There was no discussion, then, about "woman's rights," or "woman's influence"--woman had whatever her soul desired, and her will was the watchword for battle or peace. Love was as marked a feature in the chivalric character as valour; and he who understood how to break a lance, and did not understand how to win a lady, was held to be but half a man. He fought to gain her smiles--he lived to be worthy of her love. In those days, to be "a servant of the ladies" was no mere figure of the imagination--and to be in love was no idle pastime; but to be profoundly, furiously, almost ridiculously in earnest. In the mind of the cavalier, woman was a being of mystic power. As in the old forests of Germany, she had been listened to like a spirit of the woods, melodious, solemn and oracular. So when chivalry became an institution, the same idea of something supernaturally beautiful in her character threw a shadow over her life, and she was not only loved but revered. And never were men more constant to their fair ladies than in the proudest days of chivalry. There is no such thing as genuine gallantry either in France or England. In France the relation between the sexes is too fickle, variable, and insincere, for any nearer approach to gallantry than flirtation; while in England the aristocracy, which is the only class in that country that could have the genuine feeling of gallantry, are turned shop-owners and tradesmen. The Smiths and the Joneses who figure on the signboards have the nobility standing behind them as silent partners. The business habits of the United States and the examples of rapid fortunes in this country have quite turned the head of John Bull, and he is very fast becoming a sharp, thrifty, money-getting Yankee. A business and commercial people have no leisure for the cultivation of that feeling and romance which is the foundation of gallantry. The activities of human nature seek other more practical and more useful channels of excitement. Instead of devoting a life to the worship and service of the fair ladies, they are building telegraphs, railroads, steamboats, constructing schemes of finance, and enlarging the area of practical civilization. HEROINES OF HISTORY In attempting to give a definition of strong-minded women, I find it necessary to distinguish between just ideas of strength and what is so considered by the modern woman's rights' movement. A very estimable woman by the name of Mrs. Bloomer obtained the reputation of being strong-minded by curtailing her skirts six inches, a compliment which certainly excites no envious feeling in my heart; for I am philosophically puzzled to know how cutting six inches off a woman's dress can possibly add anything to the height of her head.