Unbridling the Tongues of Women - The University of Adelaide

The line of least resistance
heart to offer a home to the orphan, please God she’ll find one here, and
we’ll look for nae compensation at your hands. 61
And here, by way of contrast, is another Scottish settler, from Gathered In, in the
midst of what he called a ‘splore’, talking to his nephew newly arrived from Scotland.
‘And ye’ll no taste, just to our better acquaintance. You look like a gentleman,
Kenneth, and all my making. Maybe ye’ll keep that look longer if
ye keep clear o’ the drink, and it’s likely ye have na the head to stand it …
D’ye ken how muckle I can put past, and as ye see, as clear a clock when
all’s done? Look at the dead men there!’ and he pointed to an array of
empty bottles. ‘All brandy, ten degrees over proof; good spirits though, or
it might have upset me. I give the best price, and I can depend of the best
article. And as ye see, I’m as right as the Bank. Oh! Lord, I’m rich, I’m
rich. Where’s my cheque-book – Mick has it hid somewhere, but you’ll
find it. Ye’ll need siller. Tell me out of hand how muckle you want’. 62
The warmth and vigour of any one of these passages would signal Spence’s ability
to create character through dialogue. Even so, she was not altogether happy with
her characterisation. ‘Queer’ she reflected in her diary, ‘that I who have such a distinct
idea of what I approve in flesh and blood men, should only achieve in pen and
ink a set of impossible people, with an absurd muddy expression of gloom, instead of
sublime depth, as I had intended’. 63 This was a problem she shared with other women
writing in that period. Charlotte Brontë complained that, ‘In delineating male
character, I labour under disadvantages; intuition and theory will not adequately
supply the place of observation and experience. When I write about women I am
sure of my ground – in the other case I am not so sure’. 64 And Margaret Oliphant
acknowledged that
The men of a woman’s writing are always shadowy individuals, and it is
only members of our own sex that we can fully bring out, bad and good.
Even George Eliot is feeble in her men, and I recognize the disadvantage
under which we all work in this respect. Sometimes we don’t know sufficiently
to make the outline sharp and clear; sometimes we know well
enough, but dare not betray our knowledge one way or other: the result
is that the men in a woman’s book are always washed in, in secondary
colours. 65
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