27 A Castaway (1870)
Augusta Webster
“A Castaway” is from Augusta Webster’s 1870 poetry collection Portraits, which can be found on Google Books. The poem is in the public domain.
The editorial notes are available under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Unless otherwise attributed, they were written by Dr. Kylee-Anne Hingston at the University of Saskatchewan.
A Castaway
POOR little diary, with its simple thoughts,
its good resolves, its “Studied French an hour,”
“Read Modern History,”[1] “Trimmed up my grey hat,”
“Darned stockings,” “Tatted,” “Practised my new song,”
5
“Went to the daily service,” “Took Bess soup,”
“Went out to tea.” Poor simple diary!
and did I write it? Was I this good girl,
this budding colourless young rose of home?
did I so live content in such a life,
10
seeing no larger scope, nor asking it,
than this small constant round—old clothes to mend,
new clothes to make, then go and say my prayers,
or carry soup,[2] or take a little walk
and pick the ragged-robins in the hedge?
15
Then for ambition, (was there ever life
that could forego that?) to improve my mind
and know French better and sing harder songs;
for gaiety, to go, in my best white
well washed and starched and freshened with new bows,
20
and take tea out to meet the clergyman.
No wishes and no cares, almost no hopes,
only the young girl’s hazed and golden dreams
that veil the Future from her.
So long since:
25
and now it seems a jest to talk of me
as if I could be one with her, of me
who am . . . . . . me.
And what is that? My looking-glass
answers it passably; a woman sure,
30
no fiend, no slimy thing out of the pools,
a woman with a ripe and smiling lip
that has no venom in its touch I think,
with a white brow on which there is no brand;[3]
a woman none dare call not beautiful,
35
not womanly in every woman’s grace.
Aye let me feed upon my beauty thus,
be glad in it like painters when they see
at last the face they dreamed but could not find
look from their canvass on them, triumph in it,
40
the dearest thing I have. Why, ’tis my all,
let me make much of it: is it not this,
this beauty, my own curse at once and tool
to snare men’s souls—(I know what the good say
of beauty in such creatures)—is it not this
45
that makes me feel myself a woman still,
some little pride, some little—
Here’s a jest!
what word will fit the sense but modesty?
A wanton I but modest!
50
Modest, true;
I’m not drunk in the streets, ply not for hire
at infamous corners with my likenesses
of the humbler kind;[4] yes, modesty’s my word—
’twould shape my mouth well too, I think I’ll try:
55
“Sir, Mr What-you-will, Lord Who-knows-what,
my present lover or my next to come,
value me at my worth, fill your purse full,[5]
for I am modest; yes, and honour me
as though your schoolgirl sister or your wife
60
could let her skirts brush mine or talk of me;
for I am modest.”
Well, I flout myself:[6]
but yet, but yet——
Fie, poor fantastic fool,
65
why do I play the hypocrite alone,
who am no hypocrite with others by?
where should be my “But yet”? I am that thing
called half a dozen dainty names, and none
dainty enough to serve the turn[7] and hide
70
the one coarse English worst that lurks beneath:[8]
just that, no worse, no better.
And, for me,
I say let no one be above her trade;[9]
I own my kindredship with any drab[10]
75
who sells herself as I, although she crouch
in fetid garrets[11] and I have a home
all velvet and marqueterie and pastilles,[12]
although she hide her skeleton in rags
and I set fashions and wear cobweb lace:
80
the difference lies but in my choicer ware,[13]
that I sell beauty and she ugliness;
to gloze upon it[16] and explain myself
a sort of fractious angel misconceived—
85
our traffic’s one: I own it. And what then?
I know of worse that are called honourable.
Our lawyers, who, with noble eloquence
and virtuous outbursts, lie to hang a man,
or lie to save him, which way goes the fee:
90
our preachers, gloating on your future hell
for not believing what they doubt themselves:
our doctors, who sort poisons out by chance,
and wonder how they’ll answer, and grow rich:
our journalists, whose business is to fib
95
and juggle truths and falsehoods to and fro:
our tradesmen, who must keep unspotted names
and cheat the least like stealing that they can:
our —— all of them, the virtuous worthy men
who feed on the world’s follies, vices, wants,
100
and do their businesses of lies and shams
honestly, reputably, while the world
claps hands and cries “good luck,” which of their trades,
their honourable trades, barefaced like mine,
all secrets brazened out, would shew more white?
