And Woman is a consistent and inveterate _poseur_, from the time of her leaving the cradle, through girlhood, young-womanhood, and matron-hood, to her last gasp. That tale of the old lady, dying from extreme age and decay of nature, who had her face rouged over against the arrival of her doctor, so that she should receive him to the best effect as she lay on her death-bed, is characteristic of her sex. Vanity, thy name is woman! Could we but see her without her ‘side’! But we cannot. All the world’s a stage to her, and all the time she plays a part with an ineffable artistry of diplomacy beyond the understanding of a Richelieu or a Machiavelli. A statesman can frequently anticipate the ruses of a rival diplomat and thus check his schemes--because, being men, they both reason from a given point and can understand very accurately the workings of each other’s minds; but how shall one understand woman or predicate her actions when she does not understand herself or her fellow-feminines, and acts on the moment upon unreasoned impulse and pure caprice? You may point to this and that feminine figure which has made an equable and logical course throughout her career, and exclaim triumphantly, ‘Here is the natural woman, without guile or self-consciousness: a logical and close-reasoning creature.’ Well, you are welcome to your opinion, pious, or derived from what shall seem to you as evidence sufficient for your contention. Hold it, nor inquire more narrowly, nor seek proselytes to your faith. The natural woman? My dear sir, how should your matter-of-fact and obvious nature distinguish the excellently-fashioned and well-assumed mask from the natural face? _Summum ars_---- you know the rest. Ponder it, nor prate glibly of natures, good sir! Conceive of the dreadfully unreal puppets the novelists have created and labelled with feminine names. How the machinery creaks and rattles when the puppets move! With what unreal stagger they pace the stage, and how deep below contempt is the unlikeness to womankind of their ways and words. For the nearest approach to an adequate portrayal of the feminine character, commend me to the women of Mr. Thomas Hardy’s novels, whose mental gyrations are set forth with a touch of inspiration: Bathsheba Everdene, Tess, Viviette, and the uncertain heroine of _The Trumpet Major_. Their speech has the convincing _timbre_ of their sex; their walk is the true gait, not the masculine tramp that echoes through the pages of most men’s novels; and how truly like nature their tongues say ‘No,’ when their hearts throb ‘Yes, yes!’ They live, these women and girls--they breathe and palpitate with the full tide of life, and no other living novelist can so inform his feminine creations with reality.