WOMEN AND THE ALPHABET A Series of Essays by THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON 1881 PREFATORY NOTE The first essay in this volume, "Ought Women to learn the Alphabet?"appeared originally in the "Atlantic Monthly" of February, 1859, and hassince been reprinted in various forms, bearing its share, I trust, in thegreat development of more liberal views in respect to the training andduties of women which has made itself manifest within forty years. Therewas, for instance, a report that it was the perusal of this essay which ledthe late Miss Sophia Smith to the founding of the women's college bearingher name at Northampton, Massachusetts. The remaining papers in the volume formed originally a part of a bookentitled "Common Sense About Women" which was made up largely of papersfrom the "Woman's Journal. " This book was first published in 1881 and wasreprinted in somewhat abridged form some years later in London(Sonnenschein). It must have attained a considerable circulation there, asthe fourth (stereotyped) edition appeared in 1897. From this London reprinta German translation was made by Fräulein Eugenie Jacobi, under the title"Die Frauenfrage und der gesunde Menschenverstand" (Schupp: Neuwied andLeipzig, 1895). T. W. H. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. CONTENTS I. OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET? II. PHYSIOLOGY. Too Much Natural History Darwin, Huxley, and Buckle The Spirit of Small Tyranny The Noble Sex The Truth about our Grandmothers The Physique of American Women The Limitations of Sex III. TEMPERAMENT. The Invisible Lady Sacred Obscurity Virtues in Common Individual Differences Angelic Superiority Vicarious Honors The Gospel of Humiliation Celery and Cherubs The Need of Cavalry The Reason Firm, the Temperate Will Allures to Brighter Worlds, and leads the Way IV. THE HOME. Wanted--Homes The Origin of Civilization The Low-Water Mark Obey Woman in the Chrysalis Two and Two A Model Household A Safeguard for the Family Women as Economists Greater includes Less A Copartnership One Responsible Head Asking for Money Womanhood and Motherhood A German Point of View Childless Women The Prevention of Cruelty to Mothers V. SOCIETY. Foam and Current In Society The Battle of the Cards Some Working-Women The Empire of Manners Girlsterousness Are Women Natural Aristocrats? Mrs. Blank's Daughters The European Plan Featherses VI. STUDY AND WORK. Experiments Intellectual Cinderellas Cupid-and-Psychology Self-Supporting Wives Thorough Literary Aspirants The Career of Letters Talking and Taking How to speak in Public VII. PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. We the People The Use of the Declaration of Independence Some Old-Fashioned Principles Founded on a Rock The Good of the Governed Ruling at Second-Hand VIII. SUFFRAGE. Drawing the Line For Self-Protection Womanly Statesmanship Too Much Prediction First-Class Carriages Education _via_ Suffrage Follow Your Leaders How to make Women understand Politics Inferior to Man, and near to Angels IX. OBJECTIONS TO SUFFRAGE. The Fact of Sex How will it Result? I have all the Rights I want Sense Enough to Vote An Infelicitous Epithet The Rob Roy Theory The Votes of Non-Combatants Manners repeal Laws Dangerous Voters How Women will legislate Individuals _vs. _ Classes Defeats before Victories INDEX I OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET? Paris smiled, for an hour or two, in the year 1801, when, amidst Napoleon'smighty projects for remodelling the religion and government of his empire, the ironical satirist, Sylvain Maréchal, thrust in his "Plan for a Lawprohibiting the Alphabet to Women. "[1] Daring, keen, sarcastic, learned, the little tract retains to-day so much of its pungency, that we can hardlywonder at the honest simplicity of the author's friend and biographer, Madame Gacon Dufour, who declared that he must be insane, and soberlyreplied to him. His proposed statute consists of eighty-two clauses, and is fortified by a"whereas" of a hundred and thirteen weighty reasons. He exhausts the rangeof history to show the frightful results which have followed this taste offruit of the tree of knowledge; quotes from the Encyclopédie, to prove thatthe woman who knows the alphabet has already lost a portion of herinnocence; cites the opinion of Molière, that any female who has unhappilylearned anything in this line should affect ignorance, when possible;asserts that knowledge rarely makes men attractive, and females never;opines that women have no occasion to peruse Ovid's "Art of Love, " sincethey know it all in advance; remarks that three quarters of female authorsare no better than they should be; maintains that Madame Guion would havebeen far more useful had she been merely pretty and an ignoramus, such asNature made her, --that Ruth and Naomi could not read, and Boaz probablywould never have married into the family had they possessed thataccomplishment, --that the Spartan women did not know the alphabet, nor theAmazons, nor Penelope, nor Andromache, nor Lucretia, nor Joan of Arc, norPetrarch's Laura, nor the daughters of Charlemagne, nor the three hundredand sixty-five wives of Mohammed; but that Sappho and Madame de Maintenoncould read altogether too well; while the case of Saint Brigitta, whobrought forth twelve children and twelve books, was clearly exceptional, and afforded no safe precedent. It would seem that the brilliant Frenchman touched the root of the matter. Ought women to learn the alphabet? There the whole question lies. Concedethis little fulcrum, and Archimedea will move the world before she has donewith it: it becomes merely a question of time. Resistance must be made hereor nowhere. _Obsta principiis_. Woman must be a subject or an equal: thereis no middle ground. What if the Chinese proverb should turn out to be, after all, the summit of wisdom, "For men, to cultivate virtue isknowledge; for women, to renounce knowledge is virtue"? No doubt, the progress of events is slow, like the working of the laws ofgravitation generally. Certainly there has been but little change in thelegal position of women since China was in its prime, until within the lasthalf century. Lawyers admit that the fundamental theory of English andOriental law is the same on this point: Man and wife are one, and that oneis the husband. It is the oldest of legal traditions. When Blackstonedeclares that "the very being and existence of the woman is suspendedduring the marriage, " and American Kent echoes that "her legal existenceand authority are in a manner lost;" when Petersdorff asserts that "thehusband has the right of imposing such corporeal restraints as he may deemnecessary, " and Bacon that "the husband hath, by law, power and dominionover his wife, and may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and maybeat her, but not in a violent or cruel manner;" when Mr. Justice Coleridgerules that the husband, in certain cases, "has a right to confine his wifein his own dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinitetime, " and Baron Alderson sums it all up tersely, "The wife is only the_servant_ of her husband, "--these high authorities simply reaffirm thedogma of the Gentoo code, four thousand years old and more: "A man, bothday and night, must keep his wife so much in subjection that she by nomeans be mistress of her own actions. If the wife have her own free will, notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss. " Yet behind these unchanging institutions, a pressure has been for centuriesbecoming concentrated, which, now that it has begun to act, is threateningto overthrow them all. It has not yet operated very visibly in the OldWorld, where, even in England, the majority of women have not till latelymastered the alphabet sufficiently to sign their own names in the marriageregister. But in this country the vast changes of the last few years arealready a matter of history. No trumpet has been sounded, no earthquake hasbeen felt, while State after State has ushered into legal existence onehalf of the population within its borders. Surely, here and now, might poorM. Maréchal exclaim, the bitter fruits of the original seed appear. The sadquestion recurs, Whether women ought ever to have tasted of the alphabet. It is true that Eve ruined us all, according to theology, without knowingher letters. Still there is something to be said in defence of thatvenerable ancestress. The Veronese lady, Isotta Nogarola, five hundred andthirty-six of whose learned epistles were preserved by De Thou, composed adialogue on the question, Whether Adam or Eve had committed thegreater sin. But Ludovico Domenichi, in his "Dialogue on the Nobleness ofWomen, " maintains that Eve did not sin at all, because she was not evencreated when Adam was told not to eat the apple. It was "in Adam alldied, " he shrewdly says; nobody died in Eve: which looks plausible. Bethat as it may, Eve's daughters are in danger of swallowing a wholeharvest of forbidden fruit, in these revolutionary days, unlesssomething be done to cut off the supply. It has been seriously asserted, that during the last half century morebooks have been written by women and about women than during all theprevious uncounted ages. It may be true; although, when we think of theinnumerable volumes of _Mémoires_ by French women of the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries, --each justifying the existence of her own tenvolumes by the remark, that all her contemporaries were writing asmany, --we have our doubts. As to the increased multitude of generaltreatises on the female sex, however, --its education, life, health, diseases, charms, dress, deeds, sphere, rights, wrongs, work, wages, encroachments, and idiosyncrasies generally, --there can be no doubtwhatever; and the poorest of these books recognizes a condition ofpublic sentiment of which no other age ever dreamed. Still, literary history preserves the names of some reformers before theReformation, in this matter. There was Signora Moderata Fonte, theVenetian, who left a book to be published after her death, in 1592, "DeiMeriti delle Donne. " There was her townswoman, Lucrezia Marinella, whofollowed, ten years after, with her essay, "La Nobilità e la Eccelenzadelle Donne, con Difetti e Mancamenti degli Uomini, "--a comprehensivetheme, truly! Then followed the all-accomplished Anna Maria Schurman, in1645, with her "Dissertatio de Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et melioresLiteras Aptitudine, " with a few miscellaneous letters appended in Greekand Hebrew. At last came boldly Jacquette Guillaume, in 1665, and threwdown the gauntlet in her title-page, "Les Dames Illustres; où par bonneset fortes Raisons il se prouve que le Sexe Feminin surpasse en touteSorte de Genre le Sexe Masculin;" and with her came Margaret Bouffletand a host of others; and finally, in England, Mary Wollstonecraft, whose famous book, formidable in its day, would seem rather conservativenow; and in America, that pious and worthy dame, Mrs. H. Mather Crocker, Cotton Mather's grandchild, who, in 1848, published the first book on the"Rights of Woman" ever written on this side the Atlantic. Meanwhile there have never been wanting men, and strong men, to echo theseappeals. From Cornelius Agrippa and his essay (1509) on the excellence ofwoman and her preëminence over man, down to the first youthful thesis ofAgassiz, "Mens Feminae Viri Animo superior, " there has been a succession ofvoices crying in the wilderness. In England, Anthony Gibson wrote a book, in 1599, called "A Woman's Woorth, defended against all the Men in theWorld, proving them to be more Perfect, Excellent, and Absolute in allVertuous Actions than any Man of what Qualitie soever, _Interlarded withPoetry_. " _Per contra_, the learned Acidalius published a book in Latin, and afterwards in French, to prove that women are not reasonable creatures. Modern theologians are at worst merely sub-acid, and do not always say so, if they think so. Meanwhile most persons have been content to leave theworld to go on its old course, in this matter as in others, and have thusacquiesced in that stern judicial decree with which Timon of Athens sums upall his curses upon womankind, --"If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be--as they are. " Ancient or modern, nothing in any of these discussions is so valuable asthe fact of the discussion itself. There is no discussion where there is nowrong. Nothing so indicates wrong as this morbid self-inspection. Thecomplaints are a perpetual protest, the defences a perpetual confession. Itis too late to ignore the question; and, once opened, it can be settledonly on absolute and permanent principles. There is a wrong; but where?Does woman already know too much, or too little? Was she created for man'ssubject, or his equal? Shall she have the alphabet, or not? Ancient mythology, which undertook to explain everything, easily accountedfor the social and political disabilities of woman. Goguet quotes the storyfrom Saint Augustine, who got it from Varro. Cecrops, building Athens, sawstarting from the earth an olive-plant and a fountain, side by side. TheDelphic oracle said that this indicated a strife between Minerva andNeptune for the honor of giving a name to the city, and that the peoplemust decide between them. Cecrops thereupon assembled the men, and thewomen also, who then had a right to vote; and the result was that Minervacarried the election by a glorious majority of one. Then Attica wasoverflowed and laid waste: of course the citizens attributed the calamityto Neptune, and resolved to punish the women. It was therefore determinedthat in future they should not vote, nor should any child bear the nameof its mother. Thus easily did mythology explain all troublesome inconsistencies; but itis much that it should even have recognized them as needing explanation. The real solution is, however, more simple. The obstacle to the woman'ssharing the alphabet, or indeed any other privilege, has been thought bysome to be the fear of impairing her delicacy, or of destroying herdomesticity, or of confounding the distinction between the sexes. These mayhave been plausible excuses. They have even been genuine, though minor, anxieties. But the whole thing, I take it, had always one simple, intelligible basis, --sheer contempt for the supposed intellectualinferiority of woman. She was not to be taught, because she was not worthteaching. The learned Acidalius aforesaid was in the majority. According toAristotle and the Peripatetics, woman was _animal occasionatum_, as if asort of monster and accidental production. Mediæval councils, charitablyasserting her claims to the rank of humanity, still pronounced her unfitfor instruction. In the Hindoo dramas she did not even speak the samelanguage with her master, but used the dialect of slaves. When, in thesixteenth century, Françoise de Saintonges wished to establish girls'schools in France, she was hooted in the streets; and her father calledtogether four doctors, learned in the law, to decide whether she was notpossessed by demons, to think of educating women, --_pour s'assurerqu'instruire des femmes n'était pas un oeuvre du démon_. It was the same with political rights. The foundation of the Salic Law wasnot any sentimental anxiety to guard female delicacy and domesticity; itwas, as stated by Froissart, a blunt, hearty contempt: "The kingdom ofFrance being too noble to be ruled by a woman. " And the same principle wasreaffirmed for our own institutions, in rather softened language, byTheophilus Parsons, in his famous defence of the rights of Massachusettsmen (the "Essex Result, " in 1778): "Women, what age soever they are of, arenot considered as having a sufficient acquired discretion [to exercise thefranchise]. " In harmony with this are the various maxims and _bon-mots_ of eminent men, in respect to women. Niebuhr thought he should not have educated a girlwell, --he should have made her know too much. Lessing said, "The woman whothinks is like the man who puts on rouge, ridiculous. " Voltaire said, "Ideas are like beards: women and young men have none. " And witty Dr. Maginn carries to its extreme the atrocity, "We like to hear a few words ofsense from a woman, as we do from a parrot, because they are sounexpected. " Yet how can we wonder at these opinions, when the saints havebeen severer than the sages?--since the pious Fénelon taught that truevirgin delicacy was almost as incompatible with learning as with vice; andDr. Channing complained, in his "Essay on Exclusion and Denunciation, " of"women forgetting the tenderness of their sex, " and arguing on theology. Now this impression of feminine inferiority may be right or wrong, but itobviously does a good deal towards explaining the facts it assumes. Ifcontempt does not originally cause failure, it perpetuates it. Systematically discourage any individual, or class, from birth to death, and they learn, in nine cases out of ten, to acquiesce in theirdegradation, if not to claim it as a crown of glory. If the Abbé Choisipraised the Duchesse de Fontanges for being "beautiful as an angel andsilly as a goose, " it was natural that all the young ladies of the courtshould resolve to make up in folly what they wanted in charms. Allgenerations of women having been bred under the shadow of intellectualcontempt, they have, of course, done much to justify it. They have oftenused only for frivolous purposes even the poor opportunities allowed them. They have employed the alphabet, as Molière said, chiefly in spelling theverb _Amo_. Their use of science has been like that of Mlle. De Launay, who computed the decline in her lover's affection by his abbreviation oftheir evening walk in the public square, preferring to cross it ratherthan take the circuit; "from which I inferred, " she says, "that hispassion had diminished in the ratio between the diagonal of a rectangularparallelogram and the sum of two adjacent sides. " And their conception, even of art, has been too often on the scale of Properzia de Rossi, whocarved sixty-five heads on a walnut, the smallest of all recorded symbolsof woman's sphere. All this might, perhaps, be overcome, if the social prejudice whichdiscourages women would only reward proportionately those who surmount thediscouragement. The more obstacles, the more glory, if society would onlypay in proportion to the labor; but it does not. Women being denied, notmerely the training which prepares for great deeds, but the praise andcompensation which follow them, have been weakened in both directions. Thecareer of eminent men ordinarily begins with college and the memories ofMiltiades, and ends with fortune and fame: woman begins underdiscouragement, and ends beneath the same. Single, she works with halfpreparation and half pay; married, she puts name and wages into the keepingof her husband, shrinks into John Smith's "lady" during life, and JohnSmith's "relict" on her tombstone; and still the world wonders that herdeeds, like her opportunities, are inferior. Evidently, then, the advocates of woman's claims--those who hold that "thevirtues of the man and the woman are the same, " with Antisthenes, or that"the talent of the man and the woman is the same, " with Socrates inXenophon's "Banquet"--must be cautious lest they attempt to prove too much. Of course, if women know as much as the men, without schools and colleges, there is no need of admitting them to those institutions. If they work aswell on half pay, it diminishes the inducement to give them the otherhalf. The safer position is, to claim that they have done just enoughto show what they might have done under circumstances less discouraging. Take, for instance, the common remark, that women have invented nothing. It is a valid answer, that the only implements habitually used by womanhave been the needle, the spindle, and the basket; and tradition reportsthat she herself invented all three. In the same way it may be shown thatthe departments in which women have equalled men have been thedepartments in which they have had equal training, equal encouragement, and equal compensation; as, for instance, the theatre. Madame Lagrange, the _prima donna_, after years of costly musical instruction, wins thezenith of professional success; she receives, the newspapers affirm, sixty thousand dollars a year, travelling expenses for ten persons, country-houses, stables, and liveries, besides an uncounted revenue ofbracelets, bouquets, and _billets-doux. _ Of course, every young_débutante_ fancies the same thing within her own reach, with only abrief stage-vista between. On the stage there is no deduction for sex, and, therefore, woman has shown in that sphere an equal genius. Butevery female common-school teacher in the United States finds theenjoyment of her four hundred dollars a year to be secretly embitteredby the knowledge that the young college stripling in the next schoolroomis paid twice that sum for work no harder or more responsible than herown, and that, too, after the whole pathway of education has beenobstructed for her, and smoothed for him. These may be gross andcarnal considerations; but Faith asks her daily bread, and fancy mustbe fed. We deny woman her fair share of training, of encouragement, ofremuneration, and then talk fine nonsense about her instincts andintuitions. We say sentimentally with the Oriental proverbialist, "Every book of knowledge is implanted by nature in the heart ofwoman, "--and make the compliment a substitute for the alphabet. Nothing can be more absurd than to impose entirely distinct standards, inthis respect, on the two sexes, or to expect that woman, any more than man, will accomplish anything great without due preparation and adequatestimulus. Mrs. Patten, who navigated her husband's ship from Cape Horn toCalifornia, would have failed in the effort, for all her heroism, if shehad not, unlike most of her sex, been taught to use her Bowditch's"Navigator. " Florence Nightingale, when she heard of the distresses in theCrimea, did not, as most people imagine, rise up and say, "I am a