105
And whom do I hurt more than they? as much?
The wives? Poor fools, what do I take from them
worth crying for or keeping? If they knew
what their fine husbands look like seen by eyes
that may perceive there are more men than one!
110
But, if they can, let them just take the pains
to keep them: ’tis not such a mighty task
to pin an idiot to your apron-string;
and wives have an advantage over us,
(the good and blind ones have), the smile or pout
115
leaves them no secret nausea at odd times.
Oh they could keep their husbands if they cared,
but ’tis an easier life to let them go,
and whimper at it for morality.
Oh! those shrill carping virtues, safely housed
120
from reach of even a smile that should put red
on a decorous cheek, who rail at us
with such a spiteful scorn and rancourousness,[17]
(which maybe is half envy at the heart),
and boast themselves so measurelessly good
125
and us so measurelessly unlike them,
what is their wondrous merit that they stay
in comfortable homes whence not a soul
has ever thought of tempting them, and wear
no kisses but a husband’s upon lips
130
there is no other man desires to kiss—
refrain in fact from sin impossible?[18]
How dare they hate us so? what have they done,
what borne,[19] to prove them other than we are?
What right have they to scorn us—glass-case saints,
135
Dianas[20] under lock and key—what right
more than the well-fed helpless barn-door fowl
to scorn the larcenous wild-birds?
Pshaw, let be!
Scorn or no scorn, what matter for their scorn?
140
I have outfaced my own—that’s harder work.
Aye let their virtuous malice dribble on—
mock snowstorms on the stage—I’m proof long since:
I have looked coolly on my what and why,
and I accept myself.
145
Oh I’ll endorse
the shamefullest revilings mouthed at me,
cry “True! Oh perfect picture! Yes, that’s I!”
and add a telling blackness here and there,
and then dare swear you, every nine of ten,
150
my judges and accusers, I’d not change
my conscience against yours, you who tread out
your devil’s pilgrimage along the roads
that take in church and chapel, and arrange
a roundabout and decent way to hell.
155
Well, mine’s a short way and a merry one:
so says my pious hash of ohs and ahs,
choice texts and choicer threats, appropriate names,
hurled at me through the post. We had rare fun
160
over that tract[23]digested with champagne.
Where is it? where’s my rich repertory
of insults biblical? ‘I prey on souls’—
only my men have oftenest none I think:
‘I snare the simple ones’—but in these days
165
there seem to be none simple and none snared,
and most men have their favourite sinnings planned
to do them civilly and sensibly:
‘I braid my hair’—but braids are out of date:
‘I paint my cheeks’ [24]—I always wear them pale:
170
‘I—’
Pshaw! the trash is savourless to-day:
one cannot laugh alone. There, let it burn.
What, does the windy dullard[25]think one needs
his wisdom dove-tailed on to Solomon’s,[26]
175
his threats out-threatening God’s, to teach the news
that those who need not sin have safer souls?
We know it, but we’ve bodies to save too;
and so we earn our living.[27]
Well lit, tract!
180
at least you’ve made me a good leaping blaze.
Up, up, how the flame shoots! and now ’tis dead.
Oh proper finish, preaching to the last—
no such bad omen either; sudden end,
and no sad withering horrible old age.
185
How one would clutch at youth to hold it tight!
and then to know it gone, to see it gone,
be taught its absence by harsh, careless looks,
to live forgotten, solitary, old—
the cruellest word that ever woman learns.
190
Old—that’s to be nothing, or to be at best
a blurred memorial that in better days
there was a woman once with such a name.
No, no, I could not bear it:[28] death itself
shews kinder promise. . . . . .even death itself,
195
since it must come one day—
Oh this grey gloom!
This rain, rain, rain, what wretched thoughts it brings!
Death: I’ll not think of it.
Will no one come?
200
’Tis dreary work alone.
Why did I read
that silly diary? Now, sing song, ding dong,
come the old vexing echoes back again,
church bells and nursery good-books, back again
205
upon my shrinking ears that had forgotten—
I hate the useless memories: ’tis fools’ work
singing the hacknied dirge of ‘better days’:
best take Now kindly, give the past good-bye,
whether it were a better or a worse.
