nk
also that it is good for the world in general that it should be so. I
am now speaking, not of the female population at large, but of women
whose position in the world does not subject them to the necessity of
earning their bread by the labour of their hands. There is, I know,
a feeling abroad among women that this desire is one of which it
is expedient that they should become ashamed; that it will be well
for them to alter their natures in this respect, and learn to take
delight in the single state. Many of the most worthy women of the day
are now teaching this doctrine, and are intent on showing by precept
and practice that an unmarried woman may have as sure a hold on the
world, and a position within it as ascertained, as may an unmarried
man. But I confess to an opinion that human nature will be found to
be too strong for them. Their school of philosophy may be graced
by a few zealous students,--by students who will be subject to the
personal influence of their great masters,--but it will not be
successful in the outer world. The truth in the matter is too clear.
A woman's life is not perfect or whole till she has added herself to
a husband.

Nor is a man's life perfect or whole till he has added to himself a
wife; but the deficiency with the man, though perhaps more injurious
to him than its counterpart is to the woman, does not, to the outer
eye, so manifestly unfit him for his business in the world. Nor
does the deficiency make itself known to him so early in life, and
therefore it occasions less of regret,--less of regret, though
probably more of misery. It is infinitely for his advantage that he
should be tempted to take to himself a wife; and, therefore, for
his sake if not for her own, the philosophic preacher of single
blessedness should break up her class-rooms, and bid her pupils go
and do as their mothers did before them.

They may as well give up their ineffectual efforts, and know that
nature is too strong for them. The desire is there; and any desire
which has to be repressed with an effort, will not have itself
repressed unless it be in itself wrong. But this desire, though by no
means wrong, is generally accompanied by something of a feeling of
shame. It is not often acknowledged by the woman to herself, and very
rarely acknowledged in simple plainness to another. Miss Mackenzie
could not by any means bring herself to own it, and yet it was there
strong within her bosom. A man situated in outer