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: respectable position. Some of our readers may think we have
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: made a great fuss about nothing, and that Agnes was
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: a very fortunate young woman to have found a steady, respectable,
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: wealthy man to marry her. Is there then nothing real
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: in life except a worldly position and the material advantages
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: of a grand house, splendid furniture, plenty of money. Are
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: they of such overwhelming importance that they deserve a young
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: girl should sell herself for money, body and soul, that
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: she should, for money consent to fill a position that
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: entails duties and responsibilities which nothing but the most entire
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: and perfect love can end enable her to discharge. Do
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: they deserve that a woman should swear to a lie
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: to obtain them, and, by one comprehensive act, devotes the
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: remainder of her days to the infernal gods? Did they
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: deserve that a woman should brand on her inmost soul
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: the burning shame of simulating for money that holy passionate love,
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: which fuses two human hearts together, and of two separate existences,
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: makes but one. Yet all this a woman does who
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: marries without love for the sake of obtaining a worldly position.
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: She who does this thing may go to church in
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: all the splendor of brussels, lace and orange flowers, may
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: have a dozen bridesmaids, and the sanction of bridecake and
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: a special license. But she still sells herself. In the
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: coarsest and most absolute sense of the term. She makes
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: a better bargain than the poor wretch who stands in
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: the street at night. The law guarantees its fulfillment, and
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: society agrees to sanction it. But the deep, burning degradation
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: of the reality is the same in both. What is
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: the race that can be expected to arise from such
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: marriages as these? How can the children be noble, high
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: minded manlike when the mother has crushed down all the
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: deep passionate instincts of her heart and ended by disbelieving them.
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: If in the case of Agnes, we could look forwards,
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: we should see the palsy of worldliness, benumbing all the warm,
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: spontaneous impulses of her youth, her liveliness and giddiness, giving
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: place only to hardness and selfishness, her life's aim and object,
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: heaping together the glories of upholstery, giving dinner parties, and
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: keeping up her consequence in the neighborhood. The leprosy of
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: intense vulgarity, valuing only that which is seen, killing all
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: the refinement and delicacy that is indigenous to youth. Then
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: the intense on nui which follows, and like a vampire,
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: feeds on the very life. For us all has centered
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: in self, and self alone has no sufficing vitality. A
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: thickened life in death is all that is left, unless
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: she succumbs to terrible stimulants. This is not an overcharged statement.
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: If a woman sacrificed only herself, it would be most piteous.
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: But a worldly marriage is emphatically one of those cases
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: in which the sins of the parents have visited on
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: the children. End of How Agnes Warrel was Taught to
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: be respectable by Geraldine Jewsbury. End of Part five, Part
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: six of Geraldine Jewsbury in Gerald's Shilling Magazine forty six
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: to eighteen forty seven. This liberuvox recording is in the
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: public domain the Lower Orders published in Gerald Shilling Magazine,
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: Volume five, number twenty eight. In old times, all religions
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: and schools of philosophy had what was called the secret, viz.
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: Certain doctrines not openly professed, and into which even students
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: and disciples were not initiated until after a severe apprenticeship
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: they had proved themselves worthy to be instructed. After their
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: admission to the knowledge of the secret, they were not
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: allowed to give it utterance, but were bound to envelop
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: their meaning in such language that the real sense and
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: inspiration of it could only be intelligible to the initiated.
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: It was deemed sacrilegious to endeavor to permeate the mass
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: with the sacred knowledge. The mass in those days consisted
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: of the confume used in organized majority, the raw material
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: of humanity, not recognizable as individuals, but which formed the
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: staple of the world, as a ground for the more
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: highly gifted to tread on an unknown, muddy, not milky
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: way about which none took any concern. The infinite capability
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: that lay crude and dormant in the mass was not
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: dreamed of. The inert force had not been made manifest.
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: It was the great quarry of undeveloped humanity, out of
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: which from time to time the elect and chosen were
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: detached and fashioned into living stones. But the length and
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: depth of which was undreamed of ages have passed away.
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: All kinds of chances and changes have befallen the world.
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: One tendency has been visible through all all events seem
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: to have worked themselves to one end. The clash of
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: many colored and conflicting interests has brought one pre eminent result.
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: The circle of the elect has steadily and gradually become wider,
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: the partakers in the secret more numerous, till at length
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: the dusky, confused, weltering mass of humanity, which so long
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: had been uncared for, like mud at the bottom of
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: a pool, is admitted to the brotherhood, and recognized to
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: consist of men with reasonable souls and human flesh, subsisting
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: men of like fashion, with the learned and noble, the
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: rulers of the world, who heretofore had alone the privilege
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: of dwelling in the light, which the others might not
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: approach unto. It is so much submerged land recovered to
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: the domains of humanity. It was thought by all the
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: powers that were an awful, atheistic, anarchic proceeding. When eighteen
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: hundred years ago the poor had the Gospel preached to them,
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: it was the first glimpse of their social recognition. Long
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: ago the freedom of religion was conceded to them, but
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: all the gentility and prestige of philosophy was stripped from it.
