rmination that this concession to the world
shall be balanced by an increase of adoration at home.

As she deals with mankind, so she expects mankind, and especially the
mankind of criticism, to deal with her. It is in vain that her censor
replies that he only blamed her bonnet-strings or attacked the color of
her shoe-tie. Woman's answer is that he has attacked woman. This folly,
that absurdity, are in woman's mind herself, and their assailant is her
own personal antagonist. "Love me all in all or not at all" is a woman's
song, not in Mr. Tennyson's _Idyl_ only, but all the world over. The
discriminating admiration, the constitutional obedience which still
claims to preserve a certain reticence and caution in its loyalty, are
more alien to woman's feelings than the refusal of all worship, all
obedience whatever. "Picking her to pieces" is the phrase in which she
describes the critical process against which she revolts, and it is a
phrase which, in a woman's mouth, is the prelude to the bitterest
warfare.

There is a more amiable, if a hardly more intelligent, trait in woman's
character which renders her singularly averse to all criticism. Men can
hardly be described as loyal to men. Whether it be their exaggerated
self-esteem, their individuality, or their reason, it is certain that
they do not imagine the honor of their sex to be concerned in the
conduct of each particular member of it. The lawyer laughs over a
little gentle fun when it is poked at his neighbor the vicar, and the
parson has his amusement out of the exposure of the foibles of his
friend the attorney. What they never dream of is the flinging over each
other's defects the general cloak of manhood, and rallying at every
smile of criticism under the general banner of the sex.

But woman, in front of the enemy, piques herself on her _solidarite_.
Flirt or prude, prim or gay, foolish or wise, woman, once criticised,
cries to her sisters, and is recognised and defended as woman. All
feminine comment, all internal censure, is hushed before the foe. The
tittle-tattle of the gossips, the social intrigues of the dowager, are
adopted as frankly as the self-devotion of a Miss Nightingale. The door
of refuge is flung open as widely for the foolish virgins as for the
wise. All distinctions of age, of conduct, of intelligence, of rank are
annihilated or forgotten in the presence of the enemy. Every fault is to
be defended, every weakness to be held stoutly against h