I Remember Seeing, Either At New York Or Boston, A Wooden Figure Of
A Neat Young Woman, As Large As Life, Standing At A Desk With A
Ledger Before Her, And Looking As Though The Beau Ideal Of Human
Bliss Were Realized In Her Employment.
Under the figure there was
some notice respecting female accountants.
Nothing could be nicer
than the lady's figure, more flowing than the broad lines of her
drapery, or more attractive than her auburn ringlets. There she
stood at work, earning her bread without any impediment to the
natural operation of her female charms, and adjusting the accounts
of some great firm with as much facility as grace. I wonder
whether he who designed that figure had ever sat or stood at a desk
for six hours; whether he knew the dull hum of the brain which
comes from long attention to another man's figures; whether he had
ever soiled his own fingers with the everlasting work of office
hours, or worn his sleeves threadbare as he leaned, weary in body
and mind, upon his desk? Work is a grand thing - the grandest thing
we have; but work is not picturesque, graceful, and in itself
alluring. It sucks the sap out of men's bones, and bends their
backs, and sometimes breaks their hearts; but though it be so, I
for one would not wish to throw any heavier share of it on to a
woman's shoulders. It was pretty to see those young women with
spectacles at the Boston library; but when I heard that they were
there from eight in the morning till nine at night, I pitied them
their loss of all the softness of home, and felt that they would
not willingly be there, if necessity were less stern.
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