Unbridling the Tongues of Women - The University of Adelaide

Unbridling the tongues of women
these visits; would it really have been better if I had been as dissatisfied as
you have been?’
You would find yourself much at a loss in English society, Miss Hodges.
It is not customary for young ladies there to talk about babies cutting
teeth, or the wearing out of children’s shoes; or to discuss the best method
of ironing and clear-starching, or what shape of pinafore sits best on the
shoulder, and is most easily made’.
‘What is the great end of conversation, Miss Withering? Is it not to suit
what you have got to say to the tastes and capacity of the person you
address? I like to please those I am with, and though you may think my
subjects low and commonplace, I both gave pleasure and felt it’.
‘That is a sort of truckling I could not submit to’, said Miss Withering. ‘I
was born to rule, and cannot stoop to my inferiors. A master-mind like
mine was not made “to chronicle small beer” ’. 55
Later in Clara Morison, a minor character, Mr Humberstone, overseer of a station
owned by one Escott, is on a visit to Adelaide with a salary rise and his employer’s
wish that he ‘pick up a wife’. After a night on the booze at a public-house dance, he
returns to the household of the three Elliot sisters so early in the morning that all but
the eldest, Grace, are doing the washing in the kitchen.
Here was an opportunity for Mr Humberstone – Miss Elliot was alone,
and now was the time to speak, for he really admired her very much,
and he could afford to marry. After a few stammering common-places,
he began to describe the home-station with great minuteness; then he
diverged to tell how long he had been with Escott, and how comfortable
he had always been; how he had obtained a great rise in his salary since
the bad times came, and at last how there was only one thing now wanting
to make him perfectly happy. Then he made a long pause, and Grace
wondered what could make him so communicative.
‘I am in want of a companion’, said he, after much hesitation, ‘in fact, a wife’.
‘Indeed!’ answered Grace; ‘then why don’t you try to find one?’
54