gentleness

NOTES

gentleness

Although the novel was published anonymously, descriptions like this might have alerted the astute reader to the fact that the author was a woman. Not that a man could not have thought of such phrasing, but it is simply true that we might look far and wide around contemporary novels before finding a man who actually would employ such a term in like circumstances. The fact that Walton prizes "dauntless courage" (I:L2:1) may look like a stereotyped masculinist attitude, but combining it with an emphasis on gentleness of disposition shifts the accent considerably.