I smiled, and went away with my purchase, convinced that I had wasted a few shillings on a mere piece of woman's trash. If this Mavis Clare was indeed so 'popular,' then her work must naturally be of the 'penny dreadful' order, for I, like many another literary man, laboured under the ludicrous inconsistency of considering the public an 'ass' while I myself desired nothing so much as the said 'ass's' applause and approval!--and therefore I could not imagine it capable of voluntarily selecting for itself any good work of literature without guidance from the critics. Of course I was wrong; the great masses of the public in all nations are always led by some instinctive sense of right, that moves them to reject the false and unworthy, and select the true. Completely prepared, like most men of my type to sneer and cavil at the book, chiefly because it was written by a feminine hand, I sat down in a retired corner of the club reading-room, and began to cut and skim the pages. I had not read many sentences before my heart sank with a heavy sense of fear and,--jealousy!--the slow fire of an insidious envy began to smoulder in my mind. What power had so gifted this author--this mere _woman_,--that she should dare to write better than I! And that she should force me, by the magic of her pen to mentally acknowledge, albeit with wrath and shame, my own inferiority! Clearness of thought, brilliancy of style, beauty of diction, all these were hers, united to consummate ease of expression and artistic skill,--and all at once, in the very midst of reading, such a violent impulse of insensate rage possessed me that I flung the book down, dreading to go on with it. The potent, resistless, unpurchaseable quality of Genius!--ah, I was not yet so blinded by my own conceit as to be unable to recognize that divine fire when I saw it flashing up from every page as I saw it now; but, to be compelled to give that recognition to a woman's work, galled and irritated me almost beyond endurance. Women, I considered, should be kept in their places as men's drudges or toys--as wives, mothers, nurses, cooks, menders of socks and shirts, and housekeepers generally,--what right had they to intrude into the realms of art and snatch the laurels from their masters' brows! If I could but get the chance of reviewing this book, I thought to myself savagely!--I would misquote, misrepresent, and cut it to shreds with a joy too great for words! This Mavis Clare, 'unsexed,' as I at once called her in my own mind simply because she had the power I lacked,--wrote what she had to say with a gracious charm, freedom, and innate consciousness of strength,--a strength which forced me back upon myself and filled me with the bitterest humiliation. Without knowing her I hated her,--this woman who could win fame without the aid of money, and who was crowned so brightly and visibly to the world that she was beyond criticism. I took up her book again and tried to cavil at it,--over one or two dainty