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: The learned and the wise still insisted on their secret.
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: They took to education when they could find a moment's
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 1: breathing time from their everlasting wars, and that was all
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: sacred to them. Into that circle, no vulgar were admitted.
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: Religion was enough for the poor. The people had no
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: need of instruction. When it was proposed to preach education
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: to the mass to make the Canai eligible to philosophy, science,
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: civilizing influences of all sorts, it was scouted as a chimera,
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: hooted as a blasphemy, and pelted with ridicule, the only
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: civilized phrase of persecution tolerated. Yet at length the principal
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: stands detached and clear from the confusion. It has come
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: to be recognized that the mass are worthy to hear
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: all that can be taught instruction as their birthright, and
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: not an arms to be bestowed by supercilious benevolence or
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: speculative theorists. There is no longer a corner where secret
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: or sacred things may abide. All is thrown open to
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: the mass the million. The people who stand revealed in
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: the rude, massive, undeveloped possibility of their brawny, sinewy, savage strength.
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: Refinements of fastidiousness, have no more a refuge except to
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: curl themselves up like excruciated sensitive plants. All that, for
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: so long has been enshrouded in the learned twilight of
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: academic bowers is today brought naked and unreservedly within the
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: bare walls and glaring gaslight of mechanics institutes. Everything may
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: be taught, Everybody who will may hear and learn. Every
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: sort of doctrine may be discussed by anybody and everybody.
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: To the doctors and philosophers of old, this state of
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: things would have been a shock and an outrage, such
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: as we might imagine if a revolution were to take
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: place in the region of the faithful, which should abolish
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: the privilege of the harem and allow the inmates to
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: walk forth unveiled, to the distraction of men and angels.
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: And yet these new barbarians are not receiving a license
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: nor a privilege, but a right of which they are
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: but just now receiving intelligence, a right which can never
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: again fall into abeyance unless the whole social system fall
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: into dissolution. A fact that has once become declared and absolute,
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: never relapses into the chaotic, uncombined elements from which it
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: was called forth. Let the people, the newly developed order
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: in humanity, rejoice in their strength, in their savage powers,
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: and umblase a faculties the recognition of their rights. Entrance
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: on their own heritage so long withheld, makes a grand,
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: a divine epoch in the world's life. But it is
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: only when contemplated as a whole that it is grand,
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: regarded as a movement penetrating with newness of life, a
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: hitherto unrecognized section of the human family, going on from
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: strength to strength, until each individual shall stand before God,
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: each perfected according to his measure. It is very grand,
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: and every heart must kindle and burn at the contemplation.
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: But when we descend from the amount of vision to
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: the actual and practical working of the thing, as stumble
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: amid the coarse material details enthusiasm is well nigh stifled
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 1: with disgust, and except to those gifted with the most
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: keen and loving insights, the divine idea, which at first
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: seemed so glorious, is effaced on nearer contemplation of the
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: irreverent ignorance, the presumption, the intense vulgarity, the coarse and
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: clumsy attempt to meddle with high things, the utter absence
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: of all modest misgivings, the absolute want of perception for
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: taste and refinement, which characterizes these new barbarians. It is
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: all very well for those engaged in forwarding the movement
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: to dwell upon the great principle involved, and to keep
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: their eyes steadily fixed on the magnificent whole. Otherwise they
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: would not be able to keep their hand to the
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: work they have undertaken. But the people themselves are not
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: to be encouraged in any such soothing, self complacent process.
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: They are neither grand nor glorious, but a huge, rude, untutored,
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: ignorant mass, with no beauty to make them desirable or
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: tolerable except to the eye of infinite hope. The intense
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: interest that is now excited in the condition of the
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: lower orders is not aroused by them as individuals, but
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: by the superb and all but utopian loups result which
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: is hoped for, which is to qualify those who for
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: ages have been considered as only a degree beyond the brutes,
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: to present themselves amongst the sons of God. The attraction
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: does not lie in them, but in the endeavor to
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: realize the truth that in the poor, hungry, slaving mass,
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: with their intellect all torpid, and their senses lying callous
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: and buried under the brutal, sordid environments which for ages
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: have accumulated round them and over them, till the very
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: aspect of humanity has been well nigh effaced, that even
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: in them a spark of deity lies smoldering, which may
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: yet break up this unlovely chaos and transform it into
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: shapes of beauty and life. But the mass have not
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: yet realized this hope. They are as yet only beginning
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: to stir with blind, uneasy motion and a dim consciousness
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: of uncertain strength. The tone of flattery assumed towards the
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: people in all all the books, poems, lectures, and talk
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: that goes on about them at the present time. The
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: endeavor to create sympathy with them at the expense of
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: the higher classes. The fashion it has grown to explatte
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: the lower orders is not precisely the wisest method to
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: form the race, which will, in all likelihood form the
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: main element in the next generation of society. Nothing is
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: so demoralizing as making a fashion of a principle. The
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: mass needs civilizing, and nothing can be more vulgar than
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: the tone in which they are addressed. Bad taste is
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: a sin, always symptomatic of something more deeply seated. From
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the world, there have been disorganized periods
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: when the institutions that had heretofore held society together and
