A+Castaway

= = ="A Castaway" by Augusta Webster =



Introduction
 "A Castaway" is a dramatic monologue in which a prostitute of the Victorian Age defends her vocation. Through her words, the reader is guided along the path that the woman in the poem walked during her fall into prostitution as she expounds on the conventionality and superficiality of her former life as well as the poor and limited options that had been available to her. As the poem moves along, the speaker defends her decision to engage in prostitution and offers rebuttals for actions that were commonly thrown at these women during this time. Important issues such as societal views of prostitution and attempts at reformation are also highlighted in the poem.

A Castaway
 POOR little diary, with its simple thoughts,  its good resolves, its "Studied French an hour,"  "Read Modern History," "Trimmed up my grey hat,"  "Darned stockings," "Tatted," "Practised my new song,"  "Went to the daily service," "Took Bess soup," 5  "Went out to tea." Poor simple diary!  and did //I// write it? Was I this good girl,  this budding colourless young rose of home?  did I so live content in such a life,  seeing no larger scope, nor asking it, 10  than this small constant round -- old clothes to mend,  new clothes to make, then go and say my prayers, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> or carry soup, or take a little walk <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and pick the ragged-robins in the hedge? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Then for ambition, (was there ever life 15 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that could forego that?) to improve my mind <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and know French better and sing harder songs; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for gaiety, to go, in my best white <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> well washed and starched and freshened with new bows, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and take tea out to meet the clergyman. 20 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> No wishes and no cares, almost no hopes, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> only the young girl's hazed and golden dreams <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that veil the Future from her.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> So long since: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and now it seems a jest to talk of me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> as if I could be one with her, of me 25 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who am. . . . . . me.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And what is that? My looking-glass <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> answers it passably; a woman sure, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> no fiend, no slimy thing out of the pools, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a woman with a ripe and smiling lip <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that has no venom in its touch I think, 30 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> with a white brow on which there is no brand; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a woman none dare call not beautiful, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> not womanly in every woman's grace.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Aye let me feed upon my beauty thus, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> be glad in it like painters when they see 35 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> at last the face they dreamed but could not find <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> look from their canvass on them, triumph in it, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the dearest thing I have. Why, 'tis my all, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> let me make much of it: is it not this, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> this beauty, my own curse at once and tool 40 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to snare men's souls -- (I know what the good say <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of beauty in such creatures) -- is it not this <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that makes me feel myself a woman still, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> some little pride, some little --

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Here's a jest! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what word will fit the sense but modesty? 45 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> A wanton I but modest!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Modest, true; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I'm not drunk in the streets, ply not for hire <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> at infamous corners with my likenesses <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of the humbler kind; yes, modesty's my word -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 'twould shape my mouth well too, I think I'll try: 50 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> "Sir, Mr What-you-will, Lord Who-knows-what, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my present lover or my next to come, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> value me at my worth, fill your purse full, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for I am modest; yes, and honour me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> as though your schoolgirl sister or your wife 55 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> could let her skirts brush mine or talk of me; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for I am modest."

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well, I flout myself: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but yet, but yet --