210
Yes, yes, I listened to the echoes once,
the echoes and the thoughts from the old days.[29]
The worse for me: I lost my richest friend,[30]
and that was all the difference. For the world
I would not have that flight known. How they’d roar:
215
“What! Eulalie,[31] when she refused us all,
‘ill’ and ‘away,’ was doing Magdalene,[32]
tears, ashes, and her Bible, and then off
to hide her in a Refuge[33]. . .for a week!”
A wild whim that, to fancy I could change
220
my new self for my old, because I wished!
Since then, when in my languid days there comes
that craving, like homesickness, to go back
to the good days, the dear old stupid days,
to the quiet and the innocence, I know
225
’tis a sick fancy and try palliatives.
What is it? You go back to the old home,
and ’tis not your home, has no place for you,
and, if it had, you could not fit you in it.
And could I fit me to my former self?
230
If I had had the wit, like some of us,
to sow my wild-oats into three per cents,[34]
could I not find me shelter in the peace
of some far nook where none of them[35] would come,
nor whisper travel from this scurrilous world,
235
that gloats and moralizes through its leers,
to blast me with my fashionable shame?
There I might—oh my castle in the clouds!
and where’s its rent?—but there, were there a there,
I might again live the grave blameless life
240
among such simple pleasures, simple cares:
but could they be my pleasures, be my cares?
The blameless life, but never the content—
never. How could I henceforth be content
in any life but one that sets the brain
245
in a hot merry fever with its stir?
what would there be in quiet rustic days,
each like the other, full of time to think,
to keep one bold enough to live at all?
Quiet is hell, I say—as if a woman
250
could bear to sit alone, quiet all day,
and loathe herself, and sicken on her thoughts.
They tried it at the Refuge, and I failed:
I could not bear it. Dreary hideous room,
coarse pittance, prison rules, one might bear these
255
and keep one’s purpose; but so much alone,
and then made faint and weak and fanciful
by change from pampering to half-famishing—
good God, what thoughts come! Only one week more
and ’twould have ended: but in one day more
260
I must have killed myself. And I loathe death,
the dreadful foul corruption, with who knows
what future after it.
Well, I came back,
back to my slough. Who says I had my choice?
265
Could I stay there to die of some mad death?
and if I rambled out into the world,
sinless but penniless, what else were that
but slower death, slow pining shivering death
by misery and hunger? Choice! what choice
270
of living well or ill? could I have that?
And who would give it me? I think indeed
some kind hand, a woman’s[36]—I hate men—
had stretched itself to help me to firm ground,
taken a chance and risked my falling back,
275
could have gone my way not falling back:
but, let her be all brave, all charitable,
how could she do it? Such a trifling boon,
a little work to live by, ’tis not much,
and I might have found will enough to last:
280
but where’s the work? More sempstresses than shirts;
and defter hands at white work than are mine
drop starved at last: dressmakers, milliners,
too many too they say; and then their trades
need skill, apprenticeship. And who so bold
285
as hire me for their humblest drudgery?
not even for scullery slut;[37] not even, I think,
for governess, although they’d get me cheap.
And after all it would be something hard,
with the marts for decent women overfull,[38]
290
if I could elbow in and snatch a chance
and oust some good girl so, who then perforce
must come and snatch her chance among our crowd.
Why, if the worthy men who think all’s done
if we’ll but come where we can hear them preach,
295
could bring us all, or any half of us,
into their fold, teach all us wandering sheep,[39]
or only half of us, to stand in rows
and baa them hymns and moral songs, good lack,
what would they do with us? what could they do?
300
Just think! with were’t but half of us on hand
to find work for. . .or husbands. Would they try
to ship us to the colonies for wives?[40]
Well, well; I know the wise ones talk and talk:
“Here’s cause, here’s cure:” “No, here it is and here:”
305
and find society to blame, or law,
the Church, the men, the women, too few schools,
too many schools, too much, too little taught:
somewhere or somehow someone is to blame:
but I say all the fault’s with God himself
310
who puts too many women in the world.[41]
We ought to die off reasonably and leave
as many as the men want, none to waste.
Here’s cause; the woman’s superfluity:
and for the cure, why, if it were the law,
315
say, every year, in due percentages,
balancing them with men as the times need,
to kill off female infants, ’twould make room;
and some of us would not have lost too much,
losing life ere we know what it can mean.[42]
320
The other day I saw a woman weep
beside her dead child’s bed: the little thing
lay smiling, and the mother wailed half mad,
shrieking to God to give it back again.