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: sufficed for the general governance and guidance of the people
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: have fallen into dissolution. New social elements have manifested themselves,
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: and the opinions mana pitical institutions, and the whole machinery
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: of society have crystallized afresh. The industrial classes have the
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: new element of our own day. They contain the germ
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: of the next generation. The preponderance of unworn strength and
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 1: undeveloped vitality rests with them. They are a phase of
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: society that has never in any age been presented. The
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: tone and measure of the next age depend mainly on
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: the impulse given to this as yet unorganized mass. Their
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: tendencies are at present altogether material. Their strength, rough sagacity,
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: and uncivilized capacity have no ideal or poetical sympathies on
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: word they have adopted as their motto and designation. They
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 1: are practical and set no value on any qualities that
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: are not practical. In this world, with so much rough
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: work lying on all sides and emphatically needing to be done,
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: to be practical in the application of one's faculties is
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: certainly highly desirable. Still, the apostle's words sold true that
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: the things which are seen are temporal, and that the
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: fashion of this world passeth away. The most important element
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: of a man's life is that which cannot be seen,
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: and of which none but himself can take cognizance. If
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: he be taught to have faith only in the things
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: that to be seen, felt, and made manifest, he has
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: but a poor, starved lookout, either for this life or
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: the next. A man's life does not consist in the
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: abundance of things which he possesses, but in the divine
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: thoughts by which he shapes it, and this alone magnifies
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: it and makes its worth. The spirit in which a
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: man lives is more important than anything that he does
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: to endure as believing that which is invisible is the
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: highest order of life. The lower and less perfectly organized
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: the man is, the more material is he in his
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: desires and his belief, the less capable of being inspired
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: by the wisdom that is above all things. The industrial classes,
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: from their position, are thrown mainly amongst material things. Some
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: have to wrestle to compel their actual subsistence from a
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: hand to hand conflict with starvation, a struggle that has
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: to be renewed day by day. Those who are not
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: or praase with circumstances for their means of life are
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: engrossed in business, a still more materialized process which has
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: a fascination beyond that of gambling. No matter whether a
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: man makes money by it or not, others again are
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: getting rich, the most vulgarizing ordeal of all. Or these
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: stand in peculiar need to have a faith created in
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: them for that which is invisible, a practical faith in
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: principles and high motives, which, though impalpable to bodily sent
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: have still a real existence and ought to shape all
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: acts and deeds. The things which are seen are not
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 1: made from those which do appear. That this contact with
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: material cares and interests should be combated and neutralized by
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: the cultivation of more ideal tendencies is a vital moment,
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: not only to those whose souls are choked out of
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 1: them by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: of riches, but to the very existence of society itself.
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: And yet nothing of the sort is ever preached to
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: the industrial classes. The tone that pervades the books and
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: lectures of mechanics institutes. All that is addressed to them especially,
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: is all pervaded by a low, prosaic tone of speciality.
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: Nothing higher than common sense is ever appealed to. They
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: are never taught to rely on higher or more ideal qualities.
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: They are told nothing that can arouse noble enthusiasm. Everything
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: they are exhorted to has some specific egoistic advantage. They
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: are told to cultivate themselves to seek truth and freedom
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: and all that, But in what they consist or how
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: they should be sought, is left in the vague. They
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: may listen in vain for a word of that inspiration
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: which passes the understanding, burns the hearts within us, and
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: makes men greater than they know. They are never made
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: passionate for that which is higher than themselves. No belief
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: is encouraged except for what can be demonstrated. The gross
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: flattery which is addressed to the imperfect, undeveloped industrial class
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: is enough to check their growth forever. Subjects on which
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: great men have not grudged to spend their life are
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: reduced down to their level. A critical view and a
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: general view, a course of lectures on the works of
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: such and such great men are all that is presented
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: to them, and they are encouraged to fancy that in
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: the space of an hour they are placed univoux of
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: the men who distilled their very souls in their labor.
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: They are encouraged in a spirit of criticism instead of reverence.
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: And where the spirit of criticism enters, the power of
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: listening and profits never follows. An intense vulgarty is the
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: distinguishing mark of the instruction addressed to the new order.
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: There is a coarse, provincial accent in the intellect, which
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: is intolerable and entirely vitiates and demoralizes it. The tendency
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: of all mechanics institutes going, and of all mechanics institute literature,
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: is to induce a puling, complacent consciousness in the mass
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: and the million, a slang of philosophic culture, a brisk,
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: pert limited insight into truths which are cultivated like tulips
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: in a row of red garden pots, clear, stiff, small,
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: and intentional. Nothing left unaccounted for, nothing spontaneous, flowing or impulsive.
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: All the books of that class of literature as tidy
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: and trim, as a Dutch garden. Every thought and fact
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: is cleanly cut away from the infinite, swept up under
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: its lawful definition, and the gravel walks are edged with
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: cockle shells to prevent confusion. There are no temples, no
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: long solemn shadowy aisles with many colored lights streaming across them.
