CHAPTER V.


Ideala often recurred to the subject of work for women.

"There are so many thousands of us," she said, "who have no object in
life, and nothing to make us take it seriously. My own is a case in
point. I am not necessary, even to my husband. There is nothing I am
bound to do for him, or that he requires of me, nothing but to be
agreeable when he is with me, which would not interfere with a serious
occupation if I had one, and is scarcely interest enough in life for an
energetic woman. My household duties take, on an average, half an hour
a day; and everything in our house is done regularly, and well done. My
social duties may be got through at odd moments, and the more of a
pastime I make them the better I fulfil them; and, with the exception
of these, there is nothing in my life that I cannot have done for me by
some one better able to do it than I am. And even if I had children I
should not be much more occupied, for the things they ought to learn
from their mothers are best taught by example. For all practical
purposes, parents, as a rule, are bad masters for any but very young
children. They err on the side of over severity or the reverse. So you
see I have no obligations of consequence, and there is, therefore,
nothing in my life to inspire a sense of responsibility. And all this
seems to me a grievous waste of Me. I remember Lord Wensum telling me,
when we discussed this subject, that he was travelling once with a
well-known editor, and, noticing the number of villas that had sprung
up of late years along the whole line of rail they were on, he said: 'I
wonder what the ladies in those villas do with their time? I suppose