I could have laughed aloud: the little girl
325
living had but her mother’s life to live;
there she lay smiling, and her mother wept
to know her gone!
My mother would have wept.
Oh mother, mother, did you ever dream,
330
you good grave simple mother, you pure soul
no evil could come nigh, did you once dream
in all your dying cares for your lone girl
left to fight out her fortune all alone
that there would be this danger?—for your girl,
335
taught by you, lapped in a sweet ignorance,
scarcely more wise of what things sin could be
than some young child a summer six months old
where in the north the summer makes a day,
of what is darkness. . .darkness that will come
340
to-morrow suddenly. Thank God at least
for this much of my life, that when you died,
that when you kissed me dying, not a thought
of this made sorrow for you, that I too
was pure of even fear.
345
Oh yes, I thought,
still new in my insipid treadmill life,
(my father so late dead), and hopeful still
here might be something pleasant somewhere in it,
some sudden fairy come, no doubt, to turn
350
my pumpkin to a chariot, I thought then
that I might plod, and plod, and drum the sounds
of useless facts into unwilling ears,
tease children with dull questions half the day,
then con dull answers in my room at night
355
ready for next day’s questions,[43] mend quill pens
and cut my fingers, add up sums done wrong
and never get them right; teach, teach, and teach—
what I half knew, or not at all—teach, teach
for years, a lifetime—I!
360
And yet, who knows?
it might have been, for I was patient once,
and willing, and meant well; it might have been
had I but still clung on in my first place—
a safe dull place, where mostly there were smiles
365
but never merry-makings; where all days
jogged on sedately busy, with no haste;
where all seemed measured out, but margins broad:
a dull home but a peaceful, where I felt
my pupils would be dear young sisters soon,
370
and felt their mother take me to her heart,
motherly to all lonely harmless things.
But I must have a conscience, must blurt out
my great discovery of my ignorance!
And who required it of me? And who gained?
375
What did it matter for a more or less
the girls learnt in their schoolbooks, to forget
in their first season? We did well together:
they loved me and I them: but I went off
to housemaid’s pay, six crossgrained brats to teach,
380
wrangles and jangles, doubts, disgrace. . .then this;
and they had a perfection found for them,[44]
who has all ladies’ learning in her head
abridged and scheduled, speaks five languages,
knows botany and conchology and globes,
385
draws, paints, plays, sings, embroiders, teaches all
on a patent method never known to fail:
and now they’re finished and, I hear, poor things,
are the worst dancers and worst dressers out.[45]
And where’s their profit of those prison years
390
all gone to make them wise in lesson books?
who wants his wife to know weeds’ Latin names?[46]
who ever chose a girl for saying dates?
or asked if she had learned to trace a map?
Well, well, the silly rules this silly world
395
makes about women! This is one of them.
Why must there be pretence of teaching them
what no one ever cares that they should know,
what, grown out of the schoolroom, they cast off
like the schoolroom pinafore, no better fit
400
for any use of real grown-up life,
for any use to her who seeks or waits
the husband and the home, for any use,
for any shallowest pretence of use,
to her who has them? Do I not know this,
405
I like my betters, that a woman’s life,
her natural life, her good life, her one life,
is in her husband, God on earth to her,
and what she knows and what she can and is
is only good as it brings good to him?
410
Oh God, do I not know it? I the thing
of shame and rottenness, the animal
that feed men’s lusts and prey on them, I, I,
who should not dare to take the name of wife
on my polluted lips, who in the word
415
hear but my own reviling, I know that.
I could have lived by that rule, how content:
my pleasure to make him some pleasure, pride
to be as he would have me, duty, care,
to fit all to his taste, rule my small sphere
420
to his intention; then to lean on him,
be guided, tutored, loved—no not that word,
that loved which between men and women means
all selfishness, all putrid talk, all lust,
all vanity, all idiocy—not loved
425
but cared for. I’ve been loved myself, I think,
some once or twice since my poor mother died,
but cared for, never:—that a word for homes,
kind homes, good homes, where simple children come
and ask their mother is this right or wrong,
430
because they know she’s perfect, cannot err;
their father told them so, and he knows all,
being so wise and good and wonderful,
even enough to scold even her at times
and tell her everything she does not know.
435
Ah the sweet nursery logic!
Fool! thrice fool!
do I hanker after that too? Fancy me
infallible nursery saint, live code of law!
me preaching! teaching innocence to be good!—
440
a mother!
