and when we find an archdeacon of the English Church still clinging to the
theory, even while exhibiting his mother's family letters to the whole
world,--we more easily understand the course of development.

These reassertions of the Oriental theory are simply reversions, as a
naturalist would say, to the original type. They are instances of
"atavism," like the occasional appearance of six fingers on one hand in a
family where the great-great-grandfather happened to possess that
ornament. Such instances can always be found, when one takes the pains to
look for them. Thus a critic, discussing in the "Atlantic Monthly" Mr.
Mahaffy's book on "Social Life in Greece," is surprised that this writer
should quote, in proof of the degradation of woman in Athens, the remark
attributed to Pericles, "That woman is best who is least spoken of among
men, whether for good or for evil." "In our opinion," adds the reviewer,
"that remark was wise then, and is wise now." The Oriental theory is not
then, it seems, extinct; and we are spared the pains of proving that it
ever existed.

If this theory be true, how falsely has the admiration of mankind been
given! If the most obscure woman is best, the most conspicuous must
undoubtedly be worst. Tried by this standard, how unworthy must have
been Elizabeth Barrett Browning, how reprehensible must be Dorothea Dix,
what a model of all that is discreditable is Rosa Bonheur, what a
crowning instance of human depravity is Florence Nightingale! Yet how
consoling the thought, that, while these disreputable persons were thus
wasting their substance in the riotous performance of what the world
weakly styled good deeds, there were always women who saw the folly of
such efforts; women who by steady devotion to eating, drinking, and
sleeping continued to keep themselves in sacred obscurity, and to prove
themselves the ornaments of their sex, inasmuch as no human being ever