r unquestioned supremacy in the salons which made Paris for so long
a period the social capital of Europe. It was impossible that intellects
so plastic should not expand in such an atmosphere, and the result is
not difficult to divine. From Mme. de Rambouillet to Mme. de La Fayette
and Mme. de Sevigne, from these to Mme. de Stael and George Sand, there
is a logical sequence. The Saxon temperament, with a vein of La Bruyere,
gives us George Eliot.

This new introduction of the feminine element into literature, which is
directly traceable to the salons of the seventeenth century, suggests
a point of special interest to the moralist. It may be assumed that,
whether through nature or a long process of evolution, the minds of
women as a class have a different coloring from the minds of men as a
class. Perhaps the best evidence of this lies in the literature of the
last two centuries, in which women have been an important factor, not
only through what they have done themselves, but through their reflex
influence. The books written by them have rapidly multiplied. Doubtless,
the excess of feeling is often unbalanced by mental or artistic
training; but even in the crude productions, which are by no means
confined to one sex, it may be remarked that women deal more with pure
affections and men with the coarser passions. A feminine Zola of any
grade of ability has not yet appeared.

It is not, however, in literature of pure sentiment that the influence
of women has been most felt. It is true that, as a rule, they look
at the world from a more emotional standpoint than men, but both have
written of love, and for one Sappho there have been many Anacreons.
Mlle. de Scudery and Mme. de La Fayette did not monopolize the sentiment
of their time, but they refined and exalted it. The tender and exquisite
coloring of Mme. de Stael and George Sand had a worthy counterpart in
that of Chateaubriand or Lamartine. But it is in the moral purity, the
touch of human sympathy, the divine quality of compassion, the swift
insight into the soul pressed down by

The heavy and weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,

that we trace the minds of women attuned to finer spiritual issues. This
broad humanity has vitalized modern literature. It is the penetrating
spirit of our century, which has been aptly called the Woman's Century.
We do not find it in the great literatures of the past. The Greek poets
give us types of tragic passions,