Women, then, are the great interferers at home, both with each other and with men. They do not tell us what we are to do, beyond going to church and subscribing to their favorite mission, so much as they tell us what we are not to do; they do not command so much as they forbid; and, of all women, wives and daughters are the most given to handling these check-strings and putting on these drag-chains. Sisters, while young, are obliged to be less interfering, under pain of a perpetual round of bickering; for brothers are not apt to submit to the counsel of creatures for the most part as loftily snubbed as sisters are; while mothers are nine times out of ten laid aside for all but sentimental purposes, so soon as the son has ceased to be a boy and has learned to become a man. The queenhood, therefore, of personal and domestic interference lies with wives, and they know how to use the prerogative they assume.

Take an unlucky man who smokes under protest, his wife not liking to forbid the pleasure entirely, but always grudging it, and interfering with its exercise. Each segar represents a battle, deepening in intensity according to the number. The first may have been had with only a light skirmish perhaps, perhaps a mere threatening of an attack that passed away without coming to actual onslaught; the second brings up the artillery; while the third or fourth lets all the forces loose, and sets the biggest guns thundering. She could understand a man smoking one segar in the day, she says, with a gracious condescension to masculine weakness; but when it comes to more she feels that she is called on to interfere, and to do her best towards checking such a reprehensible excess. It does not weaken her position that she knows nothing of what she is talking about. She never smoked a segar herself, and therefore does not understand the uses or the abuses of tobacco; but she holds herself pledged to interfere as soon as she gets the chance, and she redeems the pledge with energy.

The man too, who has the stomach of an ostrich and an appetite to correspond, but about whom the home superstition is that he has a feeble digestion and must take care of his diet, has also to run the gauntlet of his wife's interfering forces. He never dines or sups jollily with his friends without being plucked at and reminded that salmon always disagrees with him; that champagne is sure to give him a headache to-morrow; and "My dear! when you know how bad salad is for you!" or, "How can you eat that horrid pastry! You will be so ill in the night!" "What! more wine? another glass of whisky? how foolish you are! how wrong!" The wife has a nervous organization which cannot bear stimulants; the husband is a strong large-framed man who can drink deep without feeling it; but to the excitable woman her feeble limit is her husband's measure, and as soon as he has gone beyond the range of her own short tether, she trots after him remonstrating, and thinks herself justified in interfering with his progress. For women cannot be brought to understand the capacities of a man's life; they cannot be made to understand that what is bad for themselves may not be bad for others, and that their weakness ought not to be the gauge of a man's strength.

A pale chilly woman afflicted with chronic bronchitis, who wears furs and velvets in May and fears the east wind as much as an East-Indian fears a tiger, does her best to coddle her husband, father, and sons in about the same ratio as she coddles herself. They must not go out without an overcoat; they must be sure to take an umbrella if the day is at all cloudy; they must not walk too far, nor ride too hard, and they must be sure to be at home by a certain hour. When such women as these have to do with men just on the boundary-line between the last days of vigor and the first of old age, they put forward the time of old age by many years. One sees their men rapidly sink into the softness and incapacity of senility, when a more bracing life would have kept them good for half-a-dozen years longer. But women do not care for this. They like men to be their own companions more than they care for any manly comradeship among each other; and most women—but not all—would rather have their husbands manly in a womanly way than in a manly one, as being more within the compass of their own sympathies and understanding.

The same kind of interference is very common where the husband is a man of broad humor—one who calls a spade a spade, with no circumlocution about an agricultural implement. The wife of such a man is generally one of the ultra-refined kind, according to the odd law of compensation which regulates so much of human action, and thinks herself obliged to stand as the enduring censor of her husband's speech. As this is an example most frequently to be found in middle life, and where there are children belonging to the establishment, the word of warning is generally "papa!"—said with reproach or resentment, according to circumstances—which has, of course, the effect of drawing the attention of the young people to the paternal breadth of speech, and of fixing that special breach of decorum on their memory. Sometimes the wife has sufficient self-restraint not to give the word of warning in public, but can nurse her displeasure for a more convenient season; but as soon as they are alone, the miserable man has to pass under the harrow, as only husbands with wives of a chastising spirit can pass under it, and his life is made a burden to him because of that unlucky anecdote told with such verve a few hours ago, and received with such shouts of pleasant laughter. Perhaps the anecdote was just a trifle doubtful; granted; but what does the wife take by her remonstrance? Most probably a quarrel; possibly a good-natured peccavi for the sake of being let off the continuance of the sermon; perhaps a yawn; most certainly not reform. If the man is a man of free speech and broad humor by nature and liking, he will remain so to the end; and what the censorship of society leaves untouched, the interference of a wife will not control.

Children come in for an enormous share of interference, which is not direction, not discipline, but simple interference for its own sake. There are mothers who meddle with every expression of individuality in their young people, quite irrespective of moral tendency, or whether the occasion is trivial or important. In the fancies, the pleasures, the minor details of dress in their children, there is always that intruding maternal finger upsetting the arrangements of the poor little pie as vigorously as if thrones and altars depended on the result. Not a game of croquet can be begun, nor a blue ribbon worn instead of a pink one, without maternal interference; so that the bloom is rubbed off every enjoyment, and life becomes reduced to a kind of goose-step, with mamma for the drill-sergeant prescribing the inches to be marked. Sisters, too, do a great deal of this kind of thing among each other; as all those who are intimate where there are large families of unmarried girls must have seen. The nudges, the warning looks, the deprecating "Amies!" and "Oh Lucies!" and "Hush Roses!" by which some seek to act as household police over the others, are patent to all who use their senses.

In some houses the younger sisters seem to have been born chiefly as training grounds for the elders, whereon they may exercise their powers of interference; and a hard time they have of it. If Emma goes to her embroidery, Ellen tells her she ought to practice her singing; if Jane is reading, Mary recommends sewing as a more profitable use of precious time; if Amy is at her easel, Ada wants to turn her round to the piano. It is quite the exception where four or five sisters leave each other free to do as each likes, and do not take to drilling and interference as part of the daily programme. Something of the reluctance to domestic service so painfully apparent among the better class of working women is due to this spirit of interference with women. The lady who wrote about the caps and gowns of servant-girls, and drew out a plan of dress, down to the very material of their gloves, was an instance of this spirit. For, when we come to analyse it, what does it really signify to us how our servants dress, so long as they are clean and decent, and do not let their garments damage our goods? Fashion is almost always ridiculous, and women as a rule care more for dress than they care for anything else; and if the kitchen apes the parlor, and Phyllis gives as much thought to her new linsey as my lady gives to her new velvet, we cannot wonder at it, nor need we hold up our hands in horror at the depravity of the smaller person. Does one flight of stairs transpose morality? If it does not, there is no real ethical reason why my lady should interfere with poor Phyllis's enjoyment in her ugly vanities, when she herself will not be interfered with, though press and pulpit both try to turn her out of her present path into one that all ages have thought the best for her, and the one divinely appointed. It is a thing that will not bear reasoning on, being simply a form of the old "who will guard the guardian?" Who will direct the directress? and to whose interference will the interferer submit?

There are two causes for this excessive love of interference among women. The one is the narrowness of their lives and objects, by which insignificant things gain a disproportionate value in their eyes; the other, their belief that they are the only saviors of society, and that without them man would become hopelessly corrupt. And to a certain extent this belief is true, but surely with restrictions. Because the clearer moral sense and greater physical weakness of women restrain men's fiercer passions, and force them to be gentle and considerate, women are not, therefore, the sole arbiters of masculine life, into whose hands is given the paying out of just so much rope as they think fit for the occasion. They would do better to look to their own tackle before settling so exactly the run of others'; and if ever their desired time of equality is to come, it must come through mutual independence, not through womanly interference, and as much liberality and breadth must be given as is demanded—which, so far as humanity has gone hitherto, has not been the feminine manner of squaring accounts.

Grant that women are the salt of the earth, and the great antiseptic element in society, still that does not reduce everything else to the verge of corruption which they alone prevent. Yet by their lives they evidently think that it is so, and that they are each and all the keepers of keys which give them a special entrance to the temple of morality, and by which they are able to exclude or admit the grosser body of men. Hence they interfere and restrict and pay out just so much rope, and measure off just so much gambolling ground, as they think fit; they think vile man a horribly wicked invention when he takes things into his own hand, and goes beyond their boundary-lines. It is all done in good if in a very narrow faith—that we admit willingly; but we would call their attention to the difference there is between influence and interference, which is just the difference between their ideal duty and their daily practice—between being the salt of the earth and the blister of the home. We think it only justice to put in a word for those poor henpecked fellows of husbands at a time when the whole cry is for Woman's Rights, which seems to mean chiefly her right of making man knuckle under on all occasions, and of making one will serve for two lives. We assure her that she would get her own way in large matters much more easily if she would leave men more liberty in small ones, and not teaze them by interfering in things which do not concern her, and have only reference to themselves.



PLAIN GIRLS.

