troubled life that the sights and sounds of nature break through the
crust of gathering anxiety, and remind her of the peace of the lilies
and the well-being of the birds of the air? Or will life be less
interesting to her, that the lives of her neighbours, instead of passing
like shadows upon a wall, assume a consistent wholeness, forming
themselves into stories and phases of life? Will she not hereby love
more and talk less? Or will she be more unlikely to make a good
match----? But here we arrest ourselves in bewilderment over the word
_good_, and seek to re-arrange our thoughts. If what mothers mean by a
_good_ match, is the alliance of a man of position and means--or let
them throw intellect, manners, and personal advantages into the same
scale--if this be all, then we grant the daughter of cultivated
imagination may not be manageable, will probably be obstinate. "We hope
she will be obstinate enough. [Footnote: Let women who feel the wrongs
of their kind teach women to be high-minded in their relation to men,
and they will do more for the social elevation of women, and the
establishment of their rights, whatever those rights may be, than by any
amount of intellectual development or assertion of equality. Nor, if
they are other than mere partisans, will they refuse the attempt because
in its success men will, after all, be equal, if not greater gainers, if
only thereby they should be "feelingly persuaded" what they are.] But
will the girl be less likely to marry a _gentleman_, in the grand old
meaning of the sixteenth century? when it was no irreverence to call our
Lord

"The first true gentleman that ever breathed;"

or in that of the fourteenth?--when Chaucer teaching "whom is worthy to
be called gentill," writes thus:--