Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-06-08
dQOrfcster Daily Spp.
From Bcntley's London) Miscellany.
OF OLD MAIDS.

About the time that Miss Bronte was nego.
tiatlnS with some London publishers for the
production of Poems by Currer, Ellis. and
Acton Bell then unknown names QS46)-
we find in a letter of hers to Miss Wooler. her
Old schoomlstress at Roe Head, an expression
OF her pleasure at knowing, in Miss Wooler's
own instance, that "a lone woman" can be
happy, as well as cherished wives and proud
mothers. Il am glad of that | speculate
much on the existence of unmarried and ney-
er-to-be-married women now -a-days and
have already got to the point of considering
that there is no more respectable character on
earth than an unmarried woman, who makes
her own way through life, quietly, persever-
lngly, without support of husband or brother
ana who, having attained the age of forty-five
or upwards, retains in her possession a we'll
regulated mind, disposition to enjoy simple
pleasures, and tortitude to support inevitable
pains, sympathy with the sufferings of Others
and Willingness to relieve want as far as her
means extend"
We have already seen the imper sonation she
eventually sketched of such a character in one
Of the old maids in Shirley" But the same
story contains ample evidence of the struggles
and searchings of heart which this vexed 0ues
ton cost the still minated writer Caroline
Helstone is made to pine, with blank misgiv-
lngs and obstinate questionings, as she calcu-
lated her chances of becoming an old maid
and asks herself: "What was l created for |
wonder where is my place in the world
All, she sees presently, that is the question
which old maids are puzzled to solve other
people solve it for them by saying "Your
place is to do good to others, to be helpful
whenever help is wanted" That is right in
some measure, she reflects, and very conve-
nient doctrine for the people who hold it; but
she perceives that certain sets of human be-
ings are very apt to maintain that other sets
should give up their lives to them and their
service, and then they requite them by praise
they call them devoted and virtuous els
this enougha Is it to live? Is there not
terrible hollowness, mockery, want craving
In that existence which is given Az ay to 9TH
ers, for want of something of your own to be-
stow it on? | suspect there is"
And, later we are told that Caroline felt
with pain that the life 1--WE have seen what that
was) which made Miss Ainley happy could
not make her happy; pure and active as it was,
IN her heart she deemed it deeply dreary be-
cause it was so loveless-to her ideas, SO for
lorn. And still LATER disquisition ensues
on the social status of single women in
England, and the authors belief that they
should have more to do-better chances of
interesting and profitable occupation than they
possess now. She complains, for example,
that while the brothers in certain households
she names are in business or in professions,
their sisters have no earthly employment but
stitching and sewing; no earthly pleasure, but
an Improbable visiting; and no hope, in all
their life to come, of anything better. "This
stagnant state of things makes them decline in
health; they are never well and their minds
and views shrink to wondrous narrowness'
The great wish, she contnues-the sole aim of
every one of them is to be married, but the
majority will never marry-they will die as
they now live. They scheme, they plot, they
dress to ensnare husbands. The gentlemen
turn them into ridicule they don't want
them; they hold them very cheap they say
"the matrimonial market is overstocked"
And then anon comes this apostrophe-
Men of England (America y look at our poor
girls, many of them fading around you, drop
ping eff in consumption or decline; or, what is
worse, degenerating to sour old maids-envi-
Gus, backbiting, wretched, because life is
desert to them; or, what is worse Of all, re-
duced to strive, by scarcely modest coquetry
and debasing artifce, to gain that position and
consideration by marriage which to celibacy is
denied. Currer Bell at least spoke that she
knew, and testified that which she had seen"