e for monsters.

It is only mediocrities and old maids who consider it a grievance to be
misunderstood.

As truly religious people are resigned to everything, even to mediocre
poetry, there is no reason at all why Madame Guyon's verses should not be
popular with a large section of the community.

A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle.

Such novels as _Scamp_ are possibly more easy to write than they are to
read.

We have no doubt that when Bailey wrote to Lord Houghton that
common-sense and gentleness were Keats's two special characteristics the
worthy Archdeacon meant extremely well, but we prefer the real Keats,
with his passionate wilfulness, his fantastic moods and his fine
inconsistence. Part of Keats's charm as a man is his fascinating
incompleteness.

The Apostolic dictum, that women should not be suffered to teach, is no
longer applicable to a society such as ours, with its solidarity of
interests, its recognition of natural rights, and its universal
education, however suitable it may have been to the Greek cities under
Roman rule. Nothing in the United States struck me more than the fact
that the remarkable intellectual progress of that country is very largely
due to the efforts of American women, who edit many of the most powerful
magazines and newspapers, take part in the discussion of every question
of public interest, and exercise an important influence upon the growth
and tendencies of literature and art. Indeed, the women of America are
the one class in the community that enjoys that leisure which is so
necessary for culture. The men are, as a rule, so absorbed in business,
that the task of bringing some element of form into the chaos of daily
life is left almost entirely to the opposite sex, and an eminent
Bostonian once assured me that in the twentieth century the whole culture
of his country would be in petticoats. By that time, however, it is
probable that the dress of the two sexes will be assimilated, as
similarity of costume always follows similarity of pursuits.

The aim of social comedy, in Menander no less than in Sheridan, is to
mirror the manners, not to reform the morals, of its day, and the censure
of the Puritan, whether real or affected, is always out of place in
literary criticism, and shows a want of recognition of the essential
distinction between art and life. After all, it is only the Philistine
who thinks of blaming Jack Absolute for his deception