woman, ignorant but intuitive, with very little sense and information, butexceedingly sublime aspirations; my strength lies in my weakness; I cando all things without knowing anything about them. " Not at all: duringten years she had been in hard training for precisely such services; hadvisited all the hospitals in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Lyons, Rome, Brussels, and Berlin; had studied under the Sisters of Charity, and been twice a nurse in the Protestant Institution at Kaiserswerth. Therefore she did not merely carry to the Crimea a woman's heart, as herstock in trade, but she knew the alphabet of her profession better thanthe men around her. Of course, genius and enthusiasm are, for both sexes, elements unforeseen and incalculable; but, as a general rule, greatachievements imply great preparations and favorable conditions. Todisregard this truth is unreasonable in the abstract, and cruel in itsconsequences. If an extraordinary male gymnast can clear a height of tenfeet with the aid of a springboard, it would be considered slightly absurdto ask a woman to leap eleven feet without one; yet this is precisely whatsociety and the critics have always done. Training and wages and socialapprobation are very elastic springboards; and the whole course of historyhas seen these offered bounteously to one sex, and as sedulously withheldfrom the other. Let woman consent to be a doll, and there was no finery sogorgeous, no baby-house so costly, but she might aspire to share itslavish delights; let her ask simply for an equal chance to learn, to labor, and to live, and it was as if that same doll should open its lips, andpropound Euclid's forty-seventh proposition. While we have all deplored thehelpless position of indigent women, and lamented that they had noalternative beyond the needle, the wash-tub, the schoolroom, and thestreet, we have usually resisted their admission into every new occupation, denied them training, and cut their compensation down. Like Charles Lamb, who atoned for coming late to the office in the morning by going away earlyin the afternoon, we have first, half educated women, and then, to restorethe balance, only half paid them. What innumerable obstacles have beenplaced in their way as female physicians; what a complication ofdifficulties has been encountered by them, even as printers, engravers, and designers! In London, Mr. Bennett was once mobbed for lecturing towomen on watchmaking. In this country, we have known grave professorsrefuse to address lyceums which thought fit to employ an occasional femalelecturer. Mr. Comer stated that it was "in the face of ridicule andsneers" that he began to educate American women as bookkeepers many yearsago; and it was a little contemptible in Miss Muloch to revive the samesatire in "A Woman's Thoughts on Women, " when she must have known thatin half the retail shops in Paris her own sex rules the ledger, andMammon knows no Salic law. We find, on investigation, what these considerations would lead us toexpect, that eminent women have commonly been exceptional in training andposition, as well as in their genius. They have excelled the average oftheir own sex because they have shared the ordinary advantages of the othersex. Take any department of learning or skill; take, for instance, theknowledge of languages, the universal alphabet, philology. On the greatstairway at Padua stands the statue of Elena Cornaro, professor of sixlanguages in that once renowned university. But Elena Cornaro was educatedlike a boy, by her father. On the great door of the University of Bolognais inscribed the epitaph of Clotilda Tambroni, the honored correspondent ofPorson, and the first Greek scholar of southern Europe in her day. ButClotilda Tambroni was educated like a boy, by Emanuele Aponte. How fine arethose prefatory words, "by a Right Reverend Prelate, " to that pioneer bookin Anglo-Saxon lore, Elizabeth Elstob's grammar: "Our earthly possessionsare indeed our patrimony, as derived to us by the industry of our fathers;but the language in which we speak is our mother tongue, and who so properto play the critic in this as the females?" Yet this particular femaleobtained the rudiments of her rare education from her mother, before shewas eight years old, in spite of much opposition from her right reverendguardians. Adelung declares that all modern philology is founded on thetranslation of a Russian vocabulary into two hundred different dialectsby Catherine II. But Catherine shared, in childhood, the instructors ofher brother, Prince Frederick, and was subject to some reproach forlearning, though a girl, so much more rapidly than he did. Christina ofSweden ironically reproved Madame Dacier for her translation ofCallimachus: "Such a pretty girl as you are, are you not ashamed to be solearned?" But Madame Dacier acquired Greek by contriving to do herembroidery in the room where her father was teaching her stupid brother;and her queenly critic had herself learned to read Thucydides, harderGreek than Callimachus, before she was fourteen. And so down to our ownday, who knows how many mute, inglorious Minervas may have perishedunenlightened, while Margaret Fuller Ossoli and Elizabeth Barrett Browningwere being educated "like boys. " This expression simply means that they had the most solid training whichthe times afforded. Most persons would instantly take alarm at the verywords; that is, they have so little faith in the distinctions which Naturehas established, that they think, if you teach the alphabet, or anythingelse, indiscriminately to both sexes, you annul all difference betweenthem. The common reasoning is thus: "Boys and girls are acknowledged tobe very unlike. Now, boys study Greek and algebra, medicine andbookkeeping. Therefore girls should not. " As if one should say: "Boysand girls are very unlike. Now, boys eat beef and potatoes. Therefore, obviously, girls should not. " The analogy between physical and spiritual food is precisely in point. The simple truth is, that, amid the vast range of human powers andproperties, the fact of sex is but one item. Vital and momentous initself, it does not constitute the whole organism, but only a part. The distinction of male and female is special, aimed at a certain end;and, apart from that end, it is, throughout all the kingdoms ofNature, of minor importance. With but trifling exceptions, frominfusoria up to man, the female animal moves, breathes, looks, listens, runs, flies, swims, pursues its food, eats it, digests it, inprecisely the same manner as the male: all instincts, allcharacteristics, are the same, except as to the one solitary fact ofparentage. Mr. Ten Broeck's race-horses, Pryor and Prioress, werefoaled alike, fed alike, trained alike, and finally ran side by side, competing for the same prize. The eagle is not checked in soaring byany consciousness of sex, nor asks the sex of the timid hare, itsquarry. Nature, for high purposes, creates and guards the sexualdistinction, but keeps it subordinate to those still more important. Now all this bears directly upon the alphabet. What sort of philosophy isthat which says, "John is a fool; Jane is a genius: nevertheless, John, being a man, shall learn, lead, make laws, make money; Jane, being awoman, shall be ignorant, dependent, disfranchised, underpaid"? Of course, the time is past when one would state this so frankly, though Comte comesquite near it, to say nothing of the Mormons; but this formula really liesat the bottom of the reasoning one hears every day. The answer is, Soulbefore sex. Give an equal chance, and let genius and industry do the rest. _La carrière ouverte aux talens_! Every man for himself, every woman forherself, and the alphabet for us all. Thus far, my whole course of argument has been defensive and explanatory. Ihave shown that woman's inferiority in special achievements, so far as itexists, is a fact of small importance, because it is merely a corollaryfrom her historic position of degradation. She has not excelled, becauseshe has had no fair chance to excel. Man, placing his foot upon hershoulder, has taunted her with not rising. But the ulterior questionremains behind. How came she into this attitude originally? Explain theexplanation, the logician fairly demands. Granted that woman is weakbecause she has been systematically degraded: but why was she degraded?This is a far deeper question, --one to be met only by a profounderphilosophy and a positive solution. We are coming on ground almost whollyuntrod, and must do the best we can. I venture to assert, then, that woman's social inferiority has been, to agreat extent, in the past a legitimate thing. To all appearance, historywould have been impossible without it, just as it would have beenimpossible without an epoch of war and slavery. It is simply a matter ofsocial progress, --a part of the succession of civilizations. The past hasbeen inevitably a period of ignorance, of engrossing physical necessities, and of brute force, --not of freedom, of philanthropy, and of culture. During that lower epoch, woman was necessarily an inferior, degraded byabject labor, even in time of peace, --degraded uniformly by war, chivalryto the contrary notwithstanding. Behind all the courtesies of Amadis andthe Cid lay the stern fact, --woman a child or a toy. The flatteringtroubadours chanted her into a poet's paradise; but alas! that kingdom ofheaven suffered violence, and the violent took it by force. The truthsimply was, that her time had not come. Physical strength must rule for atime, and she was the weaker. She was very properly refused a feudal grant, by reason, say "Les Coustumes de Normandie, " of her unfitness for war orpolicy: _C'est l'homme ki se bast et ki conseille_. Other authorities putit still more plainly: "A woman cannot serve the emperor or feudal lord inwar, on account of the decorum of her sex; nor assist him with advice, because of her limited intellect; nor keep his counsel, owing to theinfirmity of her disposition. " All which was, no doubt, in the majority ofcases, true; and the degradation of woman was simply a part of a systemwhich has, indeed, had its day, but has bequeathed its associations. From this reign of force, woman never freed herself by force. She could notfight, or would not. Bohemian annals, to be sure, record the legend of aliteral war between the sexes, in which the women's army was led by Libussaand Wlasla, and which finally ended with the capture, by the army of men, of Castle Dziewin, Maiden's Tower, whose ruins are still visible nearPrague. The armor of Libussa is still shown at Vienna; and the guide callsattention to the long-peaked toes of steel, with which, he avers, thetender princess was wont to pierce the hearts of her opponents, whilecareering through the battle. And there are abundant instances in whichwomen have fought side by side with men, and on equal terms. The ancientBritish women mingled in the wars of their husbands, and their princesseswere trained to the use of arms in the Maiden's Castle at Edinburgh, in theIsle of Skye. The Moorish wives and maidens fought in defence of theirEuropean peninsula; and the Portuguese women fought on the same soil, against the armies of Philip II. The king of Siam has, at present, abody-guard of four hundred women: they are armed with lance and rifle, areadmirably disciplined, and their commander (appointed after saving theking's life at a tiger-hunt) ranks as one of the royal family, and has tenelephants at her service. When the all-conquering Dahomian army marchedupon Abbeokuta, in 1851, they numbered ten thousand men and six thousandwomen. The women were, as usual, placed foremost in the assault, as beingmost reliable; and of the eighteen hundred bodies left dead before thewalls, the vast majority were of women. The Hospital of the Invalides, inParis, has sheltered, for half a century, a fine specimen of a femalesoldier, "Lieutenant Madame Bulan, " who lived to be more than eighty yearsold, had been decorated by Napoleon's own hand with the cross of theLegion of Honor, and was credited on the hospital books with "seven years'service, seven campaigns, three wounds, several times distinguished, especially in Corsica, in defending a fort against the English. " But thesecases, though interesting to the historian, are still exceptional; and theinstinctive repugnance they inspire is a condemnation, not of women, butof war. The reason, then, for the long subjection of woman has been simply thathumanity was passing through its first epoch, and her full career was to bereserved for the second. As the different races of man have appearedsuccessively upon the stage of history, so there has been an order ofsuccession of the sexes. Woman's appointed era, like that of the Teutonicraces, was delayed, but not omitted. It is not merely true that the empireof the past has belonged to man, but that it has properly belonged to him;for it was an empire of the muscles, enlisting, at best, but the lowerpowers of the understanding. There can be no question that the presentepoch is initiating an empire of the higher reason, of arts, affections, aspirations; and for that epoch the genius of woman has been reserved. Thespirit of the age has always kept pace with the facts, and outstripped thestatutes. Till the fulness of time came, woman was necessarily kept a slaveto the spinning-wheel and the needle; now higher work is ready; peace hasbrought invention to her aid, and the mechanical means for her emancipationare ready also. No use in releasing her till man, with his strong arm, hadworked out his preliminary share in civilization. "Earth waits for herqueen" was a favorite motto of Margaret Fuller Ossoli; but it would be morecorrect to say that the queen has waited for her earth, till it could besmoothed and prepared for her occupancy. Now Cinderella may begin to thinkof putting on her royal robes. Everybody sees that the times are altering the whole material position ofwoman; but most people do not appear to see the inevitable social and moralchanges which are also involved. As has been already said, the woman ofancient history was a slave to physical necessities, both in war and peace. In war she could do too little; in peace she did too much, under thematerial compulsions which controlled the world. How could the Jews, forinstance, elevate woman? They could not spare her from the wool and theflax, and the candle that goeth not out by night. In Rome, when the bridefirst stepped across her threshold, they did not ask her, Do you know thealphabet? they asked simply, Can you spin? There was no higher epitaph thanQueen Amalasontha's, --_Domum servavit, lanam fecit_. In Boeotia, brideswere conducted home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at the door, intoken that they were never to leave the house again. Pythagoras institutedat Crotona an annual festival for the distaff; Confucius, in China, did thesame for the spindle; and these celebrated not the freedom, but theserfdom, of woman. And even into modern days this same tyrannical necessity has lingered. "Gospin, you jades! go spin!" was the only answer vouchsafed by the Earl ofPembroke to the twice-banished nuns of Wilton. Even now, travellers agreethat throughout civilized Europe, with the partial exception of England andFrance, the profound absorption of the mass of women in household laborsrenders their general elevation impossible. But with us Americans, and inthis age, when all these vast labors are being more and more transferred toarms of brass and iron; when Rochester grinds the flour and Lowell weavesthe cloth, and the fire on the hearth has gone into black retirement andmourning; when the wiser a virgin is, the less she has to do with oil inher lamp; when the needle has made its last dying speech and confession inthe "Song of the Shirt, " and the sewing-machine has changed those dolefulmarches to delightful measures, --how is it possible for the blindest tohelp seeing that a new era is begun, and that the time has come for womanto learn the alphabet? Nobody asks for any abolition of domestic labor for women, any more than ofoutdoor labor for men. Of course, most women will still continue to bemainly occupied with the indoor care of their families, and most men withtheir external support. All that is desirable for either sex is such aneconomy of labor, in this respect, as shall leave some spare time to beappropriated in other directions. The argument against each newemancipation of woman is precisely that always made against the liberationof serfs and the enfranchisement of plebeians, --that the new position willtake them from their legitimate business. "How can he [or she] get wisdomthat holdeth the plough [or the broom], --whose talk is of bullocks [or ofbabies]?" Yet the American farmer has already emancipated himself fromthese fancied incompatibilities; and so will the farmer's wife. In a nationwhere there is no leisure class and no peasantry, this whole theory ofexclusion is an absurdity. We all have a little leisure, and we must allmake the most of it. If we will confine large interests and duties to thosewho have nothing else to do, we must go back to monarchy at once. Ifotherwise, then the alphabet, and its consequences, must be open to womanas to man. Jean Paul says nobly, in his "Levana, " that, "before and afterbeing a mother, a woman is a human being, and neither maternal nor conjugalrelation can supersede the human responsibility, but must become its meansand instrument. " And it is good to read the manly speech, on this subject, of John Quincy Adams, quoted at length in Quincy's life of him, in which, after fully defending the political petitions of the women of Plymouth, hedeclares that "the correct principle is that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domesticcircle, and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and oftheir God. " There are duties devolving on every human being, --duties not small nor few, but vast and varied, --which spring from home and private life, and alltheir sweet relations. The support or care of the humblest household is afunction worthy of men, women, and angels, so far as it goes. From theseduties none must shrink, neither man nor woman; the loftiest genius cannotignore them; the sublimest charity must begin with them. They are their ownexceeding great reward; their self-sacrifice is infinite joy; and theselfishness which discards them is repaid by loneliness and a desolate oldage. Yet these, though the most tender and intimate portion of human life, do not form its whole. It is given to noble souls to crave other interestsalso, added spheres, not necessarily alien from these; larger knowledge, larger action also; duties, responsibilities, anxieties, dangers, all thealiment that history has given to its heroes. Not home less, but humanitymore. When the high-born English lady in the Crimean hospital, ordered toa post of almost certain death, only raised her hands to heaven, and said, "Thank God!" she did not renounce her true position as woman: she claimedit. When the queen of James I. Of Scotland, already immortalized by him instately verse, won a higher immortality by welcoming to her fair bosom thedagger aimed at his; when the Countess of Buchan hung confined in her ironcage, outside Berwick Castle, in penalty for crowning Robert the Bruce;when the stainless soul of Joan of Arc met God, like Moses, in a burningflame, --these things were as they should be. Man must not monopolize theseprivileges of peril, the birthright of great souls. Serenades andcompliments must not replace the nobler hospitality which shares with womanthe opportunity of martyrdom. Great administrative duties also, cares ofstate, for which one should be born gray-headed, how nobly do these situpon a woman's brow! Each year adds to the storied renown of Elizabeth ofEngland, greatest sovereign of the greatest of historic nations. Christinaof Sweden, alone among the crowned heads of Europe (so says Voltaire), sustained the dignity of the throne against Richelieu and Mazarin. Andthese queens most assuredly did not sacrifice their womanhood in theprocess; for her Britannic Majesty's wardrobe included four thousand gowns;and Mile, de Montpensier declares that when Christina had put on a wig ofthe latest fashion, "she really looked extremely pretty. " _Les races se féminisent_, said Buffon, --"The world is growing morefeminine. " It is a compliment, whether the naturalist intended it or not. Time has brought peace; peace, invention; and the poorest woman of to-dayis born to an inheritance of which her ancestors never dreamed. Previousattempts to confer on women social and political equality, --as whenLeopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, made them magistrates; or when theHungarian revolutionists made them voters; or when our own New Jerseytried the same experiment in a guarded fashion in early times, and thenrevoked the privilege, because (as in the ancient fable) the womenvoted the wrong way;--these things were premature, and valuable onlyas recognitions of a principle. But in view of the rapid changes nowgoing on, he is a rash man who asserts the "Woman Question" to beanything but a mere question of time. The fulcrum has been alreadygiven in the alphabet, and we must simply watch, and see whether theearth does not move. There is the plain fact: woman must be either a subject or an equal; thereis no middle ground. Every concession to a supposed principle only involvesthe necessity of the next concession for which that principle calls. Onceyield the alphabet, and we abandon the whole long theory of subjection andcoverture: tradition is set aside, and we have nothing but reason to fallback upon. Reasoning abstractly, it must be admitted that the argument hasbeen, thus far, entirely on the women's side, inasmuch as no man has yetseriously tried to meet them with argument. It is an alarming feature ofthis discussion, that it has reversed, very generally, the traditionalpositions of the sexes: the women have had all the logic; and the mostintelligent men, when they have attempted