THE CHARM, and other Drawing-room Plays. By SIR WALTER BESANT and WALTER POLLOCK. With 50 Illustrations by CHRIS HAMMOND and A. JULE GOODMAN. Crown 8vo., Cloth, 3s. 6d.
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, 111 ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C.
_The reader of these Essays, which are not chronologically arranged, is asked to notice the date in each case affixed to them. Almost without exception, those passages which cannot fail to strike him as nearly exact repetitions, whether of argument or of example, will be seen to have been written at considerable intervals of time. A series of papers, composed in different circumstances, and with no design of collective re-issue in any particular form, will always present these repetitions; and they serve to emphasize the author's message. The lapse of time will also account for the apparent inaccuracy of a few statements, and for the fact that some of the occurrences alluded to in the future tense were accomplished during Sir Walter Besant's lifetime. 'As We Are and As We May Be' is the exposition of a practical philanthropist's creed, and of his hopes for the progress of his fellow-countrymen. Some of these hopes may never be realized; some he had the great happiness to see bear fruit. And for the realization of all he spared no pains. The personal service of humanity, that in these pages he urges repeatedly on others, he was himself ever the first to give._
Those who begin to consider the subject of the working woman discover presently that there is a vast field of inquiry lying quite within their reach, without any trouble of going into slums or inquiring of sweaters. This is the field occupied by the gentlewoman who works for a livelihood. She is not always, perhaps, gentle in quite the old sense, but she is gentle in that new and better sense which means culture, education, and refinement. There are now thousands of these working gentlewomen, and the number is daily increasing. A few among them--a very few--are working happily and successfully; some are working contentedly, others with murmuring and discontent at the hardness of the work and the poorness of the pay. Others, again, are always trying, and for the most part vainly, to get work--any kind of work--which will bring in money--any small sum of money. This is a dreadful spectacle, to any who have eyes to see, of gentlewomen struggling, snatching, importuning, begging for work. No one knows, who has not looked into the field, how crowded it is, and how sad a sight it presents.