Minnie Myrtle [Nancy Cummings Johnson (1815-1852)], "Strange Things I Have Seen and Heard" and other pieces from The Myrtle Wreath or Stray Leaves Recalled (N.Y.: Charles Scribner, 1854).
[Editorial Note: The sketches and poems collected in The
Myrtle Wreath first appeared in the New York Daily Times,
-- the book is dedicated to Henry Raymond, editor of the Times
-- The Independent, The Troy Post, and The National
Era. Johnson's wrote, in her introductory "Word to My
Readers," that "I have not written to instruct the wise,
and have no ambition to write learnedly. I have hoped to impress
the heart, and to amuse, believing this to be emphatically 'woman's
mission.'" (P. 10) Now forgotten, Johnson was a popular writer
in the early 1850s, sufficiently famous to be included by her
pen name in the political cartoons of the day. So her writing
opens a window on how the debate about woman's "place"
entered into the popular culture.
In carving out her literary career, Johnson was a contemporary
and rival of Sarah Payson Willis Parton, who, under the pseudonym
of Fanny Fern, published several best-selling collections of pointed,
humorous sketches. The first, Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-Folio,
appeared the year before Johnson's posthumous The Myrtle Wreath
or Stray Leaves Recalled. Johnson explicitly refused to advocate
woman's rights. At the same time in "Strange Things"
and several other essays she leveled a series of scathing critiques
of those who sought to keep women in their "proper sphere."]
P.236: "Power is corrupting," says the Politician.
"Power is corrupting," says the foe to hierarchies.
"Good men, the best men, should not be entrusted with absolute
power." "Power is corrupting," says the enemy of
slavery, "men should not be permitted the absolute control
of human beings; however good the master may be, he will be tempted
to indulge in tyranny, if there is nothing external to restrain
him."
These are sentiments which I have often heard expressed by one
who still exclaims, " I will be master [P.237] in
my own house; those who live with me shall obey me."
And the obedience which is required of a wife is as servile as
that which is rendered by any bond slave.
To his daughter he says, "Whilst you are in my house you
will do as I say, if you are a hundred years old;" not because
she would not obey willingly and happily, but because there is
such pleasure in exacting obedience. All would gladly do
right of their own accord; but that would not be sufficient; they
must be compelled; they must feel in every nerve, and bone and
muscle, that they are subject to the will of another. To order,
thwart and torture, is a peculiar pleasure, and I am fully convinced,
is not enjoyed by Princes, and Popes, and slave-owners alone.
I have seen the staunchest advocates of "Woman's rights"
and "human freedom," exercise the most brutal tyranny
over wives and daughters. I have seen a quiet Christian woman
beaten, by a man who was ever railing against oppression. I have
seen the marks of an inch cable on the shoulders of a grown
up daughter, placed there by a man who was ever uttering anathemas
against those, who, for any reason applied the lash to those over
whom the law gave them power!
I have seen a little girl drop lifeless under the infliction of
the rod, which was used not merely as an instrument of punishment,
but to prove that he who [p.238] wielded it had a right to do
what he pleased with his own.
If those who rule with such authority lived where human beings
are property, they would exult in its peculiar privileges, and
triumph in the wrongs they could commit with impunity.
"Power is indeed corrupting." I have seen a young girl
dragged from room to room by her hair, beaten and trodden upon,
for only slight offence, by one whom she called mother, because
tyranny was sweet--to inspire fear more pleasant than to
inspire love.
I have seen in many families, wives and daughters and sisters,
afraid with a fear not less slavish than that which inspires the
most abject among those who are bought and sold, and all because
those who held it delighted in swaying the iron sceptre and ruling
with an iron rod. And those who are ruled are expected meekly
to endure; their lips must be even wreathed in smiles and breathless
gladness for those who have crushed all gladness from their hearts.
"Power is corrupting," but it is not Kings and Politicians
alone whom it corrupts.
P. 94: Not long ago I heard a celebrated Doctor of Divinity
lecture upon "Woman," and if experience and observation
had not taught me better, I should have gone home thinking the
earth was actually blessed with a company of angels. There was
not an allusion to any real deficiency in the character, wants,
or occupations of the gentle sex--they were unmitigated blessings.
In moral qualities they were represented as far superior to man,
and in some intellectual qualities, quite his equal! In perception
and judgment they excelled, but in inven-[P.95]tion they were
inferior. This is the point in his remarks to which I intended
to come, and no farther, for, dear reader, I am giving an abstract
of a learned lecturer, in order to elucidate my subject.
But just as the good man had made this remark, a lady turned to
me and said, "Just think of all the bags of crochet and cucumber
seeds,--the purses of knitting and netting, and knotting--the
counterpanes pieced in diamonds, and squares, and semi-circles,
and quilted in ginger-bread, love-knots, and 'herring-bone,'--of
the divans, and ottomans, and the tete a-tetes, all covered with
block-work of satin and velvet, over which the brain has puzzled
days, and weeks, and months--just think of the devices in all
manner of purple and fine linen--of the worsted work, with its
infinite variety of roses and posies,--its dogs and fawns, and
cats; and then the laces and muslims, with the millions of invisible
stitches, over which the eyes have dimmed and fingers ached.
. . . . . . .
