The Angel and the Author, page 129 by Jerome K. Jerome
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lementary rights of womanhood, think of the bachelor girl of a short generation ago without admiration of her pluck? There were ladies in those day too "unwomanly" to remain helpless burdens on overworked fathers and mothers, too "unsexed" to marry the first man that came along for the sake of their bread and butter. They fought their way into journalism, into the office, into the shop. The reformer is not always the pleasantest man to invite to a tea-party. Maybe these women who went forward with the flag were not the most charming of their sex. The "Dora Copperfield" type will for some time remain the young man's ideal, the model the young girl puts before herself. Myself, I think Dora Copperfield charming, but a world of Dora Copperfields!
The working woman is a new development in sociology. She has many lessons to learn, but one has hopes of her. It is said that she is unfitting herself to be a wife and mother. If the ideal helpmeet for a man be an animated Dresden china shepherdess--something that looks pretty on the table, something to be shown round to one's friends, something that can be locked up safely in a cupboard, that asks no questions, and, therefore, need be told no lies--then a woman who has learnt something of the world, who has formed ideas of her own, will not be the ideal wife.
[References given--and required.]
Maybe the average man will not be her ideal husband. Each Michaelmas at a little town in the Thames Valley with which I am acquainted there is held a hiring fair. A farmer one year laid his hand on a lively-looking lad, and asked him if he wanted a job. It was what the boy was looking for.
"Got a character?" asked the farmer. The boy replied that he had for the last two years been working for Mr. Muggs, the ironmonger--felt sure that Mr. Muggs would give him a good character.
"Well, go and ask Mr. Muggs to come across and speak to me, I will wait here," directed the would-be employer. Five minutes went by-- ten minutes. No Mr. Muggs appeared. Later in