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: Perspective is no more believed in bald, bare architectural elevations
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: are given. Instead. We had more to say, but to
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: say it now with bitter length in an article already
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: perhaps too long. Another time we may say a few
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: words on this disposition. Towards the intensely definite and visible
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: end of the lower orders by Geraldine Jew's end of
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: Part six, Part seven of Geraldine Jewsbury in Gerald's Shilling
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: Magazine eighteen forty six to eighteen forty seven. This LibriVox
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Civilization of the Lower
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: Orders published in Gerald's Shilling Magazine, Volume six, number thirty five.
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: A short time since, at a lyceum gathering in a
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: manufacturing town of Lancashire, the chairman, in the course of
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: his speech, observed as the Church which ought to direct
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 1: the people, had neglected to take the lead in the
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: movement for instructing them. The people had got ahead of her,
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: and that she must now be content to follow where
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: the people led. We cannot undertake to swear to the
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: exact words, but they were to the above effect. They
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: are an average space of the tone in which it
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: is the fashion to address the lower orders had these
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: sort of anniversaries, and also of the general run of
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: the books, literature and lectures specially addressed to them, to
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: say nothing of its extreme bad taste. This sort of
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: tone is eminently calculated to stunt the growth, to hinder
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: the intellectual development, and to vulgarize the spirit of the
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: new order, from whose unworn vitality and unexploited capabilities. We
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: look to see the face of the earth renewed. The
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: lower orders are at the present time in a state
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: of barbarism, and if a tone of self glorification be
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: encouraged in them, they will become emasculate and utterly incapable
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: of the hard application and docile reverence which is essential
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: to all who are in the condition of pupilage, and
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: who would attain instruction of any degree of intrinsic worth.
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: Self cultivation is hard work if it is to be
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: worth anything. In discriminating praise such as is administered to
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: the people induces self complacency and does not stimulate to
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: painstaking exertion. The industrial classes have an immense distance to
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: make up before they can stand in their right position.
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: With regard to the other orders of society who have
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: for ages enjoyed the advantages of education and refining influences,
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: they will not have assumed the position to which they
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: are entitled until they become equal in refinement of manners
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: and general instruction. To those who now hold a position
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: of their superiors, all legal and political disqualifications are done
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: away with. All the old feudal distinctions have vanished. All
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: trace of serfdom has disappeared from social institutions. But before
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: the people can enjoy practical community of intercourse with those
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 1: above them, they must be made their equals in fact
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: as well as in theory. That is not to be
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: done by flattering them and telling them that the disinclination
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: of those in the higher ranks to associate familiarly with
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: them arises from aristocratic pride, exclusiveness and contempt for those
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: lowly born, nor by voting refinement to be a fine fancy,
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: a superfluity which the higher classes ought to do away with,
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: instead of the lower orders being incited to attain it themselves.
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 1: It is not a good spirit that is induced, but
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: one altogether unworthy of the rising order. We are as
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: good as you, is the motto they are encouraged to adopt.
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: They flatter themselves and are flattered till the atmosphere of
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: their own reputation becomes so heated that no sobriety of
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: judgment can sustain its life. It is from no want
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: of sympathy with the industrial classes we speak thus, but
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: we feel very jealous for them, and would have them
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: take nothing lower than their appointed place, we would have
• 2:36:01
  Speaker 1: them as excellent as brothers and equals, and not merely
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: wonderful people. Considering their disadvantages. Those who are called on
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: to take part in the work of civilizing the lower
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: orders must come to their task in the spirit of missionaries.
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: They have to organize the crude, rough mass which has
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: been projected with volcano force into the bosom of our society.
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: Whilst everything is still undeveloped. The spirit of those who
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: influence the movement is of far more importance than their
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: specific actions, until the new growth have taken a deeper
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 1: route had assumed a more declared shape. A spiritual element
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: of soft and holy influences is the only fitting nourishments
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: for it. It must grow and receive its shape from
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: the life of Heaven before men may venture to train
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 1: it after their own notions. It seems to us that
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: ever since the idea of educating the life lower orders
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: was entertained, there has been one great flaw in all
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: the schemes for their instruction. The people have been treated
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: as if they had been children of an inferior sort.
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: All instruction has been reset in a commoner and course,
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: a key for them. No spontaneity has been conceded to them.
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: They have been considered a sort of block out of
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: which everyone who chose was at liberty to try his
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: hand at carving out a patent theory. Their beliefs, their hopes,
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: their tastes have all been materialized after a theory of
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: what the lower orders ought to be made before their
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: minds were yet developed. They have been stiffened into an
• 2:37:40
  Speaker 1: educational shape. There has been a crude, hard, barren artificialness
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: in the tone addressed to them, a want of geniality,
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: and there has resulted a sickly air of shabby gentility.
