elicacy mingled
with that rarest of qualities in woman--a sense of
humor," writes Richard Grant White in "The Fate of
Mansfield Humphreys." I have noticed that when a
novelist sets out to portray an uncommonly fine type of
heroine, he invariably adds to her other intellectual
and moral graces the above-mentioned "rarest of
qualities." I may be over-sanguine, but I anticipate
that some sagacious genius will discover that woman as
well as man has been endowed with this excellent gift
from the gods, and that the gift pertains to the large,
generous, sympathetic nature, quite irrespective of the
individual's sex. In any case, having heard so
repeatedly that woman has no sense of humor, it would
be refreshing to have a contrariety of opinion on that
subject._--THE CRITIC.

PROEM.[A]

We are coming to the rescue,
Just a hundred strong;
With fun and pun and epigram,
And laughter, wit, and song;

With badinage and repartee,
And humor quaint or bold,
And stories that _are_ stories,
Not several aeons old;

With parody and nondescript,
Burlesque and satire keen,
And irony and playful jest,
So that it may be seen

That women are not quite so dull:
We come--a merry throng;
Yes, we're coming to the rescue,
And just a hundred strong.

KATE SANBORN.
[Footnote A: _Not_ Poem!]

THE WIT OF WOMEN.

CHAPTER I.

THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY--PUNS, GOOD AND BAD--EPIGRAMS AND
LACONICS--CYNICISM OF FRENCH WOMEN--SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING.

To begin a deliberate search for wit seems almost like trying to be
witty: a task quite certain to brush the bloom from even the most
fruitful results. But the statement of Richard Grant White, that humor
is the "rarest of qualities in woman," roused such a host of brilliant
recollections that it was a temptation to try to materialize the ghosts
that were haunting me; to lay forever the suspicion that they did not
exist. Two articles by Alice Wellington Rollins in the _Critic_, on
"Woman's Sense of Humor" and "The Humor of Women," convinced me that the
deliberate task might not be impossible to carry out, although I felt,
as she did, that the humor and wit of women are difficult to analyze,
and select examples, precisely because they possess in the highest
degree that almost ess