What women's dress will be in the future it is difficult to say. The
writer of the Daily News article is of opinion that skirts will always be
worn as distinctive of the sex, and it is obvious that men's dress, in
its present condition, is not by any means an example of a perfectly
rational costume. It is more than probable, however, that the dress of
the twentieth century will emphasise distinctions of occupation, not
distinctions of sex.

* * * * *

It is hardly too much to say that, by the death of the author of John
Halifax, Gentleman, our literature has sustained a heavy loss. Mrs.
Craik was one of the finest of our women-writers, and though her art had
always what Keats called 'a palpable intention upon one,' still its
imaginative qualities were of no mean order. There is hardly one of her
books that has not some distinction of style; there is certainly not one
of them that does not show an ardent love of all that is beautiful and
good in life. The good she, perhaps, loved somewhat more than the
beautiful, but her heart had room for both. Her first novel appeared in
1849, the year of the publication of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and
Mrs. Gaskell's Ruth, and her last work was done for the magazine which I
have the honour to edit. She was very much interested in the scheme for
the foundation of the Woman's World, suggested its title, and promised to
be one of its warmest supporters. One article from her pen is already in
proof and will appear next month, and in a letter I received from her, a
few days before she died, she told me that she had almost finished a
second, to be called Between Schooldays and Marriage. Few women have
enjoyed a greater popularity than Mrs. Craik, or have better deserved it.
It is sometimes said that John Halifax is not a real man, but only a
woman's ideal of a man. Well, let us be grateful for such ideals. No
one can read the story of which John Halifax is the hero without being
the better for it. Mrs. Craik will live long in the affectionate memory
of all who knew her, and one of her novels, at any rate, will always have
a high and honourable place in English fiction. Indeed, for simple
narrative power, some of the chapters of John Halifax, Gentleman, are
almost unequalled in our prose literature.

* * * * *

The news of the death of Lady Brassey has been also received by the
English people with every expression of sorrow and sympathy. Though her
books were not rem