It is beyond all question the tendency of modern society to regard marriage as the great end and justification of a woman's life. This is perhaps the single point on which practical and romantic people, who differ in so many things, invariably agree. Poets, novelists, natural philosophers, fashionable and unfashionable mothers, meet one another on the broad common ground of approving universal matrimony; and women from their earliest years are dedicated to the cultivation of those feminine accomplishments which are supposed either to be most seductive before marriage in a drawing-room, or most valuable after marriage in the kitchen and housekeeper's-room.

It is admitted to be a sort of half necessity in any interesting work of fiction that its plots, its adventures, and its catastrophes should all lead up to the marriage of the principal young lady. Sometimes, as in the case of the celebrated Lilly Dale, the public tolerates a bold exception to the ordinary rule, on account of the extreme piquancy of the thing; but no wise novelist ventures habitually to disregard the prevalent opinion that the heroine's mission is to become a wife before the end of the third volume. The one ideal, accordingly, which romance has to offer woman is marriage; and most novels thus make life end with what really is only its threshold and beginning. The Bible no doubt says that it is not good for man to live alone. What the Bible says of man, public opinion as unhesitatingly asserts of woman; and a text that it is not good for woman to live alone either, though not canonical, is silently added by all domestic commentators to the Scriptural original.

Those who pretend to be best acquainted with the order of nature and the mysterious designs of Providence assure us with confidence that all this is as it should be; that woman is not meant to grow and flourish singly, but to hang on man, and to depend on him, like the vine upon the elm. If we remember right, M. Comte entertains opinions which really come to pretty much the same thing. Woman is to be maintained in ease and luxury by the rougher male animal, it being her duty in return to keep his spiritual nature up to the mark, to quicken and to purify his affections, to be a sort of drawing-room religion in the middle of every-day life, to serve as an object of devotion to the religious Comtist, and to lead him through love of herself up to the love of humanity in the abstract.

One difficulty presented by this matrimonial view of woman's destiny is to know what, under the present conditions in which society finds itself placed, is to become of plain girls. Their mission is a subject which no philosopher as yet has adequately handled. If marriage is the object of all feminine endeavors and ambitions, it certainly seems rather hard that Providence should have condemned plain girls to start in the race at such an obvious disadvantage. Even under M. Comte's system, which provides for almost everything, and which, in its far-sightedness and thoughtfulness for our good, appears almost more benevolent than Providence, it would seem as if hardly sufficient provision had been made for them.

It must be difficult for any one except a really advanced Comtist to give himself up to the worship of a thoroughly plain girl. Filial instinct might enable us to worship her as a mother, but even the noblest desire to serve humanity would scarcely be enough to keep a husband or a lover up to his daily devotions in the case of a plain girl with sandy hair and a freckled complexion. The boldest effort to rectify the inequalities of the position of plain girls has been made of late years by a courageous school of female writers of fiction. Everything has been done that could be done to persuade mankind that plain girls are in reality by far the most attractive of the lot. The clever authoress of "Jane Eyre" nearly succeeded in the forlorn attempt for a few years; and plain girls, with volumes of intellect speaking through their deep eyes and from their massive foreheads, seemed for a while, on paper at least, to be carrying everything before them.

The only difficulty was to get the male sex to follow out in practice what they so completely admired in Miss Bronte's three-volume novels. Unhappily, the male sex, being very imperfect and frail, could not be brought to do it. They recognized the beauty of the conception about plain girls, they were very glad to see them married off in scores to heroic village doctors, and they quite admitted that occasional young noblemen might be represented in fiction as becoming violently attached to young creatures with inky fingers and remarkable minds.

But no real change was brought about in ordinary life. Man, sinful man, read with pleasure about the triumphs of the sandy-haired girls, but still kept on dancing with and proposing to the pretty ones. And at last authoresses were driven back on the old standard of beauty. At present, in the productions both of masculine and feminine workmanship, the former view of plain girls has been resumed. They are allowed, if thoroughly excellent in other ways, to pair off with country curates and with devoted missionaries; but the prizes of fiction, as well as the prizes of reality, fall to the lot of their fairer and more fortunate sisters.

Champions of plain girls are not, however, wanting who boldly take the difficulty by the horns, and deny in toto the fact that in matrimony and love the race is usually to the beautiful. Look about you, they tell us, in the world, and you will as often as not find beauties fading on their stalks, and plain girls marrying on every side of them. And no doubt plain girls do marry very frequently. Nobody, for instance, with half an eye can fail to be familiar with the phenomenon, in his own circle, of astonishingly ugly married women. It does not, however, follow that plain girls are not terribly weighted in the race.

There are several reasons why women who rely on their beauty remain unmarried at the last, but the reason that their beauty gives them no advantage is certainly not one. The first reason perhaps is that beauties are inclined to be fastidious and capricious. They have no notion of following the advice of Mrs. Hannah More, and being contented with the first good, sensible, Christian lover who falls in their way; and they run, in consequence, no slight risk of overstaying their market. They go in for a more splendid sort of matrimonial success, and think they can afford to play the more daring game.

Plain girls are providentially preserved from these temptations. At the close of a well-spent life they can conscientiously look back on a career in which no reasonable opportunity was neglected, and say that they have not broken many hearts, or been sinfully and distractingly particular. And there is the further consideration to be remembered in the case of plain girls, that fortune and rank are nearly as valuable articles as beauty, and lead to a fair number of matrimonial alliances. The system of Providence is full of kindly compensations, and it is a proof of the universal benevolence we see about us that so many heiresses should be plain. Plain girls have a right to be cheered and comforted by the thought. It teaches them the happy lesson that beauty, as compared with a settled income, is skin-deep and valueless; and that what man looks for in the companion of his life is not so much a bright cheek or a blue eye, as a substantial and useful amount of this world's wealth.

Plain girls again expect less, and are prepared to accept less, in a lover. Everybody knows the sort of useful, admirable, practical man who sets himself to marry a plain girl. He is not a man of great rank, great promise, or great expectations. Had it been otherwise, he might possibly have flown at higher game, and set his heart on marrying female loveliness rather than homely excellence. His choice, if it is nothing else, is an index of a contented and modest disposition. He is not vain enough to compete in the great race for beauties. What he looks for is some one who will be the mother of his children, who will order his servants duly, and keep his household bills; and whose good sense will teach her to recognise the sterling qualities of her husband, and not object to his dining daily in his slippers. This is the sort of partner that plain girls may rationally hope to secure, and who can say that they ought not to be cheerful and happy in their lot? For a character of this undeniable sobriety there is indeed a positive advantage in a plain girl as a wife. It should never be forgotten that the man who marries a plain girl never need be jealous. He is in the Arcadian and fortunate condition of a lover who has no rivals. A sensible unambitious nature will recognize in this a solid benefit. Plain girls rarely turn into frisky matrons, and this fact renders them peculiarly adapted to be the wives of dull and steady mediocrity.

Lest it should be supposed that the above calculation of what plain girls may do leaves some of their power and success still unaccounted for, it is quite right and proper to add that the story of plain girls, if it were carefully written, would contain many instances, not merely of moderate good fortunes, but of splendid and exceptional triumph. Like prima donnas, opera-dancers, and lovely milliners, plain girls have been known to make extraordinary hits, and to awaken illustrious passions. Somebody ought to take up the subject in a book, and tell us how they did it.

This is the age of Golden Treasuries. We have Golden Treasuries of English poets, of French poets, of great lawyers, of famous battles, of notable beauties, of English heroes, of successful merchants, and of almost every sort of character and celebrity that can be conceived. What is wanted is a Golden Treasury containing the narrative of the most successful plain girls. This book might be called the Book of Ugliness, and we see no reason why, to give reality to the story, the portraits of some of the most remarkable might not be appended. Of course, if ever such a volume is compiled, it will be proved to demonstration that plain girls have before now arrived at great matrimonial honor and renown.

There is, for example, the sort of plain girl who nurses her hero (perhaps in the Crimea) through a dangerous attack of illness, and marries him afterwards. There is the class of those who have been married simply from a sense of duty. There is the class that distinguishes itself by profuse kindness to poor cottagers, and by reading the Bible to blind old women; an occupation which as we know, from the most ordinary works of fiction, leads directly to the promptest and speediest attachments on the part of the young men who happen to drop in casually at the time. The catalogue of such is perhaps long and famous. Yet, allowing for all these, allowing for everything else that can be adduced in their favor, we cannot help returning to the position that plain girls have an up-hill battle to fight. No doubt it ought not to be so.

Cynics tell us that six months after a man is married it makes very little difference to him whether his wife's nose is Roman, aquiline, or retrousse; and this may be so. The unfortunate thing is that most men persist in marrying for the sake of the illusion of the first six months, and under the influence of the ante-nuptial and not the post-nuptial sentiments; and as the first six months with a plain girl are confessedly inferior in attraction, the inference is clear that they do in effect attract less. Plainness or loveliness apart, a very large number of womankind have no reason to expect any very happy chance in married life; and if marriage is to be set before all women as the one ideal, a number of feminine lives will always turn out to have been failures.

