character--which must inevitably appear to a barber or a dentist as
stupidity, and to a successful haberdasher as downright imbecility--is
a character that men of the first class share with women of the first,
second and even third classes. There is at the bottom of it, in truth,
something unmistakably feminine; its appearance in a man is almost
invariably accompanied by the other touch of femaleness that I have
described. Nothing, indeed, could be plainer than the fact that
women, as a class, are sadly deficient in the small expertness of men
as a class. One seldom, if ever, hears of them succeeding in the
occupations which bring out such expertness most lavishly--for
example, tuning pianos, repairing clocks, practising law, (ie.,
matching petty tricks with some other lawyer), painting portraits,
keeping books, or managing factories--despite the circumstance that
the great majority of such occupations are well within their physical
powers, and that few of them offer any very formidable social
barriers to female entrance. There is no external reason why
women shouldn't succeed as operative surgeons; the way is wide
open, the rewards are large, and there is a special demand for them
on grounds of modesty. Nevertheless, not many women graduates
in medicine undertake surgery and it is rare for one of them to make
a success of it. There is, again, no external reason why women
should not prosper at the bar, or as editors of newspapers, or as
managers of the lesser sort of factories, or in the wholesale trade, or
as hotel-keepers. The taboos that stand in the way are of very small
force; various adventurous women have defied them with impunity;
once the door is entered there remains no special handicap within.
But, as every one knows, the number of women actually
practising these trades and professions is very small, and few of
them have attained to any distinction in competition with men.