The Parson's Daughter, Volume 2

Cobden was not a spendthrift. He simply had loftier matters on his mind, and this may have impressed his daughter Ellen as a noble flaw rather than a blameworthy one. Perhaps it was fortuitous that in 1880, the year Sickert first met Ellen, John Morley's long-awaited two-volume biography of Cobden was published. If Sickert read Morley's work, he could have known enough about Cobden to script a very persuasive role for himself and easily convince Ellen that he and the famous politician shared some of the same traits: a love of the theater and literature, an attachment to all things French, and a higher calling that was not about money. Sickert might even have convinced Ellen that he was an advocate of women's suffrage. "I shall reluctantly have to support a bitches suffrage bill," Sickert would complain some thirty-five years later. "But you are to understand I shall not by this become a 'feminist.' " Richard Cobden believed in the equality of the sexes. He treated his daughters with respect and affection - and never as witless brood mares good for nothing but marriage and childbearing ...»