That very much of this demand for more power of work comes from necessity and the absolute need of bread, we know; and that the demand will grow louder as marriage becomes scarcer, and there are more women adrift in the world without the protection and help of men, we also know. But this belongs to another part of the subject. What we want to insist on now is the pitiable ignorance and shiftless indolence of most middle-class housekeepers; and what we would urge on woman is the value of a better system of life at home before laying claim to the discharge of extra-domestic duties abroad. _LITTLE WOMEN._ The conventional idea of a brave, energetic, or a supremely criminal, woman has always been that of a tall, dark-haired, large-armed virago who might pass as the younger brother of her husband, and about whom nature seemed to have hesitated before determining whether to make her a man or a woman:--a kind of debateable land, in fact, between the two sexes, and almost as much the one as the other. Helen Macgregor, Lady Macbeth, Catharine de Medici, Mrs. Manning, and the old-fashioned murderesses in novels, were all of the muscular, black-brigand type, with more or less of regal grace super-added according to circumstances; and it would have been thought nothing but a puerile fancy to have supposed the contrary of those whose personal description was not already known. Crime, indeed, in art and fiction, was generally painted in very nice proportion to the number of cubic inches embodied and the depth of colour employed; though we are bound to add that the public favour ran towards muscular heroines almost as much as towards muscular murderesses, which to a certain extent redressed the overweighted balance. Our later novelists, however, have altered the whole setting of the palette. Instead of five foot ten of black and brown, they have gone in for four foot nothing of pink and yellow. Instead of tumbled masses of raven hair, they have shining coils of purest gold. Instead of hollow caverns whence flash unfathomable eyes eloquent of every damnable passion, they have limpid lakes of heavenly blue; and their worst sinners are in all respects fashioned as much after the outward semblance of the ideal saint as they have skill to design.