Yet the baby thing that woke
and wailed an hour or two, and then was dead,
was mine, and had he lived. . . . . .why then my name
would have been mother. But ’twas well he died:
445
I could have been no mother, I, lost then
beyond his saving. Had he come before
and lived, come to me in the doubtful days
when shame and boldness had not grown one sense,
for his sake, with the courage come of him,
450
I might have struggled back.
But how? But how?
His father would not then have let me go:
his time had not yet come to make an end
of my ‘for ever’ with a hireling’s fee
455
and civil light dismissal. None but him
to claim a bit of bread of if I went,
child or no child: would he have given it me?
He! no; he had not done with me. No help,
no help, no help. Some ways can be trodden back,
460
but never our way, we who one wild day
have given goodbye to what in our deep hearts
the lowest woman still holds best in life,
good name—good name though given by the world
that mouths and garbles with its decent prate,
465
and wraps it in respectable grave shams,
and patches conscience partly by the rule
of what one’s neighbour thinks but something more
by what his eyes are sharp enough to see.
How I could scorn it with its Pharisees,
470
if it could not scorn me: but yet, but yet—
oh God, if I could look it in the face!
Oh I am wild, am ill, I think, to-night:
will no one come and laugh with me? No feast,
no merriment to-night. So long alone!
475
Will no one come?
At least there’s a new dress
to try, and grumble at—they never fit
to one’s ideal. Yes, a new rich dress,
with lace like this too, that’s a soothing balm
480
for any fretting woman, cannot fail,
I’ve heard men say it. . .and they know so well
what’s in all women’s hearts, especially
women like me.
No help! no help! no help!
485
How could it be? It was too late long since—
even at the first too late. Whose blame is that?
there are some kindly people in the world,
but what can they do? If one hurls oneself
into a quicksand, what can be the end,
490
but that one sinks and sinks? Cry out for help?
Ah yes, and, if it came, who is so strong
to strain from the firm ground and lift one out?
And how, so firmly clutching the stretched hand,
as death’s pursuing terror bids, even so,
495
how can one reach firm land, having to foot
the treacherous crumbling soil that slides and gives
and sucks one in again? Impossible path!
No, why waste struggles, I or any one?
what is must be. What then? I, where I am,
500
sinking and sinking; let the wise pass by
and keep their wisdom for an apter use,
let me sink merrily as I best may.
Only, I think, my brother—I forgot
he stopped his brotherhood some years ago—[47]
510
but if he had been just so much less good
as to remember mercy. Did he think
how once I was his sister, prizing him
as sisters do, content to learn for him
the lesson girls with brothers all must learn,
515
to do without?
I have heard girls lament
that doing so without all things one would,[48]
but I saw never aught to murmur at,[49]
for men must be made ready for their work,
520
and women all have more or less their chance
of husbands to work for them, keep them safe
like summer roses in soft greenhouse air
that never guess ’tis winter out of doors:
no, I saw never aught to murmur at,
525
content with stinted fare and shabby clothes
and cloistered silent life to save expense,
teaching myself out of my borrowed books,
while he for some one pastime, (needful true
to keep him of his rank, ’twas not his fault),
530
spent in a month what could have given me
my teachers for a year.
’Twas no one’s fault:
for could he be launched forth on the rude sea
of this contentious world and left to find
535
oars and the boatman’s skill by some good chance?
‘Twas no one’s fault: yet still he might have thought
of our so different youths, and owned at least
’tis pitiful when a mere nerveless girl,
untutored, must put forth upon that sea,
540
not in the woman’s true place, the wife’s place,
to trust a husband and be borne along,
but impotent blind pilot to herself.
Merciless, merciless—like the prudent world
that will not have the flawed soul prank itself
545
with a hoped second virtue, will not have
the woman fallen once lift up herself. . . . . .
lest she should fall again. Oh how his taunts,
his loathing fierce reproaches, scarred and seared,
like branding iron hissing in a wound!
550
And it was true—that killed me: and I felt
a hideous hopeless shame kill out my heart,
and knew myself for ever that he said,
that which I was—Oh it was true, true, true.
No, not true then. I was not all that then.
555
Oh, I have drifted on before mad winds
and made ignoble shipwreck, not to-day
could any breeze of heaven prosper me
into the track again, nor any hand
snatch me out of the whirlpool I have reached;
560
but then?