It may be said that it is hopeless to attempt on this point to alter the sentiments of the female sex, or indeed the general verdict of society. We do not quite see the hopelessness. A considerable amount of the matrimonial ideas of young women are purely the result of their education, and of the atmosphere in which they have been brought up; and, by giving a new direction to their early training, it might not be altogether so quixotical to believe that we should alter all that is the result of the training. At any rate it has become essential for the welfare of women that they should, as far as possible, be taught that they may have a career open to them even if they never marry; and it is the duty of society to try to open to them as many careers of the sort as are not incompatible with the distinctive peculiarities of a woman's physical capacity.

It may well be that society's present instincts as regards woman are at bottom selfish. The notion of feminine dependence on man, of the want of refinement in a woman who undertakes any active business or profession, and of the first importance of woman's domestic position, when carried to an extreme, are perhaps better suited to the caprice and fanciful fastidiousness of men than to the real requirements, in the present age, of the other sex. The throng of semi-educated authoresses who are now flocking about the world of letters is a wholesome protest against such exclusive jealousy. The real objection to literary women is that women, with a few notable exceptions, are not yet properly educated to write well, or to criticise well what others write. Remove this objection by improving the curriculum of feminine education, and there is hardly any other. There is none certainly of sufficient consequence to outweigh the real need which is felt of giving those women something to live for (apart from and above ordinary domestic and philanthropic duties), whose good or evil fortune it is not to be marked out by Heaven for a married life.



A WORD FOR FEMALE VANITY.

If any human weakness has a right to complain of the ingratitude with which the world treats it, it is certainly vanity. It gets through more good work, and yet comes in for more hearty abuse, than all our other weaknesses put together. Preachers and moralists are always having hits at it, and in that philosophical study and scientific vivisection of character which two friends are always so ready to practice at the expense of a third, and which weak-minded people confound with scandal, to no foible is the knife so pitilessly applied as to vanity. What makes this rigor seem all the more cruel and unnatural is that vanity never gets so little quarter as from those who ought, one would think, to be on the best possible terms with her. She is never justified of her children, and, like Byron's unhappy eagle, "nurses the pinion that impels the steel" against her. Yet it is difficult to see how the world could get on without the weakness thus universally assailed, and what preachers and moralists would do if they had their own way.

In the more important—or, we should rather say, in the larger—concerns of life vanity could perhaps be dispensed with. Where there is much at stake, other agencies come into play to keep the machinery of the world in motion, though, even as regards these, it is a question how many great poems, great speeches, great actions, which have profoundly influenced the destinies of mankind, would have been lost to the world if there had been none but great motives at work to produce them. Great motives usually get the credit—that is, when we are dealing with historical characters, not dissecting a friend, in whose case it is necessary to guard against our natural proneness to partiality; but little motives often do the largest share of the work. It is proper, for instance, and due to our own dignity and self-respect to say, that the world owes Childe Harold to a great poet's inspired yearning for immortality. Still, we fear, there is room for a doubt whether the world would ever have seen Childe Harold if the great poet had not happened to be also a morbidly vain and, in some respects, remarkably small man. But even if we assume that the big affairs of life may be left to big motives, and do not require such a little motive as vanity to help them, these are, after all, few and far between.

For one action that may safely be left to yearnings for immortality, or ambition, or love, or something equally lofty and grand, there are thousands which society must get done somehow, and which it gets done pleasantly and comfortably only because, by a charmingly convenient illusion, the vanity of each agent makes him attach a peculiar importance to them. There is no act so trivial, or to all appearance so unworthy of a rational being, that the magic of vanity cannot throw a halo of dignity over it, and persuade the agent that it is mainly by his exertions that society is kept together, as Moliere's dancing-master reasoned that the secret of good government is the secret of good dancing—namely, how to avoid false steps. And it is this genial promoter of human happiness, this all-powerful diffuser of social harmony, this lubricating oil without which the vast and complex machinery of life could never work, that man, in his ignorant ingratitude, dares to denounce.

We should like to ask one of these thoughtless revilers of vanity whether it has ever been his misfortune to meet a woman without it. He would probably try to escape by declaring that a woman without vanity is a purely imaginary being, if not a contradiction in terms; and we admit that there is something to be said in favor of this view. Nothing is more astonishing to the male philosopher than the odd way in which, from some stray corner of character where he would have least thought of looking for it, female vanity now and then suddenly pops out upon him. He fancied that he knew a woman well, that he had studied her character and mastered all its strong and weak points, when, by some accident or at some unguarded moment, he suddenly strikes a rich, deep, vein of vanity of the existence of which he never had the remotest suspicion. He may perhaps have known that she was not without vanity on certain points, but for these he had discovered, or had fancied he had discovered, some sort of reason. We do not necessarily mean, by reason, any cause that seemed to justify or, on any consistent principle, to account for the fact. As we have already remarked, it is the peculiarity of vanity that it often flourishes most vigorously, and puts forth a plentiful crop, where there does not seem to be even a layer of soil for it.

Both men and women are occasionally most vain of their weakest points, perhaps by a merciful provision of nature similar to that by which a sow always takes most kindly to the weakest pig in the litter. Lord Chesterfield, when paternally admonishing his son as to the proper management of women, lays down as a general indisputable axiom that they are all, as a matter of course, to be flattered to the top of their bent; but he adds, as a special rule, that a very pretty or a very ugly woman should be flattered, not about her personal charms, but about her mental powers. It is only in the case of a moderately good-looking woman that the former should be singled out for praise. A very pretty woman takes her beauty as a matter of course, and would rather be flattered about the possession of some advantage to which her claim is not so clear, while a very ugly woman distrusts the sincerity of flattery about her person.

It is not without the profoundest diffidence that we venture to dispute the opinion of such an authority on such a subject as Lord Chesterfield, but still we think that no woman is so hideous that she may not, if her vanity happens to take this turn, be told with perfect safety that she is a beauty. Her vanity is, indeed, not so likely to take this turn as it would be if she were really pretty. She will probably plume herself upon her abilities or accomplishments, and therefore Chesterfield's excellent fatherly advice was, on the whole, tolerably safe. But still, if any hereditary bias or unlucky accident—such, for instance, as that of being brought up among people with whom brains are nothing, and beauty everything—does give an ugly woman's vanity an impulse in the direction of good looks, no excess of hideousness makes it unsafe to extol her beauty. On the contrary, she is more likely to be imposed upon than a moderately good-looking woman, from her greater eagerness to clutch at every straw that may help to keep up the darling delusion. No philosopher is, accordingly, surprised at finding that a woman is vain where he can discover not the slightest rational foundation even for female vanity.

But it certainly is surprising, now and then, to find how long the most intense female vanity will lie, in some out-of-the-way corner of character, hidden from the eye. Perhaps we ought to say, the male eye, for women seem to discover each other's weak points by a power of intuition that amounts almost to instinct. But a man is amazed to find that a woman whose vanity he believed himself to have tracked into all its channels has it, after all, most strongly in some channel of which he previously knew nothing. He has perhaps considered her a sensible matter-of-fact woman, vain perhaps, though not unpardonably, of her capacity for business and knowledge of the world, but singularly free from the not uncommon female tendency to believe that every man who sees her is in love with her; and he unexpectedly discovers that she has for years considered herself the object of a desperate passion on the part of the parish rector, a prosaic middle-aged gentleman of ample waistcoat and large family, and is a little uneasy about being left alone in the same room with the butler.

Unexpected discoveries of some such kind as this not unnaturally popularize the theory already mentioned, that such a being as a woman without vanity does not exist—that, no matter how securely the weakness may lie hidden from observation, it does somewhere or other exist, and some day will out. But we are inclined, notwithstanding, to hold that, here and there, but happily very seldom, there are to be found women really without vanity; and most unpleasant women they seem to us, as a rule, to be. They get on tolerably well with their own sex, for they are rarely pretty or affected, and they have usually certain solid, serviceable qualities which make up for not being attractive by standing wear and tear. But in their relations with men—as soon, that is, as they have secured a husband, and fascination has therefore ceased to be a matter of business, a practical question of bread-and-butter, to be grappled with in the spirit in which they would, if necessary, go out charing, or keep a mangle—they are painfully devoid of that eagerness to please and that readiness to be pleased which, in the present imperfect state of civilization, are among woman's chief charms.

Even men cannot, as a rule, get on very well without these qualities; but still to please is not man's mission in the sense in which it is generally considered to be woman's, and probably will continue to be considered, until Dr. Mary Walkers are not the exception, but the rule. One now and then has the misfortune to come upon a specimen of womanhood, good and solid enough perhaps, making a most exemplary and respectable wife and mother, but nevertheless dull, heavy, and unattractive to an extent that fills the wretched man who takes it in to dinner with desperation. And then to think that one ounce of vanity might have leavened this lump, and converted it, as by magic, into a pleasant, palatable, convivial compound, good everywhere, but especially good at the dinner-table! For, where vanity exists at all, it can scarcely fail to influence the natural desire of one sex to please the other; and a woman must be singularly devoid of all charms, physical and mental, if she fails when she is really anxious to please. That women should be fascinating, as they sometimes are, in spite of some positively painful deformity, is a proof of what such anxiety can alone accomplish.

