in locomotion, whether by horseback, rail, steamer, velocipede, or mangle, can rub out of our preference the lines which trace the reserve that protects our youthful dream. And how can this being, only half suggested yet clearly not ourselves, put a scrawl of crudity in place of those fluent curves that describe something less angular than we are? The gestures of her mind, when they are publicly displayed to throw a glove into the mob of us from the edge of a platform, must always indorse our preconception. Any thing harsh, some acidity of tone, sentences that stride or bandy with arms akimbo, will pique the unconverted world into taking up her glove to crush and not to kiss. So we cannot bear to see a woman pushed forward into premature expression which the gift will not confirm. A man's stupidity does not inflict so great a hurt on our imagination. Distance doth breed divinity; and we shrink to find a woman capable of dulness, and yet able to show it. All this may be conceded to be a natural instinct which men will not abandon. But its root is in regard for woman; so that men should be the first to sound a trumpet before the lists to champion her genius, whatever it may be, and to see that fair play is enforced in the tournament. Shall the gifted woman enter the lists? Let her poverty, if not her preference, consent and decide. But a woman, however poor she may be, and burdened with claims upon her relationship, cannot try to do what Portia did not need to do unless her talent can justify the attempt. If she presumes upon the deference which man spontaneously pays to her sex, or calculates that curiosity will be piqued to see her exhibition, she cannot, even with the help of her natural allies, flowers, costume, and manner, long conceal some inadequacy for the part she aspires to play. Then she will wreak discredit upon the independence of woman; and, if that be the special cause which she advocates, her presence on the platform will be an advertisement of its failure. For mankind, which has invented the motto for woman which styles her the weaker sex, does not like to be taken at its word, and will not sit patiently where this weakness bores it. It withdraws into the retreats where this accredited weakness is a delight and power. Of course, wherever masculine ineffectiveness appears, men are put out by it, except in a meeting-house; and there it is tolerated in deference to numerous tea-drinkings, marriages and funerals, and hours of pastoral gentleness; and the imminent inadequacy of speech is arrested by the organ. But the platform has neither tradition nor liturgy: the gaze of the audience is a _mitrailleuse_ that sweeps it. There is no rose-window to throw a tint on bloodless speech. Men compromise no truth of their own, and damage no cause when they refrain from listening; for man is already the proprietor of all that he desires, and more than he deserves. This is not the case with