For a long time critics and readers were inclined to evaluate women writers in a more or less patronizing manner. It was said that women, though keyed to creative expression, should not reveal too much of their feelings and idiosyncrasies in the presence of the public. Furthermore, it was stated that the literary work of most women writers is unsubstantial, hence there should not be the slightest doubt that nature endowed them with insufficient creative ability. Rousseau in Emile says that the whole instruction of women ought to be relative to men to make them happy; a desirable point of view, but it certainly limits the scope of feminine activity. To be sure, Balzac in his letters called George Sand “my dear George” which, however, did not signify a recognition of equal attainments in the realm of fiction, but the expressed and somewhat ironic awareness of a literary person who happened to be a woman and enjoyed dressing as a man. One cannot brush aside the fact that in an atmosphere filled with the illusion and delusion of masculine superiority and influenced by literary misogynists, there was little opportunity for the objective estimation of women writers and their works. Only in relatively recent times could one observe a departure from such critical uneasiness and one-sided judgment.