hold upon the outer world of readers and writers, besides the
reputation which she won upon the stage by her tragedies.

The literary ladies of the early part of the century in some ways
had a very good time of it. A copy of verses, a small volume of
travels, a few tea-parties, a harp in one corner of the room, and a
hat and feathers worn rather on one side, seemed to be all that was
wanted to establish a claim to fashion and inspiration. They had
footstools to rest their satin shoes upon, they had admirers and
panegyrists to their heart's content, and above all they possessed
that peculiar complacency in which (with a few notable exceptions)
our age is singularly deficient. We are earnest, we are audacious,
we are original, but we are not complacent. THEY were dolls
perhaps, and lived in dolls' houses; WE are ghosts without houses at
all; we come and go wrapped in sheets of newspaper, holding
flickering lights in our hands, paraffin lamps, by the light of
which we are seeking our proper sphere. Poor vexed spirits! We do
not belong to the old world any more! The new world is not yet
ready for us. Even Mr. Gladstone will not let us into the House of
Commons; the Geographical Society rejects us, so does the Royal
Academy; and yet who could say that any of their standards rise too
high! Some one or two are happily safe, carried by the angels of
the Press to little altars and pinnacles all their own; but the
majority of hard-working, intelligent women, 'contented with little,
yet ready for more,' may they not in moments of depression be
allowed to picture to themselves what their chances might have been
had they only been born half a century earlier?

Miss Mitford, notwithstanding all her troubles (she has been known
to say she had rather be a washerwoman than a literary lady), had