An Essay on Needle-work.
1814.--Æt. 50.
Towards the end of 1814 Crabb Robinson called on Mary Lamb and found
her suffering from great fatigue after writing an article on
needle-work for the _British Lady's Magazine_, which was just about to
start on a higher basis than its predecessors. It undertook to provide
something better than the usual fashion plates, silly tales and
sillier verses then generally thought suitable for women; and, to
judge by the early numbers, the editor kept the promise of his
introductory address and deserved a longer lease of life for his
magazine than it obtained.
Mary's little essay appeared in the number for April 1815; and is on
many accounts interesting. It contains several autobiographic touches;
it is the only known instance in which she has addressed herself to
full-grown readers, and it is sagacious and far-seeing. For Mary does
not treat of needle-work as an art, but as a factor in social life.
She pleads both for the sake of the bodily welfare of the many
thousands of women who have to earn their bread by it, and of the
mental well-being of those who have not so to do, that it should be
regarded, like any other mechanical art, as a thing to be done for
hire; and that what a woman _does_ work at should be real work,
something, that is, which yields a return either of mental or of
pecuniary profit. She also exposes the fallacy of the time-honoured
maxim "a penny saved is a penny earned," by the ruthless logic of
experience. But the reader shall judge for himself; the _Magazine_ has
become so rare a book that I will here subjoin the little essay in
full:--
ON NEEDLE-WORK.
MR. EDITOR,
"In early life I passed eleven years in the exercise of my needle for
a livelihood. Will you allow me to address your readers, among whom
might perhaps be found some of the kind patronesses of my former
humble labours, on a subject widely connected with female life--the
state of needle-work in this country.
"To lighten the heavy burthen which many ladies impose upon themselves
is one object which I have in view; but, I confess, my strongest
motive is to excite attention towards the industrious sisterhood to
which I once belonged.
"From books I have been informed of the fact upon which _The British
Lady's Magazine_ chiefly founds its pretensions; namely, that women
have, of late, been rapidly advancing in intellectual improvement.
Much may have been gained in this way, indirectly, for that class of
females for whom I wish to plead. Needle-work and intellectual
improvement are naturally in a state of warfare. But I am afraid the
root of the evil has not, as yet, been struck at. Work-women of every
description were never in so much distress for want of employment.
"Among the present circle of my acquaintance I am proud to rank many
that may truly be called respectable; nor do the female part of them
in their mental attainments at all disprove the prevailing opinion of
that intellectual progression which you have taken as the basis of
your work; yet I affirm that I know not a single family where there is
not some essential drawback to its comfort which may be traced to
needle-work _done at home_, as the phrase is for all needle-work
performed in a family by some of its own members, and for which no
remuneration in money is received or expected.
"In money alone, did I say? I would appeal to all the fair votaries of
voluntary housewifery whether, in the matter of conscience, any one of
them ever thought she had done as much needle-work as she ought to
have done. Even fancy-work, the fairest of the tribe! How delightful
the arrangement of her materials! The fixing upon her happiest
pattern, how pleasing an anxiety! How cheerful the commencement of the
labour she enjoys! But that lady must be a true lover of the art, and
so industrious a pursuer of a predetermined purpose, that it were pity
her energy should not have been directed to some wiser end, who can
affirm she neither feels weariness during the execution of a fancy
piece, nor takes more time than she had calculated for the performance.
"Is it too bold an attempt to persuade your readers that it would
prove an incalculable addition to general happiness and the domestic
comfort of both sexes, if needle-work were never practised but for a
remuneration in money? As nearly, however, as this desirable thing can
be effected, so much more nearly will woman be upon an equality with
men as far as respects the mere enjoyment of life. As far as that
goes, I believe it is every woman's opinion that the condition of men
is far superior to her own.
"'They can do what they like,' we say. Do not these words generally
mean they have time to seek out whatever amusements suit their tastes?
We dare not tell them we have no time to do this; for if they should
ask in what manner we dispose of our time we should blush to enter
upon a detail of the minutiæ which compose the sum of a woman's daily
employment. Nay, many a lady who allows not herself one quarter of an
hour's positive leisure during her waking hours, considers her own
husband as the most industrious of men if he steadily pursue his
occupation till the hour of dinner, and will be perpetually lamenting
her own idleness.
