anybody, or has any contract with anybody, or any account of any sort with anybody, but is simply beholden to everybody for such kindly regard as his virtues may attract." From "Equality" by Edward Bellamy. Copyright by D. Appleton & Co. Price $1.25. THE DISPARAGEMENT OF WOMEN IN LITERATURE. Early in the seventeenth century we find the author of that immortal little classic, the "Religio Medici," out-Heroding Herod in his scorn of women. "The whole world," says Sir Thomas Brown, "was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman. Man is the whole world and the breath of God: woman the rib and crooked piece of man." And George Herbert, genuine saint, high-bred gentleman and enchanting poet, includes, about the same time in his "Jacula Prudentum" the disparaging aphorism: "Words are women: deeds are men:" a saying, by the way, which has many variants in different writers and countries. Later in the century Otway makes one say in "The Orphan:"— What mighty ills have not been done by woman? Who was't betrayed the Capital? A woman! Who lost Mark Anthony the world? A woman! Who was the cause of a long ten-years' war, And laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman! Pope's epigrammatic sneers are almost too hackneyed to bear quotation, but two of them may be recalled. 'Tis woman that seduces all mankind: By her we first were taught the wheedling arts. "Love me!" says Don Ferdinand in Sheridan's "Duenna," "I don't believe she ever did . . . . or is it that her sex never know their desires for an hour together?" "Sir," remarked Dr. Johnson, with, as it seems to us to-day, a singular lapse of the penetrative insight characteristic of him, on hearing that Boswell had to "a meeting of the people called Quakers:" "a woman preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." At another time the sage thus delivered himself in the presence of a company including several ladies: "A lady will take Jonathan Wild as readily as St. Austin, if he has threepence more: and, what is worse, her parents will give her to him. Women have a perpetual envy of our vices: they are less vicious than we, not from choice, but because we restrict them: they are the slaves of order and fashion." Among Byron's gibes, one only need be given from "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers':" Believe a woman, or an epitaph, And one from Moore: Friend of my soul! this goblet sip, "Twill chase that pensive tear: 'Tis not so sweet as woman's lip, But oh, 'tis more sincere. Like her delusive beam, "Twill steal away thy mind: But like affection's dream It leaves no sting behind. Scott was not freer from the prevalent disease than other people. A chance dip into the first of his novels Men some to business, some to pleasure that came to hand,-"Kenilworth"-re take, But every woman is at heart a rake. Woman's at best a contradiction still. Gay in the "Beggar's Opera," runs him close. sulted in the almost instantaneous discovery of the subjoined passage. The speaker is Giles Gosling, the landlord of the Black Bear at Cumnor, a "good fellow," and a man of probity and integrity. "Be not so rash, good sir," he admonishes Tressilian, "and cast not yourself away because a woman-to be brief-is a woman, and changes her lovers like her suit of ribands, with no better reason than mere fantasy." Hurrying on to our own day, we are, of course, overwhelmed by the mass of material at our disposal. Let us glance at two novelists only out of the modern throng, not because they are offenders more than others, but from simple motives of convenience. Being a devoted admirer of what, for me, is perhaps the most delightful romance of our time, Mr. Blackmore's "Lorna Doone," the book is often in my hand and in my thoughts. Unhappily, it is disfigured throughout by what I can only call an incessant series of backhanded blows aimed at women-little parenthetical, perfectly good-humored hits, which, however, do not hurt the less that they are delivered with no more malice than could lurk in the composition of honest, true-hearted, gigantic John Ridd. Turning to my "Lorna Doone" for the purpose of this essay, I remarked to a friend that I had very little doubt of finding a passage appropriate for quotation on the very first page my eye chanced to light upon. When, entirely at haphazard, it did light on the middle of the first page of the thirtieth chapter, I could not but feel that my quarrel with a favorite author had received fresh and rather striking justification. Here is the passage in question: "But women, who are (beyond all doubt) the mothers of all mischief, also nurse that babe to sleep, when he is too noisy." "But when I told Lorna-whom I could trust in any matter of secrecy, as if she had never been a woman"— "I do not understand,' I said, falling back with bewilderment: 'all women are such liars.'" Is it fanciful to suppose that the everrecurring burden of scorn and dispraise of woman in this one book alone, however playful and paternally indulgent, may have had an appreciable effect in hindering her moral and spiritual progress? Mr. Blackmore's fascinating story, unsurpassed for poetry, purity, and quaint, romantic charm, has recently, I believe, gone into a forty-second edition. It has been calculated that it has had a circulation, in England alone, of about half-a-million copies, and when we add its American and colonial readers to its British ones, we are confronted with a goodly company indeed. Have no women and girls amongst them been pained and humiliated, damped in spirit and numbed in effort by its attitude toward their sex? Have no men and boys been strengthened by it in their contempt for women-at least in their mental aloofness from them, and inveterate habit of regarding them as a separate, if not inferior race? Of this practice women themselves are not infrequently guilty. It is infectious; it is inevitable; it is one of the accepted conventions of the literary art, We all do it, or we all have done it. I have not the