A womanly occupation means, practically, an occupation that a man disdains. - George Gissing

You have heard that Nancy wants to mix with the rag-tag and bobtail tomorrow night?’
‘I shall take care of her,’ Horace replied, starting from his reverie.
‘Doesn’t it seem to you rather a come-down for an educated young lady?’
‘Oh, there’ll be lots of them about.’
‘Will there? Then I can’t see much difference between them and the servant girls.

— Amy said that would be an imprudent expense; but as soon as he had got a good price for a book. Will not the publishers be kind? If they knew what happiness lurked in embryo within their foolish cheque-books!

A few days ago her startled eye had caught an advertisement in the newspaper, headed 'Literary Machine'; had it then been invented at last, some automaton to supply the place of such poor creatures as herself to turn out books and articles? Alas! the machine was only one for holding volumes conveniently, that the work of literary manufacture might be physically lightened. But surely before long some Edison would make the true automaton; the problem must be comparatively such a simple one. Only to throw in a given number of old books, and have them reduced, blended, modernised into a single one for to-day's consumption.