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: Over All they have done instead of the full, free,
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: rustic humanity, full of freshness and strength, which ought to
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: be the characteristics of the new order of men. When
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: first the idea to educate the lower orders was started,
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: they were still looked upon as serfs. The old feudal
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: feeling had not disappeared. There were those who can still
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 1: recollect the outcry that was raised against schools for the poor,
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: the danger and inconvenience that would ensue to their masters
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: and mistresses and all who had to deal with them
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: if they were taught to read, and as to their
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: learning to write. There was no end to the confusion
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 1: and danger to both church and state that would follow
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: their first attempts at pothucks and ladles. The higher classes
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: had been so long accustomed to consider the lower orders
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 1: as their property to explaitter them for their own service
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: and convenience, that they feared a first step which was
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: likely to arouse them to a sense of their individuality
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: and their rights. It was the inconvenience to themselves they feared.
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: Those who first led the movements for teaching the poor
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: to read and write were rather moved by a feeling
• 2:39:06
  Speaker 1: of benevolence than by a recognition of the principle that
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 1: the lower orders have the same right to be furnished
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: with the means of instruction that they have to be
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: kept from starvation. The higher classes are morally bound to
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: instruct those beneath them, who are not only unable to
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: provide instruction for themselves, but who are not even enlightened
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: enough to know what education means. The practical republicanism of
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: trade had not then been developed. The people had not
• 2:39:36
  Speaker 1: awoke to a sense of their own strength, nor to
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: a recognition of their own rights. The great body of
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: the lower orders were immediately dependent on the higher rank
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: as tenants, labors, and retainers, who, with the instinct of
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: self preservation, shrank from making those in subjection unruly or
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 1: discontented by opening any aspirations to them. However, the principle
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: of teaching the poor was at length partially conceded, but
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: even those who were the most zealous in this cause
• 2:40:08
  Speaker 1: could only conceive it under strict limitations, and with the
• 2:40:11
  Speaker 1: avowed intent of teaching them only what was necessary for
• 2:40:15
  Speaker 1: poor people to know. Would you object to a poor
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: man's reading his Bible, cried the advocates for instruction. No,
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 1: replied the other side. But if you teach them to read,
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 1: they will not be content with their Bible, but get
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 1: to reading newspapers in public houses and get idle, discontented,
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: and unfit for their work. Those servants who can neither
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 1: read nor write are much better workers than those who
• 2:40:40
  Speaker 1: have had their head turned with such things. The education
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: of the lower class began with the idea that it
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: was a rougher and inferior instruction to which they were
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: to be limited In these days. It is curious to
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: look back on the sort of books which were written
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: for the people, Even those most anxious to teach, which
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: were fully impressed with the importance of flavoring every idea
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 1: communicated to the poor with emphatic submission in all things
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: to the opinions of those in authority over them. The
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 1: one all pervading sentiment in the works of that period
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: was a paraphrase on the right divine of kings, adjusted
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: to a sliding scale of the different proportions in which
• 2:41:22
  Speaker 1: a divinity might be supposed to hedge, squires, magistrates, clergymen,
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: and all the quality in general. Self respect was a
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: notion unheard of for the poor. Nothing could exceed the
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: supercilious condescension and cold pomposity with which the people were addressed.
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 1: They were no more allowed to think or read above
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: the station in which it had pleased God to place them,
• 2:41:47
  Speaker 1: than to dress above it. The old spirit of feudality,
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: in a new guise, claimed the right of disposing of
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: the slowly developing faculties of the mind, as it had
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: formerly exacted the servitude of the body. It was the
• 2:42:01
  Speaker 1: tribute expected for their education. The poor were forbidden to
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: use their new privilege on their own account. All questionings
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: were put down as signs of disaffection. They were enjoined
• 2:42:13
  Speaker 1: to think as those who knew better taught them. It
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 1: is very odd, but it invariably happens that when a
• 2:42:21
  Speaker 1: fresh privilege is conceded to those below by those above,
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: it is always granted. As the Vicar of Wakefield gave
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: the guinea to his daughters for pockets, money on no
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 1: account to be spent. The first attempt to make use
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: of a privilege always brings an outcry. To be in
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: subjection to those only a very little wiser than ourselves
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: is the most galling and intolerable of conditions, and liberty,
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: once conceded, though only in theory, is very hard to
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: take back, and so it has proved in this case.
