Many other examples could be cited to reestablish the epithet _learned woman_; but I promised to resign it, and resign it I do quite willingly. M. de Maistre concludes his dissertation by saying: "Women have never created masterpieces!" Does he mean to assert that their intellectual efforts have been, and that they always will be, sterile? We have seen, and history proves, to what point the exertions and the acquirements of women have contributed to the preservation of ancient literature. It is a hard measure to expel them from the ship they have helped to rescue from the storms of barbarism. Moreover, one need not create masterpieces to prove the possession of talent. God sends dew to little flowers as well as to great trees. Humble works may receive the fecundity of a good action. The success of our adversaries must be our encouragement. If women of talent have done so much mischief, then Christian women must struggle on the same ground. There are a great many books, and one book more is but a drop in the ocean--true! All are not destined to distinction and immortality. Some must console a few souls only, and, like daily bread, meet the day's requirements, without enduring until the morrow. "If you work for God and for yourself," says St. Augustine, "the better to heed the utterance of the Word within you, there will always be a few beings who will understand you." These words are an encouragement for all humble works, for all faithful efforts, that, while developing the faculties received from God, know not to what purpose they are destined. Let each one cultivate her natural faculties. Intelligence is one of the noblest of gifts, and in the field of the father of the family no laborer must stand unoccupied, useless, without toil and without recompense. {31} But, it may be argued, most of the examples brought forward prove only that women are especially fitted for Christian learning. I recognize the fact. Inspiration, descending into their souls, rises again more directly toward God. Their talents must be intimately allied with virtue, and shine forth like those pure rays that are filled with the light and warmth of the centre whence they emanate. But, alas! one must recognize also the fact that women born with talents and for works of the first order have too often never found this supreme source. M. de Maistre, after discharging his unjust spleen against Madame de Staël, calling her discourteously "Science in petticoats, and an impertinent _femmelette_" whose works he qualifies as "gorgeous rags," confesses, finally, in one of those impetuous contradictions so familiar to him, that Madame de Staël needed only the torch of truth to raise her "immense abilities" to the highest grade. "If she had been a Catholic," he says later, "she would have been adorable instead of being famous." What would he have said of the female writers of our own day?