We must admit that we have to postulate, on behalf of the female vanity whose cause we are espousing, that it should not derive its inspiration solely from self-love. However anxious a woman may be to please, if her anxiety is on her own account, and simply to secure admiration, she must be a very Helen if her vanity continues attractive. She is lucky if it does not take the most odious of all forms, and, from always revolving round self and dwelling upon selfish considerations, degenerate into a habit of perpetual postures and stage tricks to gain applause. And this tendency naturally connects itself with the wish to please the opposite sex, its success being in inverse proportion to its strength. Just as one occasionally meets with men who are perfectly unaffected and sensible fellows in men's society, but whose whole demeanor becomes absurdly changed if any woman, though it be only the housemaid with a coal-scuttle, enters the room, so there are, more commonly, to be found women whose whole character seems to vary, as if by magic, according to the sex of the person whom they find themselves with. Before their own sex they are natural enough; before men they are eternally attitudinizing. We should be sorry to say that this repulsive form of vanity always takes its root in excessive self-love, but still a tinge of unselfishness seems to us the best antidote against it.

It is marvellous with how much vanity, and that too of a tolerably ostentatious kind, a woman may be thoroughly agreeable even to her own sex, if her eagerness to please is accompanied by genuine kindliness, or is free from excessive selfishness. It may be easy enough to see that all her little courtesies and attentions are at bottom really attributable to vanity; that, when she does a kind act, she is thinking less of its effect upon your comfort and happiness than of its effect upon your estimate of her character. She would perhaps rather you got half the advantage with her aid than the whole advantage without it. Her motive is, primarily, vanity—clearly not kindness—however amicably they may in general work together. But still it is the kindness that makes the vanity flow into pleasant, friendly forms. In a selfish woman the very same vanity would degenerate into posturing or dressing. And, odd as it may seem, and as much as it may reflect upon the common sense of poor humanity, we believe that kind acts done out of genuine, unadulterated benevolence are less appreciated by the recipient than kind acts done out of benevolence stimulated by vanity. The latter are pleasant because they spring out of the desire to please, and soothe our self-love, whereas the former appeal to our self-interest.

There are few things in this world more charming than the kindly courtesy of a pretty woman, not ungracefully conscious of her power to please, and showing courtesy because she enjoys the exercise of this power. Strictly speaking, she is acting less in your interest than in her own. Although she feels at once the pleasure of pleasing and the pleasure of doing a kindly action, the second is quite subordinate to the first, and is perhaps, more or less, sacrificed to it. Yet who is strong-minded enough to wish that the kindliness of a pretty woman should be dictated by simple benevolence, untinged by vanity? If we knew that her kindliness arose rather from a wish to benefit us than to conciliate our good opinion, it is perhaps possible that we should esteem her more, but we fear it is quite certain that we should like her less.

Before we conclude, we ought perhaps to make one more postulate on behalf of female vanity, not less important than our postulate that it should be pleasantly tinged by unselfishness. To be agreeable, it must have fair foundation. A woman may be forgiven for over-estimating her charms, but there is no forgiveness on this side of the grave for a woman who recklessly credits herself with charms that do not exist. All the lavish cheques she draws upon her male neighbor's admiration are silently dishonored, and in half an hour after the moment they sit down to table together she is a hopeless bankrupt in his estimation, even though he may have courtesy and skill enough to conceal the collapse.

As there are few, if any, pleasanter objects than a pretty woman, gracefully conscious of her beauty, and radiantly fulfilling its legitimate end, the power of pleasing, so are there few, if any, more unpleasant objects than a vain woman, ungracefully conscious of imaginary charms, and secretly disgusting those she strives to attract. An ugly woman who gives herself the airs of a beauty, or a silly woman who believes herself a genius, is not a spectacle upon which a man of healthy imagination and appetite likes to dwell. It is perhaps only in accordance with the theory that this life is a state of trial and probation that the tastes can be explained. Happily, it is not very common. Most women know their strong from their weak points, and marshal them on the whole well in the encounter with their lawful oppressor and great enemy, man. And until they have won the victory to which Dr. Mary Walker is now leading them on, may they never lack the female vanity which makes it one of their great objects in life to please!



THE ABUSE OF MATCH-MAKING.

It is a pity that when, by some train of ill-luck, a word of respectable parentage, and well brought up, is led astray, it cannot adopt Goldsmith's recipe and die. It has not even the more prosaic alternative of being made an honest word by marriage, and escaping the name under which it stooped to folly, and was betrayed. It drags on a dishonored life, with little or no chance of recovering its character, inflicting cruel disgrace upon the unlucky family of ideas, no matter what their own innocence and respectability, to which it happens to belong. Thus Casuistry, if not a very useful, was at least a perfectly harmless, member of society, and moved in the best circles, until in an evil hour she became too intimate with the unpopular Jesuits.

A few years ago, when high feeding and sermonizing proved too much for the virtue of garotters, and, waxing fat, they not only kicked society, but danced hornpipes in hobnailed boots upon its head and stomach, even Philanthropy, at once the most fashionable and popular word of this century, was all but compromised by Sir Joshua Jebb and Sir George Grey. Baron Bramwell fortunately came to the rescue, and saved it from permanent loss of character. But still to this day the word is sometimes used in a sense by no means complimentary. If the battue-system continues long enough, "good sport" will become a synonym for cold-blooded clumsy butchery, and thus all sport whatsoever will be more or less discredited. The faux pas of one member disgraces the whole family. A few men may be the lords of language, but the great majority are its slaves. They can no more disconnect the innocent idea from the soiled word that accompanies it than they can see a blue landscape through green glass. Let us hope that one of the first acts of Mr. Bright's millennial Parliament will be the establishment of a tribunal empowered to take a word when it arrives at this pitiable condition, and either in mercy knock it on the head altogether, or else formally readmit it into good society, and give it all the advantages of a fresh start.

We take an early opportunity of inviting their special attention to the much-injured word "Match-making." The practice which it describes is not only harmless, but, in the present state of society, highly useful and meritorious. Yet there can be no doubt, that there is a powerful prejudice against it. Although all women—or rather, perhaps, as Thackeray said, all good women—are at heart match-makers, there are very few who own the soft impeachment. Many repudiate it with indignation. It is on the whole about as safe to charge a lady with Fenianism as facetiously to point out a young couple in her drawing-room, whose flirtation has a suspicious businesslike look about it, and to hint that she has deliberately brought them together with a view to matrimony. It may be true that she has no selfish interest whatever in the matter. The criminal conspiracy in which she so strenuously repudiates any concern is, after all, nothing worse than the attempt to make two people whom she likes, and who she thinks will suit each other, happy for life. By any other name such an action ought, one would think, to smell sweet in the nostrils of gods and men.

But, whatever the gods think of it, men cannot forget that the practice, whether harmless or not, goes by the objectionable name of match-making. So the lady replies, not, perhaps, without the energy of conscious guilt, that "things of this sort are best left to themselves," and piously begs you to remember that marriages are made in Heaven, not in her drawing-room. The melancholy truth is that the gentle craft of match-making has been so vulgarized by course and clumsy professors, and its very name has in consequence been brought into such disrepute, that few respectable women have the courage openly to recognise it. They are haunted by visions of the typical match-maker who does work for fashionable novels and social satires, and who is a truly awful personage. To her alone of mortals is it given to inspire, like the Harpies, at once contempt and fear. Keen-eyed and hook-nosed, like a bird of prey, she glowers from the corner of crowded ball-rooms upon the unconscious heir, hunts him untiringly from house to house, marries him remorselessly to her eldest daughter, and then never loses sight of him till his spirit is broken, his old friends discarded, and his segar-case thrown away.

It is scarcely necessary to say that this fearful being exists only in fiction. In real life she has not only to marry her daughters, but also, like other human beings, to eat, drink, sleep, and otherwise dispose of the twenty-four hours of the day. She cannot therefore very well devote herself, from morning to night, to the one occupation of heir-hunting, with the precision of a machine, or one of Bunyan's walking vices. But still there must be some truth even in a caricature, and a man sometimes finds a girl "thrown at his head," as the process is forcibly termed, with a coarse-mindedness quite worthy of the typical match-maker, though also with a clumsiness which she would heartily despise.

