was the reason she assigned for committing so dreadful a
deed,--discouragement at the never-ending routine of household labor,
and from feeling herself utterly unable to go on with it. This, with
care, want of recreation, and long confinement in-doors, had probably
caused temporary insanity.

The "never-endingness" of woman's work is something to be considered.
A wide-awake writer, speaking of husbands and wives, says, "The
out-door air, the stir, the change of ideas, the passing word for this
man or that, unconsciously refresh, and lift him from the cankering
care of work.... His work may be heavier, but it wears him on one side
only. He has his hours sacred to business to give to his brief, his
sermon, his shop. There is no drain on the rest of his faculties. She
has not a power of mind, a skill of body, which her daily life does
not draw upon. She asks nothing better of fate than that whatever
strength she has of body and mind shall be drained for her husband and
children. Now, this spirit of martyrdom is a very good thing when it
is necessary. For our part, we see no occasion for it here." This is
the point exactly. The "martyrdom," too often, is for objects not of
the highest importance. The lack of appreciation of woman's work, as
shown by man-kind in the newspapers, would be amusing, were it not
saddening. Articles, dictating with solemn pomposity "what every
married woman should be able to do," often appear in print, and these
embodiments of (masculine) wisdom editors are eager to copy. "Every
married woman should be able to cut and make her own, her husband's,
and her children's clothes." The husband reads,--aloud of course, this
time,--and nods approval. "To be sure, that would make a saving." The
wife hears, and sighs, and perhaps blames herself that on account of
her incapacity money is wasted. What the newspaper says must be true.
Perhaps by sitting up later, by getting up earlier, by hurrying more,