"
That clever _bon-mot_, "To say 'everybody is talking about him' is a
eulogy. To say 'every one is talking about her' is an elegy," is no
longer true, more's the pity. More's the pity, I mean, because such a
delicious bit deserves a longer life. I could weep over the early
death of an epigram with a hearty spirit, which is second only to the
grief I feel at a good story spoiled for relation's sake. Cleverness,
like beauty, is its own excuse for being, and the first attribute of
the new woman is her cleverness. It is the new woman who is
responsible for the death of that epigram. But as she did not take an
active part in the murder, but was only an accessory after the fact,
let us hope that she will escape with as light a sentence as possible
from that stern old judge, public opinion, who is not her friend.
The newspapers have ridiculed the new woman to such an extent, and
their ridicule is so popular, that it requires an act of physical
courage to stand up in her defence and to tell the public that the
bloomer girl is not new; that they have had the newspaper
creation--like the poor--with them always; that they have passed over
the real new woman without a second glance. In other words, to assure
them as delicately as possible that they have been barking up the
wrong tree.
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