ence humbug, as you have; we are read up in theological
disputation, and are as ready as you to stand by Colenso against Moses;
in modern languages we are more than your match. What have you to offer
us if we are too proud, or too poor, or too anything else, to stand
waiting for a buyer in the marriage-market of Belgravia? You will not
suffer us to enter the learned professions nor the Service; you will not
encourage us to be architects, attorneys, land-agents, or engineers. We
know and we feel that there is not one of these callings either above
our capacity or unsuited to our habits, but you deny us admittance; and
now we ask, What is your scheme for our employment? what project have
you that may point out to us a future of independence and a station of
respect? Have you such a plan? or, failing it, have you the courage to
proclaim to the world that all your boasted civilisation can offer us
is to become the governesses to the children of our luckier sisters? But
there are many of us totally unsuited to this, brought up with ways
and habits that would make such an existence something very like penal
servitude--what will you do with us?

With this cry--for it became a cry--in my ears, I tried to go asleep.
I counted seventeen hundred and forty-four; I thought of the sea; I
imagined I was listening to Dr Cumming; and I endeavoured to repeat
a distich of Martin Tupper: but the force of conscience and the congo
carried the day, and I addressed myself vigorously to the question.
I thought of making them missionaries, lighthouse-keepers, lunacy
commissioners, Garter Kings-at-Arms, and suchlike, when a brilliant
thought flashed across my brain, and, with the instinct of a great
success, I saw I had triumphed. "Yes," cried I aloud, "there is one
grand career for women--a career which shall engage not alone all the
higher and more delicate traits of their organisation, which will call
forth their marvellous clear-sightedness and quick perception, their
tact, their persuasiveness, and their ingenuity, but will actually
employ the less commendable features of female nature, and find work for
their powers of concealment, their craft in deception, and their passion
for intrigue. How is it that we have never hit upon it before? for
of all the careers meant by nature for women, was there any one could
compare with Diplomacy!"

Here we have at once the long-sought-for career--the _desideratum tanti
studii_--the occupation for which