privilege exercised by their first mother to
slip through their fingers in this disgraceful
manner? What is the use of talking of the
equality of the sexes as long as one sex
perpetually exercises the right of putting the
question, and leaves to the other sex only the
inferior and secondary privilege of giving the
answer? Let it be understood, for the future,
that the men are to take their turn of waiting
until they are spoken to. Let every
other year be considered, for matrimonial
purposes, a Leap Year, and give the unhappy
bashful bachelor a good twelvemonth's
chance of getting an offer. It may be
objected, I know, that, even in the event of
this wholesome reform in our manners being
carried out, I could scarcely hope to be
personally a gainer by it, seeing that my young
woman is, according to my own confession,
as retiring in her habits as I am myself. I
can only answer to this, that I have noticed,
on the few occasions when I have had
opportunities of exercising my observation, a great
difference to exist between the shyness of a
woman and the shyness of a man. To refer
to my own case, I have remarked that my
charmer's shyness differs from mine in being
manageable, graceful, and, more than that,
in being capable of suppressing itself and
of assuming a disguise of the most amazing
coolness and self-possession on certain
trying occasions. I have heard the object
of my affections condemned by ignorant
strangers as a young woman of unpleasantly
audacious manners, at the very
time when my intimate familiarity with
her character assured me that she was
secretly suffering all the miseries of extreme
confusion and self-distrust. Whenever I see
her make up a bold face, by drawing her
hair off her forehead, and showing the lovely
roots all round; whenever I hear her talking
with extraordinary perseverance, and laughing
with extraordinary readiness; whenever
I see her gown particularly large in pattern,
and her ribbands dazzlingly bright in colour
—then, I feel certain that she is privately
quaking with all the most indescribable and
most unreasonable terrors of shyness. Knowing
this, I should not be at all apprehensive
of a long period of silence elapsing, if a
reform in our social laws authorised my
charmer to help me out by making my offer
for me. She would do it, I know, with an
appearance of extraordinary indifference and
gaiety—with her utmost fluency of utterance,
with her most mellifluously easy
laughter—in her gown of the largest pattern,
in her ribbands of the fiercest brightness—
with her poor heart thumping the whole
time as if it would burst, and with every
nerve in her body trembling all over from
head to foot. My experience has not been a
large one—but that is my humble idea of
the real nature of a woman's shyness.

However, it is useless to speculate on
what might happen if the oppressive laws of
courtship were relaxed—for no such welcome
event is likely to take place. It will be more
to the purpose, perhaps, if I venture on
introducing a little practical suggestion of my
own, which struck me while I was meditating
on my unhappy position, which involves no
sweeping change in the manners and
customs of the age, and which, so far as I
know, has never made its appearance in print
before.

I am informed, by persons of experience in
the world of letters (about which I myself
know nothing), that the ladies of the present
century have burst into every department of
literature, have carried off the accumulated
raw material from under the men's noses,
and have manufactured it to an enormous
and unheard-of extent for the public benefit.
I am told that out of every twelve poems or
novels that are written, nine at least are by
ladies; that they write histories, in six or
eight volumes, with great ease and satisfaction
to themselves, while the men can only
compass the same achievements with extreme
difficulty, in one or two volumes; and that
they are perpetually producing books of
Travel, which are all about themselves and
their own sensations, without the slavish
fear of that possible imputation of self-conceit
which so often lurks in the more timid bosom
of man. I am particularly rejoiced to hear
of this, because my suggestion involves
nothing less than the writing of one gigantic
book by all the ladies of Great Britain put
together. What I propose is a Hand Book
of Courtship, written by all British Wives,
and edited, with notes, by all British
Daughters.

The magnitude of my own idea absolutely
takes away my breath—and yet, the execution
of it is so unimaginably easy that the
Hand Book might be ready for publication
in six months' time. I propose that every
Married Lady in the country shall write down
the exact words (for surely her affectionate
heart must remember them?) which her
husband used when he made his offer to her;
and that she shall then add to the interesting
report of the offer, illustrative particulars of
the circumstances under which it was made,
and of the accompanying actions (if any) by
which the speaker emphasised the all-
important words as they fell from his lips. I
would have the Returns, thus prepared,
collected as the Income Tax Papers are, with
the most extreme care and the most honourable
secresy. They should be afterwards
shuffled together in baskets, and distributed,
one by one, just as they happened to turn
up, among the Unmarried Ladies of the
country, with the following brief formula of
two questions attached: First. Would the
form of offer presented herewith, have proved
to be a satisfactory one, in your case? And,
if not, will you state in what particulars you
think it might be improved? Second.
Would the accompanying actions by which