slightest doubt that in the times of my ignorance I did it A very few other examples must suf- myself. Taking up the last woman's fice. book I have been reading, "Guenn," by Blanche Willis Howard, I find the following: "So madame, being granted wisdom beyond most of her sex, deplored the situation, but held her peace and went her way, never worrying or alienating Guenn with anxious advice." Enough, I trust, has been said, to demonstrate the need for eradicating the habit-at least in so far as it has really dwindled to a meaningless sur:vival-of disparaging women in literature. break themselves of the conventional trick of decrying woman-as woman— a great forward step would surely be Where a writer's genuine belief is in- achieved in human happiness and welvolved; where he has honestly con- fare. vinced himself of the inferiority and ineptitude of half the human race, and records his opinion advisedly, the case is altered, and we should be able to respect his sincerity, while we deprecate his error. But even such a writer would do well to reflect that there are certain evils and misfortunes which are not soonest remedied by forever calling attention to them; just as, in the sick-room, we refrain from exhaustively discussing the patient's symptoms at the top of our voices, and do not risk further lowering of his vitality by the disheartening spectacle of our long faces and ominous headshakes. Granting as much room for improvement as the veriest misogynist could insist upon, improvement in human character may always best be looked for where the spirits are sustained by the inspiration of others' faith in us, and the nerves exhilarated by an atmosphere of cheerfulness and hope. I respect those persons of whom I have heard, who, in reading standard works, or for the matter of that, current literature, aloud in the family clrcle, are careful to omit all depreciatory references to the female sex, as a sex; regarding them as being demoralizing to boys and girls alike, and as little tolerable to-day as the oaths, the grossness, or the blasphemy of less enlight ened ages. Such a practice might gain adherence among parents and teachers with infinite advantage to their charges; and many other methods of combating the evil will suggest themselves to those who appreciate its magnitude sufficiently to grapple with it seriously. And if the writers of novels and of belles lettres generally, and the feeders of the great daily, weekly, and monthly torrent of printed matter that furnishes us with so much delight, diversion, and information, would gradually, as their eyes become opened, Think for a moment of the place in our affections and in our homes occupied by one prominent paper alone-our leading comic paper. And think how different would have been the view taken in English society at this moment of the woman of serious aims and high ideals, if she had ever for one instant been referred to in its pages otherwise than with derision. Its honorable traditions have been for generations so sane, so generous, so catholic, so humane, that the humblest creature, it might be thought, would not look in vain for justice at its hands. Alas! the woman who loves knowledge, who loves wisdom, who loves her kind, and desires to take her humble share in the universal effort of all good men, to leave the world a little better than they find it, is perhaps the only sentient being for whom it has no mercy, but only the most poignant shafts of its satire, the keenest edge of its ridicule. Let her be as gentle and womanly as she will (and if she is worth anything at all, she does will); let her be the light of her home, and the joy of the hearts nearest to her (if she is of the right temper, she will make it her primary aim to be both): let her be attractive, and sweet, and comely-nay, let her be beautiful-it is all one-in an organ which takes thought for the poor; which champions the down-trodden; which has always a tender word to spare for the sweated seamstress, a pitying one for the "horse o'er-driven" she sees herself mirrored as harsh and sour and prudish and physically repulsive a gaunt, ill-dressed, sexless monster, pour rire. Here it is invariably our poor Sonya's ugly hat and unfashionable frock that are thrust into prominence, and never a glimpse do we catch of the soul in her eyes, or the hunger in her heart, or the power to add to the sun of human achievement in her brain. Is it vain to point out that such a handling of the woman who has other interests ter have passed years of suffering bethan the study of fashion-plates and the interchange of "feline amenities" is anachronistic as well as unjust? Is it useless to entreat from a journal which is a power in our midst, as well as a perennial pleasure, a tardy recognition of the difference between the real, salutary woman-movement, and the froth and scum that gather on the crest of that steadily-advancing wave? From "Marriage Questions in Modern Fiction, and Other Essays." By Elizabeth Rachei Chapman. John Lane, Publisher. ENGLISH cause they strove for some political purpose which they sincerely believed to be genuine, honest, and beneficent. In the debate on the address to which we have been referring an immense impression was undoubtedly created in all parts of the House of Commons by the speech of Mr. Michael Davitt. Mr. Michael Davitt was 2 man absolutely blameless in private character. As a London newspaper not committed to Irish ideas said of him, he was a man in whom the whole Irish race at home and abroad felt a just pride. He was in his youth concerned in the Fenian movement, and he was sentenced to a long term of im TREATMENT OF POLITICAL prisonment. In the House of Com PRISONERS. The debate on the release of the dynamiter prisoners in the House of Commons brought up once again, and directly, for public consideration two questions, at least, which had for a long time been discussed in the newspapers and on the platform, and by the public generally. The first question was, whether