So much for the man’s point of view. But the women were not silent, and a few glorified themselves as naïvely as some of their modern sisters have done. If we ever had any doubts as to our own modesty they ought to convince us of it. Lucrezia Marinelli, a clever Venetian and a poet, defined herself quite clearly in a work entitled “The Nobleness and Excellence of Women and the Faults and Imperfections of Men.” As a comparison this seems rather unfair, but considering the fact that men had for ages given themselves all the noble qualities and women all the weak ones, they could not take serious exception to it. Indeed, they evidently found it refreshing. It furnished them with a new sensation, and was quite harmless on the practical side, as they still held the reins of power. Marguerite of France, the brilliant and lettered wife of Henry IV, tried to prove that women are very superior to men, but, unfortunately, in her category of superiorities morals had no place. Mlle. de Gournay was more generous, as well as more just, and declared herself content with simple equality, though one cannot help wondering how she settled that matter with her friend Montaigne. But Mlle. Schurmann of Cologne thought that even this was going too far. It seems as if she might fairly have claimed to be the peer of the average man, since she spoke nine languages and was more or less noted as painter, musician, sculptor, engraver, philosopher, mathematician, and theologian. Just how much solid learning was implied in this formidable list of accomplishments we cannot judge, but it is clear that there has been a time before to-day when women aimed to know everything, though there was a safeguard against shattered nerves in the fact that there were not so many books to read nor so many brain-splitting problems to solve. It is fair, however, to suppose that this learned lady did not waste much time on clothes or five-o’clock teas. Louise Labé, the poet and savante of Lyons, takes a more modern tone. In claiming intellectual equality for women, she begs them not to permit themselves to be despoiled of the “honest liberty so painfully won--the liberty of knowing, thinking, working, shining.” In spite of her courageous words, however, this paragon of so many talents and virtues, the glory of her sex and the pride of her city, asserts herself in a half-deprecating way, as if she were asking pardon for presuming to publish her little verses, and shelters herself behind the admiring friends who are willing to “take half the shame.” But she was a Frenchwoman, and her day was not yet. Women had so long hidden their light, if they had any, that it blinked perceptibly when exposed to the winds of heaven or the more chilly breezes of masculine criticism.