Of course it is amusing
for Octavia and me to see all this, as we are merely visitors, but fancy,
Mamma! doing it as a part of one's life! Dressing up and making oneself
splendid and attractive to meet only _women!_
They are not the least interested in politics or the pursuits of their
husbands or brothers, and hardly any of them have the duties we have to do,
like opening bazaars and giving away prizes and being heads of all sorts of
organisations, nor do they have quantities of tenants' welfare to look
after, or be responsible for anything. Of course they must pass the time
somehow, and they all have secretaries who take every sort of ordinary
trouble of notes and letters and things off their shoulders, so they ought
to be awfully happy, oughtn't they? But they often have nerves or some
imaginary disease or fad, and are frightfully restless, and Octavia says it
is because in the natural development of the female of any country, numbers
of these are really at the stage when they should be doing manual labour,
according to their ancestry, and so having nothing to occupy them and
living in every dreamed-of luxury, they get nerves instead. But I think it
is because they never have nice young men to play with, everyone being busy
working down town in the day time.
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