I idolize the ladies. They are fairies That spiritualize this earth of ours; From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers, Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies. But learning in its barbarous seminaries, Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours, And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers Science with all its horrid accessaries. Now, seriously, the only things, I think, In which young ladies should instructed be, Are stocking-mending, love, and cookery-- Accomplishments that very soon will sink, Since Fluxions, now, and Sanscrit conversation, Always form part of female education. [Illustration: SOMETHING LIKE A BROTHER FLORA: "What a very pretty waistcoat, Emily!" EMILY: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe. Isn't it kind?"] [Sidenote: _Victorian Damsels_] But even within the ranks of the social _élite_ signs of a desire for equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode of existence met with little commendation from _Punch_. He was a strong advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of "Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless "unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty or plain spoken--even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy brothers. But we know--even from the pages of _Punch_--that Victorian women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from sentimentality and intellectualism:-- [Sidenote: _The Model Fast Lady_]