t which all
women who attach any value to dressing well (I do not mean
expensively, but with taste, and perception of natural and of
artificial _convenance_) must bestow upon their own dress, perhaps
also upon that of their daughters, would alone go a great way towards
achieving respectable results in art, or science, or literature, and
does actually exhaust much of the time and mental power they might
have to spare for either.[2] If it were possible that all this number
of little practical interests (which are made great to them) should
leave them either much leisure, or much energy and freedom of mind,
to be devoted to art or speculation, they must have a much greater
original supply of active faculty than the vast majority of men. But
this is not all. Independently of the regular offices of life which
devolve upon a woman, she is expected to have her time and faculties
always at the disposal of everybody. If a man has not a profession to
exempt him from such demands, still, if he has a pursuit, he offends
nobody by devoting his time to it; occupation is received as a valid
excuse for his not answering to every casual demand which may be made
on him. Are a woman's occupations, especially her chosen and
voluntary ones, ever regarded as excusing her from any of what are
termed the calls of society? Scarcely are her most necessary and
recognised duties allowed as an exemption. It requires an illness in
the family, or something else out of the common way, to entitle her
to give her own business the precedence over other people's
amusement. She must always be at the beck and call of somebody,
generally of everybody. If she has a study or a pursuit, she must
snatch any short interval which accidentally occurs to be employed in
it. A celebrated woman, in a work which I hope will some day be
published, remarks truly that everything a woman does is done at odd
times. Is it wonderful, then, if she does not attain the highest
eminence in things which require consecutive attention, and the
concentration on them of the chief interest of life? Such is
philosophy, and such, above all, is art, in which, besides the
devotion of the thoughts and feelings, the hand also must be kept in
constant exercise to attain high skill.

There is another consideration to be added to all these. In the
various arts and intellectual occupations, there is a degree of
proficiency sufficient for living by it, and there is a higher degree
on which depen