IDLE LADIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4609, 29 December 1875, Page 3

IDLE LADIES.

(From the Liberal Review.) There are people who endorse lago's speech and say that women are born into the world to "suckle fools and chronicle small beer." The statement is naturally the reverse of pleasing to the feminine mind, and more than one attempt has been made to controvert it. Certain ladies have gone so far as to give it the lie direct, while others have shown that in one most important respect it can have no application to them. These latter, though they have condescended to bring children into the world, have most flatly declined to bear the odium which the suckling of the brats would entail upon them, so it may honestly be said that they have in this direction at least set the obnoxious axiom at defiance. That these mighty creatures, however, and a number of their sisterhood, have yet brought themselves to discontinue the chronicling of small beer, is by no means certain. Still, though this is so, it must be admitted that many ladies have shown an earnest desire to demonstrate the fact that if they do chronicle small beer they only do so because they find it utterly impossible to liv« without doing something, even though their whole inclination is to do nothing. Besides, they gossip because it is a pleasure, not because it is a duty. If it were a duty, they would no doubt scorn to have anything to do with it, for they seem inclined to think that only common people ou"ht to do disagreeable or irksome things in order that they may live. They themselves, they imagine, are elevated far above the sphere of degrading labor. As a matter of fact, provided that they keep themselves in good health an 1 spirits, they are more than satisfied. Unfortunately, however, they are often unsuccessful in their attempts to do this. The poor things possess such sensitive and delicate organisations that, notwithstanding that they live on the richest food and lie on the softest down, they are frequently—too frequently—in a state of complete exhaustion. In their fits of debility, which often at last become almost chronic, the misery which the performance of the most trifling offices entails upon them is painful to witness. Now and then an expedition into their own kitchens will utterly prostrate them, while when they are compelled to rise from their couches or chairs and ring a bell, the effort often proves too much for them. If you are in their confidence they will perhaps tell you how miserably weak they are, and they will expatiate upon the theme of how carefully they have to take care of themselves. Perhaps you may fail to see that anything is the matter with them, and mav "o so far as to hint if they stirred themselves up a little they would feel a great deal better than they do. But if you speak thus you must expect to be set down as an ignoramus and an ill-feeling wretch. That you have been proved guilty of having made such a horrible suggestion will be regarded as proof positive that you have but a scanty knowledge of the higher orders of human beings. The lower order consists of those persons who live '■■ in a hand-to-mouth fashion and sleep on hard mattresses ; who rise from their beds at untimely hours in the morning, work energetically all day, and never ride when they are able to walk ; and who are never supposed to be, or expected to be, ill. This order, of course, includes all coarse, common creatures, whose lack of fine sentiments and fine feelings is compensated for by their ability to endure sustained and arduous labor. The higher order is made up of quite a different sort of human beings, it consisting of people who eat good meat and drink good wine ; of people who sleep buried amidst feathers and never think of rising early ; of people who are perfectly assured that hard work would kill them; of people who seldom use their legs when they can ride; and of people who are constantly troubled wioh headaches and are never persuaded that they require change of air and scene. Yet these people, probably appreciating the plausibleness of the theory that if oue person declines or is unable to work an another person must work two, feel that it is* quite right that an ill-fed milliner or factory operative should labor unceasingly. At the same time, if you venture to hint to them that they, who are well fed, ought to be able to do as much as the ill-fed milliner or factory operative, they will regard you with surprised horror, and you will learn that you do not understand them. Many a lady would regard the proposition that she ought to be able to do as much as her housemaid as preposterous, while she would consider something more *than ridiculous if it were suggested that she should be able to stand the buffetings of wind and rain as well as can an ill-clad charwoman. Indeed, if she were a well-regulated lady, she would consider it very hard that she should be brought into comparison with common people, who °are hardy and strong because from the dav of their birth they have been privileged to enjoy privation and toil. It is just possible that ladies who are pleased to doze away their existence will not like to be told that they will do well to rouse themselves from their present state, in which their bodies become enfeebled and their mind 3 cankered. They may not, also, be gratified upon learning that they may make themselves as the common people are in the respect of being able to endure fatigue. But it i 3 time things, and stripped of their ridiculous notion that they were made to understand these that their flesh and blood differs so much from other flesh and blood, and it is precious and delicate, that they require an extraordinary amount of coddling. Let them make an effort and throw off that weight of sloth which oppresses them and they will discover that they are not half so tender as they are at present pleased to think. The woman who, having children of her own, deputes them to the care of others while she lolls on a sofa and reads a novel, or talks scandal with her acquaintances, is not only shirking her responsibilities, and therefore degrading herself, but she is also laying the seeds of future suffering. Yet, there are a large number of ladies who never meddle much with their children except at stated times, and whose lives are simply one round of lolling, novel-reading, shopping, calling on acquaintances whom it would be an abuse of terms to designate a 3 friends, and eating that which, as they take little exercise, and do no honest work, does them more harm than »ood. Ennui, of course, is one of their most formidable foes when they are not battling with complaints which their peculiar habits have generated. Yet they might do what would dispel ennui as a summer's sun dispels a morning mist. They might take an active interest in their fellows ; they might use thenneedles to advantage ; they might have the management of their children and households in their own hands; they might walk when they now ride ; in a word, there are a hundred things which they might do, and_ so prevent themselves from becoming puffy and bloated caricatures of humanity.