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Fie, poor fantastic fool, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> why do I play the hypocrite alone, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who am no hypocrite with others by? 60 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> where should be my "But yet"? I am that thing <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> called half a dozen dainty names, and none <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> dainty enough to serve the turn and hide <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the one coarse English worst that lurks beneath: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> just that, no worse, no better.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And, for me, 65 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I say let no one be above her trade; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I own my kindredship with any drab <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who sells herself as I, although she crouch <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> in fetid garrets and I have a home <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> all velvet and marqueterie and pastilles, 70 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> although she hide her skeleton in rags <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and I set fashions and wear cobweb lace: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the difference lies but in my choicer ware, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that I sell beauty and she ugliness; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> our traffic's one -- I'm no sweet slaver-tongue 75 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to gloze upon it and explain myself <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a sort of fractious angel misconceived -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> our traffic's one: I own it. And what then? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I know of worse that are called honourable. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Our lawyers, who, with noble eloquence 80 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and virtuous outbursts, lie to hang a man, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> or lie to save him, which way goes the fee: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> our preachers, gloating on your future hell <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for not believing what they doubt themselves: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> our doctors, who sort poisons out by chance 85 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and wonder how they'll answer, and grow rich: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> our journalists, whose business is to fib <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and juggle truths and falsehoods to and fro: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> our tradesmen, who must keep unspotted names <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and cheat the least like stealing that they can: 90 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> our -- all of them, the virtuous worthy men <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who feed on the world's follies, vices, wants, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and do their businesses of lies and shams <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> honestly, reputably, while the world <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> claps hands and cries "good luck," which of their trades, 95 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> their honourable trades, barefaced like mine, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> all secrets brazened out, would shew more white?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And whom do I hurt more than they? as much? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The wives? Poor fools, what do I take from them <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> worth crying for or keeping? If they knew 100 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what their fine husbands look like seen by eyes <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that may perceive there are more men than one! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> But, if they can, let them just take the pains <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to keep them: 'tis not such a mighty task <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to pin an idiot to your apron-string; 105 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and wives have an advantage over us, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> (the good and blind ones have), the smile or pout <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> leaves them no secret nausea at odd times. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh they could keep their husbands if they cared, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but 'tis an easier life to let them go, 110 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and whimper at it for morality.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh! those shrill carping virtues, safely housed <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> from reach of even a smile that should put red <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> on a decorous cheek, who rail at us <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> with such a spiteful scorn and rancourousness, 115 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> (which maybe is half envy at the heart), <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and boast themselves so measurelessly good <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and us so measurelessly unlike them, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what is their wondrous merit that they stay <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> in comfortable homes whence not a soul 120 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> has ever thought of tempting them, and wear <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> no kisses but a husband's upon lips <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> there is no other man desires to kiss -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> refrain in fact from sin impossible? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> How dare they hate us so? what have they done, 125 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what borne, to prove them other than we are? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> What right have they to scorn us -- glass-case saints, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Dianas under lock and key -- what right <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> more than the well-fed helpless barn-door fowl <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to scorn the larcenous wild-birds? 130

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Pshaw, let be! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Scorn or no scorn, what matter for their scorn? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I have outfaced my own -- that's harder work. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Aye let their virtuous malice dribble on -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> mock snowstorms on the stage -- I'm proof long since: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I have looked coolly on my what and why, 135 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and I accept myself.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh I'll endorse <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the shamefullest revilings mouthed at me, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> cry "True! Oh perfect picture! Yes, that's I!" <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and add a telling blackness here and there, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and then dare swear you, every nine of ten, 140 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my judges and accusers, I'd not change <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my conscience against yours, you who tread out <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> your devil's pilgrimage along the roads <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that take in church and chapel, and arrange <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a roundabout and decent way to hell. 145

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well, mine's a short way and a merry one: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> so says my pious hash of ohs and ahs, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> choice texts and choicer threats, appropriate names, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> (Rahabs and Jezebels), some fierce Tartuffe <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> hurled at me through the post. We had rare fun 150 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> over that tract digested with champagne. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Where is it? where's my rich repertory <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of insults biblical? ' //I prey on souls//' -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> only my men have oftenest none I think: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> '//I snare the simple ones//' -- but in these days 155 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> there seem to be none simple and none snared, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and most men have their favourite sinnings planned <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to do them civilly and sensibly: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> '//I braid my hair//' -- but braids are out of date: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> '//I paint my cheeks//' -- I always wear them pale: 160 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> '//I--//'

