up a fine
old volume, bound in red morocco, and entitled 'The Dream of Vergier;' a
book full of wisdom and logic, and written by some venerable clerk,
during the reign of Charles V., king of France. I looked for the page
that had struck my fancy, but--alas! how oddly one's memory changes with
the lapse of years--instead of finding, in that grave old book, the just
panegyric of woman's goodness, I discovered, to my great surprise, only
a violent satire all spiced with texts borrowed from St. Augustine, the
Roman laws and the ancient canons, with this sage conclusion, full
worthy of the exordium:--

'I do not say, however, that there is no good woman at all, but the
species is rare; and hence an old law says that no _law concerning good
women_ should be made, for that laws are to be made concerning things of
usual occurrence, as it is written in _Auth. sinc prohib_., etc., _quia
vero_ and L. _Nam ad ca_, Dig. _De Leffibus_.'

These juridical epigrams, these cool pleasantries, in a serious book,
shocked me more than even the hard hits of the Gascon philosopher. 'Good
women,' I thought to myself, 'are found everywhere. In history? No;
history is written by men who love and admire heroes only, that is to
say, those who rob, subjugate, or slay them. In theology? No; it has not
yet forgiven the daughters of Eve the fault which ruined us,--a sin of
which they have retained at least a little share. In the records of the
law, then? No, again; for men make the laws. Woman is, in their eyes,
nothing but a minor, legally incapable of governing herself. God only
knows what is, here, as in all things, the difference between the fact
and the law. Are these good women to be found in plays, romances, or
novels? No, still; for they are but the perpetual recital of feminine
artfulness. Where, then, shall we look for good women?--In the realm of
fable and fiction, in the kingdom of fancy--the dominion of the ideal.

These are the only regions in which merit holds the place it is entitled
to or justice is done to the claims of virtue. What is the tenderness of
Baucis, or the long fidelity of Penelope? Fiction only. And the
resignation of the gentle Griseldis--what is it? An old tale of other
days. In order to find the good woman we are looking for, this is the
ivory portal at which we must knock.

Acting upon this conviction, I reperused all the old traditions, I
called to my aid that peculiar lore of nations which is embodied in
their l