for a change in the moon.  Hence, while I realized that her contributions evinced rare intellectual wealth and force, I did not value them as I should have done had they been written more fluently and promptly.  They often seemed to make their appearance ’a day after the fair.’

“One other point of tacit antagonism between us may as well be noted.  Margaret was always a most earnest, devoted champion of the Emancipation of Women, from their past and present condition of inferiority, to an independence on Men.  She demanded for them the fullest recognition of Social and Political Equality with the rougher sex; the freest access to all stations, professions, employments, which are open to any.  To this demand I heartily acceded.  It seemed to me, however, that her clear perceptions of abstract right were often overborne, in practice, by the influence of education and habit; that while she demanded absolute equality for Woman, she exacted a deference and courtesy from men to women, as women, which was entirely inconsistent with that requirement.  In my view, the equalizing theory can be enforced only by ignoring the habitual discrimination of men and women, as forming separate classes, and regarding all alike as simply persons,—­as human beings.  So long as a lady shall deem herself in need of some gentleman’s arm to conduct her properly out of a dining or ball-room,—­so long as she shall consider it dangerous or unbecoming to walk half a mile alone by night,—­I cannot see how the ‘Woman’s Rights’ theory is ever to be anything more than a logically defensible abstraction.  In this view Margaret did not at all concur, and the diversity was the incitement to much perfectly good-natured, but nevertheless sharpish sparring between us.  Whenever she said or did anything implying the usual demand of Woman on the courtesy and protection of Manhood, I was apt, before complying, to look her in the face and exclaim with marked emphasis,—­quoting from her ’Woman in the Nineteenth Century,’—­’LET THEM BE SEA-CAPTAINS IF THEY WILL!’ Of course, this was given and received as raillery, but it did not tend to ripen our intimacy or quicken my esteem into admiration.  Though no unkind word ever passed between us, nor any approach to one, yet we two dwelt for months under the same roof, as scarcely more than acquaintances, meeting once a day at a common board, and having certain business relations with each other.  Personally, I regarded her rather as my wife’s cherished friend than as my own, possessing many lofty qualities and some prominent weaknesses, and a good deal spoiled by the unmeasured flattery of her little circle of inordinate admirers.  For myself, burning no incense on any human shrine, I half-consciously resolved to ’keep my eye beam clear,’ and escape the fascination which she seemed to exert over the eminent and cultivated persons, mainly women, who came to our out-of-the-way dwelling to visit her, and who seemed generally to regard