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    fate makes me pity her the more for its being her own fault . Yet it makes me not the less resolved to bring her to account for her inexplicable aggression on Yseult ; inexplicable , unless it was provoked by Yseult's inexorable simplicity . Yseult is indeed the exact reverse of Giulia . Her simplicity might pass for indifference , for a laisser aller to the humour of the hour , if the directness of her mind did not make her always respond to any call upon it ; and the power both of her understanding and of her heart is seen exactly in proportion to the demand upon them . In this simple directness , she reminds me of Sidney more than any man whom I have known ; but it is a quality more common in woman than in man .

    My indignation , both for Giulia herself and for Yseult , made me unyielding . Giulia went even so far as to press my hand to her heart , with many pretty glances ; telling me that I ought not to importune her for any reason except that she was jealous of me . I told her that she should not escape by inciting in me a presumptuousness which had become impossible . Then she seemed really hurt , if not angry ; sat down sullenly ; and confessed that there was a " practical reason" for her declining to know Yseult or to be seen in relation with her . " Giulia , " I cried , " sei tu che me lo dici ?"

    "Oh , yes ! " she said , with an expression of real spite , " you can change tongue when you wish to lead me off my own path ! But if you hunt me down I shall turn upon you . " She continued , doggedly— " I refused to know your Mrs . Edwardes because she is not a proper acquaintance . " " But why—tell me why ? " At last she yielded , and said that it was because there had been some scandalous gossip about Mrs . Edwardes . Respecting whom ? I asked . " You need not inquire , " she said . I persevered ; and she said , sulkily , that the rumour pointed at myself ! I did not expect that ; though , of course , I have seen too much ever more to be surprised . But I still pressed Giulia for a further reason : ' " How is it , " I said , " that on such grounds you could refuse to know a woman like Yseult Edwardes : and above all how can you avow such a

    reason to me F " " She has taught you at all events to be ungenerous . " " She has taught me nothing but to be more stedfast than ever to truth , of word and act . I am not ungenerous to you , Giulia ; quite the reverse : I only call upon you to be worthy of yourself . Why , in presence of the memory of Asti , why in the very room with Rivers—for I saw him therewhy speak to me in such a strain ? Is it worse to be suspected than to do ? Or do you condemn yourself ?"

    " I condemn no one . But at least there is respect due to appearances . One must , you know , do as others do ; and those who openly defy the world are outlaws , and cannot expect that all should consent to share their fate . If they will be lost , why should we weakly suffer ourselves to be dragged after ?" " Appearances ! tribute to ( Anarch Custom ! ' Do you , then , the wife of Sidney , turn renegade to his memory ?"

    She burst into tears—good , hearty , genuine tears ; and leaning on my shoulder , only said— " I am very foolish , and very miserable . " There was no answering that . I consoled her without much difficulty ; for she knew that , through nil her caprices and inconsistencies , I had never doubted her heart . She easily allows herself the luxury of a penitent reconciliation . I consented to spend the rest of the day at Werneth ' s , and this morning she has sent me over a letter which she has written before breakfast , for me to

    take to Yseult , confessing her idle discourtesy , and asking for Yseult ' s forgiveness and friendship . It is nobly written , not ordy with all her literary skill , but with expressions of a feeling that must have been felt not fancied . How admirable Julia is , when she is not under the eye of the world : how she sinks below mediocrity when she thinks that eye is upon her . How vulgar whoa she takes her stand upon mi escoeheon to which she was not born ; how much above all escocheons when she takes her place in the circle of true . Art !

    As I was going up to my bed-room , last night , I met on the stairs a young woman , who seems to be one of the servants , and who screamed at the . sight of me in such ji way : is to draw around us Audley and all the family . The poor girl staggered , and would have fallen , if 1 had not taught her , und recognised her as the servant who had been so recently dismissed from the Johnson ' s , and I suppose she feared that 1 might cause her to lose her new place ; but , of course , her fear was vain . After various dramatic ; groupings over the fainting form of the girl , she revived , and we attained our several rooms . The tenor with which she

    regarded me was unaccountable ; still more so , a sort of general consternation in some of the family group , partly explained , perhaps , by the fact which Mrs . Audley told me , that the girl was come to be wet-nurse to Mrs . Ashwcll , the eldest daughter , and it might be feared that the baby would sulfer . So here is this poor girl , being poor , condemned to neglect her own child , and to become the hireling mother for thut of a stranger ; that stranger ,

    probably , " civilized" into an incapacity for being a complete mother to her own offspring f However , it is a point of redemption , that the necessity of the over-cultivated rich provides an asylum for the poor outcast . Does moral character go with the milk of nurture V If so , the fact might account for the plebeian aspects and tastes of many of our Knglish nobility and gentry . Yesterday , I went with Wcroeth to the neighbouring town of Brinksway —a concentrated offshoot of Manchester . We went over a factory , in

