of the vast variety of human companionship-matronly, maidenly, sisterly, daughterly. In woman, there may be a true sense of sex, its duties and its claims, meekness with its hidden heroism; or there may be the unfeminine temper, fit to be rebuked by the Desdemona model.* Such a rebuke may be apposite where female character disfigures itself by obtrusiveness and self-sufficiency and pedantry. But, as far as my observation goes, that is not the state of society here; on the contrary, there is needed an effort much more difficult than repressing the froward; and that is, to lift modest, intelligent, sensitive womanhood above the dread of the ridicule of pedantry.

Manly

culture would gain by it as well as womanly. I heard lately from a woman's lips one of the finest pieces of Shakspeare criticism I ever met with; admirable in imagination and in the true philosophy of criticism, and yet uttered in conversation in the easy, natural intercourse of society. Such should be the culture of woman, and such the tone of society, that these fine processes of womanly thought and feeling may mingle naturally with men's judgments.

There may be a social condition in which womanly

*With regard to the Desdemona model, it must also be remembered that it is not the only model of womanly character which the poet has left to the world; on the contrary, he has given others of equal worth and beauty, varied to the infinite variety of womanly duty. Indeed, what a woman ought to do often depends upon what man does, and very often, too, on what he leaves undone so that, while it may be her duty to bow "like the gentle lady married to the Moor," man's wrongs or his omissions may call her to other duties— going forth, like Imogen, for womanly well-doing in the open and rude places of the earth. H. R.

Mrs. Kemble.

culture is in advance of the manly, and then the woman is placed in the sad dilemma of either lowering the tone of her own thoughts, or of raising the minds of men and their habits of thought a task that demands all of womanly sagacity and gentleness, and is a trial to womanly modesty. The companionship of the sexes is important in the culture of each, and by such communion the marvellous harmony of diverse qualities is made more perfect for the strength and beauty of their common humanity. One of the latest strains of English poetry has well proclaimed

"The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink
Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free:

All that not harms distinctive womanhood,
For woman is not undevelopt man,

But diverse could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this

Not like to thee, but like in difference:

Yet in the long years liker must they grow,

The man be more of woman, she of man;

He gain in sweetness and in moral height,

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care;
More as the double-natured poet each:

Till at the last she set herself to man

Like perfect music unto noble words;

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,

Sit side by side, full summ'd in all their powers,

Dispensing harvest;

Self-reverent each, and reverencing each,

Distinct in individualties;

But like each other, even as those who love :

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men.'
""

* I quote from that late poem of Mr. Tennyson's, "The Princess,” which has made a deep impression on the thoughtful criticism of his

I have been tempted further into this subject than I meant to be, but what I have said respecting the companionship of the sexes can have no better illustration than in the study of literature. All that is essential literature belongs alike to mind of woman and of man; it demands the same kind of culture from each, and most salutary may the companionship of mind be found, giving reciprocal help by the diversity of their power. Let us see how this will be. In the first place, a good habit of reading, whether in man or woman, may be described as the combination of passive recipiency from the book and the mind's reaction upon it: this equipoise is true culture. But, in a great deal of reading, the passiveness of impression is well nigh all, for it is luxurious indolence, and the reactive process is neglected. With the habitual

countrymen, and which has been described as having for its leading purpose the exhibiting the true idea and dignity of womanhood. I will not part from it without citing that other fine tribute to womanly influence-a manly acknowledgment full of deep thought and of true feeling, when he speaks of

"One

Not learned, save in gracious household ways,
Nor perfect, nay, but full of tender wants;

No angel, but a dearer being all dipt

In angel instincts, breathing paradise,
Interpreter between the gods and men,
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere
Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce
Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved,
And girdled her with music. Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay."

H. R.

novel-reader, for instance, the luxury of reading becomes. a perpetual stimulant, with no demand on the mind's own energy, and slowly wearing it away. The true enjoyment of books is when there is a co-operating power in the reader's mind—an active sympathy with the book; and those are the best books which demand that of you. And here let me notice how unfortunate and, indeed, mischievous a term is the word "taste" as applied in intercourse with literature or art; a metaphor taken from a passive sense, it fosters that lamentable error, that literature, which requires the strenuous exertion of action and sympathy, may be left to mere passive impressions. The temptation to receive an author's mind unreflectingly and passively is common to us all, but greater, I believe, for women, who gain, however, the advantages of a readier sympathy and a more unquestioning faith. The man's mind reacts more on the book, sets himself more in judgment upon it, and trusts less to his feelings; but, in all this, he is in more danger of bringing his faculties separately into action: he is more apt to be misled by our imperfect systems of metaphysics, which give us none but the most meagre theories of the human mind, and which are destined, I believe, to be swept away,. if ever a great philosopher should devote himself to the work of analyzing the processes of thought. That pervading error of drawing a broad line of demarcation between our moral and intellectual nature, instead of recognising the intimate interdependence of thought and feeling, is a fallacy that scarce affects the workings of a woman's spirit. If a gifted and cultivated woman take a thoughtful interest in a book, she brings her whole being to bear on it, and hence there will often be a better assurance of truth in

her conclusions than in man's more logical deductions, just as, by a similar process, she often shows finer and quicker tact in the discrimination of character. It has been justly remarked, that, with regard "to women of the highest intellectual endowments, we feel that we do them the utmost injustice in designating them by such terms as clever,' able,' 'learned,' intellectual:' they never present themselves to our minds as such. There is a sweetness, or a truth, or a kindness--some grace, some charm, some distinguishing moral characteristic which keeps the intellect in due subordination, and brings them to our thoughts, temper, mind, affections, one harmonious whole."

A woman's mind receiving true culture and preserving its fidelity to all womanly instincts, makes her, in our intercourse with literature, not only a companion, but a counsellor and a helpmate, fulfilling in this sphere the purposes of her creation. It is in letters as in life, and there (as has been well said) the woman "who praises and blames, persuades and resists, warns or exhorts upon occasion given, and carries her love through all with a strong heart, and not a weak fondness-she is the true helpmate."*

Cowper, speaking of one of his female friends, writes, "She is a critic by nature and not by rule, and has a perception of what is good or bad in composition, that I never knew deceive her; insomuch that when two sorts of expressions have pleaded equally for the precedence in my own esteem, and I have referred, as in such cases I

*The Statesman, by Henry Taylor, p. 70.