t exhibited by man she transfers by some inexplicable
legerdemain of logic to the feminine side, and makes somehow into a new
proof of his hopeless inferiority; and she is landed at last in the
amazing paradox, that "the most powerful feminine souls have appeared in
masculine forms, thus far in human career." (Vol. II. p. 360.)

In short, her theory involves a necessity of perpetual overstatement.
The conception of a pure and noble young man, such as Richter delineates
in his Walt or Albano, seems utterly foreign to her system; and of that
fine subtilty of nature by which the highest types of manhood and
womanhood approach each other, as if mutually lending refinement and
strength, she seems to have no conception. The truth is, that, however
much we may concede to the average spiritual superiority of woman, a
great deal also depends on the inheritance and the training of the
individual. Mrs. Farnham, like every refined woman, is often shocked by
the coarseness of even virtuous men; but she does not tell us the other
side of the story,--how often every man of refinement has occasion to be
shocked by the coarseness of even virtuous women. Sexual disparities may
be much; but individual disparities are even more.

Mrs. Farnham is noble enough, and her book is brave and wise enough, to
bear criticisms which grow only from her attempting too much. The
difference between her book and most of those written on the other side
is, that in the previous cases the lions have been the painters, and
here it is the lioness. As against the exaggerations on the other side,
she has a right to exaggerate on her part. As against the theory that
man is superior to woman because he is larger, she has a right to plead
that in that case the gorilla were the better man, and to assert on the
other hand that woman is superior because smaller,--Emerson's mountain
and squirrel. As against the theory that glory and dominion go with the
beard, she has a right to maintain (and that she does with no small
pungency) that Nature gave man this appendage because he was not to be
trusted with his own face, and needed this additional covering for his
shame. As against the historical traditions of man's mastery, she does
well to urge that creation is progressive, and that the megalosaurus was
master even before man. It is, indeed, this last point which constitutes
the crowning merit of the book, and which will be permanently associated
with Mrs. Farnham's name.