P. 96: We might go on enumerating, but surely we have demonstrated
that all the leisure hours of women are devoted to inventions.
Some masculine critic will probably exclaim, that her powers are
exerted on very trivial subjects, and the world is not much better
for all those things. Most true it is, good sir, but who is to
blame for all that? When you will permit her to step out of this
insignificant sphere, perhaps she will shine as conspicuously
in another and higher!
And I could prove, if I should try, that it is better to embroider
than to do nothing; and any art that enables a woman to promote
the tasteful arrangement and adorning of her home, with the time
and skill which she can spend in no better way for want of
permission! is useful.
. . . .
So I hope she will go on improving her powers upon little things,
so as to be prepared for greater ones when they come within her
reach, but never on any occasion do I advise her to step out of
her sphere to reach them!
P. 115: It may seem superfluous to devote a line, or moment
of time, to the vindication of literary women, when they are so
successfully vindicating themselves--when they are so greatly
honored and universally respected. But there are a great many
women who are not guilty of dabbling in literature in any way,
who are vastly concerned for the reputation of their sisters of
the press, and more concerned for the well being of their [i.e.,
the literary women's] husbands and families. There is scarcely
a day that we do not hear some unjust remark, or uncharitable
allusion to [P.116] one who has lately become so world renowned
in the empire of letters [Harriet Beecher Stowe?]. "She neglects
her family." "Her children receive from her no attention."
"Her household affairs are left entirely to others."
"She is unamiable as wife, and mother, and friend,"
et cetera, et cetera. Every one of which charges I know to be
false.
. .. . . .
No woman who is a good housewife, in the highest sense of the
term, need spend all her time in household duties. The more systematic
she is, and thoroughly acquainted with her profession, the more
time she may redeem for other pursuits. No woman should be compelled
to toil from early morning till late at night in the nursery,
kitchen, or at the needle, though the bent forms, sallow faces,
and dejected spirits, we meet at every step, show how many do
so.
There is no profession which so absolutely requires a well-balanced
mind and high degree of cultivation in order to excel as housewifery,
and there are very few women even in our land who have attained
to perfection. That the poor are so miserably poor and remain
so, is, in a great proportion of cases, owing to the igno[P.117]rance
and inefficiency of women. That enterprising business men so often
fail, is owing to the extravagance of their wives and daughters,
and extravagance is often owing entirely to ignorance. A few literary
women have been slatterns who would just as surely been slatterns
had they never seen a book or pen, and infinitely more useless
and disagreeable!
But the slatterns who could not read or hold a pen, have not been
counted, though it is conceded by most matrons that our emigrant
servants are not the most learned, tidy, or the most expert! But
suppose that literary and cultivated women must necessarily devote
the time to books which should be devoted to the "weightier
matters," which must certainly be deemed the most imperative
and important, if they have assumed the responsibilities of wives,
mothers, nurses, et cetera. Are the husbands, and children, and
puddings, which are neglected for books, in any worse condition
than those neglected for theatres, balls, operas, or tattling,
slander and gossip? The proportion of learned ladies, is as yet
very small in comparison to the whole, and there is a goodly prospect
that it will be for a long time to come, while the fashionable
women are a host, and their employments are no different now from
what they were when Addison[1] described them.
Their toilet is their great scene of business, and the right adjusting
of their hair, the principal employment [P.118] of their lives;
the sorting of a suit of ribbons is reckoned a very good morning's
work, and if they make an excursion to a mercer's [dealer in textiles,
usually silks] or a toy-shop, so great a fatigue makes them unfit
for anything else all the day after. Their more serious occupations
are sewing and embroidery; and their greatest drudgery the preparation
of jellies and sweet-meats. "One infallible resource in that
day, as in this, was shopping." And then, as now, their overflowing
affections were lavished on monkeys, lap-dogs and parrots.
There is a certain "knack of doing things," which is
as much a gift as speaking of tongues, or writing poetry, and
we have seen young ladies try most perserveringly for years and
never learn to bake, or wield a dishcloth, or broom, with grace
or dexterity. Do not laugh at the idea of grace in such matters,
for sewing, knitting, and sweeping, if done properly, are done
gracefully, and are done well by some in half the time that others
are doing them ill.
P.272: How many sensible husbands do I know, who think a woman's
toil is nothing, and deserves no reward because she is not engaged
in coining money.
They cannot perceive that it is any labor to take five thousand
steps round the cooking stove to prepare breakfast for a dozen
people, or as many more for dinner and for supper, and twice as
many more for the various other duties she has to perform.
[here follows an enumeration of a wife's endless chores]
P.275: And when one wife has worn herself into the grave, and
the green mound has covered her, why he can easily get another,
for there are plenty more who have nothing else to do, and it
is proverbial that the second does get a little more mercy than
the first! And it is proverbial that men grow old with scarcely
a foot-print upon their brows, whilst women fade and wither and
[P.276] fall like autumn leaves; but there is no reason, for their
labor is nothing, and the "wearing, harassing, perplexing
toil," is all performed by men, and they earn all the money!
[1]Joseph Addison (1672-1719), English essayist and social commentator who, with Richard Steele, founded The Spectator. Addison also served as secretary of state for Great Britain, 1717-1718.