Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-10-04
EARLY WOMAN'S WORK.
Deep-Roo:ed Prejudice Against an Ell
larged Field of Occupation.

Deep-Roo:ed Prejudice Against an En-
larged Field of Occupation.
Although Frances Burney, Joanna
Baillie, Maria Edgeworth and Hannah
More enjoyed in the eighteenth century
an honorable position in the cultured
circles of society. the authoress was
held in general discredit as adopting a
vocation not only at variance with the
due discharge of feminine duties, but
incompatible with the modesty that
should ever be the distinguishing at
tribute of her sex. The blue stocking
was deemed an abnormal creation of a
corrupt society-a fungus excrescence
nourished by decay. The publicity of
authorship must inevitably destroy
that sensitive delicacy of the feminine
character, which was its especial charm
A due performance of the wife and
mothers duty was irreconcilable with
the essentially masculine function of
writing books. A woman should find
within the sphere of domestic life full
scope for the exercise of any talent she
might possess. Monk Lewis, the au-
thor of a popular romance, reproved
his mother, early in this century, for
attempting to write tale, and with
that uncompromising frankness of ex-
preston which characterizes near
relatives rebukes, he informed her
that she had no business to
be a public character, and that
female author became that con-
temptible thing, "a sort of half man. :"
The memoirs of Jane Austen show that
she braved the public opinion of the day
in publishing her well-known works, but
though personally that seems to have
given her little concern, yet to please
her family she had always handker-
chief at hand to conceal from view the
writings on which she might be en-
gagged when visitors were announced.
Miss Martineau details early expert
ences of Il somewhat similar character,
and it was not until her twenty-seventh
year, when forced by circumstances to
attain the means of self-support, that
she ceased to take precautions to keep
her vocation secret from the world.
But no lady writer suffered so severely
as Mrs. Somerville from the public
opinion of those days, as her I'M
womanly love of mathematics i'm
mensely aggregated the guilt of her
infractiOn of the established code of
feminine propriety. Her afflicted rela-
tives adjured her to give up her dis
creditable studies, and not to bring
disgrace upon herself and family by in
diligence in such unwomanly pursuits.
The evils that feminine study of Eu-
cid were calculated to produce dis
quieted the clergy, and from the pull
pit in York Cathedral Mrs. Somerville
was condemned as an offender against
the laws of God, as well as a transgres-
sor Of the accepted code of womanly
propriety. The highly gifted Caroline
Herschel, declared by the Astronomi-
cal Society in 1928 to have accomplished
awors probably unparalleled either in
magnitude or Importance in the annals
of astronomical labor" shared with
Mrs. Somerville in the discredit at
tached to feminine scientific studies.
Even her illustvious brother, imbued
apparently with the prejudices of the
day, seems throughout the long indefa-
tigable and loving service she rendered
him to have regarded and treated her
in the light of useful drudge. And
so little did her nephew, Sir John
Herschel, consider her entitled to any
mark ofpublic honor and respect, thas.
when the Astronomical Society re-
solved to present her with gold
medal for her discoveries of comets
and her catalogue of stars and nebul4,
he most unkindly wrote to his aged
aunt to say that he had ''strenuously
resisted" the resolution. The piteous
plant of her old age, that from the
earliest dawn of recollection, her life
had been one of sorrow, trouble and
disappointment" must evoke the
deepest sympathy, mingled with indig
nation at the social prejudice that had
embittered her laborious existence.
Since the day she died, now nearly
forty years ago. the English code of
feminine propriety has undergone a
notable change, and since the more
distant time when Mrs. Somerville
was condemned from the pulpit of
York Cathedral, the change in some
important respects amounts to revO-
luton WoBadn'S World.