ly
fond of my wife;' and off he walked. Assuredly it would not mend matters
in this world (or the next) if all men were Napoleons and all women de
Staels.

If we consider the question in other points of view, have there been,
proportionally, fewer celebrated women than illustrious men? fewer great
queens than truly great kings? Compare, on all sides, the means and the
circumstances; count the reigns, and decide.

The fact is that this question has been argued only by tyrannical
or very silly men, who found it difficult to get rid of the absurd
prejudices which retain the finest half of human nature in slavery,
and condemn it to obscurity under the pretext that it is essentially
corrupted. Towards the end of the 15th century a certain demented
writer attempted to prove that women do not even deserve the title of
reasonable creatures, which in the original sounds oddly enough, namely,
_probare nititur mulieres non homines esse_. Another, a very learned
Jesuit, endeavoured to demonstrate that women have no souls! Some say
that women surpass us in wickedness; others, that they are both worse
and better than men.

That morbid wretch, Alexander Pope, said, 'Every woman is at heart a
rake;' and a recent writer in the _Times_ puts more venom in the dictum
by saying, 'Every woman is (or likes) at heart a rake.' Both these
opinions may be set down as mere claptrap, witty, but vile.

But a truce to such insults against those who beautify the earth;
_THEIR_ vices cannot excuse ours. It is we who have depraved them by
associating them with excesses which are repugnant to their delicacy.
The contagion, however, has not affected all of them. Among our
'plebeians,' and even among nobility, many women remind us of the
modesty and courage of those ancient republican matrons, who, so to
speak, founded, the manners and morals of their country; and among all
classes of the community there are thousands who inspire their husbands
with generous impulses in the battle of life, either by cheering words
of comfort, or by that mute eloquence of duties well fulfilled, which
nothing can resist if we are worthy of the name of men. How many a
gambler has been reformed by the tender appeals of a good and devoted
wife. 'Venerable women!' one of them exclaims, 'in whatever rank Heaven
has placed you, receive my homage.' The gentleness of your souls smooths
down the roughness of ours and checks its violence. Without your virtues
what would we be? Wi