there ought to be a different system of treatment with regard to political offenders, and what we may call private offenders. The second question was, whether the whole system of prison discipline in these countries did not require some modification and some improvement. Now, with regard to the first question, as to whether political offenders ought to be treated on different conditions from private offenders, it seems to us that there can be no reasonable difference of opinion whatever, if men will but calmly think the subject over. Some of the greatest and noblest of Englishmen were put to death as political offenders. Some of the greatest and noblest of Englishmen were tortured before death as political offenders. Some of the Englishmen whose names are most revered and are most enshrined in the affection of England were tortured and put to death as political offenders. In modern times, it is quite certain that men otherwise of the most stainless charac mons he mentioned the fact that while he was in Portland Prison it had been part of his work to be harnessed daily to a cart, as if he were a mule or a horse, and to drag stones this way and that for hour after hour, and that he had to sleep in a cell which only barely allowed him room to lie down. His words told on the House of Commons, which, to do it justice, is one of the fairest political assemblies in the world, and in which no member of any party felt anything but respect for Mr. Davitt. The question then naturally arose, whether a man like Mr. Davitt ought to have been treated in that fashion; and, of course, with that doubt came the inquiry whether politlcal offenders ought not to be treated on a different principle from the ordinary criminal offenders. No matter whether a man is right or wrong in his opinions. and in his way of carrying them into action, is there to be no difference made between the man who moves only on some personal and selfish purpose and passion, and the man who is moving only for a cause or a principle out of which he can obtain, and out of which he wants to obtain, no personal gain whatever? Is Lord William Russell, is Theobald Wolfe Tone, exactly on a level with Bill Sykes and Jack the Ripper, whoever that mysterious person may have been? An American once said to the writer of these vol umes, "I know nothing whatever of your Irish controversies with English governments, except the fact that the English governments put heavy sentences on Michael Davitt and John Boyle O'Reilly, two of the noblest crea tures I have ever met; and that settles for me the whole question of your English government system in its dealings with Ireland." Of course we must all admit-every man in his senses is compelled to admit-that the government of any country is bound to defend its own existence. It cannot allow the most virtuous man or the most patriotic man to endeavor to overthrow it without taking strong measures to sustain it against overthrow. Therefore, as it seems to us, there is no reason that even an Irishman should complain against the fact that an English government, after sentence in a court of law, consigned, let us say, Mr. Michael Davitt to imprisonment. But then, was it really necessary that he should have been condemned to be yoked to a cart which dragged stones at Portland, and to sleep in a cell in which he hardly had room to lie down? Was he really to be confounded with the ordinary class of miscreants who murder their wives, and who use brutal violence to old men in order to rob them of their money? Can anybody on earth say that the greatness and the integrity of the empire are to be secured by means which confound a man like Theobald Wolfe Tone, or a man like John Mitchel, or a man like Michael Davitt, with Bill Sykes and Jack the Ripper? In the same House of Commons when the debate on the address was going on sat with Mr. Davitt Mr. James F. X. O'Brien, who in his youth had also been concerned in a Fenian insurrection, and who had been sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He had, in fact, the proud distinction of being the last man on whom such a sentence had been passed. The sentence, which of course was impossible to be carried out in our days, was commuted to penal servitude for life; and that sentence, too, was commuted, on the ground that during an attack on a police barrack he had determinedly protected the lives of the few poor policemen who had to give in. Calumny itself could never say a word against his character, and he was allowed by amnesty to return to his own country, and he became a member of the House of Commons, and a member of whom the bitterest Conservative would not say a single word that was not a word of respect. The debate, therefore, on the address in the opening of the session of 1897 brought this question into a concentrated form: Is it right to class men of this character, and this purpose, and this kind, with Bill Sykes and Jack the Ripper? has to be remembered that Americathat is to say, the conquering Northern states, after their great civil war, put no one to death, or even prolonged the period of imprisonment, except for two or three who were actually convicted of assassination. The great leader of the Southern civil war was allowed, after a very short period of imprisonment, to go his way unharmed. Mr. Swinburne, the English poet, published at the time when the Manchester prisoners were under trial-the story is told already in these volumesa poem in which he said: Lo! It How fair from afar, taintless of tyranny, stands, Thy mighty daughter for years who and he added, speaking of vindictive punishments: Neither is any land great whom in its fear-stricken mood, These things only can save. Lord John Russell had pointed out in the House of Commons a great many years before, that no death and no torture inflicted on any political patriot or any political fanatic ever prevented some other man of the same mood and of the same purpose from following just the same course. No doubt it is a |