The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1884-07-02
WOMEN AS NCSVELIsTs.
What n Scotch Reviewer Has to Say
About Them.

The number of women who take tC
woodworking is noteworthy, though il
/ is not very difficult to understand it,
says the Edinburgh ReDiec. Many wo-
men are naturally bright and clever;
they have great deal of spare time
upon their hands, they want oecupa-
ton and possibly IN income. The pro-
LESSONS are closed to them, for as yet
female medical practitioners are the
exception; sanctuary is denied them in
the churches, and, in spite of an illus
trious Venetian precedent, there are no
| Portals at the English bar. But there
have been Miss Austens and George
Eliots, and there is still Mrs. Oliphant;
| and there seems to be no absolute rea-
son why other ladies should not have
similar success. Should they have read
the books of q generation or two back,
which is doubtful. they will remember
how the "lHtle Burney" wrote novel
which Burke sat up MI night to deVour
and on which johnson bestowed an
exaggerated laudation. Possibly they
may reproduce an experience of the
sort in. their own lives; ut all events
they may do well even il they fall con-
siderably short of it. With the small
est amount of intelligence they must
know that the public to-day is far from
fastidious Now. we admit that an
experienced female novelist has certain
advantages over the rougher sex. Wo-
men have finer fancies than men, and
are unconseioGsly interested in some
vague analysis Of tho emotions. Love
and marriage is what they look for
ward to, and a bright and warm-heart-
ed girl from her nursery and school,
room DAYS has been building herself
castles in the air. and peopling them
with possible tenants. She has made
herself the heroine of hundreds of tales
of the heart, and she has figured in in
Vulnerable imaginable roles. So far
she starts with 3 certain stock in trade,
but her ideas are limited in the first
place and theoretical in the second.
What she writes may be clever, and
even curi0ns, rs an unconscious reYela-
ton. but 1t Is almost certain to be I'M
real. For, on the other hand, and it is
happy for her, the girl ought to know
little of the world beyond her home.
She has not even had the rough and
communicating experience of the school
boy; she has not been seat to the uni
yersity, nor has she served an appren-
ticeship in the mess-room; she has
never travelled except under matron's |
wing. nor does she even know rs much |
Of business or practical life as the |
youngest clerk in an attorneys Office.
What subjects, then, can she possibly /
choose when she decides to present her /
seniors with a series of imaginative or
idealizsd pictures? Only two courses
are open TO her. Either she lunches
put in 4 world of which she knows as
little as the early explorers knew 0f f
central Africa before Europeans had {
struck into the dark continent, or she
writes on the subject to which she has
yiFen thought though the thinking has
necessarily been purely speculative.
Any attempt she may make in the
ormer line may be summarilY dis
missed as absurd and extravaganf, unr
esss indeed, she has the Trollope ike
instinct Of the Imagination which turns
much that d fanciful into the SEM
lance Of truth, while In the other and
he more profitable case, we come on
ne Of the springs Of that perennial
0w q the stories which seem harder
eading than dictionaries or blue