CARLYLE ON WOMEN'S SPHERE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2417, 27 October 1892, Page 4

CARLYLE ON WOMEN'S SPHERE.

Good Words contains a very interesting contribution on " My Four Letters from Carlyle," signed "Blanche Atkinson." «orae thirty years ago the writer wrote" to the sage concerning a novel she was *Wgaged upon. In answer to her query as f-0 whether she should go on with it, Carlyle wrote: "In my great darkness as to the fair young Blanche's affairs, how can I advise ? I will say only : A young lady's chief duty and outlook is not to write novels (especially not while she is ' ignorant of the world,' and not even perhaps when she knows it too well!), but, by-and-by, to be a queen of a household, and to manage it queenlike and womanlike. Let her turn her wkole faculty and industry in that direction ; shove her own novel aside for a good while, or for ever ; and be shy of even reading novels. If she does read let it be good and wise books (more and more exclusively those), which not one in ten thousand of the kind called ' novels now is.' The "fairyoungßbnche" confesses to have shed a far mortified tears over this complete extinguishing of her hopes. She protested, however, against the notion that a girl's only outlook was to be towards marriage. Carlyle replied in a " lovely letter," enclosing his photograph; "I like this second letter better than the former: better news for me that you are faithfully teaching your aunt's school than writing novels. And, furthermore, I see in yon a spirit of proper maidenly pride, which is much to my mind ; ' Quit the noble ipride of thy heart never! ' (says itichter to one who has grown nobly unmarried),"

As between marriage and spinsterliooti to the end, here is Carlyle's summing up : " Not necessary to be married ; but it is necessary to live wisely and with dignity, to be true and useful, and to work well while it is called to-day ! In sum, therefore : Be a good, diligent, and prudent girl : summon up your own best judgment ; vigilantly exercise it, ' eyes well open, lips oftenest well shut;' it is your own judgment alone, and no other person's, that can wisely guide your steps: wisely select your objects, and your methods towards them." Should an unmarried woman be undomesticated ? No, emphatically no, says the sage : "married, or not married, surely it is always fit and comely that a woman do know domesticities to the bottom ? One expects to find it. of her, when need comes; as of a man, that he can resist when insulted." But if, after all this, a woman thought of taking to literature, then she should prepare for it: "Read, study, reflect; inquire far and near (perhaps in various countries or languages) : become acquainted with the great souls that have been—see if you have anything to add which is distinctly in their spirit; and if yes, do so." It may be remembered that Carlyle was himself guilty of at least beginning to write a novel.