the other side, have limitedthemselves to satire and gossip. What rational woman can be reallyconvinced by the nonsense which is talked in ordinary society aroundher, --as, that it is right to admit girls to common schools, and equallyright to exclude them from colleges; that it is proper for a woman to singin public, but indelicate for her to speak in public; that a post-officebox is an unexceptionable place to drop a bit of paper into, but aballot-box terribly dangerous? No cause in the world can keep abovewater, sustained by such contradictions as these, too feeble and slightto be dignified by the name of fallacies. Some persons profess to thinkit impossible to reason with a woman, and such critics certainly showno disposition to try the experiment. But we must remember that all our American institutions are based onconsistency, or on nothing: all claim to be founded on the principles ofnatural right; and when they quit those, they are lost. In all Europeanmonarchies it is the theory that the mass of the people are children to begoverned, not mature beings to govern themselves; this is clearly statedand consistently applied. In the United States we have formally abandonedthis theory for one half of the human race, while for the other half itflourishes with little change. The moment the claims of woman are broached, the democrat becomes a monarchist. What Americans commonly criticise inEnglish statesmen, namely, that they habitually evade all arguments basedon natural right, and defend every legal wrong on the ground that it workswell in practice, is the precise defect in our habitual view of woman. Theperplexity must be resolved somehow. Most men admit that a strict adherenceto our own principles would place both sexes in precisely equal positionsbefore law and constitution, as well as in school and society. But each hashis special quibble to apply, showing that in this case we must abandon allthe general maxims to which we have pledged ourselves, and hold only byprecedent. Nay, he construes even precedent with the most ingenious rigor;since the exclusion of women from all direct contact with affairs can bemade far more perfect in a republic than is possible in a monarchy, whereeven sex is merged in rank, and the female patrician may have far morepower than the male plebeian. But, as matters now stand among us, there isno aristocracy but of sex: all men are born patrician, all women arelegally plebeian; all men are equal in having political power, and allwomen in having none. This is a paradox so evident, and such an anomaly inhuman progress, that it cannot last forever, without new discoveries inlogic, or else a deliberate return to M. Maréchal's theory concerning thealphabet. Meanwhile, as the newspapers say, we anxiously await further developments. According to present appearances, the final adjustment lies mainly in thehands of women themselves. Men can hardly be expected to concede eitherrights or privileges more rapidly than they are claimed, or to be truer towomen than women are to each other. In fact, the worst effect of acondition of inferiority is the weakness it leaves behind; even when wesay, "Hands off!" the sufferer does not rise. In such a case, there is butone counsel worth giving. More depends on determination than even onability. Will, not talent, governs the world. Who believed that a poetesscould ever be more than an Annot Lyle of the harp, to soothe with sweetmelodies the leisure of her lord, until in Elizabeth Barrett Browning'shands the thing became a trumpet? Where are gone the sneers with whicharmy surgeons and parliamentary orators opposed Mr. Sidney Herbert's firstproposition to send Florence Nightingale to the Crimea? In how many townswas the current of popular prejudice against female orators reversed byone winning speech from Lucy Stone! Where no logic can prevail, successsilences. First give woman, if you dare, the alphabet, then summon her toher career: and though men, ignorant and prejudiced, may oppose itsbeginnings, they will at last fling around her conquering footsteps morelavish praises than ever greeted the opera's idol, --more perfumed flowersthan ever wooed, with intoxicating fragrance, the fairest butterfly of theball-room. [Footnote 1: _Projet d'une loi portant defense d'apprendre à lire auxfemmes. _] II PHYSIOLOGY "Allein, bevor und nachdem man Mutter ist, ist Man ein Mensch; die mütterliche Bestimmung aber, oder gar die heeliche, kann nicht die menschliche überwiegen oder ersetzen, sondern sie muss das Mittel, nicht der Zweck derselben sein. "--J. P. F. Richter: Levana, § 89. "But, before and after being a mother, one is a human being; and neither the motherly nor the wifely destination can overbalance or replace the human, but must become its means, not its end. " TOO MUCH NATURAL HISTORY Lord Melbourne, speaking of the fine ladies in London who were fond oftalking about their ailments, used to complain that they gave him too muchof their natural history. There are a good many writers--usually men--who, with the best intentions, discuss woman as if she had merely a physicalorganization, and as if she existed only for one object, the production andrearing of children. Against this some protest may well be made. Doubtless there are few things more important to a community than thehealth of its women. The Sandwich Island proverb says:-- "If strong is the frame of the mother, The son will give laws to the people. " And, in nations where all men give laws, all men need mothers of strongframes. Moreover, there is no harm in admitting that all the rules of our structureare imperative; that soul and body, whether of man or woman, are made inharmony, so that each part of our nature must accept the limitations of theother. A man's soul may yearn to the stars; but so long as the body cannotjump so high, he must accept the body's veto. It is the same with any vetointerposed in advance by the physical structure of woman. Nobody objects tothis general principle. It is only when clerical gentlemen or physiologicalgentlemen undertake to go a step farther, and put in that veto on their ownresponsibility, that it is necessary to say, "Hands off, gentlemen!Precisely because women are women, they, not you, are to settlethat question. " One or two points are clear. Every specialist is liable to overrate his ownspecialty; and the man who thinks of woman only as a wife and mother is aptto forget, that, before she was either of these, she was a human being. "Women, as such, " says an able writer, "are constituted for purposes ofmaternity and the continuation of mankind. " Undoubtedly, and so were men, as such, constituted for paternity. But very much depends on what relativeimportance we assign to the phrase, "as such. " Even an essay so careful, somoderate, and so free from coarseness, as that here quoted, suggests, afterall, a slight one-sidedness, --perhaps a natural reaction from theone-sidedness of those injudicious reformers who allow themselves to speakslightingly of "the merely animal function of child-bearing. " Higher thaneither--wiser than both put together--is that noble statement with whichJean Paul begins his fine essay on the education of girls in "Levana. ""Before being a wife or mother, one is a human being; and neither motherlynor wifely destination can overbalance or replace the human, but mustbecome its means, not end. As above the poet, the painter, or the hero, soabove the mother, does the human being rise preëminent. " Here is sure anchorage. We can hold to this. And, fortunately, all theanalogies of nature sustain this position. Throughout nature the laws ofsex rule everywhere; but they rule a kingdom of their own, alwayssubordinate to the greater kingdom of the vital functions. Everycreature, male or female, finds in its sexual relations only asubordinate part of its existence. The need of food, the need ofexercise, the joy of living, these come first, and absorb the bulk ofits life, whether the individual be male or female. This _Antiope_butterfly, that flits at this moment past my window, --the first of theseason, --spends almost all its existence in a form where the distinctionof sex lies dormant: a few days, I might almost say a few hours, comprise its whole sexual consciousness, and the majority of its racedie before reaching that epoch. The law of sex is written absolutelythrough the whole insect world. Yet everywhere it is written as asecondary and subordinate law. The life which is common to the sexes isthe principal life; the life which each sex leads, "as such, " is a minorand subordinate thing. The same rule pervades nature. Two riders pass down the street before mywindow. One rides a horse, the other a mare. The animals were perhapsfoaled in the same stable, of the same progenitors. They have been rearedalike, fed alike, trained alike, ridden alike; they need the same exercise, the same grooming; nine tenths of their existence are the same, and onlythe other tenth is different. Their whole organization is marked by thedistinction of sex; but, though the marking is ineffaceable, thedistinction is not the first or most important fact. If this be true of the lower animals, it is far more true of the higher. The mental and moral laws of the universe touch us first and chiefly ashuman beings. We eat our breakfasts as human beings, not as men or women;and it is the same with nine tenths of our interests and duties in life. In legislating or philosophizing for woman, we must neither forget thatshe has an organization distinct from that of man, nor must weexaggerate the fact. Not "first the womanly and then the human, " butfirst the human and then the womanly, is to be the order of her training. DARWIN, HUXLEY, and BUCKLE When any woman, old or young, asks the question, Which among all modernbooks ought I to read first? the answer is plain. She should read Buckle'slecture before the Royal Institution upon "The Influence of Woman on theProgress of Knowledge. " It is one of two papers contained in a thin volumecalled "Essays by Henry Thomas Buckle. " As a means whereby a woman maybecome convinced that her sex has a place in the intellectual universe, this little essay is almost indispensable. Nothing else quite takes itsplace. Darwin and Huxley seem to make woman simply a lesser man, weaker in bodyand mind, --an affectionate and docile animal, of inferior grade. Thatthere is any aim in the distinction of the sexes, beyond the perpetuationof the race, is nowhere recognized by them, so far as I know. That there isanything in the intellectual sphere to correspond to the physicaldifference; that here also the sexes are equal yet diverse, and each thenatural completion and complement of the other, --this neither Huxley norDarwin explicitly recognizes. And with the utmost admiration for theirgreat teachings in other ways, I must think that here they are open to thesuspicion of narrowness. Huxley wrote in "The Reader, " in 1864, a short paper called "Emancipation--Black and White, " in which, while taking generous ground in behalf of thelegal and political position of woman, he yet does it pityingly, _de hauten bas_, as for a creature hopelessly inferior, and so heavily weightedalready by her sex that she should be spared all further trials. Speakingthrough an imaginary critic, who seems to represent himself, he denies"even the natural equality of the sexes, " and declares "that in everyexcellent character, whether mental or physical, the average woman isinferior to the average man, in the sense of having that character less inquantity and lower in quality. " Finally he goes so far as "to defend thestartling paradox that even in physical beauty man is the superior. " Headmits that for a brief period of early youth the case may be doubtful, butclaims that after thirty the superior beauty of man is unquestionable. Thusreasons Huxley; the whole essay being included in his volume of "LaySermons, Addresses, and Reviews. " [1] Darwin's best statements on the subject may be found in his "Descent ofMan. "[2] He is, as usual, more moderate and guarded than Huxley. He says, for instance: "It is generally admitted that with women the powers ofintuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more stronglymarked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties arecharacteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower stateof civilization. " Then he passes to the usual assertion that man has thusfar attained to a higher eminence than woman. "If two lists were made ofthe most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, --comprising composition and performance, --history, science, and philosophy, with half a dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bearcomparison. " But the obvious answer, that nearly every name on his list, upon the masculine side, would probably be taken from periods when womanwas excluded from any fair competition, --this he does not seem to recognizeat all. Darwin, of all men, must admit that superior merit generallyarrives later, not earlier, on the scene; and the question for him toanswer is, not whether woman equalled man in the first stages of theintellectual "struggle for life, " but whether she is not gaining on himnow. If, in spite of man's enormous advantage in the start, woman is alreadyovertaking his very best performances in several of the highestintellectual departments, --as, for instance, prose fiction and dramaticrepresentation, --then it is mere dogmatism in Mr. Darwin to deny that shemay yet do the same in other departments. We in this generation haveactually seen this success achieved by Rachel and Ristori in the one art, by "George Sand" and "George Eliot" in the other. Woman is, then, visiblygaining on man in the sphere of intellect; and, if so, Mr. Darwin, atleast, must accept the inevitable inference. But this is arguing the question on the superficial facts merely. Bucklegoes deeper, and looks to principles. That superior quickness of women, which Darwin dismisses so lightly as something belonging to savage epochs, is to Buckle the sign of a quality which he holds essential, not only toliterature and art, but to science itself. Go among ignorant women, hesays, and you will find them more quick and intelligent than equallyignorant men. A woman will usually tell you the way in the street morereadily than a man can; a woman can always understand a foreigner moreeasily; and Dr. Currie says in his letters, that when a laborer and hiswife came to consult him, the man always got all the information from thewife. Buckle illustrates this at some length, and points out that a woman'smind is by its nature deductive and quick; a man's mind, inductive andslow; that each has its value, and that science profoundly needs both. "I will endeavor, " he says, "to establish two propositions. First, thatwomen naturally prefer the deductive method to the inductive. Secondly, that women, by encouraging in men deductive habits of thought, haverendered an immense though unconscious service to the progress of science, by preventing scientific investigators from being as exclusively inductiveas they would otherwise be. " Then he shows that the most important scientific discoveries of moderntimes--as of the law of gravitation by Newton, the law of the forms ofcrystals by Haüy, and the metamorphosis of plants by Goethe--were allessentially the results of that _a priori_ or deductive method "which, during the last two centuries, Englishmen have unwisely despised. " Theywere all the work, in a manner, of the imagination, --of the intuitive orwomanly quality of mind. And nothing can be finer or truer than the wordsin which Buckle predicts the benefits that are to come from theintellectual union of the sexes for the work of the future. "In that fieldwhich we and our posterity have yet to traverse, I firmly believe that theimagination will effect quite as much as the understanding. Our poetry willhave to reinforce our logic, and we must feel quite as much as we mustargue. Let us, then, hope that the imaginative and emotional minds of onesex will continue to accelerate the great progress by acting upon andimproving the colder and harder minds of the other sex. By this coalition, by this union of different faculties, different tastes, and differentmethods, we shall go on our way with the greater ease. " [Footnote 1: Pp. 22, 23, Am. Ed. ] [Footnote 2: Vol. Ii. P. 311, Am. Ed] THE SPIRIT OF SMALL TYRANNY When Mr. John Smauker and the Bath footmen invited Sam Weller to their"swarry, " consisting of a boiled leg of mutton, each guest had someexpression of contempt and wrath for the humble little green-grocer whoserved them, --"in the true spirit, " Dickens says, "of the very smallesttyranny. " The very fact that they were subject to being ordered about intheir own persons gave them a peculiar delight in issuing tyrannical ordersto others: just as sophomores in college torment freshmen because othersophomores once teased the present tormentors themselves; and Irishmendenounce the Chinese for underbidding them in the labor market, preciselyas they were themselves denounced by native-born Americans thirty yearsago. So it has sometimes seemed to me that the men whose own positions andclaims are really least commanding are those who hold most resolutely thatwomen should be kept in their proper place of subordination. A friend of mine maintains the theory that men large and strong in personare constitutionally inclined to do justice to women, as fearing nocompetition from them in the way of bodily strength; but that small andweak men are apt to be vehemently opposed to anything like equality in thesexes. He quotes in defence of his theory the big soldier in London whojustified himself for allowing his little wife to chastise him, on theground that it pleased her and did not hurt him; and on the other handcites the extreme domestic tyranny of the dwarf Quilp. He declares thatin any difficult excursion among woods and mountains, the guides and theable-bodied men are often willing to have women join the party, while itis sure to be opposed by those who doubt their own strength or arereluctant to display their weakness. It is not necessary to go so far asmy friend goes; but many will remember some fact of this kind, makingsuch theories appear not quite so absurd as at first. Thus it seems from the "Life and Letters" of Sydney Dobell, the Englishpoet, that he was opposed both to woman suffrage and woman authorship, believing the movement for the former to be a "blundering on to theperdition of womanhood. " It appears that against all authorship by womenhis convictions yearly grew stronger, he regarding it as "an error and ananomaly. " It seems quite in accordance with my friend's theory to hear, after this, that Sydney Dobell was slight in person and a lifelong invalid;nor is it surprising, on the same theory, that his poetry took no deeproot, and that it will not be likely to survive long, except perhaps in hisweird ballad of "Ravelston. " But he represents a large class of masculineintellects, of secondary and mediocre quality, whose opinions on thissubject are not so much opinions as instinctive prejudices against acompetitor who may turn out their superior. Whether they know it, or not, their aversion to the authorship of women is very much like the convictionof a weak pedestrian, that women are not naturally fitted to take longwalks; or the opinion of a man whose own accounts are in a muddle, that hiswife is constitutionally unfitted to understand business. It is a pity to praise either sex at the expense of the other. The socialinequality of the sexes was not produced so much by the voluntary tyrannyof man, as by his great practical advantage at the outset; human historynecessarily beginning with a period when physical strengthwas sole ruler. It is unnecessary, too, to consider in how many cases womenmay have justified this distrust; and may have made themselves as obnoxiousas Horace Walpole's maids of honor, whose coachman left his savings to hisson on condition that he should never marry a maid of honor. But it is safeto say that on the whole the feeling of contempt for women, and the love toexercise arbitrary power over them, is the survival of a crude impulsewhich the world is outgrowing, and which is in general least obvious in themanliest men. That clear and able English writer, Walter Bagehot, welldescribes "the contempt for physical weakness and for women which marksearly society. The non-combatant population is sure to fare ill during theages of combat. But these defects, too, are cured or lessened; women havenow marvellous means of winning their way in the world; and mind withoutmuscle has far greater force than muscle without mind. " [1] [Footnote 1: _Physics and Politics_, p. 79. ] THE NOBLE SEX A highly educated American woman of my acquaintance once employed a Frenchtutor in Paris to assist her in teaching Latin to her little grandson. TheFrenchman brought with him a Latin grammar, written in his own language, with which my friend was quite pleased, until she came to a passagerelating to the masculine gender in nouns, and claiming grammaticalprecedence for it on the ground that the male sex is the noblesex, --"_le sexe noble_. " "Upon that, " she said, "I burst forth inindignation, and the poor teacher soon retired. But I do not believe, "she added, "that the Frenchman has the slightest conception, up to thismoment, of what I could find in that phrase to displease me. " I do not suppose he could. From the time when the Salic Law set Frenchwomen aside from the royal succession, on the ground that the kingdom ofFrance was "too noble to be ruled by a woman, " the claim of nobility hasbeen all on one side. The State has strengthened the Church in this theory, the Church has strengthened the State; and the result of all is, thatFrench grammarians follow both these high authorities. When even the goodPère Hyacinthe teaches, through the New York "Independent, " that thehusband is to direct the conscience of his wife, precisely as the fatherdirects that of his child, what higher philosophy can