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Pshaw! the trash is savourless to-day: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> one cannot laugh alone. There, let it burn. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> What, does the windy dullard think one needs <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> his wisdom dove-tailed on to Solomon's, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> his threats out-threatening God's, to teach the news 165 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that those who need not sin have safer souls? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> We know it, but we've bodies to save too; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and so we earn our living.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well lit, tract! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> at least you've made me a good leaping blaze. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Up, up, how the flame shoots! and now 'tis dead. 170 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh proper finish, preaching to the last -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> no such bad omen either; sudden end, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and no sad withering horrible old age. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> How one would clutch at youth to hold it tight! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and then to know it gone, to see it gone, 175 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> be taught its absence by harsh careless looks, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to live forgotten, solitary, old -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the cruellest word that ever woman learns. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Old -- that's to be nothing, or to be at best <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a blurred memorial that in better days 180 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> there was a woman once with such a name. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> No, no, I could not bear it: death itself <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> shews kinder promise. . . . . . even death itself, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> since it must come one day --

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh this grey gloom! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> This rain, rain, rain, what wretched thoughts it brings! 185 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Death: I'll not think of it.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Will no one come? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 'Tis dreary work alone.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Why did I read <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that silly diary? Now, sing song, ding dong, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> come the old vexing echoes back again, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> church bells and nursery good-books, back again 190 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> upon my shrinking ears that had forgotten -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I hate the useless memories: 'tis fools' work <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> singing the hacknied dirge of 'better days:' <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> best take Now kindly, give the past good-bye, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> whether it were a better or a worse. 195

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Yes, yes, I listened to the echoes once, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the echoes and the thoughts from the old days. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The worse for me: I lost my richest friend, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and that was all the difference. For the world <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I would not have that flight known. How they'd roar: 200 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> "What! Eulalie, when she refused us all, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 'ill' and 'away,' was doing Magdalene, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> tears, ashes, and her Bible, and then off <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to hide her in a Refuge... for a week!"