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: Those were the days when the French Revolution had spread
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: dismay over the old order of things and all connected
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: with them. Entire and implicit subjection to the divine right
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: of legitimacy was considered the only specific for preserving this
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: country from the horrors of anarchy and bloodshed. Even a
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: wealthy man of the better classes who was suspected of
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 1: a tendency to liberal notions was regarded as a pestilent fellow,
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: an infidel disaffected to the Constitution, and desiring only his
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: own ends, he was placed under a social taboo which
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: entirely tarnished his respectability, that ambient crown of glory to
• 2:43:38
  Speaker 1: an Englishman. If therefore, the higher classes had little freedom
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: of thought allowed to them, they were hardly competent to
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: extend that blessing to those below them, or to entertain
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 1: just ideas of the right of the lower orders to
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 1: be considered as brothers and equals. But those who minister
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: shall be ministered unto themselves in return. And it is
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 1: by giving more enlarged views to the lower orders that
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 1: the higher and middle classes have gained increased liberty for themselves,
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: both of thought and speech and action. There is, however,
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: no more real amalgamation between the higher and lower classes
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: than there was at first. The lower classes are as
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: a body in a state of reaction against the intense
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: civility which was formally exacted from them as a mark
• 2:44:28
  Speaker 1: of good character. The overstrained reverence for their betters is
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: now that they feel they are a body amongst themselves,
• 2:44:36
  Speaker 1: taking the form of a cynical pride. In not being
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 1: gentle folks. It is a devil which will need to
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: be loved out of them. As a quaint old minister
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: used to say, it is neither to be done by
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 1: the flattery that would make them fancy great things of themselves,
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: nor by the concise theories addressed to the working classes,
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: as from an imaginary height by those within the temple
• 2:45:01
  Speaker 1: to those still kept in the outer court. The higher
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: classes must earn their fraternity with the lower, or instead
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: of brothers and friends, they will be powerful, dangerous, and
• 2:45:13
  Speaker 1: jealous rivals. At presence, there is an absence of fellow feeling,
• 2:45:18
  Speaker 1: an indescribable tone which prevents all amalgamation of feeling and
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: sympathy between the classes, and keeps up the deep separation
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: between them. They are a new class, imperfectly reclaimed, requiring
• 2:45:32
  Speaker 1: to be cultivated and civilized before they can amalgamate with
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: the old classes and old civilization. They are the rude,
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: uncultivated lower order now, but they are not to be
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: kept so to the end of the world. There is
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: nothing in the fact of their daily labor to disqualify
• 2:45:50
  Speaker 1: them from being entirely civilized and as thoroughly enlarged and
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: enlightened in their opinions as any other class of society. Rude, on,
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 1: uncouth and unlovely as they now are in all their aspects.
• 2:46:04
  Speaker 1: There they are to be civilized and made fit for
• 2:46:07
  Speaker 1: fellowship and community, till at length all classes become one,
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: all raised to a higher level of humanity, and there
• 2:46:15
  Speaker 1: be no more high and low, but all dwelling together
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: as brethren. The practical republicanism of trade has forever emancipated
• 2:46:25
  Speaker 1: the lower orders from a condition of permanent inferiority. The
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 1: great bulk of the current wealth of the country is
• 2:46:33
  Speaker 1: now in the hands of an entirely different class of
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: people to those who held it formally. In fact, all
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 1: the new resources for amassing wealth are in the hands
• 2:46:43
  Speaker 1: of the middle class, which is in great measure recruited
• 2:46:46
  Speaker 1: from those who have risen from the ranks. The middle
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: and lower classes are every day becoming more fused into
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: one large body, the standard of which is money. Wealth
• 2:46:58
  Speaker 1: is a great tangible fact act which can control all
• 2:47:02
  Speaker 1: that depends on human skill and industry. He who has
• 2:47:06
  Speaker 1: money can always make its worth men's wile to work
• 2:47:09
  Speaker 1: for him. Wealth is a great, unlimited, undefined possibility. There
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: is hardly anything it cannot do for its possessor. The
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: wealth of the country has changed hands within the last
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: fifty years, at least, it has accumulated more rapidly in
• 2:47:25
  Speaker 1: the hands of a class much lower than those who
• 2:47:27
  Speaker 1: held it formerly. The distinctions of birth and family are incomprehensible.
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: In commercial towns and manufacturing districts, where there is no
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: distinction except of rich and poor. A great proportion of
• 2:47:42
  Speaker 1: the men have either risen from the ranks themselves or
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: their fathers before them did so. It is quite common
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: to find the near connections and relations of wealthy merchants
• 2:47:53
  Speaker 1: and mill owners quite poor and ill off, while the
• 2:47:56
  Speaker 1: more fortunate members live in houses like palaces, surrounded by
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: all the glories that money or upholstery can furnish, without
• 2:48:05
  Speaker 1: having in the least degree lost the uncultivated habits of
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: the people. Poverty is the only practical evil the lower
• 2:48:14
  Speaker 1: orders have to struggle against. If they are poor, they
• 2:48:18
  Speaker 1: are in a condition of bodily discomfort and squalid misery,
• 2:48:22
  Speaker 1: which is as fearful to contemplate as existing in a
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: civilized land. The houses of the poor people in England,
• 2:48:30
  Speaker 1: says one well capable of judging, are worse than the
• 2:48:33
  Speaker 1: prisons described by Howard in his time, But that misery
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: is not entailed on the class, and has no discreditable
• 2:48:41
  Speaker 1: significance beyond its actual wretchedness. The position of the old
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: English gentry has changed from what it used to be.
