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. Needlework 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 needlework 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
minutiae 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 |eel 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.
SBMPRONIA.
"
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 any thing 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.
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