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> A wild whim that, to fancy I could change 205 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my new self for my old, because I wished! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Since then, when in my languid days there comes <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that craving, like homesickness, to go back <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to the good days, the dear old stupid days, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to the quiet and the innocence, I know 210 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 'tis a sick fancy and try palliatives.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> What is it? You go back to the old home, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and 'tis not //your// home, has no place for you, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and, if it had, you could not fit you in it. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And could I fit me to my former self? 215 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> If I had had the wit, like some of us, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to sow my wild-oats into three per cents, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> could I not find me shelter in the peace <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of some far nook where none of them would come, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> nor whisper travel from this scurrilous world 220 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that gloats and moralizes thiough its leers <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to blast me with my fashionable shame? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> There I might -- oh my castle in the clouds! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and where's its rent? -- but there, were there a there, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I might again live the grave blameless life 225 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> among such simple pleasures, simple cares: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but could they be my pleasures, be my cares? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The blameless life, but never the content -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> never. How could I henceforth be content <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> in any life but one that sets the brain 230 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> in a hot merry fever with its stir? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what would there be in quiet rustic days, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> each like the other, full of time to think, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to keep one bold enough to live at all? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Quiet is hell, I say -- as if a woman 235 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> could bear to sit alone, quiet all day, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and loathe herself, and sicken on her thoughts.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> They tried it at the Refuge, and I failed: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I could not bear it. Dreary hideous room, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> coarse pittance, prison rules, one might bear these 240 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and keep one's purpose; but so much alone, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and then made faint and weak and fanciful <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> by change from pampering to half-famishing -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> good God, what thoughts come! Only one week more <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and 'twould have ended: but in one day more 245 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I must have killed myself. And I loathe death, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the dreadful foul corruption, with who knows <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what future after it.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well, I came back, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> back to my slough. Who says I had my choice? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Could I stay there to die of some mad death? 250 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and if I rambled out into the world, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> sinless but penniless, what else were that <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but slower death, slow pining shivering death <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> by misery and hunger? Choice! what choice <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of living well or ill? could I have that? 255 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And who would give it me? I think indeed <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> if some kind hand, a woman's -- I hate men -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> had stretched itself to help me to firm ground, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> taken a chance and risked my falling back, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I could have gone my way not falling back: 260 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but, let her be all brave, all charitable, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> how could she do it? Such a trifling boon, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a little work to live by, 'tis not much, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and I might have found will enough to last: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but where's the work? More sempstresses than shirts; 265 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and defter hands at white work than are mine <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> drop starved at last: dressmakers, milliners, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> too many too they say; and then their trades <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> need skill, apprenticeship. And who so bold <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> as hire me for their humblest drudgery? 270 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> not even for scullery slut; not even, I think, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for governess, although they'd get me cheap. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And after all it would be something hard, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> with the marts for decent women overfull, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> if I could elbow in and snatch a chance 275 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and oust some good girl so, who then perforce <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> must come and snatch her chance among our crowd.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Why, if the worthy men who think all's done <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> if we'll but come where we can hear them preach, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> could bring us all, or any half of us, 280 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> into their fold, teach all us wandering sheep, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> or only half of us, to stand in rows <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and baa them hymns and moral songs, good lack, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what would they do with us? what could they do? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Just think! with were't but half of us on hand 285 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to find work for... or husbands. Would they try <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to ship us to the colonies for wives?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well, well, I know the wise ones talk and talk: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> "Here's cause, here's cure:" "No, here it is and here:" <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and find society to blame, or law, 290 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the Church, the men, the women, too few schools, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> too many schools, too much, too little taught: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> somewhere or somehow someone is to blame: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but I say all the fault's with God himself <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who puts too many women in the world. 295 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> We ought to die off reasonably and leave <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> as many as the men want, none to waste. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Here's cause; the woman's superfluity: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and for the cure, why, if it were the law, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> say, every year, in due percentages, 300 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> balancing them with men as the times need, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to kill off female infants, 'twould make room; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and some of us would not have lost too much, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> losing life ere we know what it //can// mean.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The other day I saw a woman weep 305 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> beside her dead child's bed: the little thing <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> lay smiling, and the mother wailed half mad, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> shrieking to God to give it back again. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I could have laughed aloud: the little girl <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> living had but her mother's life to live; 310 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> there she lay smiling, and her mother wept <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to know her gone!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//My// mother would have wept.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh mother, mother, did you ever dream, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> you good grave simple mother, you pure soul <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> no evil could come nigh, did you once dream 315 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> in all your dying cares for your lone girl <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> left to fight out her fortune all alone <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that there would be //this// danger? -- for //your// girl, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> taught by you, lapped in a sweet ignorance, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> scarcely more wise of what things sin could be 320 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> than some young child a summer six months old, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> where in the north the summer makes a day, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of what is darkness... darkness that will come <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to-morrow suddenly. Thank God at least <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for this much of my life, that when you died, 325 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that when you kissed me dying, not a thought <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of this made sorrow for you, that I too <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> was pure of even fear.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh yes, I thought, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> still new in my insipid treadmill life, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> (my father so late dead), and hopeful still 330 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> there might be something pleasant somewhere in it, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> some sudden fairy come, no doubt, to turn <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my pumpkin to a chariot, I thought then <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that I might plod, and plod, and drum the sounds <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of useless facts into unwilling ears, 335 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> tease children with dull questions half the day, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> then con dull answers in my room at night <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> ready for next day's questions, mend quill pens <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and cut my fingers, add up sums done wrong <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and never get them right; teach, teach, and teach -- 340 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what I half knew, or not at all -- teach, teach <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for years, a lifetime -- //I//!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And yet, who knows? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> it might have been, for I was patient once, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and willing, and meant well; it might have been <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> had I but still clung on in my first place -- 345 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a safe dull place, where mostly there were smiles <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but never merry-makings; where all days <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> jogged on sedately busy, with no haste; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> where all seemed measured out, but margins broad: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a dull home but a peaceful, where I felt 350 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my pupils would be dear young sisters soon, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and felt their mother take me to her heart, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> motherly to all lonely harmless things. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> But I must have a conscience, must blurt out <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my great discovery of my ignorance! 355 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And who required it of me? And who gained? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> What did it matter for a more or less <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the girls learnt in their schoolbooks, to forget <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> in their first season? We did well together: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> they loved me and I them: but I went off 360 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to housemaid's pay, six crossgrained brats to teach, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> wrangles and jangles, doubts, disgrace... then this; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and they had a perfection found for them, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who has all ladies' learning in her head <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> abridged and scheduled, speaks five languages, 365 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> knows botany and conchology and globes, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> draws, paints, plays, sings, embroiders, teaches all <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> on a patent method never known to fail: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and now they're finished and, I hear, poor things, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> are the worst dancers and worst dressers out. 370 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And where's their profit of those prison years <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> all gone to make them wise in lesson books? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who wants his wife to know weeds' Latin names? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who ever chose a girl for saying dates? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> or asked if she had learned to trace a map? 375

