Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/173

 hope, the love of all mankind. Wronged as she has been, and as she still is, her patience never fails. Deceived, she "mends her broken shell with pearl," and still trusts on. Her sweet credulousness is the same as ever it was;—the "subtil" one can always over-reach her through her too ready confidence in the idea that "all things work together for good." Her "curse" is the crime of loving too well,—believing too much. Should a "subtil" one say he loves her, she honestly thinks he does. When he turns out, as often happens, to be looking after her money rather than herself, she can scarcely force her mind to realize that he is not so much hero as cad. When she has to earn her own living in any of the artistic professions, she will frequently tell all her plans, hopes and ambitions to "subtil" ones with the most engaging frankness. The "subtil" ones naturally take every advantage of her, and some of them put a stopgap on her efforts if they can.

How many times men have tried to steal away the honour of a woman's name and fame in literature need not here be chronicled. Of how many books, bearing a woman's name on the title-page it is said—"Her husband helped her,"—or "She got Mr. So-and-So to write the descriptive part!" "George Eliot" has often been accused of being assisted in her novels by Mr. Lewes. A little incident,—touching enough to my mind,—is related in the memoirs of Charlotte Brontë. After her marriage, and when she was expecting the birth of her child, she was reading some of the first chapters of an intended new novel to her husband,—who, as he listened, said in that peculiarly en