terms in which he spoke of Queen Adelaide.

Mademoiselle d'Este, when far advanced in middle life, married Lord
Chancellor Truro. She may have found in so doing a certain
satisfaction to her pride which no other alliance with a commoner
could have afforded her, since the Lord Chancellor of England (no
matter of how lowly an origin), on certain occasions, takes
precedence of the whole aristocracy of the land.]

HARLEY STREET, Monday, May 30th, 1842.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

I have just finished a letter to you, in which I tell you that I have
sketched out the skeleton of another tragedy; but I find Emily has been
beforehand with me. You ask me what has moved me to this mental effort.
My milliner's bill, my dear; which, being L97 sterling, I feel extremely
inclined to pay out of my own brains; for, though they received a very
severe shock, and one of rather paralyzing effect, upon my being
reminded that whatever I write is not my own legal property, but that of
another, which, of course, upon consideration, I know; I cannot,
nevertheless, persuade myself that that which I invent--_create_, in
fact--can really belong to any one but myself; therefore, if anything I
wrote could earn me L97, I am afraid I should consider that I, and no
one else, had paid my bill.

In thinking over the position of women with regard to their right to
their own earnings, I confess to something very like wrathful
indignation; impotent wrath and vain indignation, to be sure--not the
less intense for that, however, for the injustice is undoubtedly great.
That a man whose wits could not keep him half a week from starving
should claim as his the result of a mental process such as that of
composing a noble work of imagination--say "Corinne," for example--seems
too beneficent a provision of the law for the protection of male
_superiority_. It is true that, by our marriage bargain, they feed,
clothe, and house us, and are answerable for our debts (not my
milliner's bill, though, if I can prevent it), and so, I suppose, have a
right to pay themselves as best they can out of all we are or all we can
do. It is a pretty severe puzzle, and a deal of love must be thrown into
one or other or both scales to make the balance hang tolerably even.

Madame de Stael, I suppose, might have said to Rocca, "If my brains are
indeed yours, why don't you write a book like 'Corinne' with them?" You
know, tho