Owing to the policy of repression which so long prevailed regarding the intellectual efforts of women, and the social obstacles which prevented them from publicly acknowledging the offspring of their genius, women like the Bronte sisters, George Sand and George Eliot were compelled to conceal their identity under male designations. Because it was considered immodest for a woman to appear before the public as an author, Lady Nairne, after Burns, the most popular song writer in Scotland, felt obliged to keep secret the authorship of her beautiful poems. Similarly, family honor made it incumbent on Fanny Mendelssohn to refrain from publishing her musical compositions under her own name. Accordingly, they appeared along with those of her brother Felix, and so similar are they in color and sentiment to his own productions that they are indistinguishable from them, unless the author's signature be attached. To satisfy an inane public opinion, they long contributed "to swell the volume of her brother's fame," and there is reason to believe that some of them still appear under his name at the present day. Yes, truly, when one recalls these and similar facts, one cannot help exclaiming: "What a marvelous change in the attitude of the world toward women within the memories of those still living!" Women like Miss Ormerod, Miss Kingsley and Mme. Coudreau would have been ostracized if they had dared to attempt, in the days of Lady Nairne, the Bronte sisters and Fanny Mendelssohn, what they may now do not only without censure but without exciting more than passing comment. The ban has been lifted from what was for ages tabu for women, and the sphere of their intellectual activities is now almost coextensive with that of the sterner sex. Not only does society no longer point the finger of scorn at the woman naturalist or the woman explorer, but it showers honors on her while living and erects monuments to her memory when dead. A great change, indeed, and one long and ardently desired. Verily, _tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis_. FOOTNOTES: [164] In his erudite work, _Geschichte der Botanik_, Vol. III, p. 517, Koenigsberg, 1856, Ernest H. F. Meyer gives in a few words his estimate of the excellence of Hildegard's _Physica_: "Aber als ehrwuerdiges Denkmal des Alterthums und einer zu jener Zeit nicht gemeinen Naturkentniss empfehlen sich zumal deutschen Naturforschern ihre vier Buecher der _Physica_.... Denn nicht nur der deutsche Botaniker und Zoologe finden in ihrer Physik fast die ersten rohen Anfaenge vaterlaendische Naturforshung, auch dem Artzt bietet sic fuer jene Zeit ueberraschende Erscheinung dar, eine nicht von Dioskorides abgeleitete, sondern unverkennbar aus der Volksueberlieferung geschoepfte Heilmittellehre; und der Sprachforscher stoesst im lateinischen Text beinahe Zeile um Zeile auf deutsche Ausdruecke seltener Sprachformen." [165] Hildegardis _Opera Omnia_, p. 1122, Migne's Edition, Paris, 1882.