you expect of anyFrenchman than to maintain the claims of "_le sexe noble_"? We see the consequence, even among the most heterodox Frenchmen. Rejectingall other precedents and authorities, the poor Communists still held tothis. Consider, for instance, this translation of a marriage contract underthe Commune, which lately came to light in a trial reported in the "Gazettedes Tribunaux:"-- FRENCH REPUBLIC. The citizen Anet, son of Jean Louis Anet, and the _citoyenne_ Maria Saint; she engaged to follow the said citizen everywhere and to love him always. --ANET. MARIA SAINT. Witnessed by the under-mentioned citizen and _citoyenne. _--FOURIER. LAROCHE. PARIS, April 22, 1871. What a comfortable arrangement is this! Poor _citoyenne_ Maria Saint, evenwhen all human laws have suspended their action, still holds by hergrammar, still must annex herself to _le sexe noble_. She still must followcitizen Anet as the feminine pronoun follows the masculine, or as a verbagrees with its nominative case in number and in person. But with what alordly freedom from all obligation does citizen Anet, representative ofthis nobility of sex, accept the allegiance! The citizeness may "followhim, " certainly, --so long as she is not in the way, --and she must "love himalways;" but he is not bound. Why should he be? It would be quiteungrammatical. Yet, after all is said and done, there is a brutal honesty in this franksubordination of the woman according to the grammar. It has the same meritwith the old Russian marriage consecration: "Here, wolf, take thy lamb, "which at least put the thing clearly, and made no nonsense about it. I donot know that anywhere in France the wedding ritual is now so severelysimple as this, but I know that in some French villages the bride is stillmarried in a mourning-gown. I should think she would be. THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR GRANDMOTHERS Every young woman of the present generation, so soon as she ventures tohave a headache or a set of nerves, is immediately confronted by indignantcritics with her grandmother. If the grandmother is living, the fact of herexistence is appealed to: if there is only a departed grandmother toremember, the maiden is confronted with a ghost. That ghost is endowed withas many excellences as those with which Miss Betsey Trotwood endowed theniece that never had been born; and just as David Copperfield wasreproached with the virtues of his unborn sister who "would never have runaway, " so that granddaughter with the headache is reproached with theghostly perfections of her grandmother, who never had a headache--or, ifshe had, it is luckily forgotten. It is necessary to ask, sometimes, whatwas really the truth about our grandmothers? Were they such models ofbodily perfection as is usually claimed? If we look at the early colonial days, we are at once met by the fact, thatalthough families were then often larger than is now common, yet thisphenomenon was by no means universal, and was balanced by a good manychildless homes. Of this any one can satisfy himself by looking over anyfamily history; and he can also satisfy himself of the fact, --first pointedout, I believe, by Mrs. Ball, --that third and fourth marriages were thenobviously and unquestionably more common than now. The inference would seemto be, that there is a little illusion about the health of those days, asthere is about the health of savage races. In both cases, it is not so muchthat the average health is greater under rude social conditions, as thatthese conditions kill off the weak, and leave only the strong. Moderncivilized society, on the other hand, preserves the health of many men andwomen--and permits them to marry, and become parents--who under theseverities of savage life or of pioneer life would have died, and given wayto others. On this I will not dwell; because these primeval ladies were not strictlyour grandmothers, being farther removed. But of those who were ourgrandmothers, --the women of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionaryepochs, --we happen to have very definite physiological observationsrecorded; not very flattering, it is true, but frank and searching. Whatthese good women are in the imagination of their descendants, we know. Mrs. Stowe describes them as "the race of strong, hardy, cheerful girls thatused to grow up in country places, and made the bright, neat New Englandkitchens of olden times;" and adds, "This race of women, pride of oldentime, is daily lessening; and in their stead come the fragile, easilyfatigued, languid girls of a modern age, drilled in book-learning, ignorantof common things. " What, now, was the testimony of those who saw our grandmothers in theflesh? As it happens, there were a good many foreigners, generallyFrenchmen, who came to visit the new Republic during the presidency ofWashington. Let us take, for instance, the testimony of the two following. The Abbé Robin was a chaplain in Rochambeau's army during the Revolution, and wrote thus in regard to the American ladies in his "Nouveau Voyagedans l'Amerique Septentrionale, " published in 1782:-- "They are tall and well-proportioned; their features are generally regular; their complexions are generally fair and without color.... At twenty years of age the women have no longer the freshness of youth. At thirty-five or forty they are wrinkled and decrepit. The men are almost as premature. " Again: The Chevalier Louis Félix de Beaujour lived in the United Statesfrom 1804 to 1814, as consul-general and _chargé d'affaires;_ and wrote abook, immediately after, which was translated into English under the title, "A Sketch of the United States at the Commencement of the Present Century. "In this he thus describes American women:-- "The women have more of that delicate beauty which belongs to their sex, and in general have finer features and more expression in their physiognomy. Their stature is usually tall, and nearly all are possessed of a light and airy shape, --the breast high, a fine head, and their color of a dazzling whiteness. Let us imagine, under this brilliant form, the most modest demeanor, a chaste and virginal air, accompanied by those single and unaffected graces which flow from artless nature, and we may have an idea of their beauty; but this beauty fades and passes in a moment. At the age of twenty-five their form changes, and at thirty the whole of their charms have disappeared. " These statements bring out a class of facts, which, as it seems to me, aresingularly ignored by some of our physiologists. They indicate that themodification of the American type began early, and was, as a rule, due tocauses antedating the fashions or studies of the present day. Here are ourgrandmothers and great-grandmothers as they were actually seen by the eyesof impartial or even flattering critics. These critics were not Englishmen, accustomed to a robust and ruddy type of women, but Frenchmen, used to atype more like the American. They were not mere hasty travellers; for theone lived here ten years, and the other was stationed for some time atNewport, R. I. , in a healthy locality, noted in those days for the beautyof its women. Yet we find it their verdict upon these grandmothers ofnearly a hundred years ago, that they showed the same delicate beauty, thesame slenderness, the same pallor, the same fragility, the same earlydecline, with which their granddaughters are now reproached. In some respects, probably, the physical habits of the grandmothers werebetter: but an examination of their portraits will satisfy any one thatthey laced more tightly than their descendants, and wore their dresseslower in the neck; and as for their diet, we have the testimony of anotherFrench traveller, Volney, who was in America from 1795 to 1798, that "ifa premium were offered for a regimen most destructive to the teeth, thestomach, and the health in general, none could be devised more efficaciousfor these ends than that in use among this people. " And he goes on to giveparticulars, showing a far worse condition in respect to cookery and dietthan now prevails in any decent American society. We have therefore strong evidence that the essential change in the Americantype was effected in the last century, not in this. Dr. E. H. Clarke says, "A century does not afford a period long enough for the production of greatchanges. That length of time could not transform the sturdy German_fräulein_ and robust English damsel into the fragile American miss. " Andyet it is pretty clear that the first century and a half of our coloniallife had done just this for our grandmothers. And, if so, our physiologistsought to conform their theories to the facts. THE PHYSIQUE OF AMERICAN WOMEN I was talking the other day with a New York physician, long retired frompractice, who after an absence of a dozen years in Europe has returnedwithin a year to this country. He volunteered the remark, that nothing hadso impressed him since his return as the improved health of Americans. Hesaid that his wife had been equally struck with it; and that they hadnoticed it especially among the inhabitants of cities, among the morecultivated classes, and in particular among women. It so happened, that within twenty-four hours almost precisely the sameremark was made to me by another gentleman of unusually cosmopolitanexperience, and past middle age. He further fortified himself by a similarassertion made him by Charles Dickens, in comparing his second visit tothis country with his first. In answer to an inquiry as to what points ofdifference had most impressed him, Dickens said, "Your people, especiallythe women, look better fed than formerly. " It is possible that in all these cases the witnesses may have been led toexaggerate the original evil, while absent from the country, and so mayhave felt some undue reaction on their arrival. One of my informants wentso far as to express confidence that among his circle of friends in Bostonand in London a dinner party of half a dozen Americans would outweigh anEnglish party of the same number. Granting this to be too bold a statement, and granting the unscientific nature of all these assertions, they stillindicate a probability of their own truth until refuted by facts on theother side. They are further corroborated by the surprise expressed byHuxley and some other recent Englishmen at finding us a race moresubstantial than they had supposed. The truth seems to be, that Nature is endeavoring to take a new departurein the American, and to produce a race more finely organized, moresensitive, more pliable, and of more nervous energy, than the races ofNorthern Europe; that this change of type involves some risk to health inthe process, but promises greater results whenever the new type shall beestablished. I am confident that there has been within the lasthalf-century a great improvement in the physical habits of the morecultivated classes, at least, in this country, --better food, better air, better habits as to bathing and exercise. The great increase of athleticgames; the greatly increased proportion of seaside and mountain life insummer; the thicker shoes and boots of women and little girls, permittingthem to go out more freely in all weathers, --these are among the permanentgains. The increased habit of dining late, and of taking only a lunch atnoon, is of itself an enormous gain to the professional and mercantileclasses, because it secures time for eating and for digestion. Even thefurnaces in houses, which seemed at first so destructive to the very breathof life, turn out to have given a new lease to it; and open fires are beingrapidly reintroduced as a provision for enjoyment and health, when the mainbody of the house has been tempered by the furnace. There has been, furthermore, a decided improvement in the bread of the community, and avery general introduction of other farinaceous food. All this has happenedwithin my own memory, and gives _a priori_ probability to the allegedimprovement in physical condition within twenty years. And, if these reasonings are still insufficient on the one side, it must beremembered that the facts of the census are almost equally inadequate whenquoted on the other. If, for instance, all the young people of a NewHampshire village take a fancy to remove to Wisconsin, it does not showthat the race is dying out because their children swell the birth-rate ofWisconsin instead of New Hampshire. If in a given city the births among theforeign-born population are twice as many in proportion as among theAmerican, we have not the whole story until we learn whether the deaths arenot twice as many also. If so, the inference is that the same recklessnessbrought the children into the world and sent them out of it; and nophysiological inference whatever can be drawn. It was clearly establishedby the medical commission of the Boston Board of Health, a few years ago, that "the general mortality of the foreign element is much greater thanthat of the native element of our population. " "This is found to be thecase, " they add, "throughout the United States as well as in Boston. " So far as I can judge, all our physiological tendencies are favorablerather than otherwise: and the transplantation of the English race seemsnow likely to end in no deterioration, but in a type more finely organized, and more comprehensive and cosmopolitan; and this without loss of health, of longevity, or of physical size and weight. And, if this is to hold true, it must be true not only of men, but of women. THE LIMITATIONS OF SEX Are there any inevitable limitations of sex? Some reformers, apparently, think that there are not, and that the best wayto help woman is to deny the fact of limitations. But I think the greatmajority of reformers would take a different ground, and would say that thetwo sexes are mutually limited by nature. They would doubtless add thatthis very fact is an argument for the enfranchisement of woman: for, ifwoman is a mere duplicate of man, man can represent her; but if she hastraits of her own, absolutely distinct from his, then he cannot representher, and she should have a voice and a vote of her own. To this last body of believers I belong. I think that all legal orconventional obstacles should be removed, which debar woman fromdetermining for herself, as freely as man determines, what the reallimitations of sex are, and what restrictions are merely conventional. But, when all is said and done, there is no doubt that plenty of limitationswill remain on both sides. That man has such limitations is clear. No matter how finely organized hemay be, how sympathetic, how tender, how loving, there is yet a barrier, never to be passed, that separates him from the most precious part of thewoman's kingdom. All the wondrous world of motherhood, with its unspeakabledelights, its holy of holies, remains forever unknown by him; hemay gaze, but never enter. That halo of pure devotion, which makes aMadonna out of so many a poor and ignorant woman, can never touch his brow. Many a man loves children more than many a woman: but, after all, it is nothe who has borne them; to that peculiar sacredness of experience he cannever arrive. But never mind whether the loss be a great one or a smallone: it is distinctly a limitation; and to every loving mother it is alimitation so important that she would be unable to weigh all theprivileges and powers of manhood against this peculiar possession of herchild. Now, if this be true, and if man be thus distinctly limited by the merefact of sex, can the woman complain that she also should have some naturallimitations? Grant that she should have no unnecessary restrictions; andthat the course of human progress is constantly setting aside, asunnecessary, point after point that was once held essential. Still, if shefinds--as she undoubtedly will find--that some natural barriers andhindrances remain at last, and that she can no more do man's whole work inthe world than he can do hers, why should she complain? If he can accepthis limitations, she must be prepared also to accept hers. Some of our physiological reformers, declare that a girl will be perfectlyhealthy if she can only be sensibly dressed, and can "have just as muchoutdoor exercise as the boys, and of the same sort, if she choose it. " ButI have observed that matter a good deal, and have watched the effect ofboyish exercise on a good many girls; and I am satisfied that so far frombeing safely turned loose, as boys can be, they need, for physical health, the constant supervision of wise mothers. Otherwise the very exposure thatonly hardens the boy may make the girl an invalid for life. The dangercomes from a greater sensitiveness of structure, --not weakness, properly socalled, since it gives, in certain ways, more power of endurance, --agreater sensitiveness which runs through all a woman's career, and is theexpensive price she pays for the divine destiny of motherhood. It isanother natural limitation. No wise person believes in any "reform against Nature, " or that we can getbeyond the laws of Nature. If I believed the limitations of sex to beinconsistent with woman suffrage for instance, I should oppose it; but I donot see why a woman cannot form political opinions by her baby's cradle, aswell as her husband in his workshop, while her very love for the childcommits her to an interest in good government. Our duty is to remove allthe artificial restrictions we can. That done, it will not be hard for manor woman to acquiesce in the natural limitations. III TEMPERAMENT [Greek: 'Andros kai gunaikos ae autae antae aretae. ]--ANTISTHENES inDiogenes Laertius, vi. I, 5. "Virtue in man and woman is the same. " THE INVISIBLE LADY The Invisible Lady, as advertised in all our cities a good many years ago, was a mysterious individual who remained unseen, and had apparently nohuman organs except a brain and a tongue. You asked questions of her, andshe made intelligent answers; but where she was, you could no more discoverthan you could find the man inside the Automaton Chess-Player. Was sheintended as a satire on womankind, or as a sincere representation of whatwomankind should be? To many men, doubtless, she would have seemed theideal of her sex, could only her brain and tongue have disappeared like therest of her faculties. Such men would have liked her almost as well as thatother mysterious personage on the London signboard, labelled "The GoodWoman, " and represented by a female figure without a head. It is not that any considerable portion of mankind actually wishes toabolish woman from the universe. But the opinion dies hard that she is bestoff when least visible. These appeals which still meet us for "the sacredprivacy of woman" are only the Invisible Lady on a larger scale. In ancientBoeotia, brides were carried home in vehicles whose wheels were burned atthe door in token that they would never again be needed. In ancient Rome, it was a queen's epitaph, "She stayed at home, and spun, "--_Domum servavit, lanam fecit_. In Turkey, not even the officers of justice can enter theapartments of a woman without her lord's consent. In Spain and SpanishAmerica, the veil replaces the four walls of the house, and is a portableseclusion. To be visible is at best a sign of peasant blood andoccupations; to be high-bred is to be invisible. In the Azores I found that each peasant family endeavored to secure for oneor more of its daughters the pride and glory of living unseen. The othersisters, secure in innocence, tended cattle on lonely mountain-sides, ortoiled bare-legged up the steep ascents, their heads crowned withorange-baskets. The chosen sister was taught to read, to embroider, and todwell indoors; if she went out it was only under escort, and with her faceburied in a hood of almost incredible size, affording only a glimpse ofthe poor pale cheeks, quite unlike the rosy vigor of the damsels on themountain-side. The girls, I was told, did not covet this privilege ofseclusion; but let us be genteel, or die. Now all that is left of the Invisible Lady among ourselves is only theremnant of this absurd tradition. In the seaside town where I write, ladiesof fashion usually go veiled in the streets, and so general is the practicethat little girls often veil their dolls. They all suppose it to be donefor complexion or for ornament; just as people still hang straps on thebacks of their carriages, not knowing that it is a relic of the days whenfootmen stood there and held on. But the veil represents a tradition ofseclusion, whether we know it or not; and the dread of hearing a womanspeak in public, or of seeing a woman vote, represents precisely the sametradition. It is entitled to no less respect, and no more. Like all traditions, it finds something in human nature to which to attachitself. Early girlhood, like early boyhood, needs to be guarded andsheltered, that it may mature unharmed. It is monstrous to make this anexcuse for keeping a woman, any more than a man, in a condition ofperpetual subordination and seclusion. The young lover wishes to lock uphis angel in a little world of her own, where none may intrude. The haremand the seraglio are simply the embodiment of this desire. But the maturerman and the maturer race have found that the beloved being should besomething more. After this discovery is made, the theory of the Invisible Lady disappears. It is less of a shock for an American to hear a woman speak in public thanit is for an Oriental to see her show her face in public at all. Once openthe door of the harem, and she has the freedom of the house: the houseincludes the front door, and the street is but a prolonged doorstep. Withthe freedom of the street comes inevitably a free access to the platform, the tribunal, and the pulpit. You might as well try to stop the air in itsescape from a punctured balloon, as to try, when woman is once out of theharem, to put her back there. Ceasing to be an Invisible Lady, she mustbecome a visible force: there is no middle ground. There is no danger thatshe will not be anchored to the cradle, when cradle there is; but it willbe by an elastic cable, that will leave her as