OF WOMEN WITH BRAINS
XXXVII. AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OF THE STRICKEN LADY
XXXVIII. CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRAUGHT
XXXIX. OF NATURE WITH ONE OF HER CULTIVATED DAUGHTERS AND A SHORT
EXCURSION IN ANTI-CLIMAX
XL. IN WHICH WE SEE NATURE MAKING OF A WOMAN A MAID AGAIN, AND A
THRICE WHIMSICAL
XLI. CONTAINS A REVELATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TIGRESS IN DIANA
XLII. THE PENULTIMATE: SHOWING A FINAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY AND RUN
INTO HARNESS
XLIII. NUPTIAL CHAPTER: AND OF HOW A BARELY WILLING WOMAN WAS LED TO
BLOOM WITH NUPTIAL SENTIMENT

A lady of high distinction for wit and beauty,
the daughter of an illustrious Irish House,
came under the shadow of a calumny. It has
latterly been examined and exposed as baseless.
The story of Diana of the Crossways is to be read
as fiction.

CHAPTER I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE

Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century,
there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty
and her wit: 'an unusual combination,' in the deliberate syllables of
one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when
speaking of her. It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the
sex we may deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to womankind as the
stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom of mother Earth; though men must
look some day to have it returned to them, which is a certainty; and
indeed full surely will our idle-handed youngster too, in his riper
season; be heard complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles,
coming on him he knows not whence; for we are all of us distinctly
marked to get back what we give, even from the thing named inanimate
nature.

The 'LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF HENRY WILMERS' are studded with examples
of the dinner-table wit of the time, not always worth quotation twice;
for smart remarks have their measured distances, many requiring to be a
brule pourpoint, or within throw of the pistol, to make it hit; in
other words, the majority of them are addressed directly to our muscular
system, and they have no effect when we stand beyond the range. On
the contrary, they reflect sombrely on the springs of hilarity in the
generation preceding us; with due reserve of credit, of course, to an
animal vivaciousness that seems to have