[103] Women were the wooers and choosers in this feministic community, but the problem of feminism was apparently solved by the practice of voluntary relinquishment of wings, by the feminine wearers, after marriage, and a strict devotion to the domestic life. [104] “And where a society attains to a moral standard in which there are no crimes and no sorrows from which tragedy can extract its aliment of pity and sorrow, no salient vices or follies on which comedy can lavish its mirthful satire, it has lost its chance of producing a Shakespeare, a Molière, or a Mrs. Beecher Stowe.” _The Coming Race_, 230. [105] After the manner of Defoe’s _Turkish Merchant: the Conduct of Christians Made the Sport of Infidels_, and others of this type. [106] _Popanilla_, 380. The ensuing debate is made the peg for some vivacious burlesque on Parliamentary speeches. [107] _Ibid._, 385. [108] _Popanilla_, 394. [109] _Ibid._, 459. The whole is in ridicule of Utilitarianism. [110] _Ixion_, 272. [111] A prominent feature of this is a white ass (the Public) which the prime minister leads by the nose. [112] The laborers. [113] These two are alike in their handling of sparkling dialogue. [114] Walker’s dictum (_Victorian Literature_, 700) that “Good burlesque is impossible except through sound criticism,” is an instance of the dangerous half truth. The sounder the criticism the better the burlesque, to be sure, but only as _criticism_: as _burlesque_ it may be highly successful in spite of some critical unsoundness. Indeed, it must necessarily contain the element of injustice that inheres in all exaggeration,--the very foundation of burlesque and caricature. Moreover, Walker’s conception of the burlesque is indicated when he calls _Rebecca and Rowena_ “perhaps the best burlesque ever penned.” As a matter of fact, it is not only far from that preëminence, but it is in form actually less of a burlesque than most of the others under consideration. [115] “Heroes and gods make other poems fine; Plain Satire calls for _sense_ in every line.” Young: _Universal Passion_. [116] In one of Lytton’s first volumes is an observation interesting as perhaps the germ from which the plan of _The Coming Race_ was developed. Vincent, the philosopher of the story, remarks. (_Pelham_, 57): “There are few better satires on a civilized country than the observations of visitors less polished; while, on the contrary, the civilized traveller, in describing the manners of the American barbarians, instead of conveying ridicule upon the visited, points the sarcasm on the visitor; and Tacitus could not have thought of a finer or nobler satire on the Roman luxuries than that insinuated by his treatise on the German simplicity.” [117] Mill: _Disraeli, the Author, Orator, and Statesman_, 20.