He would then proceed to ask me, with some asperity, if I thought that any of my “gentle myriads” could have invented a steam engine? Whereupon I would say to him, what I now say to you, “most assuredly I think so; why not?” And I would ask, in turn, if my old friend had studied history with reference to the principle that, as a rule, human beings do not rise above the standard implied in society’s general estimate of the class to which they belong. Take the nations of Eastern Europe and Western Asia; “civilized” nations, too, be it remembered; study the mechanic of Jerusalem, the merchant of Damascus and Ispahan; in what particular are the tools of the one or the facilities of commerce familiar to the others, superior to those of a thousand years ago? Surely, so far as oriental inventions are concerned, they have changed as little as the methods of the bee or the wing-stroke of the swallow. We hear no more of man’s inventiveness in those countries than of woman’s. Why should we, indeed, when we remember that both are alike untaught in the arts and sciences which form the basis of mechanical invention? They are inspired by no intellectual movement; no demand; no “modern spirit.” It is not “in the air” that _men_ shall be fertile of brain and skilled of hand as inventors there, any more than it is here that women shall be, and where both knowledge and incentive are not present, achievement is evermore a minus quantity. None but a heaven-sent genius, stimulated by a love of science, prepared by special education and inspired by the _prestige_ of belonging to the dominant sex, ever yet carved types, tamed lightning or imprisoned steam. Besides, in ages past, if some brave soul, man or woman, conscious of splendid powers, strove to bless the world by their free exercise, what dangers were involved! Was it Joan of Arc? the fagot soon became her portion; or Galileo? on came the rack; or Christopher Columbus? the long disdain of courtiers and jealousy of ambitious coadjutors followed him; or Stephenson? his fetter was the menace of the law; or Robert Fulton? he faced the sarcasm of the learned and the merriment of boors. Even for the most adventurous inventors of to-day (as the aeronaut experimenters), what have we but bad puns and insipid conundrums, until he wins, and then ready caps tossed high in air and fame’s loud trumpet at his ear—when death’s cold finger has closed it up forever.