from the contemporary authoress creative literature at all; that is, a
disinterested criticism of mankind; we get in each picture of a male
character her instinctive, and intensely interested, feeling as to
whether or not he is a man whom it would be desirable, and safe, for a
young woman to marry. Paradoxically enough, it would seem that women
have less and less knowledge of the world as they have contrived to see
more of it; that as they have become more emancipated in liberty of
action they have become more clannish in thought; and that as the range
of their opportunities has widened and their interests have multiplied,
their concern with the most elemental female instinct, their
preoccupation with their immemorial business of the chase, has but
intensified. By word of mouth the modern woman tells us that in her
practical and intellectual capacities she has advanced far beyond her
sisters of an earlier day; we chance to look into that pool of fiction
wherein she mirrors her heart, and we find her the same self-centred
huntress as of yore.

"Sir," cried the Colonel, jolting some tobacco ash off the ledge made
by his abdomen, which he did by pounding the side of his torso with a
bulky volume of the "Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini," "what is the
theme of the most conspicuous portion of our fiction by feminine hands?
In large measure it is a peevish criticism of husbands. We have the
popular creator of a type of husband held up to the scorn and ridicule
of the sorority of her readers, remarking by way of commentary on her
satirical pictures that there should be 'a school for husbands.' It
is, apparently, this lady's complacent belief that the origin of the
domestic difficulties of the world is in the inadequate training of
husbands for their delicate office. One of 'the essential
requirements' for marriage which 'men should go to school to learn' she
mentions as 'understanding.' Wives, presumably, are born perfectly