He goes as a stranger to some place, and is astonished to find himself at once taken to the bosom and innermost confidence of people whose very name he never heard before, as if he were their oldest and most familiar friend. He is asked to dinner one day, to breakfast the next, and warmly assured that a place is always kept for him at lunch. Charmed and flattered to find his many merits so quickly discovered and thoroughly appreciated by strangers, he votes them the cleverest, most genial, most hospitable people he ever met; and everything goes on delightfully until he begins to think it odd that he should be constantly left alone with, and now and then delicately chaffed about, some passee, ill-favored woman, whom he no more connects with any thought of marriage than he would a female rhinoceros. And then slowly dawns upon him the cruel truth that his kind hosts have had their appreciation of his merits considerably sharpened by the fact that there is an ugly daughter or sister-in-law in the house whom they are sick to death of, whom they are always imploring "to marry or do something," and who, having for years ogled and angled for every marriageable pair of whiskers and pantoloons within ten miles, has gradually become so well known in the neighborhood that her one forlorn hope is to carry off some innocent stranger with a rush.

"Quere peregrinum, vicinia rauca reclamat;" and if the peregrinus happens to be young and verdant, and, having just been given a good appointment, feels, with the Vicar of Wakefield, that one of the three greatest characters on earth is the father of a family, he is possibly hooked securely before he discovers his danger. He discovers it to find himself tied for life to a woman with whom he has not a sympathy in common, and for whom every day increases his disgust. And the people who have ruined his life have not even the sorry excuse that they wished to better hers. Their one thought was to get rid of her as speedily as possible, no matter to whom; and they would rather have had Bluebeard at a two-months' engagement than any other man at one of six. There is something so coarse and revolting, so brutal, in the notion of bringing two people together into such a relation as that of marriage on purely selfish grounds, and without the slightest regard to their future happiness, that any one who has seen the snare laid for himself or his friends may well shudder at the mere sound of match-making. Mezentius was more merciful, for of the two bodies which he chained together only one had life.

The clumsy match-maker is a scarcely less dangerous, though a far more respectable, enemy to the gentle craft than the coarse one. She makes it ridiculous, while the latter makes it odious, and it is ridicule that kills. She is, perhaps, a well-meaning woman, who would be sorry to marry two people unless she thought them suited to each other; but the moment she has made up her mind that they ought to marry, she sets to work with a vigor which, unless she has a very young man to deal with, is almost sure to spoil her plans. This would not be surprising in a silly woman; but it is odd that the more energetic, and, in some respects, the more able a woman is, the more likely sometimes she is to fall into this error.

A woman may be the life and soul of a dozen societies, write admirable letters, get half her male relatives into Government offices, and yet be the laughing-stock of the neighborhood for the absurd way in which she goes husband-hunting for her daughters. The very energy and ability which fit her for other pursuits disqualify her for match-making. She is too impatient and too fond of action to adopt the purely passive expectant attitude, the masterly inactivity, which is here the great secret of success. She is always feeling that something should be said or done to help on the business, and prematurely scares the shy or suspicious bird. Many a promising love-affair has been nipped in the bud simply because the too eager mother has drawn public attention to it before it was robust enough to face publicity, by throwing the two lovers conspicuously together, or by some unguarded remark.

When one thinks of all that a man has to go through in the course of a love-affair—especially in a small society where everybody knows everybody—of all the chaffing and grinning, and significant interchange of glances when he picks up the daughter's fan, or hands the mother to her carriage, or laughs convulsively at the old jokes of the father, one is almost inclined to wonder how a Briton, of the average British stiffness and shyness, ever gets married at all. The explanation probably is, that he falls in love before he exactly knows what he is about, and, once in love, is of course gloriously blind and deaf to all obstacles between him and the adored one. But to subject a man to this trying ordeal, as the too eager match-maker does, before he is sufficiently in love to be proof against it, is like sending him into a snow-storm without a great-coat.

The romantic match-maker is, in her way, as mischievous as the coarse or the clumsy one. She is usually a good sort of woman, but with decidedly more heart than head. She gets her notions of political economy from Mr. Dickens' novels, and holds that, whenever two nice young people of opposite sexes like each other, it is their business then and there to marry. If Providence cannot always, like Mr. Dickens, provide a rich aunt or uncle, it at least never sends mouths without hands to feed them. Let every good citizen help the young people to marry as fast as they can, and let there be lots of chubby cheeks and lots of Sunday plum-pudding to fill them. There is no arguing with a woman of this kind, and she is perhaps the most dangerous of all match-makers, inasmuch as she is usually herself a warm-hearted pleasant woman, and there is a courage and disinterestedness about her views very captivating to young heads. There is no safety but in flight. Even a bachelor of fair prudence and knowledge of the world is not safe in her hands. We mean on the assumption that he is not in a position to marry. If he is "an eligible," he cannot, of course, be considered safe anywhere. But otherwise he knows that match-makers of the unromantic worldly type will be only too glad to leave him alone.

And having, perhaps, been accustomed on this account to feel that he may flirt in moderation with impunity, as a man with whom marriage is altogether out of the question, he is quite unprepared for the new and startling unconventional view which the romantic match-maker takes of him. He is horrified to find that, ignoring the usual considerations as to the length of his purse, she has discovered that he and the pretty girl with whom he danced three consecutive dances last night must have been made expressly for each other, and that she has somehow contrived, by the exercise of that freemasonry in love-affairs which is peculiar to women, to put the same ridiculous notion into the young lady's head. In fact, he suddenly finds to his astonishment that he must either propose—which is out of the question—or be considered a cold-blooded trifler with female hearts. And so he has nothing to do but pack up his portmanteau and beat an ignominious retreat, with an uncomfortable consciousness that his amiable hostess and pretty partner have a very poor opinion of him.

It is rather hard, however, that these and other abuses, which we have not space to enumerate, of the great art of match-making should bring the art itself into odium and contempt. In all of them there is a violation of some one or more of what we take to be its three chief canons. First, the objects to be experimented upon should be pecuniarily in a position to marry. Secondly, care should be taken that they seem on the whole not unlikely to suit each other. Thirdly, the artist should be content, like a photographer, to bring the objects together, and leave the rest of the work mainly to nature. We confess that we feel painfully the unscientific vagueness of this last axiom, since so much turns upon the way in which the objects are brought together. But, as we only undertook to treat of the abuse of match-making, the reader must consider these maxims for its proper use to be thrown into the bargain gratis, and not therefore to be scrutinized severely. Some other day, if we can muster up courage enough for so delicate and arduous a task, we may perhaps attempt to show that, in the present state of society, the art of match-making deserves and requires cultivation, and how, in our humble opinion, this cultivation should be carried on.



FEMININE INFLUENCE.

All English ladies who are warmly devoted to the great cause of feminine authority have got their eyes just now upon the Empress of the French. It is understood in English domestic circles that the Empress has decided to go to Rome, and that the Emperor has decided on her staying at home, and the interest of the situation is generally thought to be intense. The ocean race between the yachts was nothing to it. Every woman of spirit has been betting heavily this Christmas upon the Empress, and praying mentally for the defeat of the Emperor, and every new telegram that bears upon the subject of the difficult controversy is scanned by hundreds of dovelike eyes every morning with indescribable eagerness.

M. Reuter, who is a man probably, if he is not a joint-stock company, is believed not to be altogether an impartial historian; and it is felt in many drawing-rooms that what is wanted on this occasion, at the telegraph offices, is a sound and resolute Madame Reuter, to correct the deviations of M. Reuter's compass. In default of all trustworthy telegraphic intelligence, Englishwomen are compelled to fall back on their vivid imagination, and to construct a picture of what is happening from the depths of their own moral consciousness. And several things their moral consciousness tells them are clear and certain. The first is, that the Empress Eugenie is an injured and interesting victim. She has made a vow, under the very touching circumstances of measles in the Imperial nursery, to pay a visit to the Pope; and Cabinet Ministers like M. Lavalette, who throw suspicion on the binding nature of such a holy maternal obligation, are worse than "S. G. O." In the second place, she has set her heart upon going. Even if a vow were not binding, this is. It is mere nonsense to say that her pilgrimage would interfere with politics. A woman's fine tact is often of considerable use in politics, and the sight of the Prince Imperial in his mother's arms might exercise the most beneficial influence on the Pope's mind.

Pio Nono has held out hitherto in the most inexplicable manner against the Prince Imperial's photograph, but he never could resist a sight of the original. And, thirdly, if a wife and a mother may not have her own way about going to see the Head of her own Church, when is she ever to have her way at all, and where is the line to be drawn? The next downward step in a husband's declension will be to prevent her from frequenting all religious exercises, or, still worse, from selecting her own balls and evening parties. This is what English ladies feel, and feel keenly. It is some consolation to them to learn that, if the Empress Eugenie is discomfited, she will not have been discomfited without a struggle. Of course there will be no evening reception on the New Year at the Tuileries. No lady with a proper sense of what was due to her own dignity would receive under such circumstances. But till the most authentic news arrive, it will still be possible to hope and to believe that victory will eventually, and in spite of all appearances, declare itself upon the side of right and of propriety, and that her Majesty will not be interfered with merely to satisfy the idle caprices of a Foreign Office.

