The workers poured out
their wrongs and hardships passionately or plaintively, demanding or
imploring justice, sympathy, and help; displaying the ignorance,
incapacity, and prejudice, which make their need all the more
pitiful, their relief all the more imperative.
The ladies did their part with kindliness, patience, and often
unconscious condescension, showing in their turn how little they
knew of the real trials of the women whom they longed to serve, how
very narrow a sphere of usefulness they were fitted for in spite of
culture and intelligence, and how rich they were in generous
theories, how poor in practical methods of relief.
One accomplished creature with learning radiating from every pore,
delivered a charming little essay on the strong-minded women of
antiquity; then, taking labor into the region of art, painted
delightful pictures of the time when all would work harmoniously
together in an Ideal Republic, where each did the task she liked,
and was paid for it in liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Unfortunately she talked over the heads of her audience, and it was
like telling fairy tales to hungry children to describe Aspasia
discussing Greek politics with Pericles and Plato reposing upon
ivory couches, or Hypatia modestly delivering philosophical lectures
to young men behind a Tyrian purple curtain; and the Ideal Republic
met with little favor from anxious seamstresses, type-setters, and
shop-girls, who said ungratefully among themselves, "That's all very
pretty, but I don't see how it's going to better wages among us now"
Another eloquent sister gave them a political oration which fired
the revolutionary blood in their veins, and made them eager to rush
to the State-house en masse, and demand the ballot before one-half
of them were quite clear what it meant, and the other half were as
unfit for it as any ignorant Patrick bribed with a dollar and a sup
of whiskey.
Pages:
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494