It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the great Athenians were without the sympathy and influence of educated women; indeed, it may be safely said that no great things in art or literature have ever been done without this inspiration. The ignorance of the Attic woman had its natural protest, though it did not come from an orthodox source. Respectability was on the side of servitude. It had a dull time, but it was decorous, and consoled itself, as it has often done since, with the reflection that dullness was its natural lot. No doubt it took pride in its nothingness, and looked with haughty disdain upon the clever foreign women who were free to do as they chose. Fashion is imperious, not to say cruel, and even the Chinese lady hobbles along on her distorted feet with a happy consciousness of distinction that amply repays her for all her suffering. But social conventions had small weight with the foreign hetæræ or companions, who had no legal rights, and no caste to lose. The real power of women was in their hands. They were intelligent, often gifted, and the better class had refined and graceful manners, which the Athenian wives evidently had not. It was said of them that they were delicate at table, and not like the native women, who “stuffed their cheeks, and tore off the meat.” They were also noted for wit and _esprit_, a quality of volatilized intellect that has always had great social charm. These advanced women of the day, who cast into the shade their illiterate sisters, monopolized both attention and honors. Men praised the good women who stayed at home and looked after their families, but sought the society of clever ones who did neither of these fine things. With curious inconsistency, they found the culture which was reprehensible and out of the proper order of nature in their wives and daughters so charming in other women as to merit the highest distinction. Poets sang of them, artists immortalized them, statesmen and philosophers paid court to them. ’T is not for nothing that where’er we go We find a temple of hetæræ there, But nowhere one to any wedded wife, says the poet.