These juridical epigrams, these cool pleasantries, in a serious book, shocked me more than even the hard hits of the Gascon philosopher. 'Good women,' I thought to myself, 'are found everywhere. In history? No; history is written by men who love and admire heroes only, that is to say, those who rob, subjugate, or slay them. In theology? No; it has not yet forgiven the daughters of Eve the fault which ruined us,--a sin of which they have retained at least a little share. In the records of the law, then? No, again; for men make the laws. Woman is, in their eyes, nothing but a minor, legally incapable of governing herself. God only knows what is, here, as in all things, the difference between the fact and the law. Are these good women to be found in plays, romances, or novels? No, still; for they are but the perpetual recital of feminine artfulness. Where, then, shall we look for good women?--In the realm of fable and fiction, in the kingdom of fancy--the dominion of the ideal. These are the only regions in which merit holds the place it is entitled to or justice is done to the claims of virtue. What is the tenderness of Baucis, or the long fidelity of Penelope? Fiction only. And the resignation of the gentle Griseldis--what is it? An old tale of other days. In order to find the good woman we are looking for, this is the ivory portal at which we must knock. Acting upon this conviction, I reperused all the old traditions, I called to my aid that peculiar lore of nations which is embodied in their legends, and which is so vividly, so amiably, and so ingenuously expressed. I interrogated the story-tellers of every country, Indian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, French, German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Russian, Lithuanian, and even the hoary old wayside narrators of the far Thibet. I plunged into this ocean of fancy with the recklessness of an accomplished diver, but,--must I acknowledge it?--less fortunate than even Montaigne with his history, I have succeeded in bringing back only one woman that I can call really good, and her I have had to disinter from under the ice and snows of the North, in a wild country, too, and among a people who are not so delicate and refined as though Paris were in Norway. From Cadiz to Stockholm, from London to Cairo and Delhi, from Paris to Teheran and Samarcand, if the stories are to be believed, there are artful girls and scheming mothers, in any quantity; but the _good woman_!--where does she lie hid, and why do they never tell us anything about her? Here is a hiatus to which I specially call the attention of the learned. In observing it myself, I feel the more emboldened to relate the story of the only good woman and wife I have unearthed. It is a simple narrative, and not thoroughly in accordance with every-day experience, and, indeed, there may be some squeamish people who will say that it is ridiculous.