poet's meaning in this work, born too early, that "the sooner woman
finds out, before the great educational movement begins, that 'woman
is not undeveloped man, but diverse,' the better it will be for the
progress of the world."

But probably the "educational movement" will not make much difference
to womankind on the whole. The old Platonic remark that woman "does
the same things as man, but not so well," will eternally hold good,
at least in the arts, and in letters, except in rare cases of genius.
A new Jeanne d'Arc, the most signal example of absolute genius in
history, will not come again; and the ages have waited vainly for a
new Sappho or a new Jane Austen. Literature, poetry, painting, have
always been fields open to woman. But two names exhaust the roll of
women of the highest rank in letters--Sappho and Jane Austen. And
"when did woman ever yet invent?" In "arts of government" Elizabeth
had courage, and just saving sense enough to yield to Cecil at the
eleventh hour, and escape the fate of "her sister and her foe," the
beautiful unhappy queen who told her ladies that she dared to look on
whatever men dared to do, and herself would do it if her strength so
served her." {6} "The foundress of the Babylonian walls" is a myth;
"the Rhodope that built the Pyramid" is not a creditable myth; for
exceptions to Knox's "Monstrous Regiment of Women" we must fall back
on "The Palmyrene that fought Aurelian," and the revered name of the
greatest of English queens, Victoria. Thus history does not
encourage the hope that a man-like education will raise many women to
the level of the highest of their sex in the past, or even that the
enormous majority of women will take advantage of the opportunity of
a man-like education. A glance at the numerous periodicals designed
for the reading of women depresses optimism, and the Princess's
prophecy of