its own purpose; and the lacquered imitation of woman,
"dilettante, delicate-handed," as Tennyson saw and sang of him, may
satisfy the world, and for long ages prevent any anxious inquiry after
the real feminine Brummagem.

THE FUTURE OF WOMAN.

Woman is a thing of accident and spoilt in the making says the greatest
of the schoolmen, but we are far from denying her right to vindicate
something more than an accidental place in the world. After all that can
be urged as to the glory of self-sacrifice, the greatness of silent
devotion, or the compensations for her want of outer influence in the
inner power which she exerts through the medium of the family and the
home, there remains an odd sort of sympathy with the woman who asserts
that she is every bit as good as her master, and that there is no reason
why she should retire behind the domestic veil. Partly, of course, this
arises from our natural sympathy with pluck of any sort; partly, too,
there is the pleasure we feel in a situation which may be absurd, but
which, at any rate, is novel and piquant; partly, there is an impatience
with woman as she is, and a sort of lingering hope that something better
is in store for her.

The most sceptical, in fact, of woman's censors cannot help feeling a
suspicion that, after all, strong-minded women may be in the right. As
one walks home in the cool night-air it seems impossible to believe
that girls are to go on for ever chattering the frivolous nonsense they
do chatter, or living the absolutely frivolous lives they do live. And,
of course, the impression that a good time is coming for them is
immensely strengthened if one happens to have fallen in love. One's eyes
have got a little sharpened to see the real human soul that stirs
beneath all that sham life of idleness and vanity, but the vanity and
the idleness vexes more than ever. If we come across Miss Hominy at such
moments, we are extremely likely to find her a great deal less
ridiculous than we fancied her, and to listen with a certain gravity to
her plea for the enfranchisement of women.

It is not that we go all lengths with her; we stare a little perhaps at
the logical consequences on which she piques herself, and at the
panorama of woman as she is to be which she spreads before us, at the
consulting barrister waiting in her chambers and the lady advocate
flourishing her maiden brief; our pulse throbs a little awkwardly at the
thought of being tested by medica