Nay he judged very well: he knew
repentance was too dear a luxury
for a beggar’s buying, knew it earns no bread—
and knew me a too base and nerveless thing
565
to bear my first fault’s sequel[50] and just die.
And how could he have helped me? Held my hand,
owned me for his, fronted the angry world
clothed with my ignominy? Or maybe
taken me to his home to damn him worse?
570
What did I look for? for what less would serve
that he could do, a man without a purse?
He meant me well, he sent me that five pounds,
much to him then; and, if he bade me work
and never vex him more with news of me,
575
we both knew him too poor for pensioners.
I see he did his best; I could wish now
sending it back I had professed some thanks.
But there! I was too wretched to be meek:
it seemed to me as if he, every one,
580
the whole great world, were guilty of my guilt,
abettors and avengers: in my heart
I gibed them back their gibings; I was wild.
I see clear now and know one has one’s life
in hand at first to spend or spare or give
585
like any other coin; spend it or give
or drop it in the mire, can the world see
you get your value for it, or bar back
the hurrying of its marts to grope it up
and give it back to you for better use?
590
And if you spend or give that is your choice;
and if you let it slip that’s your choice too,
you should have held it firmer. Yours the blame,
and not another’s, not the indifferent world’s
which goes on steadily, statistically,
595
and count by censuses not separate souls—
and if it somehow needs to its worst use
so many lives of women, useless else,
it buys us of ourselves, we could hold back,
free all of us to starve, and some of us,
600
(those who have done no ill and are in luck),
to slave their lives out and have food and clothes
until they grow unserviceably old.
Oh I blame no one—scarcely even myself.
It was to be: the very good in me
605
has always turned to hurt; all I thought right
at the hot moment, judged of afterwards,
shows reckless.
Why, look at it, had I taken
the pay my dead child’s father offered me
610
for having been its mother, I could then
have kept life in me, (many have to do it,
that swarm in the back alleys, on no more,
cold sometimes, mostly hungry, but they live);
I could have gained a respite trying it,
615
and maybe found at last some humble work
to eke the pittance out. Not I, forsooth,
I must have spirit, must have womanly pride,
must dash back his contemptuous wages, I,
who had not scorned to earn them, dash them back
620
the fiercer that he dared to count our boy
in my appraising: and yet now I think
I might have taken it for my dead boy’s sake;
it would have been his gift.
But I went forth
625
with my fine scorn, and whither did it lead?
Money’s the root of evil do they say?
money is virtue, strength: money to me
would then have been repentance: could I live
upon my idiot’s pride?
630
Well, it fell soon.[51]
I had prayed Edward[52] might believe me dead,
and yet I begged of him—That’s like me too,
beg of him and then send him back his alms!
What if he gave as to a whining wretch
635
that holds her hand and lies? I am less to him
than such a one; her rags do him no wrong,
but I, I, wrong him merely that I live,
being his sister. Could I not at least
have still let him forget me? But ’tis past:
640
and naturally he may hope I am long dead.
Good God! to think that we were what we were
one to the other. . .and now!
He has done well;
married a sort of heiress, I have heard,
645
a dapper little madam, dimple cheeked
and dimple brained, who makes him a good wife—
No doubt she’d never own but just to him,
and in a whisper, she can even suspect
that we exist, we other women things:
650
what would she say if she could learn one day
she has a sister-in-law! So he and I
must stand apart till doomsday.
But the jest,
to think how she would look!—Her fright, poor thing!
655
The notion!—I could laugh outright. . . . . .or else,
for I feel near it, roll on the ground and sob.
Well, after all, there’s not much difference
between the two sometimes.
Was that the bell?
660
Some one at last, thank goodness. There’s a voice,
and that’s a pleasure. Whose though? Ah I know.
Why did she come alone, the cackling goose?
why not have brought her sister?—she tells more
and titters less. No matter; half a loaf
665
is better than no bread.
Oh, is it you?
Most welcome, dear: one gets so moped alone.
Works Cited
Bianchi, Petra. “Webster [née Davies], (Julia) Augusta [pseud. Cecil Home].” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online, Oxford UP, 21 May 2009. Oxford Reference Online, www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-28940.
The British Library. “Rescue of Fallen Women.” Discovering Literature: Romantics & Victorians Collection Items, www.bl.uk/collection-items/rescue-of-fallen-women. The Wayback Machine, Internet Archive, 25 Feb. 2021, web.archive.org/web/20210225113131/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/rescue-of-fallen-women. Accessed 24 June 2024.[53]
The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Era. 3rd ed., vol. 5., edited by Joseph Black et al., Broadview P, 2021.
