her skill in character
painting set the fashion for the pen portraits which became a mania a
few years later.

She depicts herself as Sapppho, whose opinions may be supposed to
reflect her own. In these days, when the position of women is discussed
from every possible point of view, it may be interesting to know how it
was regarded by one who represented the thoughtful side of the age in
which their social power was first distinctly asserted. She classes her
critics and enemies under several heads. Among them are the "light and
coquettish women whose only occupation is to adorn their persons
and pass their lives in fetes and amusements--women who think that
scrupulous virtue requires them to know nothing but to be the wife of a
husband, the mother of children, and the mistress of a family; and men
who regard women as upper servants, and forbid their daughters to read
anything but their prayer books."

"One does not wish women to be coquettes," she writes again, "but
permits them to learn carefully all that fits them for gallantry,
without teaching them anything which can fortify their virtue or occupy
their minds. They devote ten or a dozen years to learning to appear
well, to dress in good style, to dance and sing, for five or six; but
this same person, who requires judgment all her life and must talk
until her last sigh, learns nothing which can make her converse more
agreeably, or act with more wisdom."

But she does not like a femme savante, and ridicules, under the name
of Damophile, a character which might have been the model for Moliere's
Philaminte. This woman has five or six masters, of whom the least
learned teaches astrology. She poses as a Muse, and is always surrounded
with books, pencils, and mathematical instruments, while she uses large
words in a grave and imperious tone, although she speaks only of little
things. After many long conversations about her, Sappho concludes thus:
"I wish it to be said of a woman that she knows a hundred things of
which she does not boast, that she has a well-informed mind, is familiar
with fine works, speaks well, writes correctly, and knows the world; but
I do not wish it to be said of her that she is a femme savante. The two
characters have no resemblance." She evidently recognized the fact that
when knowledge has penetrated the soul, it does not need to be worn on
the outside, as it shines through the entire personality.

After some further discussion, to the effect