The Project Gutenberg EBook of Characteristics of Women, by Anna Jameson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Characteristics of Women
Moral, Poetical, and Historical

Author: Anna Jameson

Release Date: July 31, 2008 [EBook #26152]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN

MORAL, POETICAL, AND HISTORICAL

BY

MRS. JAMESON

_From the last London Edition_

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press,
Cambridge 1889

PREFACE

TO THE NEW EDITION.

In preparing for the press a new edition of this little work, the author
has endeavored to render it more worthy of the approbation and kindly
feeling with which it has been received; she cannot better express her
sense of both than by justifying, as far as it is in her power, the
cordial and flattering tone of all the public criticisms. It is to the
great name of SHAKSPEARE, that bond of sympathy among all who speak his
language, and to the subject of the work, not to its own merits, that
she attributes the success it has met with,--success the more
delightful, because, in truth, it was from the very first, so entirely
unlooked for, as to be a matter of surprise as well as of pleasure and
gratitude.

In this edition there are many corrections, and some additions which the
author hopes may be deemed improvements. She has been induced to insert
several quotations at length, which were formerly only referred to, from
observing that however familiar they may be to the mind of the reader,
they are always recognized with pleasure--like dear domestic faces; and
if the memory fail at the moment to recall the lines or the sentiment to
which the attention is directly required, few like to interrupt the
course of thought, or undertake a journey from the sofa or garden-seat
to the library, to hunt out the volume, the play, the passage, for
themselves.

When the first edition was sent to press, the author contemplated
writing the life of Mrs. Siddo