“Diana (Mythology).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 June 2024, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diana_(mythology)&oldid=1230290677.
“Eulalie.” Wiktionary, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 June 2024, en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Eulalie&oldid=80097849.
Krauskopf, Katie. “Victorian Working Women.” The Victorian Web, 1996, www.victorianweb.org/victorian/authors/dickens/ge/workwom.html.
Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford UP, Sept. 2020, www.oed.com/.
Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Propsal.” The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Smith, edited by Thomas Sheridan et al., vol. 9, H. Baldwin and Son, 1801, pp. 287–299. Wikisource, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 June 2020, en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_the_Rev._Jonathan_Swift/Volume_9/A_Modest_Proposal
“Tartuffe.” Adonis to Zorro: Oxford Dicionary of Reference and Allusion, third ed., edited by Andrew Delahunty and Sheila Dignen, Oxford UP, 2010. Oxford Reference Online, www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199567454.001.0001/acref-9780199567454-e-1776.
Webster, Augusta. “A Castaway.” Portraits, Macmillan and Co., 1870, pp. 35–62. Google Books, www.google.ca/books/edition/Portraits/qCNcAAAAcAAJ.
- Here, we see that the speaker received the typical education of the upper-class and upper middle-class young woman. ↵
- Implicitly, to the poor or the sick. ↵
- She is sarcastically noting that she does not bear “the mark of the Beast” (KJV, Rev. 13.16–17); that is, she is saying she has not been branded as belonging to the Devil. ↵
- That is, poorer sexworkers who would be on the streets. ↵
- These lines seem to imply that she is a “kept woman”; that is, she is the mistress of wealthy men who cover her expenses and give her an allowance. At the very least, they indicate that she has very wealthy clients. ↵
- To flout means to “mock” or “express contempt for” something (“Flout, V.” def. 1.a.). She is joking about herself, but also not. ↵
- That is, to suffice. ↵
- That is, whore. ↵
- Here, trade refers specifically to the “means of making one’s living,” but the word trade can also euphemistically refer to prostitution (“Trade, N. & Adv.” defs. II.6.b, 11.6.c.i.). The speaker’s declaration, “let no one be above her trade,” suggests that a woman’s trade inherently places her within a certain socioeconomic class. ↵
- A drab refers to an “untidy woman” and is a term for a “prostitute” (“Drab, N.(1)” defs. 1, 2). ↵
- That is, attics. ↵
- Marqueterie is a type of decorative art made from piecing “wood, ivory” and other materials together into patterns (“Marquetry, N.”). A pastille is a “small, flat, usually round sweet” (“Pastille, N.”). These goods, and the others mentioned, are indicative of the speaker’s class. ↵
- That is, goods. ↵
- Here, traffic refers to their “line of business or trade” (“Traffic, N.” def. I.i.2.c.) ↵
- The word slaver literally means “to drool upon [...] with saliva,” but it figuratively refers to speaking words “in a meaningless [...] or fawning manner” (“Slaver, V.” defs. 3., 4.b.). ↵
- To gloss means to “explain away,” often by making something appear more pleasant than it is through “flattering language” (“Gloze, V.(1)” defs. 2, 3.a.). ↵
- That is, bitterness. ↵
- That is, because wealthy middle-class wives lack actual temptations, they lack an actual reason to pride themselves in their sinlessness; they are only refraining from something impossible for them to do in the first place. ↵
- That is, what have they put up with. ↵
- A reference to Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting, childbirth, and the moon who was known for her virginity and chastity (“Diana (Mythology)”). ↵
- These names refer to biblical women who are associated with sexual promiscuity. Rahab was a prostitute who sheltered Israelite spies in the Promised Land and as a result was spared during Jericho’s destruction (Josh. 2.1–21, 6.22–25). Jezebel was a woman described in Revelation, a “prophetess” who led others to “commit fornication” and “adultery with her” (KJV, Rev. 2.20–22). Her name became an epithet for “a prostitute or disreputable woman, esp. one who wears cosmetics, fine clothes, etc.” (“Jezebel, N.”). –E.Z. ↵
- A Tartuffe is “someone who pretends to be virtuous” (“Tartuffe”). The epithet originates from Molière’s play Le Tartuffe, where “a religious hypocrite” named Tartuffe “uses the sly pretence of virtue” to gain access to a guillible man’s property and wife (“Tartuffe”). ↵
- This likely refers to a conversion tract from the Religious Tract Society or a similar group. ↵