• 2:48:51
  Speaker 1: If one enters an old country church we find it
• 2:48:54
  Speaker 1: filled with monuments of old fashioned country families who used
• 2:48:58
  Speaker 1: to live on their own estate and be looked up
• 2:49:00
  Speaker 1: to with respect by the whole country round a hundred
• 2:49:04
  Speaker 1: years ago. We find that they are now passed away
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: the family mansion it may be let for a school,
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: or at any rate gone amongst strangers. The old stock
• 2:49:16
  Speaker 1: itself either extinct or diminished and brought low, unable to
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: assert itself, and the new order of influences against the
• 2:49:23
  Speaker 1: new race that has arisen. The descendants of those old
• 2:49:27
  Speaker 1: respectable families will often be found in subordinate situations, perhaps
• 2:49:32
  Speaker 1: in the employments of those whose forefathers were servants to
• 2:49:35
  Speaker 1: their grandfathers. To belong to an old family unless the
• 2:49:40
  Speaker 1: family inheritance goes with it brings little consideration in these days.
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: The recent railway movement has shown that the title deeds
• 2:49:49
  Speaker 1: to an immense portion of the landed property of Great
• 2:49:52
  Speaker 1: Britain have passed into the hands of the newly arisen order.
• 2:49:56
  Speaker 1: If good Sir Simon DUIs could come back to life again,
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: he would go well nigh distracted at the confusion and
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 1: presumption of the fancy coat armours rampant on so many
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: new shields. A knowledge of their fathers and grandfathers is
• 2:50:12
  Speaker 1: in these days the wisdom of the minority. The realities
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: of life rest at present chiefly with the middle and
• 2:50:20
  Speaker 1: lower classes. The moral force, the mass of wealth, and
• 2:50:25
  Speaker 1: the preponderance of hard, strong, matter of fact knowledge lies
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: with them. Theirs is the very antipodes of beautified exotic
• 2:50:35
  Speaker 1: drawing room existence. Labour is not beautiful in its aspect,
• 2:50:40
  Speaker 1: never has been beautiful. It is stern, rugged, difficult, presenting
• 2:50:46
  Speaker 1: no affinities with the refined and delicate influences of life
• 2:50:50
  Speaker 1: amongst the higher classes. And yet it is absolutely necessary
• 2:50:55
  Speaker 1: for the well being of the men belonging to both
• 2:50:58
  Speaker 1: that the two classes should be reckoned siled in their sympathies.
• 2:51:02
  Speaker 1: This is the grand social problem that has yet to
• 2:51:05
  Speaker 1: be solved. The men belonging to the mercantile and industrial
• 2:51:10
  Speaker 1: orders rise every morning with a definite task before them
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: for the day, work that imperatively requires to be done,
• 2:51:18
  Speaker 1: which takes their whole time and tasks their whole energies.
• 2:51:23
  Speaker 1: The whole time and energy is absorbed in the management
• 2:51:25
  Speaker 1: of concerns larger or smaller as the case may be,
• 2:51:29
  Speaker 1: but which often involve the well being of an immense
• 2:51:32
  Speaker 1: number of persons. The men employed by them as so
• 2:51:36
  Speaker 1: many machines. But the lowest porter in the establishment is
• 2:51:40
  Speaker 1: separated from the head of it only by the accident
• 2:51:43
  Speaker 1: of position, and by no inherence disability. If he have capacity,
• 2:51:48
  Speaker 1: he may attain anything. Masters and men form one large
• 2:51:53
  Speaker 1: class together. But there is yet a class who are
• 2:51:56
  Speaker 1: virtually a lower order still below that we have named.
• 2:52:01
  Speaker 1: They are becoming every day of more importance, because they
• 2:52:04
  Speaker 1: are every day growing more aware of their own individuality
• 2:52:08
  Speaker 1: and feel less reverence for those above them. They are
• 2:52:11
  Speaker 1: linked with the wealth and civilization of the country, though
• 2:52:15
  Speaker 1: they themselves are neither wealthy nor civilized. They are the
• 2:52:19
  Speaker 1: people who benefit the least by their emancipation from serfdom.
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 1: They have the full right to manage themselves and their
• 2:52:26
  Speaker 1: own affairs, but they have neither the wisdom nor the
• 2:52:30
  Speaker 1: means of guiding themselves. They are half children, half savages,
• 2:52:35
  Speaker 1: helpless and ignorance. They are rude, brutal, steeped in misery
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: to the very lips. They have no love nor sympathy
• 2:52:44
  Speaker 1: with those above them. Their wisdom is of the kind
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: designated by Saint James as earthly, sensual devilish. It is
• 2:52:53
  Speaker 1: a vulpine, egoistic fear of being taken in. In good times,
• 2:52:58
  Speaker 1: when all goes smoothly and trade prospers, there is little
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 1: danger from them. They are not incited to discontent, but
• 2:53:07
  Speaker 1: an outbreak from the mass lying at the very bottom
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 1: of society would be very terrible and fatal to all
• 2:53:13
  Speaker 1: who have established any stake for themselves in the world.