The question of the proper limits of feminine influence is one which such universal enthusiasm forces naturally on one's notice. Not even the most rigid cynic can deny that women ought to have some influence on the mind and judgment of the opposite sex, and the only difficulty is to know how far that influence ought to go. Every one will be ready to concede that sound reasoning is worth hearing, whether it comes from a woman or a man; and that, so far as a lady argues well, she has as much claim on our attention as Diotima had on the attention of Socrates. This, however, is not precisely the point which is so difficult to settle. The problem is to know how much influence a woman ought to have when she does not argue well; and further, what are the matters on which her opinion, whether it be based on argument or instinct, is of value.

One of the most important subjects on which women have some, and always want to have a great deal of power, is religion. This is one part of the supposed mission of the Empress upon which feminine observers look with especial sympathy, and on which experienced masculine observers, on the other hand, look with some awe. The correspondents of the daily papers, whose pleasure and privilege it is to be able to instruct us in all the secrets of high life, have given us recently to understand that, for some time back, Her Majesty has been hard at work on the Emperor's soul. Every thoughtful woman likes to be at work on her husband's soul. Young ladies enjoy the prospect before they are married, and no novel is so thoroughly popular among them as one in which beauty is the instrument in the hands of Providence for the conversion of unbelief. And it is partly because the Empress Eugenie is discharging this high missionary duty, that she is an object of particular admiration just at this moment. When Englishwomen hear that she is very active in favor of the Pope, and couple this news with the fact that the Emperor's soul is uneasy, they sniff—if we may be forgiven the expression—the battle from afar. Their education in respect of theology and religious opinion is very different from that of men.

They have been brought up to believe strongly and heartily what they have been told, and they do not understand the half-sceptical way of regarding such things which is the result of larger views and more liberal education. It appears to them a terrible thing that the men they care for should be hesitating and doubtful about subjects where they themselves have been trained only to believe one view possible. And they set to work in the true temper of missionaries, with profound eagerness and energy, and narrowness of grasp. Many genuine prayers and tears are worthily spent in the effort to tether some truant husband or a son to a family theological peg, and to prevent him from roving. And, up to a certain point, men continually give in. They find it easier and more comfortable to lower their arms, and not always to be maintaining a barren controversy. They have not the slightest wish to convince their affectionate feminine disputant, to take from her the sincere and positive dogmas on which her happiness is built, and to substitute for these a phase of doubt and difficulty for which her past intellectual life has not fitted her. Accordingly, they indulge in a thousand little hypocrisies of a more or less harmless kind.

So long as women's education continues to differ from that of men as widely as it does in England, this flexibility on the part of the latter under the influence of the former is not always amiss. It is better that the husband should be yielding than that he should hold aloof from all that interests and moves the wife, as is the case in countries where the one sex may be seen professing to believe in nothing, while the other as implicitly believes in everything. It is, however, easy to conceive of cases in which this feminine influence that seems so innocent, is in reality injurious. It may perhaps be the business of the husband to take a public part in the affairs of his time. Conscience tells him that he should be sincere, uncompromising, logical, even to the point of disputing conclusions which good and pious people consider essential and important. Or he may be a religious preacher, or a religious reformer of his day, bound, in virtue of character, to maintain truth at the risk of being unpopular; or, it may be, to prosecute inquiries and reforms at the risk of shocking weaker brethren.

There are many who could tell us from their experience how terribly at such a time they have been perplexed and hampered in their duty by the affectionate ignorance, the tears, and the piety of women. Protestant clergymen in particular are sometimes taunted with their conservative tendencies, their indifference to the new lights of science, or of history, and their disinclination to embark on perilous voyages in quest of truth. Part of their conservatism arises from the fact that their practical business is generally to teach what they do know, rather than to inquire into what they do not know. Part of it comes, as we suspect, from the fact that they are married. A wife is a sort of theological drag. It serves no doubt to keep some of us from rolling too rapidly down hill. It impedes equally the progress of others over ordinarily level ground.

The importance of a social position to women is a thing which affects their influence upon men no less materially than does their religious sensibility. As a rule, they have no other means of measuring the consideration in which they are held by the world, or the success in life of those to whose fortunes they are linked, than by using a trivial and worthless social standard. Men, whose training is wider, estimate both their male and their female friends pretty fairly according to their merits. But the majority of women, from their youth up, seldom think of anybody without contrasting his or her social status with their own. Success signifies to them introduction to this or that feminine circle, admission to friendships from which they have been as yet excluded, and visiting cards of a more distinguished appearance than those which at present lie upon their table. They are unable to enjoy even the ordinary intercourse of society without an arriere pensee as to their chance of landing themselves a step higher on the social ladder. From such absurdities the best and most refined women of course are free, but the mass of Englishwomen seldom meet without wondering who on earth each of the others is, and to which county family she belongs.

Humorous as is the spectacle of a crowd of English ladies, each of whom is employed in eyeing the lady next her and asking who she is, and comical as the point of view appears to any one who reflects on the shortness of human life and the littleness of human character, the effect of these feminine weaknesses is one which no one can be sure of escaping. We are afraid that half of the Englishmen who are snobs are made so by Englishwomen. It is impossible for the female portion of any domestic circle to be perpetually dwelling on their own social aspirations without communicating the infection to, or even forcing it upon the male. Wives and daughters become dissatisfied with their husbands' or their fathers' friends. They want to meet and to associate with people whom it is a social credit to know, and who in turn may help them to know somebody beyond. Every fresh acquaintance of distinction, or of fashion, is a sort of milestone, showing the ground that has been travelled over by the family in the direction of their hopes. This sort of fever is very catching. But though men often catch it, they generally catch it from the other sex. And even when they are not impregnated with it themselves, the effect of feminine influence upon them is that they accept their lot with placidity, and acquiesce in the social struggle through which they are dragged.

No man in his senses can wish or hope to order the social life of his belongings according to his own sober judgment. He is compelled to allow them a free rein in the matter, and to abstain from even expressing the astonishment he inwardly feels. Perhaps the world of women is a new world to him, and he feels incapable of regulating any of its movements; or perhaps, if he is wise, he is content with the reflection that little foibles do not altogether spoil real nobility of nature, and takes the bad side of a woman's education with the good. But there are innumerable matters in respect of which he cannot withdraw himself from the feminine influence about him. By degrees he comes to sympathize with the little social disappointments of his family group, and to take pleasure in their little social triumphs, which appear to be so productive of satisfaction and enjoyment to those to whom they fall. But the effect on his character is not usually wholesome. His eye is no longer single. Feminine influence has engrafted on his nature the defects of feminine character, without engrafting on it also its many virtues.

Women usually fail in communicating to men their self-devotion, their gentleness, their piety; all that they manage to communicate amounts to little more than a respect for the observances of religion, and a nervous sensibility to social distinctions.

While the mental development of women continues to be so little studied, it is not surprising that the intellectual influence of the sex should be almost nil, or that such a modicum of it as they possess should be exerted within a very narrow sphere. It is the fault, no doubt, of our systems of female education that the mental power of the cleverest women really comes in England to very little. In its highest form it amounts to a capacity for conversation on indifferent matters, a genius for music or some other fine art, a turn for talking about the poets of the day, and perhaps for imitating their style with ease, coupled, in exceptional cases, with a talent for guessing double acrostics. To be able to do all this, and to be charming and religious too, is the whole duty of young women.

It would be difficult possibly to fit out an English young lady with the various practical accomplishments that are of use in matrimony, and to make her at the same time an intellectual equal of the other sex. But it would surely be possible to train her to understand more of the general current of the world's ideas, even if she could not devote herself to studying them in detail. What woman has now any notion of the broad outline of history of human thought? All philosophy is a sealed book to her. It is the same with theology and politics. She has not the wildest conception, as a rule, of the grounds on which people think who think differently from herself; and all through life she is content to play the part of a partisan or a devotee with perfect equanimity.

While, however, feminine influence in intellectual subjects is, as it deserves to be, infinitesimal, in practice and in action women are proud of being recognized as useful and sound advisers. As outsiders and spectators they see a good deal of the game, have leisure to watch narrowly all that is going on about them, and a subtle instinct teaches them to tread delicately over all dangerous ground. It is curious how many enemies women make amongst themselves, and yet how many enemies they prevent men from making. They seem to have less of self-control or prudence as far as their own strong feelings and fortunes are concerned, than they have of tact and temper in managing the fortunes and enterprises of others.

There can, for example, be no doubt whatever that the parson who aims at being a bishop before he dies ought to marry early. The great strokes of policy which bring him preferment or popularity are pretty sure to have been devised in moments of happy inspiration, or perhaps during the watches of the night, by a feminine brain. Good mothers make saints and heroes, says the proverb, and beyond a doubt wise wives make bishops. Their influence is not the less real because, unlike that of Mrs. Proudie, it is exerted chiefly behind the scenes. It is possibly because the influence possessed by women is so intangible, depending as it does less on the reason than on the sentiment, affection, and convenience of the other sex, that women are so jealous to assert and to protect it.



PIGEONS.