- An potential allusion to the phrase painted Jezebel (see “Jezebel, N.”). ↵
- That is, the author of the tract. ↵
- That is, King Solomon from the Hebrew Bible, famous for his wisdom and for compiling the biblical book of Proverbs. ↵
- Implying that sex work is a matter of economics not morality. ↵
- That is, aging. ↵
- That is, she attempted to leave sex work once. ↵
- That is, the man who was “keeping” her at the time. ↵
- Here, we find out what our speaker’s name is. –K.H. The name Eulalie originates from Greek and means “sweetly spoken” (“Eulalie”). Given Webster's skill in Greek—she “achieved critical recognition” for her translations of two Ancient Greek plays at a time “when women were still largely excluded from the classics” (Bianchi)—she likely chose the name to call back to motifs of speech found in the poem, such as when the speaker declares herself “no sweet slaver-tongue” (line 82). –E.Z. ↵
- The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Era notes the following: “Becoming a reformed prostitute, so called after Mary Magdalene of the New Testament, one of Jesus’ disciples. The houses in Victorian England to which prostitutes could come to reform were known as ‘Magdalene houses’” (892n6). ↵
- Beginning in roughly the 1850s, various charitable organizations set up homes intended to host “fallen women” wishing to rehabilitate themselves. They were known as “Refuges” or “Rescues.” As the British Library notes, “rescue work solely focused on regulating women’s, not men’s, sexual behaviour.” Of course, that changed considerably by the 1870s purity movement. ↵
- That is, if she had invested the money gained from her profession. ↵
- That is, her clients and those passing judgement on her. ↵
- Christina Rossetti and Adelaide Procter were both such women who did this kind of rescue work. Their poetry is included in this anthology: see Rossetti’s “Up-Hill“ and “In an Artist’s Studio“ and Procter’s “Homeless.” ↵
- Webster’s use of this word is meant to carry the sexual connotations we associate with it; however, she also intends it here in its original use: “A kitchen-maid; a drudge” (“Slut, N.” def. I.4.). ↵
- That is, even so-called “decent” women have difficulty finding jobs in the current job market. ↵
- Sheep are a common biblical image for God’s people. For references to wandering sheep specifically, see Isaiah 53:6 as well as the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15.1–7). –E.Z. ↵
- This was Dickens’ favoured choice; not only did he ship poor, fallen “Little Em’ly” in David Copperfield off to Australia for having run away and not married, he also wrote articles about and donated money to the cause. ↵
- This was indeed believed to be one of the causes of sex work at that time; many Victorians were quite concerned about the social effects and economic problem of the supposed “surplus woman” population. Several feminist reformers used this belief in the surplus of women to argue for more job opportunities for the single women who could not find husbands. See Katie Krauskopf’s “Victorian Working Women“ for more information. ↵
- Webster’s speaker is not the first to sarcastically suggest that killing children could reduce the number of impoverished people; Jonathan Swift, in his 1729 social satire A Modest Proposal, suggested that children should be eaten to control the poor Irish population. He, like Webster, draws attention to gender ratios and proposes an ideal as “one male” for every “four females” (290). –E.Z. ↵
- One of the very few jobs available to “respectable” (that is, upper-class and upper middle-class) women was teaching—either as a governness or at a boarding school—wealthier families’ children. ↵
- That is, a more qualified person was hired to teach the children. ↵
- ”Out” refers to young women who had “come out” in society; that is, they had been debutantes at a private ball to announce their eligibility for marriage. ↵
- Webster herself learned both Latin and Ancient Greek, publishing translations of Latin and Greek poetry (something most women at the time were relatively barred from). ↵
- That is, he disowned her. ↵
- That is, one would want. ↵
- That is, the speaker never complained about having to go without. ↵
- That is, the birth and death of her child. ↵
- A potential allusion to the proverb “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (KJV, Prov. 16.18). –E.Z. ↵
- Presumably her brother’s name. ↵
- The British Library’s website was hit by a cyberattack in late 2023 and is not yet operational. For now, the Wayback Machine provides a limited overview of the original web page. –E.Z. ↵
