echoing the old fables, presenting to a man-governed world puppets as nearly as possible like those that had from the beginning found such favour in men's sight.
Contrary to the popular impression, to say in print what she thinks is the last thing the womannovelist or journalist 1s commonly so rash as to attempt. In print, even more than elsewhere (unless she is reckless), she must wear the aspect that shall have the best chance of pleasing her brothers. Her publishers are not women. Even the professional readers and advisers of publishers are men. The critics in the world outside, men. Money, reputation—these are vested in men. If a woman would win a little at their hands, she must walk warily, and not too much displease them. But I put it to my brothers: Is that the spirit of the faithful chronicler? Is it not far more the spirit of the notorious flatterers and liars who, in the times gone by, addressed those abject prefaces to powerful patrons—testimonials which make us laugh or blush according to our temper? Little as we can judge of those princes and nobles from the starving men of letters who licked their boots, hardly more can men discover to-day what women really think of them from the fairy-tales of feminine spinning, however much the spinster "makes faces," as Stevenson would say, and pretends, "Now I am being Realistic!"
What she is really doing is her level best to play
