or avocations, or by what delinquency of duty the tedious hours are
cheated, is not revealed to any male philosopher; but he is a poor
observer who does not recognise something unnatural in this one-sided
life. A few miles away the loud Niagara of London runs swift, and the
air vibrates with all the tumult of the strenuous life of man; but here
the air is dead, unwinnowed by any clamorous wind, unshaken by any
planetary motion. I cannot think this narrow separated life good for
woman, and I am surprised that in these days when woman claims equal
privilege with man, she will submit to it. In the act of getting a
living she also suffers, and loses something of the power to live. If
the distraction of the city hurts the man she is not less injured by
the torpor of the suburb. Let a woman be never so intelligent and
keenly wrought, a suburb will soon enfeeble her, and take the fine edge
off her spirit. Left to the sole society of nursemaids and cooks in
her own house for many hours a day; to the companionship of women
outside her house, whose conversation is mainly gossip about household
difficulties; to the tame diversions of shopping at the nearest
emporium; what power of interest in the larger things of life can be
expected of her? The suburb is her cloister, and she the dedicated
bride of littleness.

This seems a hard saying, but it can easily be verified by observation.
I have myself known women, rich enough to keep a carriage, who had
never been so far as Hyde Park, never visited the National Gallery, and
never sought any finer music than could be furnished by a local
concert. For them, London as an entity did not exist. This
parochialism of suburban life is its most surprising feature. There is
after all some excuse for Mr. Grant Allen's description of London as an
aggregation of villages, when we find that so vast a number of
Londoners really live the life of villagers. But it is not patriotism