. It has always seemed to me that, on the contrary,
they are compelled, by the very circumstances of their situation, to lead
very laborious lives, requiring great strength and energy. Whether many of
their pursuits are frivolous, is a different question; but that they are
arduous, I do not see how any one can doubt. I think it can be easily shown
that the common charges against American fashionable women do not hold
against the class I describe.

There is, for instance, the charge of evading the cares of housekeeping,
and of preferring a boarding-house or hotel. But no woman with high aims in
the world of fashion can afford to relieve herself from household cares in
this way, except as an exceptional or occasional thing. She must keep house
in order to have entertainments, to form a circle, to secure a position.
The law of give and take is as absolute in society as in business; and the
very first essential to social position in our larger cities is a household
and a hospitality of one's own. It is far more practicable for a family of
high rank in England to live temporarily in lodgings in London, than for
any family with social aspirations to do the same in New York. The married
woman who seeks a position in the world of society must, therefore, keep
house.

And, with housekeeping, there comes at once to the American woman a world
of care far beyond that of her European sisters.

Abroad, everything in domestic life is systematized; and services of any
grade, up to that of housekeeper or steward, can be secured for money, and
for a moderate amount of that. The mere amount of money might not trouble
the American woman; but where to get the service? Such a thing as a trained
housekeeper, who can undertake, at any salary, to take the work off the
shoulders of the lady of the house,--such a thing America hardly affords.
Without this, the multiplication of servants only increaseth sorrow; the
servants themselves are often but an undisciplined mob, and the lady of the
house is like a general attempting to drill his whole command personally,
without the aid of a staff-officer or so much as a sergeant. For an
occasional grand entertainment, she can, perhaps, import a special force;
some fashionable sexton can arrange her invitations, and some genteel
caterer her supper. But for the daily routine of the household--guests,
children, door-bell, equipage--there is one vast, constant toil every day;
and the woman who would have the