free to think and vote as topray. No woman is less a mother because she cares for all the concerns ofthe world into which her child is born. It was John Quincy Adams who said, defending the political petitions of the women of Plymouth, that "women arenot only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they dodepart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of theircountry, of humanity, and of their God. " SACRED OBSCURITY In the preface to that ill-named but delightful book, the "Remains of thelate Mrs. Richard Trench, " there is a singular remark by the editor, herson. He says that "the adage is certainly true in regard to the Britishmatron, _Bene vixit quae bene latuit, _" the meaning of this phrase being, "She has lived well who has kept herself well out of sight. " Applying thisto his beloved mother, he further expresses a regret at disturbing her"sacred obscurity. " Then he goes on to disturb it pretty effectually byprinting a thick octavo volume of her most private letters. It is a great source of strength and advantage to reformers, that there arealways men preserved to be living examples of this good old Orientaldoctrine of "sacred obscurity. " Just as Mr. Darwin needs for thedemonstration of his theory that the lower orders of creation should stillbe present in visible form for purposes of comparison, so every reformerneeds to fortify his position by showing examples of the original attitudefrom which society has been gradually emerging. If there had been noOriental seclusion, many things in the present position of woman would beinexplicable. But when we point to that; when we show that even in the moreenlightened Eastern countries it is still held indecorous to allude to thefeminine members of a man's family; when we see among the Christian nationsof Southern Europe many lingering traits of this same habit of seclusion;and when we find an archdeacon of the English Church still clinging to thetheory, even while exhibiting his mother's family letters to the wholeworld, --we more easily understand the course of development. These reassertions of the Oriental theory are simply reversions, as anaturalist would say, to the original type. They are instances of"atavism, " like the occasional appearance of six fingers on one hand in afamily where the great-great-grandfather happened to possess thatornament. Such instances can always be found, when one takes the pains tolook for them. Thus a critic, discussing in the "Atlantic Monthly" Mr. Mahaffy's book on "Social Life in Greece, " is surprised that this writershould quote, in proof of the degradation of woman in Athens, the remarkattributed to Pericles, "That woman is best who is least spoken of amongmen, whether for good or for evil. " "In our opinion, " adds the reviewer, "that remark was wise then, and is wise now. " The Oriental theory is notthen, it seems, extinct; and we are spared the pains of proving that itever existed. If this theory be true, how falsely has the admiration of mankind beengiven! If the most obscure woman is best, the most conspicuous mustundoubtedly be worst. Tried by this standard, how unworthy must havebeen Elizabeth Barrett Browning, how reprehensible must be Dorothea Dix, what a model of all that is discreditable is Rosa Bonheur, what acrowning instance of human depravity is Florence Nightingale! Yet howconsoling the thought, that, while these disreputable persons were thuswasting their substance in the riotous performance of what the worldweakly styled good deeds, there were always women who saw the folly ofsuch efforts; women who by steady devotion to eating, drinking, andsleeping continued to keep themselves in sacred obscurity, and to provethemselves the ornaments of their sex, inasmuch as no human being everhad occasion to mention their names! But alas for human inconsistency! As for this inverse-ratio theory, --thistheory of virtue so exalted that it has never been known or felt ormentioned among men, --it is to be observed that those who hold it are thefirst to desert it when stirred by an immediate occasion. Just as aslaveholder, in the old times, after demonstrating to you that freedom wasa curse to the negro, would instantly turn round, and inflict this greatestof all curses on some slave who had saved his life; so, I fear, would oneof these philosophers, if he were profoundly impressed with any greataction done by a woman, give the lie to all his theories, and celebrate herfame. In spite of all his fine principles, if he happened to be rescuedfrom drowning by Grace Darling, he would put her name in the newspaper; ifhe were tended in hospital by Clara Barton, he would sound her praise; andif his mother wrote as good letters as did Mrs. Trench, he would probablyprint them to the extent of five hundred pages, as the archdeacon did, andall his gospel of silence would exhale itself in a single sigh of regret inthe preface. VIRTUES IN COMMON A young friend of mine, who was educated at one of the very best schoolsfor girls in New York city, told me that one day her teacher requested theolder girls to write out a list of virtues suitable to manly character, which they did. A month or more later, when this occurrence was wellforgotten, the same teacher bade them write out a list of womanly virtues, she making no reference to the other list. Then she made each girl compareher lists; and they all found with surprise that there was no substantialdifference between them. The only variation, in most cases, was, that theyhad put in a rather vague special virtue of "manliness" in the one case, and "womanliness" in the other; a sort of miscellaneous department or "odddrawer, " apparently, in which to group all traits not easily analyzed. The moral is that, as tested by the common sense of these young people, duty is duty, and the difference between ethics for men and ethics forwomen lies simply in practical applications, not in principles. Who can deny that the philosopher Antisthenes was right when he said, "Thevirtues of the man and the woman are the same"? Not the Christian, certainly; for he accepts as his highest standard the being who in allhistory best united the highest qualities of both sexes. Not themetaphysician; for his analysis deals with the human mind as such, not withthe mind of either sex. Not the evolutionist; for he is accustomed to traceback qualities to their source, and cannot deny that there is in each sexat least a "survival" of every good and every bad trait. We may say thatthese qualities are, or may be, or ought to be, distributed unequallybetween the sexes; but we cannot reasonably deny that each sex possesses ashare of every quality, and that what is good in one sex is also good inthe other. Man may be the braver, and yet courage in a woman may be noblerthan cowardice. Woman may be the purer, and yet purity may be noble in aman. So clear is this, that some of the very coarsest writers in all literature, and those who have been severest upon women, have yet been obliged toacknowledge it. Take, for instance, Dean Swift, who writes:-- "I am ignorant of any one quality that is amiable in a woman, which is not equally so in a man. I do not except even modesty and gentleness of nature; nor do I know one vice or folly which is not equally detestable in both. " Mrs. Jameson, in her delightful "Commonplace Book, " illustrates thisadmirably by one or two test cases. She takes, for instance, from one ofHumboldt's letters a much-admired passage on manly character:-- "Masculine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first requisite for the formation of a character of real manly worth. The man who allows himself to be deceived and carried away by his own weakness may be a very amiable person in other respects, but cannot be called a good man: such beings should not find favor in the eyes of a woman, for a truly beautiful and purely feminine nature should be attracted only by what is highest and noblest in the character of man. " "Take now this same bit of moral philosophy, " she says, "and apply it tothe feminine character, and it reads quite as well:-- "'Feminine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first requisite for the formation of a character of real feminine worth. The woman who allows herself to be deceived and carried away by her own weakness may be a very amiable person in other respects, but cannot be called a good woman; such beings should not find favor in the eyes of a man, for a truly beautiful and purely manly nature should be attracted only by what is highest and noblest in the character of woman. '" I have never been able to perceive that there was a quality or grace ofcharacter which really belonged exclusively to either sex, or which failedto win honor when wisely exercised by either. It is not thought necessaryto have separate editions of books on ethical science, the one for man, theother for woman, like almanacs calculated for different latitudes. Thebooks that vary are not the scientific works, but little manuals ofpractical application, --"Duties of Men, " "Duties of Women. " These vary withtimes and places: where women do not know how to read, no advice on readingwill be found in the women's manuals; where it is held wrong for women touncover the face, it will be laid down in these manuals as a sin. Butethics are ethics: the great principles of morals, as proclaimed either byscience or by religion, do not fluctuate for sex; their basis is in thevery foundations of right itself. This grows clearer when we remember that it is equally true in mentalscience. There is not one logic for men, and another for women; a separatesyllogism, a separate induction: the moment we begin to state intellectualprinciples, that moment we go beyond sex. We deal then with absolute truth. If an observation is wrong, if a process of reasoning is bad, it makesno difference who brings it forward. Any list of mental processes, anyinventory of the contents of the mind, would be identical, so far as sexgoes, whether compiled by a woman or a man. These things, like thecirculation of the blood or the digestion of food, belong clearly to theground held in common. The London "Spectator" well said some time since, -- "After all, knowledge is knowledge; and there is no more a specifically feminine way of describing correctly the origin of the Lollard movement, or the character of Spenser's poetry, than there is a specifically feminine way of solving a quadratic equation, or of proving the forty-seventh problem of Euclid's first book. " All we can say in modification of this is, that there is, after all, afoundation for the rather vague item of "manliness" and "womanliness" inthese schoolgirl lists of duties. There is a difference, after all is saidand done; but it is something that eludes analysis, like the differingperfume of two flowers of the same genus and even of the same species. Themethod of thought must be essentially the same in both sexes; and yet anaverage woman will put more flavor of something we call instinct into hermental action, and the average man something more of what we call logicinto his. Whipple tells us that not a man guessed the plot of Dickens's"Great Expectations, " while many women did; and this certainly indicatessome average difference of quality or method. So the average opinions of ahundred women, on some question of ethics, might very probably differ fromthe average of a hundred men, while it yet remains true that "the virtuesof the man and the woman are the same. " INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Blackburn, in his entertaining book, "Artists and Arabs, " draws a contrastbetween Frith's painting of the "Derby Day" and Rosa Bonheur's "HorseFair, "--"the former pleasing the eye by its cleverness and prettiness, thelatter impressing the spectator by its power and its truthful rendering ofanimal life. The difference between the two painters is probably more oneof education than of natural gifts. But whilst the style of the former isgrafted on a fashion, the latter is founded on a rock, --the result of aclose study of nature, chastened by classic feeling and a remembrance, itmay be, of the friezes of the Parthenon. " Now it is to be observed that this description runs precisely counter tothe popular impression as to the work of the two sexes. Novelists likeCharles Reade, for instance, who have apparently seen precisely one womanin their lives, and hardly more than one man, and who keep on sketchingthese two figures most felicitously and brilliantly thenceforward, would beapt to assign these qualities of the artist very differently. Their typicalman would do the truthful and powerful work, and everybody would say, "Howmanly!" Their woman would please by cleverness and prettiness, andeverybody would say, "How womanly!" Yet Blackburn shows us that thesequalities are individual, not sexual; that they result from temperament, or, he thinks, still more from training. If Rosa Bonheur does better workthan Frith, it is not because she is a woman, nor is it in spite of that;but because, setting sex aside, she is a better artist. This is not denying the distinctions of sex, but only asserting that theyare not so exclusive and all-absorbing as is supposed. It is easy to nameother grounds of difference which entirely ignore those of sex, strikingdirectly across them, and rendering a different classification necessary. It is thus with distinctions of race or color, for instance. An Indian manand woman are at many points more like to each other than is either to awhite person of the same sex. A black-haired man and woman, or afair-haired man and woman, are to be classified together in thesephysiological aspects. So of differences of genius: a man and woman ofmusical temperament and training have more in common than has either witha person who is of the same sex, but who cannot tell one note from another. So two persons of ardent or imaginative temperament are thus far alike, though the gulf of sex divides them; and so are two persons of cold orprosaic temperament. In a mixed school the teacher cannot class togetherintellectually the boys as such, and the girls as such: bright boys takehold of a lesson very much as bright girls do, and slow girls as slow boys. Nature is too rich, too full, too varied, to be content with a single basisof classification: she has a hundred systems of grouping, according to sex, age, race, temperament, training, and so on; and we get but a narrow viewof life when we limit our theories to one set of distinctions. As a matter of social philosophy, this train of thought logically leads tocoeducation, impartial suffrage, and free cooperation in all the affairs oflife. As a matter of individual duty, it teaches the old moral to "act wellyour part. " No wise person will ever trouble himself or herself much aboutthe limitations of sex in intellectual labor. Rosa Bonheur was not tryingto work like a woman, or like a man, or unlike either, but to do her workthoroughly and well. He or she who works in this spirit works nobly, and gives an example which will pass beyond the bounds of sex, and helpall. The Abbé Liszt, the most gifted of modern pianists, told a friend ofmine, his pupil, that he had learned more of music from hearing MadameMalibran sing, than from anything else whatever. ANGELIC SUPERIORITY It is better not to base any plea for woman on the ground of her angelicsuperiority. The argument proves too much. If she is already so perfect, there is every inducement to let well alone. It suggests the expediency ofconforming man's condition to hers, instead of conforming hers to man's. Ifshe is a winged creature, and man can only crawl, it is his condition thatneeds mending. Besides, one may well be a little incredulous of these vast claims. Granting some average advantage to woman, it is not of such completeness asto base much argument upon it. The minister, looking on his congregation, rarely sees an unmixed angel, either at the head or at the foot of any pew. The domestic servant rarely has the felicity of waiting on an absolutesaint at either end of the dinner-table. The lady's-maid has to compare herlittle observations of human infirmity with those of the valet de chambre. The lover worships the beloved, whether man or woman; but marriage bearsrather hard on the ideal in either case; and those who pray out of the samebook, "Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners, " are not supposed to beoffering up petitions for each other only. We all know many women whose lives are made wretched by the sins andfollies of their husbands. There are also many men whose lives are turnedto long wretchedness by the selfishness, the worldliness, or the bad temperof their wives. Domestic tyranny belongs to neither sex by monopoly. If mantortures or depresses woman, she also has a fearful power to corrupt anddeprave man. On the other hand, to quote old Antisthenes once more, "thevirtues of the man and woman are the same. " A refined man is more refinedthan a coarse woman. A child-loving man is infinitely tenderer and sweetertoward children than a hard and unsympathetic woman. The very qualitiesthat are claimed as distinctively feminine are possessed more abundantly bymany men than by many of what is called the softer sex. Why is it necessary to say all this? Because there is always danger that wewho believe in the equality of the sexes should be led intoover-statements, which will react against ourselves. It is not safe to saythat the ballot-box would be reformed if intrusted to feminine votesalone. Had the voters of the South been all women, it would have plungedearlier into the gulf of secession, dived deeper, and come up even morereluctantly. Were the women of Spain to rule its destinies unchecked, thePope would be its master, and the Inquisition might be reëstablished. Forall that we can see, the rule of women alone would be as bad as the rule ofmen alone. It would be as unsafe to give women the absolute control of manas to make man the master of woman. Let us be a shade more cautious in our reasonings. Woman needs equalrights, not because she is man's better half, but because she is his otherhalf. She needs them, not as an angel, but as a fraction of humanity. Herpolitical education will not merely help man, but it will help herself. Shewill sometimes be right in her opinions, and sometimes be altogether wrong;but she will learn, as man learns, by her own blunders. The demand in herbehalf is that she shall have the opportunity to make mistakes, since it isby that means she must become wise. In all our towns there is a tendency toward "mixed schools. " We rarely hearof the sexes being separated in a school after being once united; but weconstantly hear of their being brought together after separation. Thisunion is commonly, but mistakenly, recommended as an advantage to the boysalone. I once heard an accomplished teacher remonstrate against thischange, when thus urged. "Why should my girls be sacrificed, " she said, "to improve your boys?" Six months after, she had learned by experience. "Why, " she asked, "did you rest the argument on so narrow a ground? Sincemy school consisted half of boys, I find with surprise that the changehas improved both sexes. My girls are more ambitious, more obedient, andmore ladylike. I shall never distrust the policy of mixed schools again. " What is true of the school is true of the family and of the state. It isnot good for man, or for woman, to be alone. Granting the woman to be, onthe whole, the more spiritually minded, it is still true that each sexneeds the other. When the rivet falls from a pair of scissors, we do nothave than mended because either half can claim angelic superiority overthe other half, but because it takes two halves to make a whole. VICARIOUS HONORS There is a story in circulation--possibly without authority--to the effectthat a certain young lady has ascended so many Alps that she would havebeen chosen a member of the English Alpine Club but for her misfortune inrespect to sex. As a matter of personal recognition, however, and, as itwere, of approximate courtesy, her dog, who has accompanied her in all hertrips, and is not debased by sex, has been elected into the club. She hastherefore an opportunity for exercising in behalf of her dog that beautifulself-abnegation which is said to be a part of woman's nature, impelling heralways to prefer that her laurels should be worn by somebody else. The dog probably made no objection to these vicarious honors; nor is anyobjection made by the young gentlemen who reply eloquently to the toast, "The Ladies, " at public dinners, or who kindly consent to be educated atmasculine colleges on "scholarships" perhaps founded by women. Those whoreceive the emoluments of these funds must reflect within themselves, occasionally, how grand a thing is this power of substitution given towomen, and how pleasant are its occasional results to the substitute. It isdoubtless more blessed to give than to receive, but to receive withoutgiving has also its pleasures. Very likely the holder of the scholarship, and the orator who rises with his hand on his heart to "reply in behalf ofthe ladies, " may do their appointed work well; and so did the Alpine dog. Yet, after all, but for the work done by his mistress, the dog would havewon no more honor from the Alpine Club than if he had been a chamois. Nothing since Artemus Ward and his wife's relations has been finer than thegenerous way in which fathers and brothers disclaim all desire for profitsor honors on the part of their feminine relatives. In a certain system ofschools once known to me, the boys had prizes of money on certainoccasions, but the successful girls at those times received simply atestimonial of honor for each; "the committee being convinced, " it wassaid, "that this was more consonant with the true delicacy and generosityof woman's nature. " So in the new arrangements for opening the Universityof Copenhagen to young women, Karl Blind writes to the New York "EveningPost, " that it is expressly provided that they shall not "share in theacademic benefices