-he lived to be worthy of her
love.

In those days, to be "a servant of the ladies" was no mere figure of
the imagination--and to be in love was no idle pastime; but to be
profoundly, furiously, almost ridiculously in earnest. In the mind of
the cavalier, woman was a being of mystic power. As in the old forests
of Germany, she had been listened to like a spirit of the woods,
melodious, solemn and oracular. So when chivalry became an
institution, the same idea of something supernaturally beautiful in
her character threw a shadow over her life, and she was not only loved
but revered. And never were men more constant to their fair ladies
than in the proudest days of chivalry.

There is no such thing as genuine gallantry either in France or
England. In France the relation between the sexes is too fickle,
variable, and insincere, for any nearer approach to gallantry than
flirtation; while in England the aristocracy, which is the only class
in that country that could have the genuine feeling of gallantry, are
turned shop-owners and tradesmen. The Smiths and the Joneses who
figure on the signboards have the nobility standing behind them as
silent partners. The business habits of the United States and the
examples of rapid fortunes in this country have quite turned the head
of John Bull, and he is very fast becoming a sharp, thrifty,
money-getting Yankee. A business and commercial people have no leisure
for the cultivation of that feeling and romance which is the
foundation of gallantry. The activities of human nature seek other
more practical and more useful channels of excitement. Instead of
devoting a life to the worship and service of the fair ladies, they
are building telegraphs, railroads, steamboats, constructing schemes
of finance, and enlarging the area of practical civilization.

HEROINES OF HISTORY

In attempting to give a definition of strong-minded women, I find it
necessary to distinguish between just ideas of strength and what is so
considered by the modern woman's rights' movement.

A very estimable woman by the name of Mrs. Bloomer obtained the
reputation of being strong-minded by curtailing her skirts six inches,
a compliment which certainly excites no envious feeling in my heart;
for I am philosophically puzzled to know how cutting six inches off a
woman's dress can possibly add anything to the height of her head.

One or two hundred women getting together in convention and resolving
that they are a