pathetic associations with unknown and untried developments of mind, which ever have existed either amongst the sons or the daughters of men.
Taking a more sober view of the case, there are, unquestionably, subjects of deep interest with which women have opportunities peculiar to themselves of becoming acquainted, and thus of benefiting their fellow-creatures through the medium of their writings. But, after all, literature is not the natural channel for a woman's feelings; and pity, not envy, ought to be the meed of her who writes for the public. How much of what with other women is reserved for the select and chosen intercourse of affection, with her must be laid bare to the coarse cavillings, and coarser commendations, of amateur or professional critics. How much of what no woman loves to say, except to the listening ear of domestic affection, by her must be told—nay, blazoned to the world. And then, in her seasons of depression, or of wounded feeling, when her spirit yearns to sit in solitude, or even in darkness, so that it may be still; to know and feel that the very essence of that spirit, now embodied in a palpable form, has become an article of sale and bargain, tossed over from the hands of one workman to another, free alike to the touch of the prince and the peasant, and no longer to be reclaimed at will by the original possessor, let the world receive it as it may.
Is such, I ask, an enviable distinction? I will offer no remarks of my own upon the unsatisfactory nature of literary fame. No man, or woman either, could write for the public, and not feel thankful for public approbation; thankful for having chosen a subject generally interesting to mankind, and thankful that their, own sentiments had met with sympathy from those for whose sake they had been expressed. But, on this subject, I will quote the eloquent
