by higher education,
and since the universities have thrown open their doors to her, she
has been allowed, in many cases, to take the same courses that her
brother does.

Still, the way has not been entirely smooth for educated and literary
women, for the public press has too often frowned upon their efforts
to obtain anything like equal recognition for equal ability. The
literary woman has, for years, been the target of criticism, and if we
are to believe her critics, she has been entirely shunned by the
gentlemen of her acquaintance; but the fact that so many of them are
wives and mothers, and, moreover, good wives and mothers, proves
conclusively that these statements are not trustworthy.

It is true that some prefer the society of women who know just
enough to appreciate their compliments--women who deprecate their
"strong-minded" sisters, and are ready to agree implicitly with every
statement that the lords of creation may make; but this readiness is
due to sheer inability to produce a thought of their own.

It is true that some men are afraid of educated women, but a man who
is afraid of a woman because she knows something is not the kind of a
man she wants to marry. He is not the kind of a man she would choose
for either husband or friend; she wants an intellectual companion, and
the chances are that she will find him, or rather that he will find
her. A woman need not be unwomanly in order to write books that will
help the world.

She may be a good housekeeper, even if she does write for the
magazines, and the husbands of literary women are not, as some folks
would have us believe, neglected and forlorn-looking beings. On the
contrary, they carry brave hearts and cheerful faces with them always,
since their strength is reinforced by the quiet happiness of their own
firesides.

The _fin-de-siecle_ woman is literary in one sense, if not in
another, for if she may not wield her pen, she can keep in touch with
the leading thinkers of the day, and she will prove as pleasant a
companion during the long winter evenings as the woman whose husband
chose her for beauty and taste in dress.

The literary woman is not slipshod in her apparel, and she may, if she
chooses, be a society and club woman as well. Surely there is nothing
in literary culture which shall prevent neatness and propriety in
dress as well as in conduct.

The devoted admirer of Browning is not liable to quote him in
a promiscuous company and thou