y the pith of the
book, and would, perhaps, stand stronger without the other six hundred
pages. In this chapter she shows the strength of a system-maker, in the
rest the weaknesses of one; she feels obliged to apply her creed to
everything, to illustrate everything by its light, to find unexpected
confirmations everywhere, and to manipulate all the history of art,
literature, and society, till she conforms them all to her standard. She
recites, with no new power, historical facts that are already familiar;
and gives many pages to extracts from very well known poets and very ill
known prose-writers, to the exclusion of her own terse and vigorous
thought. All this is without a trace of book-making, but is done in
single-hearted zeal for views which are only damaged by the process.

These are merely literary defects; but Mrs. Farnham really suffers in
thought by the same unflinching fidelity to her creed. It makes her
clear and resolute in her statement; but it often makes her as one-sided
as the advocates of male supremacy whom she impugns. To be sure, her
theory enables her to extenuate some points of admitted injustice to
woman,--finding, for instance, in her educational and professional
exclusions a crude effort, on the part of society, to treat her as a
sort of bird-of-paradise, born only to fly, and therefore not needing
feet. Yet this authoress is obliged to assume a tone of habitual
antagonism towards men, from which the advocates of mere equality are
excused. Indeed, the technical Woman's-Rights movement has always
witnessed a very hearty cooeperation among its advocates of both sexes,
and it is generally admitted that men are at least as ready to concede
additional rights as women to ask for them. But when one comes to Mrs.
Farnham's stand-point, and sees what her opinion of men really is, the
stanchest masculine ally must shrink from assigning himself to such a
category of scoundrels. The best criticism made on Michelet's theory of
woman as a predestined invalid was that of the sensible physician who
responded, "As if the Almighty did not know how to create a woman!"--and
Mrs. Farnham certainly proves too much in undertaking to expose the
blunders of Deity in the construction of a man. Assuming, as she
invariably does, the highest woman to be the typical woman, and the
lowest man to be the typical man, she can prove anything she pleases.
But even this does not content her; every gleam of tenderness and
refinemen