What signifies it? It signifies a great deal. It signifies all the difference between life in a solitary seraglio, and life with God's world for an inheritance; all the difference between being the worn-out toy of one sensualist, and the inspiration of an unborn age; all the difference between the butterfly and the seraph, between the imprisoned nun and Longfellow's sweet St. Philomel. When we read these words, we thank Margaret Fuller for the very criticism which once moved a girlish ire. "De Staël's name," she wrote, "was not clear of offence; she could not forget the woman in the thought. Sentimental tears often dimmed her eagle glance." What a grateful contrast to all such sentimentalism do we find in Margaret's own sketch of the early life of Miranda! "This child was early led to feel herself a child of the spirit. She took her place easily in the world of mind. A dignified sense of self-dependence was given as all her portion, and she found it a sure anchor. Her relations with others were fixed with equal security. With both men and women they were noble; affectionate without passion, intellectual without coldness. The world was free to her, and she lived freely in it. Outward adversity came, and inward conflict; but that self-respect had early been awakened, which must always lead at last to an outward security and an inward peace." Here is the great difficulty in the education of woman, to lead her to a point from which she shall naturally develop self-respect, and learn self-help. Old prejudices extinguish her as an individual, oblige her to renounce the inspiration in herself, and yield to all the weaknesses and wickednesses of man. Look at Chaucer's beau-ideal of a wife in the tale of Griselda, dwindled now into the patient Grissel of modern story. In her a woman is represented as perfect, because she ardently and constantly loved a monster who gained her by guile, and brutally abused her. Put the matter into plain English, and see if you would respect such a woman now. No: and therefore is it somewhat sad, that, in Tennyson's new Idyll, he must recreate this ideal in the Enid of Geraint; and that, out of four pictures of womanly love, only one seems human and natural, and that, the guilty love of Guinevère. The recently awakened interest in the position of woman is flooding the country with books relating to her and her sphere. They have, their _very titles_ have, an immense educational influence. Let me direct your attention to one published in Boston by a leading house last winter, and entitled "Remarkable Women of Different Ages and Nations." Let us read the names of the thirteen women with whose lives it seeks to entertain the public:--