and stipends which have been set apart for malestudents. " Half of these charities may, for aught that appears, have beenestablished originally by women, like the American scholarships alreadymentioned. Women, however, can avail themselves of them only by deputy, asthe Alp-climbing young lady is represented by her dog. It is all a beautiful tribute to the disinterestedness of woman. The onlypity is that this virtue, so much admired, should not be reciprocated byshowing the like disinterestedness toward her. It does not appear that thebutchers and bakers of Copenhagen propose to reduce in the case of womenstudents "the benefices and stipends" which are to be paid for daily food. Young ladies at the university are only prohibited from receiving money, not from needing it. Nor will any of the necessary fatigues of Alpineclimbing be relaxed for any young lady because she is a woman. The fatigueswill remain in full force, though the laurels be denied. Themountain-passes will make small account of the "tenderness and delicacy ofher sex. " When the toil is over she will be regarded as too delicate to bethanked for it; but, by way of compensation, the Alpine Club will allow herto be represented by her dog. THE GOSPEL OF HUMILIATION "The silliest man who ever lived, " wrote Fanny Fern once, "has always knownenough, when he says his prayers, to thank God he was not born a woman. "President ---- of ---- College is not a silly man at all, and he isdevoting his life to the education of women; yet he seems to feel asvividly conscious of his superior position as even Fanny Fern could wish. If he had been born a Jew, he would have thanked God, in the appointedritual, for not having made him a woman. If he had been a Mohammedan, hewould have accepted the rule which forbids "a fool, a madman, or a woman"to summon the faithful to prayer. Being a Christian clergyman, with severalhundred immortal souls, clothed in female bodies, under his charge, hethinks it his duty, at proper intervals, to notify his young ladies, that, though they may share with men the glory of being sophomores, they stillare in a position, as regards the other sex, of hopeless subordination. This is the climax of his discourse, which in its earlier portions containsmany good and truthful things:-- "And, as the woman is different from the man, so is she relative to him. This is true on the other side also. They are bound together by mutual relationship so intimate and vital that the existence of neither is absolutely complete except with reference to the other. But there is this difference, that the relation of woman is, characteristically, that of subordination and dependence. This does not imply inferiority of character, of capacity, of value, in the sight of God or man; and it has been the glory of woman to have accepted the position of formal inferiority assigned her by the Creator, with all its responsibilities, its trials, its possible outward humiliations and sufferings, in the proud consciousness that it is not incompatible with an essential superiority; that it does not prevent her from occupying, if she will, an inward elevation of character, from which she may look down with pitying and helpful love on him she calls her lord. Jesus said, 'Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. ' Surely woman need not hesitate to estimate her status by a criterion of dignity sustained by such authority. She need not shrink from a position which was sought by the Son of God, and in whose trials and griefs she will have his sympathy and companionship. " There is a comforting aspect to this discourse, after all. It holds out thehope, that a particularly noble woman may not be personally inferior to aremarkably bad husband, but "may look down with pitying and helpful love onhim she calls her lord. " The drawback is not only that it insults woman bya reassertion of a merely historical inferiority, which is steadilydiminishing, but that it fortifies this by precisely the same talk aboutthe dignity of subordination which has been used to buttress everyoppression since the world began. Never yet was there a pious slaveholderwho did not quote to his slaves, on Sunday, precisely the same texts withwhich President ---- favors his meek young pupils. Never yet was there aslaveholder who would not shoot through the head anybody who should attemptto place him in that beautiful position of subjection whose spiritualmerits he had just been proclaiming. When it came to that, he was likeThoreau, who believed resignation to be a virtue, but preferred "not topractice it unless it was quite necessary. " Thus, when the Rev. Charles C. Jones of Savannah used to address the slaveson their condition, he proclaimed the beauty of obedience in a way to bringtears to their eyes. And this, he frankly assures the masters, is the wayto check insurrection and advance their own "pecuniary interests. " He saysof the slave, that under proper religious instruction "his conscience isenlightened and his soul is awed;... To God he commits the ordering of hislot, and in his station renders to all their dues, obedience to whomobedience, and honor to whom honor. _He dares not wrest from God his owncare and protection. _ While he sees a preference in the various conditionsof men, he remembers the words of the apostle: 'Art thou called being aservant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be free, use it rather. For hethat is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman:likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. '"[1] I must say that the Rev. Mr. Jones's preaching seems to me precisely asgood as Dr. ------'s, and that a sensible woman ought to be as muchinfluenced by the one as was Frederick Douglass by the other--that is, notat all. Let the preacher try "subordination" himself, and see how he likesit. The beauty of service, such as Jesus praised, lay in the willingness ofthe service: a service that is serfdom loses all beauty, whether renderedby man or by woman. My objection to separate schools and colleges for womenis that they are too apt to end in such instructions as this. [Footnote 1: _Religious Instruction of the Negroes. _ Savannah, 1842, pp. 208-211. ] CELERY AND CHERUBS There was once a real or imaginary old lady who had got the metaphor ofScylla and Charybdis a little confused. Wishing to describe a perplexingsituation, this lady said, -- "You see, my dear, she was between Celery on one side and Cherubs on theother! You know about Celery and Cherubs, don't you? They was two rockssomewhere; and if you didn't hit one, you was pretty sure to run smack onthe other. " This describes, as a clever writer in the New York "Tribune" declares, thepresent condition of women who "agitate. " Their Celery and Cherubs aretears and temper. It is a good hit, and we may well make a note of it. Itis the danger of all reformers, that they will vibrate betweendiscouragement and anger. When things go wrong, what is it one's impulse todo? To be cast down, or to be stirred up; to wring one's hands, or clenchone's fists, --in short, tears or temper. "Mother, " said a resolute little girl of my acquaintance, "if the dinnerwas all spoiled, I wouldn't sit down, and cry! I'd say, 'Hang it!'" Thischerub preferred the alternative of temper, on days when the celery turnedout badly. Probably her mother was addicted to the other practice, andexhibited the tears. But as this alternative is found to exist for both sexes, and on alloccasions, why charge it especially on the woman-suffrage movement? Menare certainly as much given to ill temper as women; and, if they are lessinclined to tears, they make it up in sulks, which are just as bad. Nicholas Nickleby, when the pump was frozen, was advised by Mr. Squeers to"content himself with a' dry polish;" and so there is a kind of dry despairinto which men fall, which is quite as forlorn as any tears of women. Howmany a man has doubtless wished at such times that the pump of hislachrymal glands could only thaw out, and he could give his emotionssomething more than a "dry polish"! The unspeakable comfort some women feelin sitting for ten minutes with a handkerchief over their eyes! Thefreshness, the heartiness, the new life visible in them, when the crying isdone, and the handkerchief comes down again! And, indeed, this simple statement brings us to the real truth, whichshould have been more clearly seen by the writer who tells this story. Sheis wrong in saying, "It is urged that men and women stand on an equality, are exactly alike. " Many of us urge the "equality:" very few of us urge the"exactly alike. " An apple and an orange, a potato and a tomato, a rose anda lily, the Episcopal and the Presbyterian churches, Oxford and Cambridge, Yale and Harvard, --we may surely grant equality in each case, without beingso exceedingly foolish as to go on and say that they are exactly alike. And precisely here is the weak point of the whole case, as presented bythis writer. Women give way to tears more readily than men? Granted. Istheir sex any the weaker for it? Not a bit. It is simply a difference oftemperament: that is all. It involves no inferiority. If you think thatthis habit necessarily means weakness, wait and see! Who has not seen womenbreak down in tears during some domestic calamity, while the "stronger sex"were calm; and who has not seen those same women, that temporary excitementbeing over, rise up and dry their eyes, and be thenceforth the support andstay of their households, and perhaps bear up the "stronger sex" as astream bears up a ship? I said once to an experienced physician, watchingsuch a woman, "That woman is really great. "--"Of course she is, " heanswered; "did you ever see a woman who was not great, when the emergencyrequired?" Now, will women carry this same quality of temperament into their publiccareer? Doubtless: otherwise they would cease to be women. Will it bebetraying confidence if I own that I have seen two of the very bravestwomen of my acquaintance--women who have swayed great audiences--burst intotears, during a committee meeting, at a moment of unexpected adversity for"the cause"? How pitiable! our critical observers would have thought. Infive minutes that April shower had passed, and those women were as resoluteand unconquerable as Queen Elizabeth: they were again the natural leadersof those around them; and the cool and tearless men who sat beside themwere nothing--men were "a lost art, " as some one says--compared with theinexhaustible moral vitality of those two women. No: the dangers of "Celery and Cherubs" are exaggerated. For temper, womenare as good as men, and no better. As for tears, long may they flow! Theyare symbols of that mighty distinction of sex which is as ineffaceable andas essential as the difference between land and sea. THE NEED OF CAVALRY In the interesting Buddhist book, "The Wheel of the Law, " translated byHenry Alabaster, there is an account of a certain priest who used to blessa great king, saying, "May your majesty have the firmness of a crow, theaudacity of a woman, the endurance of a vulture, and the strength of anant. " The priest then told anecdotes illustrating all of these qualities. Who has not known occasions wherein some daring woman has been the Joan ofArc of a perfectly hopeless cause, taken it up where men shrank, carried itthrough where they had failed, and conquered by weapons which men wouldnever have thought of using, and would have lacked faith to employ even ifput into their hands? The wit, the resources, the audacity of women, havebeen the key to history and the staple of novels, ever since that largernovel called history began to be written. How is it done? Who knows the secret of their success? All that any man cansay is that the heart takes a large share in the magic. Rogers asserts inhis "Table-Talk, " that often, when doubting how to act in matters ofimportance, he had received more useful advice from women than from men. "Women have the understanding of the heart, " he said, "which is better thanthat of the head. " Then this instinct, that begins from the heart, reachesother hearts also, and through that controls the will. "Win hearts, " saidLord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you have hands and purses;" and thegreatest of English sovereigns, in spite of ugliness and rouge, in spite ofcoarseness and cruelty and bad passions, was adored by the nation that shefirst made great. It seems to me that women are a sort of cavalry force in the army ofmankind. They are not always to be relied upon for that steady "hammeringaway, " which was Grant's one method; but there is a certain Sheridanquality about them, light-armed, audacious, quick, irresistible. They gobefore the main army; their swift wits go scouting far in advance; they arethe first to scent danger, or to spy out chances of success. Their chargeis like that of a Tartar horde, or the wild sweep of the Apaches. They areupon you from some wholly unexpected quarter; and this respectable, systematic, well-drilled masculine force is caught and rolled over and overin the dust, before the man knows what has hit him. Even if repelled andbeaten off, this formidable cavalry is unconquered: routed and inconfusion to-day, it comes back upon you to-morrow--fresh, alert, withnew devices, bringing new dangers. In dealing with it, as the Frenchcomplained of the Arabs in Algiers, "Peace is not to be purchased byvictory. " And, even if all seems lost, with what a brilliant final chargeit will cover a retreat! Decidedly, we need cavalry. In older countries, where it has been a merelyundisciplined and irregular force, it has often done mischief; and publicmen, from Demosthenes down, have been lamenting that measures which thestatesman has meditated a whole year may be overturned in a day by a woman. Under our American government we have foolishly attempted to leave out thisarm of the service altogether; and much of the alleged dulness of ourAmerican history has come from this attempt. Those who have been trained inthe various reforms where woman has taken an equal part--the anti-slaveryreform especially--know well how much of the energy, the dash, the daring, of those movements have come from her. A revolution with a woman in it isstronger than the established order that omits her. It is not that she issuperior to man, but she is different from man; and we can no more spareher than we could spare the cavalry from an army. THE REASON FIRM, THE TEMPERATE WILL It is a part of the necessary theory of republican government, that everyclass and race shall be judged by its highest types, not its lowest. Theproposition of the French revolutionary statesman, to begin the work ofpurifying the world by arresting all the cowards and knaves, is liable tothe objection that it would find victims in every circle. Republicangovernment begins at the other end, and assumes that the communitygenerally has good intentions at least, and some common sense, howeverit may be with individuals. Take the very quality which the newspapers sooften deny to women, --the quality of steadiness. "In fact, men's greatobjection to the entrance of the female mind into politics is drawn from asuspicion of its unsteadiness on matters in which the feelings could byany possibility be enlisted. " Thus says the New York "Nation. " Let usconsider this implied charge against women, and consider it not bygeneralizing from a single instance, --"just like a woman, " as the editorswould doubtless say, if a woman had done it, --but by observing wholeclasses of that sex, taken together. These classes need some care in selection, for the plain reason that thereare comparatively few circles in which women have yet been allowed enoughfreedom of scope, or have acted sufficiently on the same plane with men, tofurnish a fair estimate of their probable action, were they enfranchised. Still there occur to me three such classes, --the anti-slavery women, theQuaker women, and the women who conduct philanthropic operations in ourlarge cities. If the alleged unsteadiness of women is to be felt in publicaffairs, it would have been felt in these organizations. Has it been sofelt? Of the anti-slavery movement I can personally testify--and I have heard thesame point fully recognized among my elders, such as Garrison, Phillips, and Quincy--that the women contributed their full share, if not more thantheir share, to the steadiness of that movement, even in times when thefeelings were most excited, as, for instance, in fugitive-slave cases. Whothat has seen mobs practically put down, and mayors cowed into decency, bythe silent dignity of those rows of women who sat, with their knitting, more imperturbable than the men, can read without a smile these doubts ofthe "steadiness" of that sex? Again, among Quaker women, I have asked theopinion of prominent Friends, as of John G. Whittier, whether it has beenthe experience of that body that women were more flighty and unsteadythan men in their official action; and have been uniformly answered in thenegative. And finally, as to benevolent organizations, a good test is givenin the fact, --first pointed out, I believe, by that eminently practicalphilanthropist, Rev. Augustus Woodbury of Providence, --that the wholetendency has been, during the last twenty years, to put the management, even the financial control, of our benevolent societies, more and more intothe hands of women, and that there has never been the slightest reason toreverse this policy. Ask the secretaries of the various boards of StateCharities, or the officers of the Social Science Associations, if they havefound reason to complain of the want of steadfast qualities in the "weakersex. " Why is it that the legislation of Massachusetts has assigned theclass requiring the steadiest of all supervision--the imprisonedconvicts--to "five commissioners of prisons, two of whom shall be women"?These are the points which it would be worthy of our journals to consider, instead of hastily generalizing from single instances. Let us appeal fromthe typical woman of the editorial picture, --fickle, unsteady, foolish, --to the nobler conception of womanhood which the poet Wordsworthfound fulfilled in his own household:-- "A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveller betwixt life and death; _The reason firm, the temperate will; Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;_ A perfect woman, nobly planned To warn, to comfort, to command, And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of an angel light. " ALLURES TO BRIGHTER WORLDS, AND LEADS THE WAY When a certain legislature had "School Suffrage" under consideration, theother day, the suggestion was made by one of the pithiest and quaintest ofthe speakers, that men were always better for the society of women, andtherefore ought to vote in their company. "If all of us, " he said, "wouldstay away from all places where we cannot take our wives and daughters withus, we should keep better company than we now do. " This expresses a feelingwhich grows more and more common among the better class of men, and whichis the key to much progress in the condition of women. There can be nodoubt that the increased association of the sexes in society, in school, inliterature, tends to purify these several spheres of action. Yet, when wecome to philosophize on this, there occur some perplexities on the way. For instance, the exclusion of woman from all these spheres was in ancientGreece almost complete; yet the leading Greek poets, as Homer and thetragedians, are exceedingly chaste in tone, and in this respect beyond mostof the great poets of modern nations. Again, no European nation has quiteso far sequestered and subordinated women as has Spain; and yet the wholetone of Spanish literature is conspicuously grave and decorous. Thisplainly indicates that race has much to do with the matter, and that themere admission or exclusion of women is but one among several factors. Inshort, it is easy to make out a case by a rhetorical use of the facts onone side; but, if we look at all the facts, the matter presents greaterdifficulties. Again, it is to be noted that in several countries the first women who havetaken prominent part in literature have been as bad as the men; as, forinstance, Marguerite of Navarre and Mrs. Aphra Behn. This might indeed beexplained by supposing that they had to gain entrance into literature byaccepting the dissolute standards which they found prevailing. But it wouldprobably be more correct to say that these standards themselves werevariable, and that their variation affected, at certain periods, women aswell as men. Marguerite of Navarre wrote religious books as well as merrystories; and we know from Lockhart's Life of Scott, that ladies of highcharacter in Edinburgh used to read Mrs. Behn's tales and plays aloud, atone time, with delight, --although one of the same ladies found, in her oldage, that she could not read them to herself without blushing. Shakespeareputs coarse repartees into the mouths of women of stainless virtue. GeorgeSand is not considered an unexceptionable writer; but she tells us in herautobiography that she found among her grandmother's papers poems andsatires so indecent that she could not read them through, and yet they borethe names of _abbés_ and gentlemen whom she remembered in her childhood asmodels of dignity and honor. Voltaire inscribes to ladies of high rank, whodoubtless regarded it as a great compliment, verses such as not even a poetof the English "fleshly school" would now print at all. In "Poems byEminent Ladies, "--published in 1755 and reprinted in 1774, --there are oneor two poems as gross and disgusting as anything in Swift; yet theirauthors were thought reputable women. Allan Ramsay's "Tea-TableMiscellany"--a collection of English and Scottish songs--was firstpublished in 1724; and in his preface to the sixteenth edition the editorattributes its great success, especially among the ladies, to the fact thathe has carefully excluded all grossness, "that the modest voice and ear ofthe fair singer might meet with no affront;" and adds, "the