the Restoration,
we should seek a greater effect in our true aim by concealing the name
and nature of the ladies who illustrated the court of Charles II."

"And what would your true aim be?" our visitor pressed, with an unseemly
eagerness which we chose to snub by ignoring it.

"As for the position of women in despotisms," we continued, "we should
confess that it seemed to be as ignobly subordinate as that of women in
republics. They were scarcely more conspicuous than the Citizenesses who
succeeded in the twilight of the One and Indivisible the marquises and
comtesses and duchesses of the Ancien Regime, unless they happened, as
they sometimes did, to be the head of the state. Without going back to
the semi-mythical Semiramis, we should glance at the characters of
Cleopatra and certain Byzantine usurpresses, and with a look askance at
the two empresses of Russia, should arrive at her late imperial majesty
of China. The poor, bad Isabella of Spain would concern us no more than
the great, good Victoria of England, for they were the heads of
monarchies and not of despotisms; but we should subtly insinuate that
the reigns of female sovereigns were nowhere adorned by ladies of the
distinction so common as hardly to be distinction in the annals of kings
and emperors. What famous beauty embellished the court of Elizabeth or
either Mary? Even Anne's Mrs. Masham was not a shining personality, and
her Sarah of Marlborough was only a brilliant shrew.

"At this point we should digress a little, but we should pursue our
inquiry in the same satirical tenor. We hope we are not of those
moralists who assume a merit in denouncing the international marriages
which have brought our women, some to think tolerantly and some to
think favorably of a monarchy as affording greater scope for their
social genius. But we should ask, with the mock-seriousness befitting
such a psychological study, how it was that, while American girls
married baronets and viscounts and earls and dukes, almost none, if any,
of their brothers married the sisters or daughters of such noblemen. It
could not be that they were not equally rich and therefore equally
acceptable, and could it be that they made it a matter of conscience not
to marry ladies of title? Were our men, then, more patriotic than our
women? Were men naturally more republican than women?

"This question would bring us to the pass where we should more or less
drop the mocking mask. We should pictur