    which everything is done by steam , from the tearing of the raw cotton to the grinding of a knife , or the throwing coals on the furnace through a " self-acting hopper . " The yarn spun , the cloth woven , were admirable ; the only part of the machinery that was unsatisfactory was the human part * I know not what appearance of activity and worn-out life indicated feeble vigour in the men ; but the sight of the women was the worst . I can hardly describe it . You see many fine ^ looking girls , mauy intelligent faces . A sort of infantile pinafore is worn by many , without much reference to age . To see women at a steady drudgery which is real hard work—to note the development of that human flower in all stages of its growth , the countenance expressing , as it most often does , a certain overwrought feeling—a

    womanly tenderness over developed , conjoined with a sort of hardness and effrontery , is most painful . Before the fulness and bloom of youth are gone , a sickly thoughtfulness possesses the countenance ; then , while the face hardens , that thoughtfulness becomes sadness ; but still the sadness cannot retire within itself—it is chained to the ceaseless industry of the loom , pilloried in the eye of a world that cannot be troubled with bashfulness . Womanhood runs the gauntlet of every indignity ; and it is at once consolatory and terrible , to see that womanhood is not extinguished , but preserves some relic of its heart and feeling under that bold , sad countenance . Many of these women , Werneth told me , are murderers of their childrensome literally , others indirectly , by the neglects of hired nursing . It is better than it was before the state interfered to check their labour : but

    still it is bad . I thought I could see that some of the murderers still loved their children . Perhaps I was mistaken ; for how could I tell which were the murderers , which the faithful mothers . But what a horrible state of society must that be , in which the murderer-mother and the motherly mother cannot be distinguished—in which remorse shall be undistinguishable from toil , toil downcast like remorse ! We went to the police court ; the Town Clerk all cordiality and pleasantry . There was an assault case on : several boys and girls , probably all under twenty , or about that age , were accused of an assault at a wedding-supper

    in a public-house ; several other boys and girls being the prosecutors ; and more of them the witnesses . " Are you married ? " asked the Town Clerk , to a boy and girl . " Yes , sir . " " And you ? " " Yes , sir . " " And you . " Yes , they were nearly all married . They had met for festivity ; they had exchanged witticisms which I should not like to write ; a fight followed ; one girl was killed ; and two others , very delicate looking young ladies , in most becoming dresses , mutually wounded each other with tongue and fist . It was a horrid spectacle—that glimpse into the pleasures of " life" outside the factory . The Town Clerk drew it all out like a man used to the process , and justice " disposed of the case" with facile familiarity .

    We dined with the Town Clerk—a most agreeable , witty , well-informed man ; who evidently returns the borough member , and takes things as they come , including two or three comfortable salaries . In the evening we went to a public meeting , to consider the non-observance of the Ten Hours Bill—an Act of Parliament to limit the hours of labour , which used to be terribly severe . The place was a large low room in a public-house . Werneth and I found the " committee" assembled , with pipe and pot of beer at hand ; and a remarkable group they were . One was a heavy man , with a handsome slow face , inclined to flush with a quick pride—an honest , sensitive , dogged , dull-witted fellow . Another , pointed out to me as the leader in 1848—a short man with flowing locks , black turning to grey , and a

    musical voice , that had a ring in it peculiar to this part of the country ; a most plausible benevolent countenance , and a leering eye that overlooked nothing . Another was a gaunt glassy-eyed man , who might have been m the last stage of a consumption : he was emitting rabid sedition , and filling the aching void in his bosom with fiery brandy and water . A fourth was a lad , girlish in look and voice . But amongst the working classes , excl uded as they are from real political action , the boy assumes the political toga as soon as he earns wages . The whole scene was unpleasant . The way in which the " committee" doctored its " telling" resolutions , so as to hit the prejudices of the expected crowd ; the covert arrogance of the meeting , holding itself identical with " the people ; " the ostentatious ig norance ot

    Boiling , the benevolent-faced leader of 1848 ; his complaints , always on behalf of " others , " his recital of his own sufferings under the " tyranny ol masters ; the fierce earnestness of numbers who ultimately crowded the rooin , the laughing chatting nonchalance of others , who held up their hands for the resolutions with the most attentive ; the bullying tone , " resolving not to petition but to demand rights—all these were unpleasant traits . the worst was to follow . As the meeting began to thin , Boiling took a new part , und played beggar on behalf of the " association ; " and it wa » impossible not to note the glare of rapacity in his eye as he drew to lllinsC the pence wrung from the working people . Boiling was a hand-loom business is

    weaver " out of work : " but his weaving is a tradition ; his trade in meetings , committees , associations , and grievances , la better < ay ^ he used to get up a riot , now and then , to renew the life of his " & ^™^ as sticks are thrust into a fire that is going out . After the " treasurer canvthe landlord , who had already flitted about like a thrifty ghost , an w n made the best harvest from u crowd thirsty with " agitating" in a hot roo ^ In the course of the speaking , one unfortunate enthusnwt objected to p ^" tioning Parliament ; because , he said , if the working classes were all uni they need not ask , but might take their rights . A loud howl foliowed , cries of " Spy I" The working men have been so deceived by their le £ . ^ that they have no faith in each other nor in their own objects .

    Untitled Article

    976 THE tEA D E It . [( tattm **?* i j- — . _ . i n i ii - i '

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 9, 1852, page 976, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1955/page/20/