chief bent ofall my studies being to attain their good graces. " There is no doubt of thegreat popularity enjoyed by the book in all circles; yet it contains a fewsongs which the most licentious newspaper would not now publish. Theinference is irresistible, from this and many other similar facts, that thewhole tone of manners and decency has very greatly improved among theEuropean races within a century and a half. I suspect the truth to be, that, besides the visible influence of race andreligion, there has been an insensible and almost unconscious improvementin each sex, with respect to these matters, as time has passed on; and thatthe mutual desire to please has enabled each sex to help the other, --thesex which is naturally the more refined taking the lead. But I should laymore stress on this mutual influence, and less on mere femininesuperiority, than would be laid by many. It is often claimed by teachersthat co-education helps not only boys, but also girls, to develop greaterpropriety of manners. When the sexes are wholly separate, or associate onterms of entire inequality, no such good influence occurs: the more equalthe association, the better for both parties. After all, the Divine modelis to be found in the family; and the best ingenuity cannot improve muchupon it. IV THE HOME "In respect to the powers and rights of married women, the law is by no means abreast of the spirit of the age. Here are seen the old fossil footprints of feudalism. The law relating to woman tends to make every family a barony or a monarchy or a despotism, of which the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the dependent, serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact, is not due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow limits of its rules. The progress of civilization has changed the family from a barony to a republic; but the law has not kept pace with the advance of ideas, manners, and customs. "--W. W. STORY'S Treatise on Contracts not under Seal, § 84, third edition, p. 89. WANTED--HOMES We see advertisements, occasionally, of "Homes for Aged Women, " and morerarely "Homes for Aged Men. " The question sometimes suggests itself, whether it would not be better to begin the provision earlier, and see thathomes are also provided, in some form, for the middle-aged and even theyoung. The trouble is, I suppose, that as it takes two to make a bargain, so it takes at least two to make a home; and unluckily it takes only one tospoil it. Madame Roland once defined marriage as an institution where one personundertakes to provide happiness for two; and many failures are accountedfor, no doubt, by this false basis. Sometimes it is the man, more often thewoman, of whom this extravagant demand is made. There are marriages whichhave proved a wreck almost wholly through the fault of the wife. Nor isthis confined to wedded homes alone. I have known a son who lived alone, patiently and uncomplainingly, with that saddest of all conceivablecompanions, a drunken mother. I have known another young man who supportedin his own home a mother and sister, both habitual drunkards. All thesewere American-born, and all of respectable social position. A houseshadowed by such misery is not a home, though it might have proved such butfor the sins of women. Such instances are, however, rare and occasionalcompared with the cases where the same offence in the husband makes ruin ofthe home. Then there are the cases where indolence, or selfishness, or vanity, or thelove of social excitement, in the woman, unfits her for home life. Here wecome upon ground where perhaps woman is the greater sinner. It must beremembered, however, that against this must be balanced the neglectproduced by club-life, or by the life of society-membership, in a man. Abrilliant young married belle in London once told me that she was glad herhusband was so fond of his club, for it amused him every night while shewent to balls. "Married men do not go much into society here, " she said, "unless they are regular flirts, --which I do not think my husband wouldever be, for he is very fond of me, --so he goes every night to his club, and gets home about the same time that I do. It is a very nicearrangement. " It is perhaps needless to add that they are long sincedivorced. It is common to denounce club-life in our large cities as destructive ofthe home. The modern club is simply a more refined substitute for theold-fashioned tavern, and is on the whole an advance in morals as well asmanners. In our large cities a man in a certain social coterie belongs to aclub, if he can afford it, as a means of contact with his fellows, and tohave various conveniences which he cannot so economically obtain at home. Afew haunt clubs constantly; the many use them occasionally. More absorbingthan these, perhaps, are the secret societies which have so revived amongus since the war, and which consume time so fearfully. There was a casementioned in the newspapers lately of a man who belonged to some twenty ofthese associations; and when he died, and each wished to conduct hisfuneral, great was the strife! In the small city where I write there areseventeen secret societies down in the directory, and I suppose as manymore not so conspicuous. I meet men who assure me that they habituallyattend a society meeting every evening of the week except Sunday, whenthey go to church meeting. These are rarely men of leisure; they areusually mechanics or business men of some kind, who are hard at work allday, and never see their families except at meal-times. Their case is farworse, so far as absence from home is concerned, than that of the"club-men" of large cities; for these are often men of leisure, who, ifmarried, at least make home one of their lounging-places, which suchsecret-society men do not. I honestly believe that this melancholy desertion of the home is largelydue to the traditional separation between the alleged spheres of the sexes. The theory still prevails largely, that home is the peculiar province ofthe woman, that she has almost no duties out of it; and hence, naturallyenough, that the husband has almost no duties in it. If he is amused there, let him stay there; but, as it is not his recognized sphere of duty, he isnot actually violating any duty by absenting himself. This theory evenpervades our manuals of morals, of metaphysics, and of popular science; andit is not every public teacher who has the manliness, having once statedit, to modify his statement, as did the venerable President Hopkins ofWilliams College, when lecturing the other day to the young ladies ofVassar. "I would, " he said, "at this point correct my teaching in 'The Law of Love'to the effect that home is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and civilgovernment that of man. _I now regard the home as the joint sphere of manand woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question asbetween the two. _ It is, however, to be lamented that the present agitationconcerning the rights of woman is so much a matter of 'rights' rather thanof 'duties, ' as the reform of the latter would involve the former. " If our instructors in moral philosophy will only base their theory ofethics as broadly as this, we shall no longer need to advertise "HomesWanted;" for the joint efforts of men and women will soon provide them. THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION Nothing throws more light on the whole history of woman than the firstillustration in Sir John Lubbock's "Origin of Civilization. " A young girl, almost naked, is being dragged furiously along the ground by a party ofnaked savages, armed literally to the teeth, while those of another bandgrasp her by the arm, and almost tear her asunder in the effort to hold herback. These last are her brothers and her friends; the others are--herenemies? As you please to call them. They are her future husband and hiskinsmen, who have come to aid him in his wooing. This was the primitive rite of marriage. Vestiges of it still remain amongsavage nations. And all the romance and grace of the most refined modernmarriage--the orange-blossoms, the bridal veil, the church service, thewedding feast--these are only the "bright consummate flower" reared bycivilization from that rough seed. All the brutal encounter is softenedinto this. Nothing remains of the barbarism except the one word "obey, " andeven that is going. Now, to say that a thing is going, is to say that it will presently begone. To say that anything is changed, is to say that it is to changefurther. If it never has been altered, perhaps it will not be; but a provedalteration of an inch in a year opens the way to an indefinitemodification. The study of the glaciers, for instance, began with thediscovery that they had moved; and from that moment no one doubted thatthey were moving all the time. It is the same with the position of woman. Once open your eyes to the factthat it has changed, and who is to predict where the matter shall end? Itis sheer folly to say, "Her relative position will always be what it hasbeen, " when one glance at Sir John Lubbock's picture shows that there is nofixed "has been, " but that her original position was long since altered andrevised. Those who still use this argument are like those who laughed atthe lines of stakes which Agassiz planted across the Aar glacier in 1840. But the stakes settled the question, and proved the motion. _Però simmuove_: "But it moves. " The motion once proved, the whole range of possible progress is before us. The amazement of that Chinese visitor in Boston, the other day, when he sawa woman addressing a missionary meeting; the astonishment of all Englishvisitors when young ladies teach classes in geometry and Latin, in our highschools; the surprise of foreigners at seeing the rough throng in theCooper Institute reading-room submit to the sway of one young woman with acrochet-needle--all these simply testify to the fact that the stakes havemoved. That they have yet been carried halfway to the end, who knows? What a step from the horrible nuptials of those savage days to the poeticmarriage of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett--the "Sonnets from thePortuguese" on one side, the "One Word More" on the other! But who can saythat the whole relation between man and woman reached its climax there, andthat where the past has brought changes so vast the future is to addnothing? Who knows that, when "the world's great bridals come, " people maynot look back with pity, even on this era of the Brownings? Perhaps evenElizabeth Barrett promised to obey! At any rate, it is safe to say that each step concedes the probability ofanother. Even from the naked barbarian to the veiled Oriental, from thesavage hut to the carefully enshrined harem, there is a step forward. Onemore step in the spiral line of progress has brought us to the unveiledface and comparatively free movements of the English or American woman. From the kitchen to the public lecture-room, from that to thelecture-platform, and from that again to the ballot-box, --these are farslighter steps than those which gradually lifted the savage girl of SirJohn Lubbock's picture into the possession of the alphabet and the dignityof a home. So easy are these future changes beside those of the past, thatto doubt their possibility is as if Agassiz, after tracing year by year themotion of his Alpine glacier, should deny its power to move one inchfarther into the sunny valley, and there to melt harmlessly away. THE LOW-WATER MARK We constantly see it assumed, in arguments against any step in theelevation of woman, that her position is a thing fixed permanently bynature, so that there can be in it no great or essential change. Everysuccessive modification is resisted as "a reform against nature;" and thisargument from permanence is always that which appears most convincing toconservative minds. Let us see how the facts confirm it. A story is going the rounds of the newspapers in regard to a Russianpeasant and his wife. For some act of disobedience the peasant took the lawinto his own hands; and his mode of discipline was to tie the poor creaturenaked to a post in the street, and to call on every passer-by to strike hera blow. Not satisfied with this, he placed her on the ground, and tiedheavy weights on her limbs until one arm was broken. When finally released, she made a complaint against him in court. The court discharged him on theground that he had not exceeded the legal authority of a husband. Encouraged by this, he caused her to be arrested in return; and the samecourt sentenced her to another public whipping for disobedience. No authority was given for this story in the newspaper where I saw it; butit certainly did not first appear in a woman-suffrage newspaper, andcannot therefore be a manufactured "outrage. " I use it simply to illustratethe low-water mark at which the position of woman may rest, in the largestChristian nation of the world. All the refinements, all the education, allthe comparative justice, of modern society, have been gradually upheavedfrom some such depth as this. When the gypsies described by Leland treateven the ground trodden upon by a woman as impure, they simply illustratethe low plane from which all the elevation of woman has begun. All thesethings show that the position of that sex in society, so far from being athing in itself permanent, has been in reality the most changing of allfactors in the social problem. And this inevitably suggests the question, Are we any more sure that her present position is finally and absolutelyfixed than were those who observed it at any previous time in the world'shistory? Granting that her condition was once at low-water mark, who isauthorized to say that it has yet reached high tide? It is very possible that this Russian wife, once scourged back tosubmission, ended her days in the conviction, and taught it to herdaughters, that such was a woman's rightful place. When an American womanof to-day says, "I have all the rights I want, " is she on any surer ground?Grant that the difference is vast between the two. How do we know that eventhe later condition is final, or that anything is final but entire equalitybefore the laws? It is not many years since William Story--in a legal workinspired and revised by his father, the greatest of American jurists--wrotethis indignant protest against the injustice of the old common law:-- "In respect to the powers and rights of married women, the law is by no means abreast of the spirit of the age. Here are seen the old fossil footprints of feudalism. The law relating to woman tends to make every family a barony or a monarchy, or a despotism, of which the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the dependent, serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact is not due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow limits of its rules. The progress of civilization has changed the family from a barony to a republic; but the law has not kept pace with the advance of ideas, manners, and customs. And, although public opinion is a check to legal rules on the subject, the rules are feudal and stern. Yet the position of woman throughout history serves as the criterion of the freedom of the people or an age. When man shall despise that right which is founded only on might, woman will be free and stand on an equal level with him, --a friend and not a dependent. "[1] We know that the law is greatly changed and ameliorated in many placessince Story wrote this statement; but we also know how almost every one ofthese changes was resisted: and who is authorized to say that the final andequitable fulfilment is yet reached? [Footnote 1: Story's _Treatise on the Law of Contracts not under Seal_, §84, p. 89. ] OBEY After witnessing the marriage ceremony of the Episcopal Church, the otherday, I walked down the aisle with the young rector who had officiated. Itwas natural to speak of the beauty of the Church service on an occasionlike that; but, after doing this, I felt compelled to protest against theunrighteous pledge to obey. "I hope, " I said, "to live to see that wordexpunged from the Episcopal service, as it has been from that of theMethodists. The Roman Catholics, you know, have never had it. " "Why do you object?" he asked. "Is it because you know that they will notobey?" "Because they ought not, " I said. "Well, " said he, after a few moments' reflection, and looking up frankly, "I do not think they ought!" Here was a young clergyman of great earnestness and self-devotion, whoincluded it among the sacred duties of his life to impose upon ignorantyoung girls a solemn obligation, which he yet thought they ought not toincur, and did not believe that they would keep. There could hardly be abetter illustration of the confusion in the public mind, or the manner inwhich "the subjection of woman" is being outgrown, or the subtile way inwhich this subjection has been interwoven with sacred ties, and baptized"duty. " The advocates of woman suffrage are constantly reproved for using the terms"subjection, " "oppression, " and "slavery, " as applied to woman. They simplycommit the same sin as that committed by the original abolitionists. Theyare "as harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice. " Of course they talkabout oppression and emancipation. It is the word _obey_ that constitutesthe one, and shows the need of the other. Whoever is pledged to obey istechnically and literally a slave, no matter how many roses surround thechains. All the more so if the slavery is self-imposed, and surrounded byall the prescriptions of religion. Make the marriage tie as close as churchor state can make it; but let it be equal, impartial. That it may be so, the word _obey_ must be abandoned or made reciprocal. Where invariableobedience is promised, equality is gone. That there may be no doubt about the meaning of this word in the marriagecovenant, the usages of nations often add symbolic explanations. These aregenerally simple, and brutal enough to be understood. The Hebrew ceremony, when the bridegroom took off his slipper and struck the bride on the neckas she crossed his threshold, was unmistakable. As my black sergeant said, when a white prisoner questioned his authority, and he pointed to the_chevrons_ on his sleeve, "Dat mean guv'ment. " All these forms mean simplygovernment also. The ceremony of the slipper has now no recognition, exceptwhen people fling an old shoe after the bride, which is held byantiquarians to be the same observance. But it is all preserved andconcentrated into a single word, when the bride promises to obey. The deepest wretchedness that has ever been put into human language, orthat has exceeded it, has grown out of that pledge. There is no misery onearth like that of a pure and refined woman who finds herself owned, bodyand soul, by a drunken, licentious, brutal man. The very fact that she isheld to obedience by a spiritual tie makes it worse. Chattel slavery wasnot so bad; for, though the master might pervert religion for his ownsatisfaction, he could not impose upon the slave. Never yet did I see anegro slave who thought it a duty to obey his master; and therefore therewas always some dream of release. But who has not heard of some delicateand refined woman, one day of whose torture was equivalent to years of thatpossible to an obtuse frame, --who had the door of escape ready at hand foryears, and yet died a lingering death rather than pass through it; and thisbecause she had promised to obey! It is said of one of the most gifted women who ever trod American soil, --she being of English birth, --that, before she obtained the divorce whichseparated her from her profligate husband, she once went for counsel to thewife of her pastor. She unrolled before her the long catalogue of mercilessoutrages to which she had been subject, endangering finally her health, herlife, and that of her children born and to be born. When she turned at lastfor advice to her confessor, with the agonized inquiry, "What is it my dutyto do?"