Acceptance Speech Ready?

Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Brontë are two of my favorite authors, so how can I resist quoting you writing advice (living advice, really) from Gaskell’s biography of Brontë? I can’t.

This particular excerpt closes with this explanation: “I put into words what Charlotte Brontë put into actions.”

Here are her words (after she makes the bold and probably not-quite-true point that men who take up writing are easily replaced in their day jobs by another man just as qualified):

But no other can take up the quiet, regular duties of the daughter, the wife, or the mother, as well as she whom God has appointed to fill that particular place: a woman’s principal work in life is hardly left to her own choice; nor can she drop the domestic charges devolving on her as an individual for the exercise of the most splendid talents that were ever bestowed. And yet she must not shrink from the extra responsibility implied by the very fact of her possessing such talents. She must not hide her gift in a napkin; it was meant for the use and service of others. In an humble and faithful spirit must she labour to do what is not impossible, or God would not have set her to do it.

I know it isn’t modern-age politically correct, but most women I know (even the modern ones) can identify with this description and its encouragement. There is a unique pull, especially on mothers and wives, between our irreplaceable role in our homes and families and our belief that we are capable of offering other things to the world as well.

It’s a tension we all feel. Most of us, when we’re honest, never feel like we get it perfectly right, but that’s the nature of tension. That’s how it feels to love the many roles you play in life and still wonder if, since you are trying to play all of them at once, you play any of them well enough to win an Oscar.

I think you do. And you will. You must “labour to do what is not impossible” – emphasis ours!