"_Real business_ and _real leisure_ make up the portions of men's
time:--two sources of happiness which we certainly partake of in a
very inferior degree. To the execution of employments in which the
faculties of the body or mind are called into busy action there must
be a consoling importance attached, which feminine duties (that
generic term for all our business) cannot aspire to.
"In the most meritorious discharges of those duties the highest praise
we can aim at is to be accounted the helpmates of _man_; who, in
return for all he does for us, expects, and justly expects, us to do
all in our power to soften and sweeten life.
"In how many ways is a good woman employed in thought or action
through the day that her _good man_ may be enabled to feel his leisure
hours _real_, _substantial holiday_ and perfect respite from the cares
of business! Not the least part to be done to accomplish this end is
to fit herself to become a conversational companion; that is to say,
she has to study and understand the subjects on which he loves to
talk. This part of our duty, if strictly performed, will be found by
far our hardest part. The disadvantages we labour under from an
education differing from a manly one make the hours in which we _sit
and do nothing_ in men's company too often anything but a relaxation;
although as to pleasure and instruction time so passed may be esteemed
more or less delightful.
"To make a man's home so desirable a place as to preclude his having a
wish to pass his leisure hours at any fireside in preference to his
own, I should humbly take to be the sum and substance of woman's
domestic ambition. I would appeal to our British ladies, who are
generally allowed to be the most jealous and successful of all women
in the pursuit of this object, I would appeal to them who have been
most successful in the performance of this laudable service, in behalf
of father, son, husband or brother, whether an anxious desire to
perform this duty well is not attended with enough of _mental_
exertion, at least, to incline them to the opinion that women may be
more properly ranked among the contributors to than the partakers of
the undisturbed relaxation of men.
"If a family be so well ordered that the master is never called in to
its direction, and yet he perceives comfort and economy well attended
to, the mistress of that family (especially if children form a part of
it), has, I apprehend, as large a share of womanly employment as ought
to satisfy her own sense of duty; even though the needle-book and
thread-case were quite laid aside, and she cheerfully contributed her
part to the slender gains of the corset-maker, the milliner, the
dress-maker, the plain worker, the embroidress and all the numerous
classifications of females supporting themselves by _needle-work_,
that great staple commodity which is alone appropriated to the
self-supporting part of our sex.
"Much has been said and written on the subject of men engrossing to
themselves every occupation and calling. After many years of
observation and reflection I am obliged to acquiesce in the notion
that it cannot well be ordered otherwise.
"If, at the birth of girls, it were possible to foresee in what cases
it would be their fortune to pass a single life, we should soon find
trades wrested from their present occupiers and transferred to the
exclusive possession of our sex. The whole mechanical business of
copying writings in the law department, for instance, might very soon
be transferred with advantage to the poorer sort of women, who, with
very little teaching, would soon beat their rivals of the other sex in
facility and neatness. The parents of female children who were known
to be destined from their birth to maintain themselves through the
whole course of their lives with like certainty as their sons are,
would feel it a duty incumbent on themselves to strengthen the minds,
and even the bodily constitutions, of their girls so circumstanced, by
an education which, without affronting the preconceived habits of
society, might enable them to follow some occupation now considered
above the capacity, or too robust for the constitution of our sex.
Plenty of resources would then lie open for single women to obtain an
independent livelihood, when every parent would be upon the alert to
encroach upon some employment, now engrossed by men, for such of their
daughters as would then be exactly in the same predicament as their
sons now are. Who, for instance, would lay by money to set up his sons
in trade, give premiums and in part maintain them through a long
apprenticeship; or, which men of moderate incomes frequently do,
strain every nerve in order to bring them up to a learned profession;
if it were in a very high degree probable that, by the time they were
twenty years of age, they would be taken from this trade or
profession, and maintained during the remainder of their lives by the
_person whom they should marry_. Yet this is precisely the situation
in which every parent whose income does not very much exceed the
moderate, is placed with respect to his daughters.