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well, well, the silly rules this silly world <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> makes about women! This is one of them. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Why must there be pretence of teaching them <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what no one ever cares that they should know, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what, grown out of the schoolroom, they cast off 380 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> like the schoolroom pinafore, no better fit <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for any use of real grown-up life, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for any use to her who seeks or waits <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the husband and the home, for any use, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for any shallowest pretence of use, 385 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to her who has them? Do I not know this, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I like my betters, that a woman's life, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> her natural life, her good life, her one life, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> is in her husband, God on earth to her, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and what she knows and what she can and is 390 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> is only good as it brings good to him?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh God, do I not know it? I the thing <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of shame and rottenness, the animal <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that feed men's lusts and prey on them, I, I, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who should not dare to take the name of wife 395 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> on my polluted lips, who in the word <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> hear but my own reviling, I know that. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I could have lived by that rule, how content: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my pleasure to make him some pleasure, pride <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to be as he would have me, duty, care, 400 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to fit all to his taste, rule my small sphere <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to his intention; then to lean on him, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> be guided, tutored, loved -- no not that word, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that //loved// which between men and women means <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> all selfishness, all putrid talk, all lust, 405 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> all vanity, all idiocy -- not loved <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but cared for. I've been loved myself, I think, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> some once or twice since my poor mother died, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but //cared// for, never: -- that a word for homes, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> kind homes, good homes, where simple children come 410 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and ask their mother is this right or wrong, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> because they know she's perfect, cannot err; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> their father told them so, and he knows all, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> being so wise and good and wonderful, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> even enough to scold even her at times 415 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and tell her everything she does not know. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Ah the sweet nursery logic!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Fool! thrice fool! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> do I hanker after that too? Fancy me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> infallible nursery saint, live code of law! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> me preaching! teaching innocence to be good! -- 420 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a mother!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Yet the baby thing that woke <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and wailed an hour or two, and then was dead, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> was mine, and had he lived. . . . . . why then my name <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> would have been mother. But 'twas well he died: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I could have been no mother, I, lost then 425 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> beyond his saving. Had he come before <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and lived, come to me in the doubtful days <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> when shame and boldness had not grown one sense, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for his sake, with the courage come of him, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I might have struggled back.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> But how? But how? 430 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> His father would not then have let me go: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> his time had not yet come to make an end <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of my 'for ever' with a hireling's fee <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and civil light dismissal. None but him <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to claim a bit of bread of if I went, 435 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> child or no child: would he have given it me? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> He! no; he had not done with me. No help, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> no help, no help. Some ways can be trodden back, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but never our way, we who one wild day <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> have given goodbye to what in our deep hearts 440 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the lowest woman still holds best in life, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> good name -- good name though given by the world <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that mouths and garbles with its decent prate, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and wraps it in respectable grave shams, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and patches conscience partly by the rule 445 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of what one's neighbour thinks but something more <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> by what his eyes are sharp enough to see. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> How I could scorn it with its Pharisees, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> if it could not scorn me: but yet, but yet -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> oh God, if I could look it in the face! 450