Every now and then, as the fashionable season comes round, in some corner of its space the daily press records a wholesale slaughter of the pigeon species. The world is informed of a series of sweepstakes, in which guardsmen and peers and foreigners of distinction take part. So many birds are shot at, so many are killed, so many get away. The quality of the birds and the skill of the shooters is specified. As the minutest details of the sport are interesting, we are even told who supplies the birds, and whether the day of their massacre was bright or cloudy. This is quite as it should be. The British public can never hear too much of the doings of its gilded youth. Sweet to it is sporting news, but "aristocratic sporting news" is sweeter still.

And apart from this twofold source of interest, an element of deeper satisfaction mingles in the complacency with which it gloats over these pigeon holocausts. It is something to know that, in the last resort, we have these high-born and fashionable marksmen to protect our hearths and homes from the French invader and the irrepressible Beales. The nervous householder sleeps in his bed with a greater sense of security after reading of the awful havoc which Captain A. and the Earl of B. are making of the feathery tribe. In the accuracy of their aim he sees a guarantee of order, and of the maintenance of his glorious Constitution. Foreign menace and internal discord lose something of their terrors for him as often as his eyes light upon the significant little paragraph to which we have referred. Here is an item of intelligence for the haughty Prussian and the dashing Zouave to ponder. Here is something for the mole-like Fenian and the blatant Leaguesman to put in their pipes and smoke.

The fate of the pigeons awaits all who would violate our shores, or light up the flame of sedition in the land. If, as some philosophers aver, the pigeon does not all die, but in some tranquil limbo flutters on in an eternity of innocent cooing, it must console the poor bird to reflect that, however cheap he may be held, he has not perished altogether in vain. To serve a useful purpose is the great economy of things, to point a warning, at the cost of one's heart's blood, to England's foes and traitors—to the plotter in Munster as well as the safer conspirator of the Parks—might content even a greater ambition than that which animates the gentle bosom of a fantail.

But suppose some vindictive pouter to survive his less lucky comrades, and, escaping among the birds who are duly chronicled as "getting away," to perch, full of resentment at the probable extinction of his species, in the fashionable quarter of London. He would there witness a grand act of retaliation. He would learn how Belgravia avenges Hornsey and Shepherd's Bush. He would see the very men from whom his relatives had received their quietus flying to their clubs for shelter, and calling on their goddesses of the demi-monde to cover them. He would perceive, by an unerring instinct, that a contest was afoot in which the conditions of that suburban sweepstakes at which he had involuntarily assisted were exactly reversed. He would see those self-same sportsmen converted into the target, the flutterers of the dovecot themselves in a flutter. And he would be more than pigeon if he could repress a thrill of savage glee at the spectacle of the enemies of his race realizing by experience all the difference between shooting and being shot at.

Suppose, further, that curious to watch the operations of "aristocratic sport," the intelligent bird, following the precedent of Edgar Poe's Raven, should alight, unseen and uninvited, on some object of art in a fashionable ballroom. Here he would find himself at once in the thick of the brilliant competition. He would see a row of lovely archers, backed by a second row of older and more experienced markswomen. And in the human pigeons now cowering before their combined artillery he would recognise the heroes so lately engaged in dispatching thousands of the feathered branch of the family to oblivion. At first sight it might strike an animal of his well-known gallantry that there was nothing so very terrible in their impending fate. To fall slain by bright eyes, and with the strains of Coote and Tinney lingering on the ear, to sigh out one's soul over a draught of seltzer and champagne or the sweet poison of a strawberry ice, might seem to the winged spectator a blissful ending.

The doorway of the perfumed saloon might seem but the portal of a Mahomedan paradise, in which young and beautiful houris are deporting themselves under the guardian eye of the older and less beautiful houris. To the denizen of the air all, save the want of oxygen, might appear divine. But when he surveyed more closely that sexual row of sportswomen, he would know at once that he beheld the true avengers of his race. In their stony glare, in the cold glitter of their diamonds, in the ample proportions of their well-developed shoulders, in their sliding scale of manners, now adjusted to a sugary smile and now to a stare of annihilation, he would read a deadly purpose. Nor would the diversities of skill which this fringe of amazons exhibited in the use of their weapons escape his notice. He would see some whom success had made affable, and others whom failure had made desperate; some who covered their victim with an aim of pitiless precision, and others who spoilt their chances by bungling audacity. Conspicuous among them he would observe a giddy sexagenarian, whose random attempts to share in the sport made her the laughing-stock of the circle.

And as he surveyed the battue he would gradually discern its tactics. The beautiful beings in tulle he would feel, by instinct, were a lure and a decoy. Once within reach of their victims, these lovely skirmishers would be seen to inflict on them a sudden wound, leaving them to be despatched by the heavy reserve in moire and lace. As he watched the terror which these formidable beings inspired, and the business-like manner in which they addressed themselves to their task, as he noticed the jaunty destroyers of his race succumbing one by one to fate, or ignominiously attempting to "get away," he would feel that the "irony of the situation" was complete. In a vague way he would grasp the fact—hitherto undreamt of in his dove's philosophy—that, if the pigeon is preyed upon by man, man in his turn is preyed upon by the dowager.

There is, however, this difference between the fate of the pigeon and his human analogue, that, whereas the former is slain outright, the latter is often subjected to the prolonged agony of being plucked feather by feather. Not that he thinks it agony; on the contrary, he decidedly likes it, which is a wonderful proof of his simplicity, and the difference in people's tastes. But in order to pluck a human pigeon at leisure, you must first catch him. May is a good month for this operation. About now he begins to resort to the Opera and the park, and in the purlieus of either a fine specimen may be flashed. A clever sportswoman will get the earliest possible information about his movements. Much depends on forestalling her competitors.

A youthful pigeon, just emerging from his minority, or freshly alighted from the grand tour, is easily captured. There are two principal contrivances for catching human pigeons. The first is the matrimonial snare. This is worked by the dowager, in concert with her daughter, somewhat on the following plan. The daughter throws herself, as if by chance, in the pigeon's way. The brilliancy of her charms naturally attracts him. Small-talk ensues, in which an extraordinary similarity between her tastes and his is casually revealed. The simple pigeon, suspecting nothing, is delighted to find so congenial a soul. Is he musical? she adores the divine art. A gourmand? she owns to the possession of a cookery-book. Ritualistic? it was but the other day that she was at St. Alban's. Turfy? He must throw his eyes over her book for the Derby. Even if his pet pastime, like the Emperor Domitian's, were killing flies, she would profess her readiness to join him in it. Or she tries another dodge, and, putting on the airs of a pretty monitress, asks him with tender interest to confide in her.

The great point is never to lose sight of him; to follow him to balls, concerts, or races, to cleave to him like his shadow. Then, when he is fairly caught in the toils of her encircling sympathy, the elder and more experienced ally appears on the scene. Her task is to cut off his retreat. Upon her firmness and accuracy in calculating the resisting power of her pigeon, success depends. Seizing an opportunity when he is least prepared, she sternly informs him that the time for dalliance is over, that he has said and done things of a very marked kind, and that there is only one course open to him as a pigeon of honor. And under this sort of compulsion the simple creature, with his rent-roll, Consols, family diamonds, and all, hops with a fairly good grace into the matrimonial toils.

The second contrivance to which he is apt to fall a victim is the infatuation trap. This is a much more elaborate machine, and is worked by one of those semi-attached couples who might sit to a new Hogarth for a new edition of Marriage a la Mode. The husband's part is very simple. It is to be as little in the way as possible, and to afford his sprightlier half every facility for pursuing her little game. The chief business devolves on the lady. It is her task to make the pigeon fall madly in love with her, and to keep him so, without overstepping the bounds of conventional propriety. Happily this can be managed nowadays without either elopement or scandal. Among the improvements of this mechanical age, it has been found possible to enlarge the limits of wedlock so as to include a third person.

A life-long tete-a-tete, which was the old conception of marriage, is quite obsolete. It has given way to the triangular theory, by which a new element, in the shape of a parasitical adorer, has been introduced into the holy state. Matrimony, as reconstituted by fashionable scholiasts, comprises husband, wife, and, to relieve the tedium of the situation, a good-looking appendage of the male sex, who is an agreeable companion of the one and the devoted slave of the other. Each contributes to the harmony of the arrangement—the husband, a background; the wife, the charms of her presence; the adorer, cash. Whatever other experience it brings, marriage generally sharpens the appreciation of the value of money; sentiment is sweet, but it is an article of confectionery, for which its fair dispensers in the married ranks exact an equivalent.

In trapping her victim, therefore, a sharp young matron is careful to let her choice fall on a plump specimen of the pigeon species—a pigeon with a long purse and little brains. Once reduced to a state of infatuation, almost anything may be done with him. The luxury of plucking him will employ her delicate fingers for a long time to come. He may be sponged upon to any extent. The one thing he can do really well is to pay. His yacht, his drag, his brougham, his riding-horses, his shooting-box, all are at her disposal. At his expense she dines at Greenwich; at his expense she views the Derby; at his expense she enjoys an opera-box. And in return for all this she has only to smile and murmur "so nice," for the soft simpleton to fancy himself amply repaid. Then she exacts a great many costly presents, to say nothing of gloves, trinkets, and bouquets. It is curious to note how the code of propriety has altered in this particular.