"Even where boys have gone through a laborious education, superinducing
habits of steady attention accompanied with the entire conviction that
the business which they learn is to be the source of their future
distinction, may it not be affirmed that the persevering industry
required to accomplish this desirable end causes many a hard struggle
in the minds of young men, even of the most hopeful disposition? What,
then, must be the disadvantages under which a very young woman is
placed who is required to learn a trade, from which she can never
expect to reap any profit, but at the expense of losing that place in
society to the possession of which she may reasonably look forward,
inasmuch as it is by far the most _common lot_, namely, the condition
of a _happy_ English wife?
"As I desire to offer nothing to the consideration of your readers but
what, at least as far as my own observation goes, I consider as truths
confirmed by experience, I will only say that, were I to follow the
bent of my own speculative opinion, I should be inclined to persuade
every female over whom I hoped to have any influence to contribute all
the assistance in her power to those of her own sex who may need it,
in the employments they at present occupy, rather than to force them
into situations now filled wholly by men. With the mere exception of
the profits which they have a right to derive by their needle, I would
take nothing from the industry of man which he already possesses.
"'A penny saved is a penny earned,' is a maxim not true unless the
penny be saved in the same time in which it might have been earned. I,
who have known what it is to work for _money earned_, have since had
much experience in working for _money saved_; and I consider, from the
closest calculation I can make, that a _penny saved_ in that way bears
about a true proportion to a _farthing earned_. I am no advocate for
women who do not depend on themselves for subsistence, proposing to
themselves to _earn money_. My reasons for thinking it not advisable
are too numerous to state--reasons deduced from authentic facts and
strict observations on domestic life in its various shades of comfort.
But if the females of a family _nominally_ supported by the other sex
find it necessary to add something to the common stock, why not
endeavour to do something by which they may produce money _in its true
shape_?
"It would be an excellent plan, attended with very little trouble, to
calculate every evening how much money has been saved by needle-work
_done in the family_, and compare the result with the daily portion of
the yearly income. Nor would it be amiss to make a memorandum of the
time passed in this way, adding also a guess as to what share it has
taken up in the thoughts and conversation. This would be an easy mode
of forming a true notion and getting at the exact worth of this species
of _home_ industry, and perhaps might place it in a different light
from any in which it has hitherto been the fashion to consider it.
"Needle-work taken up as an amusement may not be altogether unamusing.
We are all pretty good judges of what entertains ourselves, but it is
not so easy to pronounce upon what may contribute to the entertainment
of others. At all events, let us not confuse the motives of economy
with those of simple pastime. If _saving_ be no object, and long habit
have rendered needle-work so delightful an avocation that we cannot
think of relinquishing it, there are the good old contrivances in which
our grand-dames were wont to beguile and lose their time--knitting,
knotting netting, carpet-work, and the like ingenious pursuits--those
so often praised but tedious works which are so long in the operation
that purchasing the labour has seldom been thought good economy. Yet,
by a certain fascination, they have been found to chain down the great
to a self-imposed slavery, from which they considerately or haughtily
excused the needy. These may be esteemed lawful and lady-like
amusements. But, if those works more usually denominated useful yield
greater satisfaction, it might be a laudable scruple of conscience,
and no bad test to herself of her own motive, if a lady who had no
absolute need were to give the money so saved to poor needle-women
belonging to those branches of employment from which she has borrowed
these shares of pleasurable labour.
SEMPRONIA."
Had Mary lived now she would, perhaps, have spoken a wiser word than
has yet been uttered on the urgent question of how best to develop,
strengthen, give free and fair scope to that large part of a woman's
nature and field of action which are the same in kind as man's,
without detriment to the remaining qualities and duties peculiar to
her as woman. She told Crabb Robinson that "writing was a most painful
occupation, which only necessity could make her attempt; and that she
had been learning Latin merely to assist her in acquiring a correct
style." But there is no trace of feebleness or confusion in her manner
of grasping a subject; no want of Latin, nor of anything else to
improve her excellent style. She did enough to show that had her brain
not been devastated for weeks and latterly for months in every year by
an access of madness, she would have left, besides her tales for
children, some permanent addition to literature, or given a
recognisable impetus to thought. As it was, Mary relinquished all
attempt at literary work when an increase in Charles' income released
her from the duty of earning; and as her attacks became longer and
more frequent her "fingers grew nervously averse" even to
letter-writing.