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh I am wild, am ill, I think, to night: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> will no one come and laugh with me? No feast, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> no merriment to-night. So long alone! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Will no one come?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> At least there's a new dress <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to try, and grumble at -- they never fit 455 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to one's ideal. Yes, a new rich dress, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> with lace like this too, that's a soothing balm <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for any fretting woman, cannot fail, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I've heard men say it... and they know so well <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what's in all women's hearts, especially 460 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> women like me.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> No help! no help! no help! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> How could it be? It was too late long since -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> even at the first too late. Whose blame is that? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> there are some kindly people in the world, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but what can they do? If one hurls oneself 465 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> into a quicksand, what can be the end, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but that one sinks and sinks? Cry out for help? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Ah yes, and, if it came, who is so strong <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to strain from the firm ground and lift one out? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And how, so firmly clutching the stretched hand, 470 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> as death's pursuing terror bids, even so, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> how can one reach firm land, having to foot <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the treacherous crumbling soil that slides and gives <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and sucks one in again? Impossible path! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> No, why waste struggles, I or any one? 475 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what is must be. What then? I, where I am, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> sinking and sinking; let the wise pass by <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and keep their wisdom for an apter use, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> let me sink merrily as I best may.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Only, I think, my brother -- I forgot 480 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> he stopped his brotherhood some years ago -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but if he had been just so much less good <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> as to remember mercy. Did he think <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> how once I was his sister, prizing him <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> as sisters do, content to learn for him 485 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the lesson girls with brothers all must learn, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to do without?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I have heard girls lament <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that doing so without all things one would, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but I saw never aught to murmur at, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for men must be made ready for their work, 490 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and women all have more or less their chance <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of husbands to work for them, keep them safe <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> like summer roses in soft greenhouse air <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that never guess 'tis winter out of doors: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> no, I saw never aught to murmur at, 495 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> content with stinted fare and shabby clothes <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and cloistered silent life to save expense, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> teaching myself out of my borrowed books, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> while he for some one pastime, (needful true <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to keep him of his rank, 'twas not his fault), 500 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> spent in a month what could have given me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> my teachers for a year.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 'Twas no one's fault: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for could he be launched forth on the rude sea <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of this contentious world and left to find <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> oars and the boatman's skill by some good chance? 505 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 'Twas no one's fault: yet still he might have thought <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of our so different youths, and owned at least <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> 'tis pitiful when a mere nerveless girl, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> untutored, must put forth upon that sea, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> not in the woman's true place, the wife's place, 510 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to trust a husband and be borne along, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but impotent blind pilot to herself.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Merciless, merciless -- like the prudent world <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that will not have the flawed soul prank itself <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> with a hoped second virtue, will not have 515 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the woman fallen once lift up herself. . . . . . <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> lest she should fall again. Oh how his taunts, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> his loathing fierce reproaches, scarred and seared, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> like branding iron hissing in a wound! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And it was true -- //that// killed me: and I felt 520 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a hideous hopeless shame kill out my heart, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and knew myself for ever that he said, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that which I was -- Oh it was true, true, true.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> No, not true then. I was not all that then. 525 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh, I have drifted on before mad winds <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and made ignoble shipwreck, not to-day <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> could any breeze of heaven prosper me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> into the track again, nor any hand <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> snatch me out of the whirlpool I have reached; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but then?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Nay, he judged very well: he knew 530 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> repentance was too dear a luxury <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for a beggar's buying, knew it earns no bread -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and knew me a too base and nerveless thing <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to bear my first fault's sequel and just die. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And how could he have helped me? Held my hand, 535 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> owned me for his, fronted the angry world <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> clothed with my ignominy? Or maybe <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> taken me to his home to damn him worse? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> What did I look for? for what less would serve <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that he could do, a man without a purse? 540 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> He meant me well, he sent me that five pounds, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> much to him then; and, if he bade me work <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and never vex him more with news of me, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> we both knew him too poor for pensioners. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I see he did his best; I could wish now 545 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> sending it back I had professed some thanks.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> But there! I was too wretched to be meek: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> it seemed to me as if he, every one, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the whole great world, were guilty of my guilt, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> abettors and avengers: in my heart 550 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I gibed them back their gibings; I was wild.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I see clear now and know one has one's life <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> In hand at ftrst to spend or spare or give <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> like any other coin; spend it or give <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> or drop it in the mire, can the world see 555 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> you get your value for it, or bar back <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the hurrying of its marts to grope it up <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and give it back to you for better use? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> And if you spend or give that is your choice; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and if you let it slip that's your choice too, 560 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> you should have held it firmer. Yours the blame, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and not another's, not the indifferent world's <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> which goes on steadily, statistically, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and count by censuses not separate souls -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and if it somehow needs to its worst use 565 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> so many lives of women, useless else, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> it buys us of ourselves, we could hold back, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> free all of us to starve, and some of us, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> (those who have done no ill and are in luck), <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to slave their lives out and have food and clothes 570 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> until they grow unserviceably old.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh I blame no one -- scarcely even myself. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> It was to be: the very good in me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> has always turned to hurt; all I thought right <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> at the hot moment, judged of afterwards, 575 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> shows reckless.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Why, look at it, had I taken <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the pay my dead child's father offered me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for having been its mother, I could then <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> have kept life in me, (many have to do it, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that swarm in the back alleys, on no more, 580 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> cold sometimes, mostly hungry, but they live); <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I could have gained a respite trying it, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and maybe found at last some humble work <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to eke the pittance out. Not I, forsooth, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I must have spirit, must have womanly pride, 585 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> must dash back his contemptuous wages, I, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> who had not scorned to earn them, dash them back <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> the fiercer that he dared to count our boy <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> in my appraising: and yet now I think <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I might have taken it for my dead boy's sake; 590 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> it would have been his gift.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> But I went forth <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> with my fine scorn, and whither did it lead? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Money's the root of evil do they say? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> money is virtue, strength: money to me <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> would then have been repentance: could I live 595 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> upon my idiot's pride?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well, it fell soon. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I had prayed Edward might believe me dead, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and yet I begged of him -- That's like me too, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> beg of him and then send him back his alms! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> What if he gave as to a whining wretch 600 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that holds her hand and lies? I am less to him <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> than such a one; her rags do him no wrong, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> but I, I, wrong him merely that I live, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> being his sister. Could I not at least <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> have still let him forget me? But 'tis past: 605 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and naturally he may hope I am long dead.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Good God! to think that we were what we were <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> one to the other... and now!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> He has done well; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> married a sort of heiress, I have heard, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> a dapper little madam, dimple cheeked 610 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and dimple brained, who makes him a good wife -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> No doubt she'd never own but just to him, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and in a whisper, she can even suspect <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that we exist, we other women things: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> what would she say if she could learn one day 615 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> she has a sister-in-law! So he and I <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> must stand apart till doomsday.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> But the jest, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to think how she would look! -- Her fright, poor thing! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The notion! -- I could laugh outright. . . . . . or else, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for I feel near it, roll on the ground and sob. 620

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Well, after all, there's not much difference <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> between the two sometimes.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Was that the bell? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Some one at last, thank goodness. There's a voice, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and that's a pleasure. Whose though? Ah I know. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Why did she come alone, the cackling goose? 625

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> why not have brought her sister? -- she tells more <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and titters less. No matter; half a loaf <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> is better than no bread.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Oh, is it you? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Most welcome, dear: one gets so moped alone.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Back to Victorian Prostitution


 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">References **


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Webster, Augusta Davis. "A Castaway." http://www.uoguelph.ca/englit/victorian/HTML/castaway.html
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons