INTRODUCTORY.

OR centuries the mute stone face of

FOR

the Sphinx the accepted symbol of the unknown, the mysterious - has looked out over the wilderness; and generations have puzzled their brains over her riddle. But conjecture has been unavailing; the secret of the strange creation of Egyptian fancy is undetermined.

Woman is the enigma of the ages, - the world's sphinx. Men always have been, are, and ever will be guessers of her secret; but after centuries of thought, all one finds is a mass of contradictory statements, which one may liken to the sands that have been worn from the dumb sentinel of the desert. Woman is to-day unknown, a creature for surmise and speculation, what Amiel has been pleased to call the "monster incomprehensible."

With all their wooing and worshipping, men have looked at their divinity but to differ in opinion. Lessing thought God meant to make woman his masterpiece, and Milton deemed her a fair defect of nature; Shakespeare calls her another name for frailty, and Holmes thinks her the Messiah of a new faith. To one she has seemed divine, and to another satanic. Where shall we draw the line between dangerous extremes? Who shall draw it? The fabled mariner who sought the open channel between Scylla and Charybdis had an easy task compared with that of the sex-casuist of to-day.

Literature is full of opinions, wise or otherwise, on woman's nature and character; but thinkers have been prone, as the following pages show, to sin on the side of panegyric or of wilful libel. Wherein lie woman's power and her weakness? Do her graces and charms make her a ministering angel or an instrument of evil? Has she the purity, the gentleness, the self-sacrificing spirit, that make her divine, or is she the incarnation of waywardness and wickedness, spite, fickleness, folly? One has but to search the

records of thought, and he will find opinions to suit any preconceived notion he may entertain.

This little book advances no theories. It simply furnishes the raw material for theorizing by supplying some of the opinions or guesses of men about women and of women about themselves. The reader will find variety, wit, brilliancy, humor, wise aphorisms, and what he will doubtless deem senseless, if not profane, criticisms. Many times and climes are represented, and many types of thought and fancy expressed. The aim has been to gather together in convenient form the best things said in praise or condemnation of women; and the sharp contrasts afforded will probably be found not less entertaining and instructive than the views. advanced, and the bright, epigrammatic form in which they are cast.

Little liberty has been taken with the text of the authors quoted. In a very few perhaps not more than half a dozen - of the short passages given, the word woman, or women, has been substituted for the personal pronoun she or they, to avoid the necessity of transcribing half a page of con

text that would be out of keeping with the scope and purpose of the book. The translations are as literal as possible. In some cases quotations have been marked anonymous, because they have been culled from the great mass of what may be termed floating literature, and their authorship has been difficult to trace. A more careful search might have revealed the source of some of these passages, but this would scarcely have added to their worth. Care has been taken to make the indexes full and comprehensive, for convenience of reference. Much that is racy will be found in the pages following, but nothing, it is thought, that will be considered objectionable.

That women have been carefully inspected through both ends of the telescope will readily be seen. The reader may claim allegiance to those who belittle or those who glorify, as he pleases. This much, however, is certain: crown or crucify his divinity as he may, worship her he must.

F. W. M.