In old-fashioned novels the stereotyped dodge for compromising a lady's reputation is to force a present or a loan of money on her. Nowadays Lovelace's anxiety is just the other way—to keep the acquisitive propensity of his liege lady within tolerable bounds. It would be a great mistake to suppose that a woman can play this game without special gifts and aptitudes for it. It requires peculiar talents, and peculiar antecedents. First and foremost, she must have married a man whom she both dislikes and despises. And, further, she must be proof against the weakness which some of her sex exhibit, of growing fond of husbands who, without being Admirable Crichtons, treat them kindly and with forbearance. Next, she must have thrown overboard all the twaddle about domestic duties and responsibilities. If her child sickens of the measles just as she is starting for her bivouac in Norway, or a course of dinners in the Palais Royal, her duty is to call in the doctor and go. Weeks afterwards you will find the little darling picking up flesh, in mamma's absence, at some obscure watering-place. Then her temperament must be cool, calculating, and passionless in no ordinary degree, and this character is written in the hard lines of her mouth and the cold light of her fine eyes.

Lastly, she must have, not a superstitious, but an intelligent regard for the world's opinion, or rather for the opinion of the influential part of it. No one has a nicer perception of the difference in the relative importance of stupid country gossip and ostracism from certain great houses in London. No one takes more pains to study appearances so long as they don't clash with her amusements. Indeed, you will generally find that her dear friend is a young lady of great simplicity and irreproachable principles, whom she admits just enough, but not too far, into her confidence, and who finds it worth while to enact the part, now of a blind, and now of a foil.

If any one asserts that this treatment of the human pigeon is cruel, we can only reply, with a correspondent of the Times who writes to rebuke the humanitarians who would rob a poor boa of his squealing rabbit—away with such cant! Is a married woman to be stinted of her "small pleasures" because prudes affect to think the means by which they are obtained unfeminine? As well might they think it unfeline in pussy to play with her mouse.

The walking pigeon is as much intended for the prey of a stronger species as the pigeon that flies. The plucking which he receives at the hands of his fair manipulator is nothing to what he would get at the hands of his own sex, in the army, on the turf, or in the city. If the pigeon has reason to think himself lucky in faring no worse, the non-pigeon section of society has no less reason to be grateful for a new illustration of female character. Not that the mercenary development in some of our young matrons is altogether new. It is only an old domestic virtue, carried to an extreme—thrift, running into an engaging rapacity.



AMBITIOUS WIVES.

The recent death of Mrs. Proudie, who was so well known and so little loved by the readers of Mr. Trollope's novels, is one of those occasions which ought not to be allowed to pass away without being improved. To many men it will suggest many things. She was a type. As a type ought to be, she was perfect and full-blown. But her characteristics enter into other women in varying degrees, and with all sorts of minor colors. The Proudie element in wives and women is one of those unrecognised yet potent conditions of life which master us all, and yet are admitted and taken into calculation and account by none. It is in the nature of things that such an element should exist, and should be powerful in this peculiar and oblique way. We deny women the direct exercise of their capacities, and the immediate gratification of an overt ambition. The natural result is that they run to artifice, and that a good-natured husband is made the conductor between an ambitious wife and the outer world where the prizes of ambition are scrambled for. He is the wretched buffer through which the impetuous forces of his wife impinge upon his neighbors. That is to say, he leads an uneasy life between two ever colliding bodies, being equally misunderstood and equally reviled by either.

This is the evil result of a state of things in which natural distinctions and conventional distinctions are a very long way from coinciding. The theory is that women are peaceful domestic beings, with no object beyond household cares, no wish nor will outside the objects of the man and his children, no active opinion or concern in the larger affairs of the State. Every man, on the other hand, is supposed to have views and principles about public topics, and to be anxious to make more or less of a figure in the enforcement of his views, to exercise in some shape an influence among his fellows, and to win renown of one sort or another. Of course if this division of the male and female natures covered the whole ground, society would be in a very well-balanced state, and things would go on very smoothly in consequence of the perfect equilibrium established by the exceeding contentedness of women and the constant activity and ambition of men.

But a very small observation of life is quite enough to disclose how ill the facts correspond with the accepted hypothesis about them. We are constantly being told of some aspiring man that he is, in truth, no more than the representative of an aspiring wife. He would fain live his life in dignified or undignified serenity, and cares not a jot for a seat in the House of Commons, or for being made a bishop, or for any of those other objects which allure men out of a tranquil and independent existence. But he has a wife who does care for these things. She cannot be a member of Parliament or a bishop in her own person, but it is something to be the wife of somebody who can be these things.

A part of the glory of the man is reflected upon the head of the woman. She receives her reward in a second-hand way, but still it is glory of its own sort. She becomes a leading lady in a provincial town, and during the season in town she is asked out to houses which she is very eager to get into, and of which she can talk with easily assumed familiarity when she returns to the provinces again. She is presented at Court too, and this makes her descend to the provincial plain with an aroma of Celestial dignity like that of Venus when she descended from Olympus. A bishop's wife is still more amply rewarded. Without being so imperious as the late Mrs. Proudie was, she has still a thousand of those opportunities for displaying power which are so dear to people who are fictitiously supposed to be too weak to care for power. Minor canons, incumbents, curates, and all their wives, pay her profound deference; or, if they do not, she can "put the screw on" in a gushing manner which is exceedingly effective.

There are women, it is true, with souls above these light social matters. They do not particularly value the privilege of figuring as lady-patroness of a ball or bazaar, or the delights of trampling on a curate, or of being distantly adored by the wife of a minor canon. But they really have an interest in politics, or in some one or two special departments of that comprehensive subject. They would like to pass an Act of Parliament making it a capital offence for any guardian of the poor or relieving-officer to refuse to give the paupers as much as they should choose to ask for. Drainage is the strong point of some women. Sewage with them is the key to civilization.

Perhaps most political women are actively interested in public affairs simply because they perceive that this is the most openly recognised sphere of influence and power; and what they yearn after is to be influential, and to stand on something higher than the ordinary level in the world, for no other reason than that it is higher than the ordinary level. Nobody has any right to find fault with this temper, provided the ladies who are possessed by it do not mistake mere domineering for the extraordinary elevation after which they aspire. It is through this temper, whether in one sex or the other, that the world is made better. If a certain number of men and women were not ambitious, what would become of the rest of us who possess our souls in patience and moderation?

The only question is whether what we may call vicarious ambition, or aspirations by proxy, are particularly desirable forms of a confessedly useful and desirable sentiment. For the peace of mind of the man who is not ambitious, but is only pretending to be so, we may be pretty sure that the domestic stimulus has some drawbacks. We do not mean drawbacks after the manner of Mrs. Caudle. These show a coarse and vulgar conception of the goads which a man may have applied to him in his inner circle. There are moral and unheard reproofs. There is a consciousness in the mind of a man that his wife thinks him (with all possible affection and tenderness) rather a poor creature for not taking his position in the world. And if he happens to be a man of anything like fine sensibility, this will make him exceedingly uneasy.

The uneasiness may then become sufficiently decided to make him willing to undergo any amount of labor and outlay, rather than endure the presence of this aethereal skeleton in the family closet. He is quite right. He could barely preserve his self-respect otherwise. But he is mistaken if he fancies that a single step or a single series of steps will demolish the skeleton entirely. One compliance with the ambition of his wife will speedily beget the necessity for another. It is notorious that a thoroughly aspiring man is never content without the prospect of scaling new heights. No more is an aspiring woman. Whether you are directly ambitious, as a man is, and for yourself, or indirectly and for somebody else, as a woman is, in either case the law is the same. New summits ever glitter in the distance. You have got your husband into the House of Commons. That glory suffices for a month.

At the end of two months it seems a very dim glory indeed, and having long been at an end, it by this time sinks into the second place of a means. The sacrificial calf must next be made to speak. He must acquire a reputation. Here in a good many cases, we suspect, the process finally stops. A man may be got into the House, but the coveted exaltation of that atmosphere does not convert a quiet, peaceable, dull man into an orator. It does not give him ideas and the faculty of articulate speech. At this point, if he be wise, he draws the line. He endures the skeleton as best he may, or else his wife, quenching her ambition, resigns herself to incurable destiny, and learns to be content with the limits set by the fates to her lord's capacities. There are still certain fields open to her own powers, irrespective of what he is able to do.

For example, she may open a salon, and there may exert unspeakable influence over all kinds of important people. This is not at present particularly congenial to English ground. As yet, the most vigorous intellectual people seem to have felt an active social life as something beneath them, and the highly social people have not been conspicuous for the activity of their intellectual life. The people who go so greatly to parties do not care for what they sum up, with an admirably comprehensive vagueness, as "intellect;" while, on the other hand, scholars and thinkers are wont to look on time given to society as something very like time absolutely wasted. In such a state of feeling, it is difficult for a clever woman to exercise much power.