For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century. All that we value as well as all that we condemn in womanhood has played its part for good and for evil in the history of mankind. To talk about either sex as a solid embodiment of reform is as unmeaning as to talk about it as a solid embodiment of demoralization. If the mandrake be charmed by a woman’s touch, as Josephus tells us, the rue, says Pliny, dies beneath her fingers. She has made and marred from the beginning, she will make and mar to the end. The best and newest daughter of this restless generation may well read envyingly Sainte Beuve’s brief description of Mme. de Sévigné, a picture drawn with a few strokes, clear, delicate, and convincing. “She had a genius for conversation and society, a knowledge of the world and of men, a lively and acute appreciation both of the becoming and the absurd.” Such women make the world a pleasant place to live in; and, to the persuasive qualities which win their way through adamantine resistance, Mme. de Sévigné added that talent for affairs which is the birthright of her race, that talent for affairs which we value so highly to-day, and the broader cultivation of which is perhaps the only form of newness worth its name. Since Adam delved and Eve span, life for all of us has been full of labor; but as the sons of Adam no longer exclusively delve, so the daughters of Eve no longer exclusively spin. In fact, delving and spinning, though admirable occupations, do not represent the sum total of earthly needs. There are so many, many other useful things to do, and women’s eager finger-tips burn to essay them all. “Cora’s riding, and Lilian’s rowing, Celia’s novels are books one buys, Julia’s lecturing, Phillis is mowing, Sue is a dealer in oils and dyes; Flora and Dora poetize, Jane is a bore, and Bee is a blue, Sylvia lives to anatomize, Nothing is left for the men to do.” The laugh has a malicious ring, yet it is good-tempered too, as though Mr. Henley were not sufficiently enamoured of work to care a great deal who does it in his place. Even the plaintive _envoy_ is less heart-rending than he would have it sound, and in its familiar burden we catch an old-time murmur of forgotten things. “Prince, our past in the dust-heap lies! Saving to scrub, to bake, to brew, Nurse, dress, prattle, and scandalize, Nothing is left for the men to do.” THE DEATHLESS DIARY.