• 2:53:18
  Speaker 1: They are altogether unfit and unable to guide themselves, and
• 2:53:22
  Speaker 1: are capable of being very dangerous under any extraordinary pressure
• 2:53:26
  Speaker 1: or excitement. At first sight, one would be tempted to
• 2:53:30
  Speaker 1: consider a mild slavery to enlighten masters the most compendious
• 2:53:35
  Speaker 1: way of providing for this semirational mass, so that they
• 2:53:39
  Speaker 1: might be taken care of and provided for like domestic animals,
• 2:53:43
  Speaker 1: and redeemed from their sordid misery to a life of
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: reasonable comfort. That is not the solution of the difficulty,
• 2:53:51
  Speaker 1: nor the manner in which any class would be justified
• 2:53:54
  Speaker 1: in dealing with a social problem, the task is far
• 2:53:57
  Speaker 1: more difficult. They must be taught and educated and civilized.
• 2:54:03
  Speaker 1: Ready made animal comforts provided for men without any thought
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 1: or foresight of their own enervates them, destroys the root
• 2:54:11
  Speaker 1: of all energy and manliness within them, degrades them to
• 2:54:15
  Speaker 1: the rank of cattle. But though those above them are
• 2:54:19
  Speaker 1: not bound to conduct their worldly affairs for them, they
• 2:54:22
  Speaker 1: are bound to see that they have instruction and means
• 2:54:25
  Speaker 1: of acquiring the necessary practical skill for themselves. What is
• 2:54:30
  Speaker 1: everybody's business is nobody's business, says the proverb. And what
• 2:54:35
  Speaker 1: is left to the optional and voluntary efforts of those
• 2:54:38
  Speaker 1: who may feel their conscience moved will not be adequately done.
• 2:54:43
  Speaker 1: To civilize a mass like the lowest orders in this
• 2:54:46
  Speaker 1: country requires a well digested and imperative system. To educate
• 2:54:51
  Speaker 1: and civilize an entire class effectively, to raise them to
• 2:54:55
  Speaker 1: the rank of rational beings cannot be done by the
• 2:54:58
  Speaker 1: efforts of amateur benevolence, and never will get done by
• 2:55:02
  Speaker 1: those means. A government ought to be the focus of
• 2:55:06
  Speaker 1: the enlightenment and wisdom of a country. It has the
• 2:55:09
  Speaker 1: unlimited command of all needful means for the best mode
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: of instructing and civilizing those who have no means of
• 2:55:16
  Speaker 1: getting instruction for themselves, who are too brutishly ignorant to
• 2:55:21
  Speaker 1: know whether there be such a thing as education. However desirable,
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: it may be that the other classes should cooperate for
• 2:55:28
  Speaker 1: the benefit of their ignorant brethren. Still, the responsibility of
• 2:55:33
  Speaker 1: seeing that the work is done rests entirely on a government,
• 2:55:37
  Speaker 1: and no theory can transfer the burthen to others. No
• 2:55:41
  Speaker 1: voluntary undertaking can ever be made imperative, and in a
• 2:55:46
  Speaker 1: case of such supreme importance, optional goodwill and efforts are
• 2:55:50
  Speaker 1: not adequate to the work in hand. We are not
• 2:55:55
  Speaker 1: going to set up a theory of education on the
• 2:55:58
  Speaker 1: best mode of civilizing the lower orders. Education and civilization
• 2:56:03
  Speaker 1: are sciences which require patient sagacity to work out into practice.
• 2:56:09
  Speaker 1: But one thing is certain that something more solid and
• 2:56:12
  Speaker 1: systematic than lectures and lyceums is required for the great
• 2:56:16
  Speaker 1: work of civilizing the mass of our lower orders and
• 2:56:20
  Speaker 1: making them rational, well regulated members of the community. Missionaries
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 1: able to teach and lead those rude, half savage, and
• 2:56:29
  Speaker 1: wholly ignorant beings, full of a spirit of love and
• 2:56:32
  Speaker 1: wisdom and a sound mind, are wanted for this work.
• 2:56:37
  Speaker 1: Mere schoolmasters and schoolmistresses are not equal to the task.
• 2:56:42
  Speaker 1: More is required energy and zeal, and a passionate yearning
• 2:56:45
  Speaker 1: love for the multitude ready to perish, and a disposition
• 2:56:50
  Speaker 1: to spend and be spent, to dedicate all their powers
• 2:56:54
  Speaker 1: to redeem the souls of these outcasts dwelling in misery.
• 2:56:59
  Speaker 1: Who is Sophie for these things? Who will arise amongst
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: us and offer themselves for this work? Let the government,
• 2:57:09
  Speaker 1: let the people join together. There is enough to task
• 2:57:12
  Speaker 1: the power of both. They are not separate powers. They
• 2:57:16
  Speaker 1: are one, and they are wishing to bring in amongst
• 2:57:19
  Speaker 1: them those yet lying desolate and forlorn on the outskirts
• 2:57:23
  Speaker 1: of humanity. End of the Civilization of the Lower Orders
• 2:57:29
  Speaker 1: by Geraldine Jewsbury, end of Part seven. End of Geraldine
• 2:57:34
  Speaker 1: Jewsbury in Gerald's Shilling Magazine, eighteen forty six to eighteen
• 2:57:39
  Speaker 1: forty seven, read by Phil Benson in Sydney, Australia,