In this century many things have occurred to modify the differences in the habits of the sexes, to bring men and women more into the same current of ideas, occupations, amusements. To a much greater extent than formerly the evolution of women is proceeding along the same lines as the evolution of men. In the last century men regarded women as-- “made only to take possession of their hearts, and seldom or never to afford any amusement to their minds. They prefer the pleasure of toasting their healths in a tavern to that of chatting with them in a circle. They treat them as if they had been as much of another species as of another sex. For the most part they look on them as good for nothing but to dissipate their vapours or ease the fatigue of business.” They now regard them as comrades instead of playthings. CHAPTER II. THE GREAT LADY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. London society in the last century--Lord Chesterfield on taste--Coarse language of great ladies--The speculation mania among ladies--Narrowness of fashionable life--Manners and amusements--Difficulties of social intercourse--The founders of Almack’s Club--The passion for politics--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on women’s training--Some traits of eighteenth-century life. After the turmoil of the Stuart period was over, and the country had settled down under the rule of the dull Hanoverians, social life in England assumed a new form. The circles of the great ladies who now come into prominence, partly through their wealth and dignities, but more on account of their qualifications as leaders of society, eclipse the circles gathered in royal palaces. Until the eighteenth century society consisted of factions. There was a court party and a party strongly opposed to the court; there were court beauties and favourites, duly hated by the opposite set. In London there were mansions where revels were held by great families, but there was no cohesion among the scattered elements of London life. It was only in the seventeenth century that it became fashionable to keep a town as well as a country house, or rather to spend the winter in London in a house hired for the season, which then included the darkest and coldest months in the year. London was only just beginning to be made the centre of all that was most brilliant in social life, and society’s leaders were still, for the most part, performing their functions at their country estates. But in the eighteenth century London has its well-established social circles, which take the lead in all matters of fashion and taste, having first acquired the tone from Paris. It was in the second quarter of the century that the question of taste was always uppermost in polite circles, according to Lord Chesterfield.