_she_ could expose, but others, even of candid listeners, perhaps, could not; it was through that imperishable grandeur of soul, which taught her to submit meekly and without a struggle to her punishment, but taught her _not_ to submit--no, not for a moment--to calumny as to facts, or to misconstruction as to motives. Besides, there were secretaries all around the court taking down her words. That was meant for no good to _her_. But the end does not always correspond to the meaning. And Joanna might say to herself--these words that will be used against me to-morrow and the next day, perhaps in some nobler generation may rise again for my justification. Yes, Joanna, they _are_ rising even now in Paris, and for more than justification. Woman, sister--there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother, man; no, nor ever will. Pardon me if I doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. By which last is meant--not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you _can_ create yourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not? Do not ask me to say otherwise; because if you do, you will lead me into temptation. For I swore early in life never to utter a falsehood, and, above all, a sycophantic falsehood; and, in the false homage of the modern press towards women, there is horrible sycophancy. It is as hollow, most of it, and it is as fleeting as is the love that lurks in _uxoriousness_. Yet, if a woman asks me to tell a faleshood, I have long made up my mind--that on moral considerations I _will_, and _ought_ to do so, whether it be for any purpose of glory to _her_, or of screening her foibles (for she _does_ commit a few), or of humbly, as a vassal, paying a peppercorn rent to her august privilege of caprice. Barring these cases, I must adhere to my resolution of telling no fibs. And I repeat, therefore, but not to be rude, I repeat in Latin-- Excudent alii meliús spirantia signa, Credo equidem vivos ducent de marmore vultus: Altius ascendent: at tu caput, Eva, memento Sandalo ut infringas referenti oracula tanta.[6]