The Lowest Rung

'The Lowest Rung' is a collection of essays written by Mary Cholmondeley. In it, she lays out the difficulties she faced as a female author who published under a male pseudonym. In one of the passages, she wrote: "I remember once, when I was very young and shy, how at one of my first London dinner-parties a charming elderly man discussed one of my earliest books with such appreciation that I at last remarked that I had written it myself. If I had looked for a surprised flash of delight at the fact that so much talent was palpitating in white muslin beside him, I was doomed to be disappointed. He gravely and gently said, "I know that to be untrue," and the conversation was turned to other subjects."