, there was such a pushing and struggling to see
the Princess ... that a bust of the Princess Royal was thrown from its
pedestal and damaged, and the pedestal upset; the ladies, in their
eagerness to view the Princess, coolly took advantage of the overthrown
pillar by standing on it." In one place he testifies that "the majority
of men's wives in the upper and middle classes fall far short of that
which is required of a good wife. They are not made by love, but by the
chance of a good match. They are the products of worldly prudence, not
of a noble passion.... The consequence is, that after the first novelty
has passed away, the chain begins to rub and the collar to gall." A
little later in the same essay he gives an ideal wife, and says,--"It is
not too much to say that the great majority of wives equal this ideal."
"By far the larger portion of marriages are happy ones ... and ... of
men's wives we still can write ... 'her voice is sweet music, her smiles
his brightest day,' &c., &c." "Women," he says, "differ from men in this
respect. They all, very properly, look forward to marriage." So, we
suppose, men do not look forward to marriage; or if they do, it is
improperly. "Nay, the great majority [of women], even in our factitious
state of society, are utterly dependent upon it." That is, if society
were not factitious, every woman, without exception, would be utterly
dependent upon marriage for a living. "The majority of girls are looking
forward to be married at an early age, and are in despair of being left
old maids when they are twenty-one." As usual, he means the contrary of
what he says,--not that girls hope to be old maids till they are
twenty-one and then settle down into the certainty that they must become
wives, but that they hope to be wives and are in despair at being old
maids by the time they are twenty-one. The difficult task of evolving
his meaning from his words is, to be sure, entirely a work of
supererogation on our part, as the statement he means and the statement
he makes are usually alike baseless. But we choose to free him from the
meshes in which he has entangled himself and give him a chance to run
for his life.

The brilliancy and originality of his views on social questions appear
in such startling announcements as "Woman should be true to herself."
"Woman was created to be a wife and a mother." "The accomplished woman
in these days of general education is, however, a grand mistake." "Why
sh