and all its doings . . . Instead of endeavoring to crush all originality out of her into the one mould of standard conventional young-ladyhood, she will be recognized as an independent, individual soul, free to work out her own life in her own way. (529)
Wells also addresses the idea of equal wages, noting
The days when a woman was employed because 'she will do it just as well as a man, and we shall not have to pay her but a third as much,' will be looked back upon with . . . incredulous disgust . . . Such meanness, such taking advantage of weakness and necessity, will hardly be credited. (530)
As for work, she saw potential for women as doctors and ministers (but not politicians, for the Coming Woman would not "choose to degrade her mind with the strife, the clamor and brawl, the corruption, the belittling and lowering influences of politics"), though she was clearly wedded to a class society: should the Coming Woman decide to marry, her housekeeping duties will be lightened by "the Coming Irish Girl" and numerous others -- "Esquimaux, Kamschatkans, Terra-del-Fuegans" who might "emigrate to this country and prove domestic treasures." (531) (Perhaps tellingly, after Wells did marry, her household in 1880 included three servants -- all Irish.)
Further consideration of women's lives and work shaped Mary's next piece, "Cacoethes Scribendi and What Came of It." Appearing in the December 1870 Lippincott's, the humorous short story turned its attention to women writers, via an account of Lucia Lammermoor, a well-educated, well-intentioned young girl living in the small rural community of Topknot, Vermont. Lucia has led a "harmless -- and, to tell the truth, useless" life, but when her family falls upon difficult times so that she and her siblings cannot buy the newest fashions, Lucia resolves to earn money. Reflecting that "Three ways of earning money are open to women who lack strength or inclination for housework -- viz.: teaching, sewing, writing," Lucia decides to "become an authoress and earn, if not fame, at least money and a new bonnet" (640-41).
She abandons her first effort, "Beauty and Booty; or, The [Italian] Brigand's Bride," as unsatisfactory and tries writing about the world she knows, producing "a sketch of Yankee life and character." To her surprise, a magazine accepts it.. Although the piece is not published under her name, "Somehow it leaked out that Lucia Lammermoor had written a story for the Trumpet, to appear in the March number," and friends, neighbors, and mere acquaintances all buy copies. The story "became at once the sensation of the day in Topknot" (642). Soon, however, residents decide that they are the models for characters in the story, and begin trying to identify themselves. Consequently
as Topknot was a small country town, where not more than three events happened in a year -- as, moreover, differing herein from most New England villages, it had never experienced a live authoress in its midst before -- Lucia found she had, with the most harmless intentions imaginable, succeeded in raising a very respectable tempest in a teapot. (642)
Worse yet, the man Lucia cares about begins avoiding her, his "ideas of literary women [being] the usual vague but damaging ones of inky fingers, untidy hair, neglected families and henpecked husbands," along with the fear he might provide "raw material for stories" (644). Fortunately, a church event and a becoming pink dress bring the two together again: "And so they were married, and [she] darned [his] stockings and sewed on his shirt-buttons, and never, never wrote for the magazines any more, and they lived happily for ever afterward" (645).
It's difficult to determine how much of "Cacoethes Scribendi" is autobiographical and how much merely a commentary on authorship and women's writing. Unlike her heroine, Mary was still single -- and had turned thirty that year. Whether her marital status was by choice or circumstance remains unknown, but the 1870 census showed her living with her parents -- her father was by then involved with local government, serving as t