I would that all who critically finger women’s books, would read and ponder these extracts. I would that reviewers had a more fitting sense of their responsibility, in giving their verdicts to the public; permitting themselves to be swayed neither by personal friendship, nor private pique; speaking _honestly_, by all means, but remembering their own sisters, when they would point a flippant, smart article _by disrespectful mention of a lady writer; or by an unmanly, brutal persistence in tearing from her face the mask of incognito-ship, which she has, if she pleases, an undoubted right to wear_. I would that they would speak respectfully of those whose pure, self-denying life, has been through trials and temptations under which _their_ strong natures would have succumbed; and who tremblingly await the public issue of days and nights of single-handed, single-hearted weariness and toil. Not that a woman’s book should be praised because it is a woman’s, nor, on the contrary, condemned for that reason. But as you would shrink from seeing a ruffian’s hand laid upon your sister’s gentle shoulder, deal honestly, but, I pray you, _courteously_, with those whose necessities have forced them out from the blessed shelter of the home circle, into jostling contact with rougher natures. TRY AGAIN. “No woman ever produced a great painting or statue.”--_Ex._ On the contrary, she has produced a great many “statues,” who may be seen any sunshiny day, walking Broadway, in kid gloves and perfumed broadcloth, while “Lawrence” lies in ashes. “No woman ever wrote a great drama.”--_Ex._ Ay--but they have lived one; and when worn out with suffering at hands which should have shielded them, have died without a murmur on their martyr lips. “No woman ever composed a great piece of music.”--_Ex._ What do you call a baby? “No woman was ever a great cook!”--_Ex._ True--it takes a man to get up a _broil_. “Women have invented nothing outside of millinery since the world began.”--_Ex._ How can they? when they are so _hooped_ in? “Women have written clever letters, tolerable novels, and intolerable epics.”--_Ex._ Indeed! It strikes me, though, that we have furnished you the material for yours; just tell me what _your_ “letters,” _your_ “novels,” _your_ “epics,” would have amounted to, without the inspiring theme--_woman_. When the world furnishes us _heroes_, perhaps _we_ shall write splendid novels, and splendid epics. Pharaoh once required bricks to be made “without straw.”