Mrs Browning's death is rather a relief to me, I must say: no more Aurora Leighs, thank God! A woman of real genius, I know; but what is the upshot of it all? She and her sex had better mind the kitchen and their children; and perhaps the poor: except in such things as little novels, they only devote themselves to what men do much better, leaving that which men do worse or not at all.

letter to W. H. Thompson, 15 July 1861, in A. M. and A. B. Terhune (eds.) Letters of Edward Fitzgerald (1980) vol. 2