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250 WEST-END HOUSEKEEPERS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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• The Lively Discussion Excited By A Cer...
making" of a career ; and all of whoin receive , from , whatever motive , _tlie loages of labor . I work for moneyand so in all probability do
, you , any reader . Perhaps you appropriate your earnings to a school or a hospitalor perhaps they go to pay your own weekly bills ;
, perhaps you are an artist and sold your last picture at a high j ) riee from the walls of the Royal Academy ; perhaps you are a
sculptress , or an actress , or a _pojDular authoress , or a teacher ; you may be practising medicine for all I knowor giving readings in the
, poets , or you may be pursuing some manual art , not more undignified than that of the great Apostle of the Gentiles when he made
tents . But in one thing we are alike;—either " our palms are crossed with gold and silver" or we receive quarterly cheques , paid
straightway into our banker's account ; and the particular destination of the current coin is too refined a point to turn the scale of
gentility . If the levying of the income tax is considered to trench on inquisitorial investigations , what would be thought of such
investigation carried into the region of expenditure ? Evidently it must be tlie earning of money which supplies the practical test . People
are either inside or outside of the great streams of production ; either ( reducing the problem to its simplest terms ) they plant and boil
their own potatoes , or those roots are served up at table without any direct or indirect effort of their own , either for themselves or
others . Tlie question , therefore , is this : whether the innumerable women
who , _Tby choice or necessity , come under the first category are ladies ? And this certainly cannot be settled even in a worldly sense without
strictly defining the term . So I go to the Dictionary— -large Dictionary in two immense authoritative volumes , by Charles Richardson .
I am plunged into Anglo-Saxon , andreferredto " Hlaf , " past participle of " Klif-ian" to raise ; lady meaning one liftedraised or elevated , to
, , the rank of her husband or lord ; lord meaning distinctly highborn , and " consequentially of high authority , a superior , a master . " This
makes me uncomfortable—it looks so suspiciously in favor of the " West-end Housekeeper "—more particularly as another reading is
given , and a suggestion that a lord is one who gives bread to many ; gives the potatoes , and does not plant or boil them . I appeal to
Johnson , and find substantially the same story , coupled with the observation that while lord means highborn , lady merely means
lofty— " that is , raised or exalted ; her birth being beside the question" as the wife follows the condition of the _huslband" not a word
, , said of " a lady in her own right ; " though that cannot be a modern invention , considering how many famous heiresses there were in
ancient days ! But going on to the different meanings with numerals attached , I do find one to be " an illustrious or eminent woman ;"
therefore we may include a few of those who stand out from the common herd in the category , even although not married to a
highborn lord . Lastly , I find it is " a word of complaisance used of
women /'—" the ladies , " for instance , at a public dinner . Observe ,
250 West-End Housekeepers.
250 WEST-END HOUSEKEEPERS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1861, page 250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121861/page/34/
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