, who
forgets you in her own flowery prosiness: as--'I have no need to say to
a person of your genius and feeling, and wide range of experience'--and
then, being shortsighted, puts up her glass to remember who you
are."--"Two sisters" (these were real people known to him). "One going
in for being generally beloved (which she is not by any means); and the
other for being generally hated (which she needn't be)."--"The
bequeathed maid-servant, or friend. Left as a legacy. And a devil of a
legacy too."--"The woman who is never on any account to hear of anything
shocking. For whom the world is to be of barley-sugar."--"The lady who
lives on her enthusiasm; and hasn't a jot."--"Bright-eyed creature
selling jewels. The stones and the eyes." Much significance is in the
last few words. One may see to what uses Dickens would have turned them.

A more troubled note is sounded in another of these female characters.
"I am a common woman--fallen. Is it devilry in me--is it a wicked
comfort--what is it--that induces me to be always tempting other women
down, while I hate myself!" This next, with as much truth in it, goes
deeper than the last. "The prostitute who will not let one certain youth
approach her. 'O let there be some one in the world, who having an
inclination towards me has not gratified it, and has not known me in my
degradation!' She almost loving him.--Suppose, too, this touch in her
could not be believed in by his mother or mistress: by some handsome and
proudly virtuous woman, always revolting from her." A more agreeable
sketch than either follows, though it would not please M. Taine so well.
"The little baby-like married woman--so strange in her new dignity, and
talking with tears in her eyes, of her sisters 'and all of them' at
home. Never from home before, and never going back again." Another from
the same manuscript volume not less attractive, which was sketched in
his own home, I gave upon a former page.

The female character in its relations with the opposite sex has lively
illustration in the Memoranda. "The man who is governed by his wife, and
is heartily despised in consequence by all other wives; who still want
to govern _their_ husbands, notwithstanding." An alarming family pair
follows that. "The playful--and scratching--family. Father and
daughter." And here is another. "The agreeable (and wicked) young-mature
man, and his devoted sister." What next was set down he had himself
partly seen; and, by enquiry