ILLINOIS
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
Production Note
Project Unica
Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign 2015








LADY
HELPS,
A GRANDMOTHER.
“ How divine a thing a woman may be made.”—Wordsworth.
“ Oh, woman, in our hour of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable, as the shade,
By the light quivering aspen made,
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou.”—Scott.
Brighton:
PUBLISHED BY W. JUNOR, BOOKSELLER, 130, North Street.
IPIRICIE
SIXPENCE.(LADY
HELPS.
By a Grandmother.
The readiness with which this title is applied to ladies helping, or expected to help, in household duties, and the numberless observations and criticisms made on such ladies, have led me to reflect that the field so marked out for their labours is a very narrow one—the path too short and too crowded, and, further still, the great fact is overlooked, that all this time these ladies are helping, in a larger field, a wider path, than those assigned to them by the advocates of Lady Helps. How small is the area occupied by household duties compared with the great expanse of civilisation—how narrow a housewife’s walk of duty compared with that occupied by thousands of large-hearted Christian women. Look5
clerk, whose sister conies to be a second mother to his children; at the elbow of the rich lady overwhelmed with social duties, and in delicate health; not seldom also at the side of the spendthrift, who, in the wife of some friend, finds a Lady Help ready to give him wise and gentle counsel and sympathy. To be a Christian lady is to be a Help; a kind word to the shy, awkward servant girl, fresh from her country home, and suddenly thrown among strangers; an example of neatness and order to a slovenly girl from the back streets of a town ; of truth to a liar; of honesty to a thief; of modesty to the bold; these come from Lady Helps. To help the weak, the erring, the blind and misguided on then-dubious ways, to cheer and smooth the days and nights of sickness, to check the too eager haste for riches, and help man to a calmer mood, and, oh! how highest of all, to help poor, fallen, despised woman to find the short path that will lead her from destruction,—are not these works done daily before our eyes by Lady Helps ? Why then say so much on the subject of domestic work for ladies—better the wider field, the larger grasp—better let noble refined women bestow their gentle sendees on6
weary spirits, and acliing hearts, and clouded minds, and leave to sterner, darker intellects, and stronger frames, duties not less important, but more practical, and easily grasped.
Man cannot carry on the great work of life without the help of woman, hut she must be by his side, ready with sympathy and intelligent counsel, not absorbed in the details of domestic life. The Lord has said that she is to be a help to him—is it not given to her to be his help, his light, his guide, his support; her noble privilege is to supply what his bold gaze and step ignore— steadiness and humility; hgrs to teach him to bend his head beneath the bough that crosses his path, and would otherwise stun lmn, to turn aside from a river too strong to swim, and seek a ford; hers to choose for him the lowly spot where shade and rest await the weary limbs ; but for her help how often he would be lost in striving to climb in burning noon the rugged steeps and heights, so full of unseen dangers.
Yes, the Lady Help is everywhere. The street arab, the ia0ged gill, the deserted mother, know the kind and7
active friend, wliose goodness destroys all feeling of jealousy, and makes tliem aware that beauty and riches go hand in hand with charity and goodness, just as gay and sweet flowers give pleasure and comfort to the senses. Ask those who exert themselves actively in charitable works—they will tell you their help comes nearly exclusively from ladies—whether it is money, or time, or influence, it is unhesitatingly given by Lady Helps. From all quarters of the world come cries for help ; from the palace, from the camp, from the city, from the solitary hovel, from the crowded factory, the savage brickfield; from the wilderness, from our neighbour’s house, comes a cry for help, and always it is the lady, the gentle and refined, who responds: her ear hears, her step advances. The Lady Help, whose gentle nurture seems to fit her for the strife, just as the finest steel makes the best armour. When England’s Queen bowed her head in woe, who but a lady, such as herself, came to soothe and comfort her. When sick and weary, patients of the lowest classes pine in hospital wards, Lady Helps pass from bed to bed, speaking words of comfort to the poor confused minds. He who gave us8
tastes and intellect, blesses the good use made of them by Lady Helps. In truth, our Ladies are Helps everywhere—in their own homes or in their neighbour’s, or among strangers; and those so hastily condemned, the butterflies of society, do they not help to make life bright? How many a sad heart is lightened by the careless mirth and heedless laugh of youth, just as the eye is pleased with the Sittings of the bird and butterfly, and many of these gay young forms, soon enough, too soon, become weary and slacken in their giddy round, and soon they too learn to be ready and cheerful Lady Helps. Let us then cease to call on ladies whose whole lives are passed in helping, to leave that great work, unrecorded (though not unwatclied from above), and apply themselves to household duties—too narrow a field for enlarged minds and great souls, such as those of our Lady Helps.
To them, in all humility, these few lines are dedicated by one who esteems it her highest privilege to be able, out of her own abundant blessings, to help others, and to be one of the least in the noble band of
Lady Helps.