--"Do?" said the stern adviser: "Lie down on the floor, and let yourhusband trample on you if he will. That is a woman's duty. " The woman who gave this advice was not naturally inhuman nor heartless: shehad simply been trained in the school of obedience. The Jesuit doctrine, that a priest should be as a corpse, _perinde ac cadaver_, in the hands ofa superior priest, is not worse. Woman has no right to delegate, nor man toassume, a responsibility so awful. Just in proportion as it is consistentlycarried out, it trains men from boyhood into self-indulgent tyrants; and, while some women are transformed by it to saints, others are crushed intodeceitful slaves. That this was the result of chattel slavery, this nationhas at length learned. We learn more slowly the profounder and more subtilemoral evil that follows from the unrighteous promise to obey. WOMAN IN THE CHRYSALIS When the bride receives the ring upon her finger, and utters--if she uttersit--the promise to obey, she sees a poetic beauty in the rite. Turning ofher own free will from her maiden liberty, she voluntarily takes the yokeof service upon her. This is her view; but is this the historic fact inregard to marriage? Not at all. The pledge of obedience--the whole theoryof inequality in marriage--is simply what is left to us of a former stateof society, in which every woman, old or young, must obey somebody. Thestate of tutelage, implied in such a marriage, is merely what is left ofthe old theory of the "Perpetual Tutelage of Women, " under the Roman law. Roman law, from which our civil law is derived, has its foundationevidently in patriarchal tradition. It recognized at first the family only, and that family was held together by paternal power _(patria potestas)_. Ifthe father died, his powers passed to the son or grandson, as the possiblehead of a new family; but these powers could never pass to a woman, andevery woman, of whatever age, must be under somebody's legal control. Herfather dying, she was still subject through life to her nearest malerelations, or to her father's nominees, as her guardians. She was underperpetual guardianship, both as to person and property. No years, noexperience, could make her anything but a child before the law. In Oriental countries the system was still more complete. "A man, " says theGentoo Code of Laws, "must keep his wife so much in subjection that she byno means be mistress of her own action. If the wife have her own free will, notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss. " Butthis authority, which still exists in India, is not merely conjugal. Thehusband exerts it simply as being the wife's legal guardian. If the womanbe unmarried or a widow, she must be as rigorously held under some otherguardianship. It is no uncommon thing for a woman in India to be the wardof her own son. Lucretia Mott or Florence Nightingale would there be inpersonal subjection to somebody. Any man of legal age would be recognizedas a fit custodian for them, but there must be a man. With some variation of details at different periods, the same systemprevailed essentially at Rome, down to the time when Rome became Christian. Those who wish for particulars will find them in an admirable chapter (thefifth) of Maine's "Ancient Law. " At one time the husband was held topossess the _patria potestas_, or paternal power, in its full force. By law"the woman passed _in manum viri_, that is, she became the daughter of herhusband. " All she had became his, and after his death she was retained inthe same strict tutelage by any guardians his will might appoint. Afterwards, to soften this rigid bond, the woman was regarded in law asbeing temporarily deposited by her family with her husband; the familyappointed guardians over her; and thus, between the two tyrannies, she wona sort of independence. Then came Christianity, and swept away the merelyparental authority for married women, concentrating all upon the husband. Hence our legislation bears the mark of a double origin, and woman is halfrecognized as an equal and half as a slave. It is necessary to remember, therefore, that all the relation of subjectionin marriage is merely the residue of an unnatural system, of which all elseis long since outgrown. It would have seemed to an ancient Roman a matterof course that a woman should, all her life long, obey the guardians setover her person. It still seems to many people a matter of course that sheshould obey her husband. To others among us, on the contrary, both thesetheories of obedience seem barbarous, and the one is merely a relic of theother. We cannot disregard the history of the Theory of Tutelage. If we couldbelieve that a chrysalis is always a chrysalis, and a butterfly always abutterfly, we could easily leave each to its appropriate sphere; but whenwe see the chrysalis open, and the butterfly come half out of it, we knowthat sooner or later it must spread wings, and fly. The theory of tutelageimplies the chrysalis. Woman is the butterfly. Sooner or later she will bewholly out. TWO AND TWO A young man of very good brains was telling me, the other day, his dreamsof his future wife. Rattling on, more in joke than in earnest, he said, "She must be perfectly ignorant, and a bigot: she must know nothing, andbelieve everything. I should wish to have her from the adjoining room callto me, 'My dear, what do two and two make?'" It did not seem to me that his demand would be so very hard to fill, sincebigotry and ignorance are to be had almost anywhere for the asking; and, asfor two and two, I should say that it had always been the habit of women toask that question of some man, and to rest easily satisfied with theanswer. They have generally called, as my friend wished, from some otherroom, saying, "My dear, what do two and two make?" and the husband orfather or brother has answered and said, "My dear, they make four for aman, and three for a woman. " At any given period in the history of woman, she has adopted man's whim asthe measure of her rights; has claimed nothing; has sweetly acceptedanything; the law of two-and-two itself should be at his discretion. At anygiven moment, so well was his interpretation received, that it stood forabsolute right. In Rome a woman, married or single, could not testify incourt; in the middle ages, and down to quite modern times, she could nothold real estate; thirty years ago she could not, in New England, obtain acollegiate education; even now she can only vote for school officers. The first principles of republican government are so rehearsed andre-rehearsed, that one would think they must become "as plain as that twoand two make four. " But we find throughout, that, as Emerson said ofanother class of reasoners, "Their two is not the real two; their fouris not the real four. " We find different numerals and diversearithmetical rules for the two sexes; as, in some Oriental countries, men and women speak different dialects of the same language. In novels the hero often begins by dreaming, like my friend, of an idealwife, who shall be ignorant of everything, and have only brains enough tobe bigoted. Instead of sighing, like Falstaff, "Oh for a fine young thief, of the age of two and twenty or thereabouts!" the hero sighs for a fineyoung idiot of similar age. When the hero is successful in his search andwooing, the novelist sometimes mercifully removes the young woman early, like David Copperfield's Dora, she bequeathing the bereaved husband, on herdeathbed, to a woman of sense. In real life these convenient interruptionsdo not commonly occur, and the foolish youth regrets through many yearsthat he did not select an Agnes instead. The acute observer Stendhal says, -- "In Paris, the highest praise for a marriageable girl is to say, 'She has great sweetness of character and the disposition of a lamb. ' Nothing produces more impression on fools who are looking out for wives. I think I see the interesting couple, two years after, breakfasting together on a dull day, with three tall lackeys waiting upon them!" And he adds, still speaking in the interest of men:-- "Most men have a period in their career when they might do something great, a period when nothing seems impossible. The ignorance of women spoils for the human race this magnificent opportunity: and love, at the utmost, in these days, only inspires a young man to learn to ride well, or to make a judicious selection of a tailor. "[1] Society, however, discovers by degrees that there are conveniences in everywoman's knowing the four rules of arithmetic for herself. Two and two cometo the same amount on a butcher's bill, whether the order be given by a manor a woman; and it is the same in all affairs or investments, financial ormoral. We shall one day learn that with laws, customs, and public affairsit is the same. Once get it rooted in a woman's mind, that for her, two andtwo make three only, and sooner or later the accounts of the whole humanrace fail to balance. [Footnote 1: _De L'Amour_, par de Stendhal (Henri Beyle). Paris, 1868[written in 1822], pp. 182, 198. ] A MODEL HOUSEHOLD There is an African bird called the hornbill, whose habits are in somerespects a model. The female builds her nest in a hollow tree, lays hereggs, and broods on them. So far, so good. Then the male feels that he mustalso contribute some service; so he walls up the hole closely, giving onlyroom for the point of the female's bill to protrude. Until the eggs arehatched, she is thenceforth confined to her nest, and is in the mean timefed assiduously by her mate, who devotes himself entirely to this object. Dr. Livingstone has seen these nests in Africa, Layard and others in Asia, and Wallace in Sumatra. Personally I have never seen a hornbill's nest. The nearest approach I evermade to it was when in Fayal I used to pass near a gloomy mansion, of whichthe front windows were walled up, and only one high window was visible inthe rear, beyond the reach of eyes from any neighboring house. In thischeerful abode, I was assured, a Portuguese lady had been for many yearsconfined by her jealous husband. It was long since any neighbor had caughta glimpse of her, but it was supposed that she was alive. There is noreason to doubt that her husband fed her well. It was simply a case ofhuman hornbill, with the imprisonment made perpetual. I have more than once asked lawyers whether, in communities where the oldcommon law prevailed, there was anything to prevent such an imprisonment ofa married woman; and they have always answered, "Nothing but publicopinion. " Where the husband has the legal custody of the wife's person, no_habeas corpus_ can avail against him. The hornbill household is based on astrict application of the old common law. A Hindoo household was a hornbillhousehold: "a woman, of whatsoever age, should never be mistress of her ownactions, " said the code of Menu. An Athenian household was a hornbill'snest, and great was the outcry when some Aspasia broke out of it. When theremonstrant petitions legislatures against the emancipation of woman, weseem to hear the twittering of the hornbill mother, imploring to be leftinside. Under some forms, the hornbill theory becomes respectable. There are manypeaceful families, innocent though torpid, where the only dream ofexistence is to have plenty of quiet, plenty of food, and plenty ofwell-fed children. For them this African household is a sufficient model. The wife is "a home body. " The husband is "a good provider. " These arehonest people, and have a right to speak. The hornbill theory is onlydishonest when it comes--as it often comes--from women who lead thelife, not of good stay-at-home fowls, but of paroquets andhummingbirds, --who sorrowfully bemoan the active habits of enlightenedwomen, while they themselves "Bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances and the public show. " It is from these women, in Washington, New York, and elsewhere, that theloudest appeal for the hornbill standard of domesticity proceeds. Put themto the test, and give them their chicken-salad and champagne through a holein the wall only, and see how they like it. But even the most honest and peaceful conservatives will one day admit thatthe hornbill is not the highest model. Plato thought that "the soul of ourgrandame might haply inhabit the body of a bird;" but Nature has kindlyprovided various types of bird-households to suit all varieties of taste. The bright orioles, filling the summer boughs with color and with song, areas truly domestic in the freedom of their airy nest as the poor hornbillswho ignorantly make home into a dungeon. And certainly each new generationof orioles, spreading free wings from that pendent cradle, affords ahappier illustration of judicious nurture than is to be found in theuncouth little offspring of the hornbills, which Wallace describes as "soflabby and semi-transparent as to resemble a bladder of jelly, furnishedwith head, legs, and rudimentary wings, but with not a sign of a feather, except a few lines of points indicating where they would come. " A SAFEGUARD FOR THE FAMILY Many German-Americans are warm friends of woman suffrage; but the editorsof "Puck, " it seems, are not. In a certain number of that comic journal, there was an unfavorable cartoon on this reform; and in a followingnumber, --the number, by the way, which contains that amusing illustrationof the vast seaside hotels of the future, with the cheering announcement, "Only one mile to the barber's shop, " and "Take the cars to thedining-room, "--a lady came to the rescue, and bravely defended womansuffrage. It seems that the original cartoon depicted in the corner apretty family scene, representing father, mother, and children seatedhappily together, with the melancholy motto, "Nevermore, nevermore!"And when the correspondent, Mrs. Blake, very naturally asks what thistouching picture has to do with woman suffrage, Puck says, "If thehusband in our 'pretty family scene' should propose to vote for thecandidate who was obnoxious to his wife, would this 'pretty familyscene' continue to be a domestic paradise, or would it remind thespectator of the region in which Dante spent his 'fortnight off'?" It is beautiful to see how much anxiety there is to preserve the family. Every step in the modification of the old common law, whereby the wife was, in Baron Alderson's phrase, "the servant of her husband, " was resisted astending to endanger the family. The proposal that the wife should controlher own earnings, so that her husband should not have the right to collectthem in order to pay his gambling debts, was declared by English advocates, in the celebrated case of the Hon. Mrs. Norton, the poetess, to imperil allthe future peace of British households. Even the liberal-minded "Punch, " about the time Girton College was foundedin England, expressed grave doubts whether the harmony of wedded unionswould not receive a blow, from the time when wives should be liable to knowmore Greek than their husbands. Yet the marriage relation has withstoodthese innovations. It has not been impaired, either by separate rights, private earnings, or independent Greek: can it be possible that a littlevoting will overthrow it? The very ground on which woman suffrage is opposed by its enemies mightassuage these fears. If, as we are told, women will not take the pains tovote except upon the strongest inducements, who has so good an opportunityas the husband to bring those inducements to bear? and, if so, what is theseparation? Or if, as we are told, women will merely reflect theirhusbands' political opinions, why should they dispute about them? The meresuggestion of a difference deep enough to quarrel for, implies a realdifference of convictions or interests, and indicates that there ought tobe an independent representation of each; unless we fall back, once forall, on the common-law tradition that man and wife are one, and that one isthe husband. Either the antagonisms which occur in politics arecomparatively superficial, in which case they would do no harm; or elsethey touch matters of real interest and principle, in which case everyhuman being has a right to independent expression, even at a good deal ofrisk. In either case, the objection falls to the ground. We have fortunately a means of testing, with some fairness of estimate, theprobable amount of this peril. It is generally admitted--and certainly noGerman-American will deny--that the most fruitful sources of hostility andwar in all times have been religious, not political. All merely politicalantagonism, certainly all which is possible in a republic, fades intoinsignificance before this more powerful dividing influence. Yet we leaveall this great explosive force in unimpeded operation, --at anymoment it may be set in action, in any one of those "pretty family scenes"which "Puck" depicts, --while we are solemnly warned against admitting thecomparatively mild peril of a political difference! It is like cautioning amanufacturer of dynamite against the danger of meddling with mereedge-tools. Even with all the intensity of feeling on religious matters, few families are seriously divided by them; and the influence of politicaldifferences would be still more insignificant. The simple fact is that there is no better basis for union than mutualrespect for each other's opinions; and this can never be obtainedwithout an intelligent independence, "I would rather have a thorn in myside than an echo, " said Emerson of friendship; and the same is true ofmarried life. It is the echoes, the nonentities, of whom men grow tired; itis the women with some flavor of individuality who keep the hearts of theirhusbands. This is only applying in a higher sense what Shakespeare'sCleopatra saw. When her handmaidens are questioning how to hold a lover, and one says, -- "Give way to him in all: cross him in nothing, "-- Cleopatra, from the depth of an unequalled experience, retorts, -- "Thou speakest like a fool: the way to lose him!" And what "the serpent of old Nile" said, the wives of the future, who areto be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, may well ponder. It takes twothings different to make a union; and part of that difference may as welllie in matters political as anywhere else. WOMEN AS ECONOMISTS An able lawyer of Boston, arguing the other day before a legislativecommittee in favor of giving to the city council a check upon theexpenditures of the school committee, gave as one reason that this bodywould probably include more women henceforward, and that women wereordinarily more lavish than men in their use of money. The truth of thisassumption was questioned at the time; and, the more I think of it, themore contrary it is to my whole experience. I should say that women, fromthe very habit of their lives, are led to be more particular about details, and more careful as to small economies. The very fact that they handle lessmoney tends to this. When they are told to spend money, as they often areby loving or ambitious husbands, they no doubt do it freely: they havenaturally more taste than men, and quite as much love of luxury. In someinstances in this country they spend money recklessly and wickedly, likethe heroines of French novels; but as, even in brilliant Paris, the womenof the middle classes are notoriously better managers than the men, so weoften see, in our scheming America, the same relative superiority. Oftenhave I heard young men say, "I never knew how to economize until after mymarriage;" and who has not seen multitudes of instances where womenaccustomed to luxury have accepted poverty without a murmur for the sake ofthose whom they loved? I remember a young girl, accustomed to the gayest society of New York, whoengaged herself to a young naval officer, against the advice of the friendsof both. One of her near relatives said to me, "Of all the young girls Ihave ever known, she is the least fitted for a poor man's wife. " Yet fromthe very moment of her marriage she brought their joint expenses within hisscanty pay, and even saved a little money from it. Everybody knows suchinstances. We hear men denounce the extravagance of women, while those verymen spend on wine and cigars, on clubs and horses, twice what their wivesspend on their toilet. If the wives are economical, the husbands perhapsurge them on to greater lavishness. "Why do you not dress like Mrs. So-and-so?"--"I can't afford it. "--"But _I_ can afford it;" and then, whenthe bills come in, the talk of extravagance recommences. At one time inNewport, that lady among the summer visitors who was reported to be Worth'sbest customer was also well known to be quite indifferent to society, andto go into it mainly to please her husband, whose social ambition wasnotorious. It has often happened to me to serve in organizations where both sexes wererepresented, and where expenditures were to be made for business orpleasure. In these I have found, as a rule, that the women were morecareful, or perhaps I should say more timid, than the men, less willing torisk anything: the bolder financial experiments came from the men, as onemight expect. In talking the other day with the secretary of an importanteducational enterprise, conducted by women, I was surprised to find that itwas cramped for money, though large subscriptions were said to have beenmade to it. On inquiry it appeared that these ladies, having pledgedthemselves for four years, had divided the amount received into four parts, and were resolutely limiting themselves, for the first year, to one quarterpart of what had been subscribed. No board of men would have done so. Anyboard of men would have allowed far more than a quarter of the sum for thefirst year's expenditures, justly reasoning that if the enterprise beganwell it would command public confidence, and bring in additionalsubscriptions as time went on. I would appeal to any one whose experiencehas been in joint associations of men and women, whether this is not a fairstatement of the difference between their ways of working. It does notprove that women are more honest than men, but that their education ortheir nature makes them more cautious in expenditure. The habits of society make the dress of a fashionable woman far moreexpensive than that of a man of fashion. Formerly it was not so; and, solong as it was not so, the extravagance of men in this respect quiteequalled that of women. It now takes other forms, but the habit is thesame. The waiters at any fashionable restaurant will tell you that what isa cheap dinner for a man would be a dear dinner for a woman. Yet after all, the test is not in any particular class of expenditures, but in thebusiness-like habit. Men are of course more business-like in largecombinations, for they are more used to them; but for the small details ofdaily economy women are more watchful. The cases where women ruin theirhusbands by extravagance are exceptional. As a rule, the men are thebread-winners; but the careful saving and managing and contriving comefrom the women. GREATER INCLUDES LESS I was once at a little musical party in New York, where severalaccomplished amateur singers were present, and with them the eminentprofessional, Miss Adelaide Phillipps. The amateurs were first called on. Each chose some difficult operatic passage, and sang her best. When it cameto the great opera-singer's turn, instead of exhibiting her ability toeclipse those rivals on her own ground, she simply seated herself at thepiano, and sang "Kathleen Mavourneen" with such thrilling sweetness thatthe young Irish girl who was setting the supper-table in the next roomforgot all her plates and teaspoons, threw herself into a chair, put herapron over her face, and sobbed as if her heart would break. All thetraining of Adelaide Phillipps--her magnificent voice, her stageexperience, her skill in effects, her power of expression--went into theperformance of that simple song. The greater included the less. And thusall the intellectual and practical training that any woman can have, allher public action and her active career, will make her, if she be a truewoman, more admirable as a wife, a mother, and a friend. The greaterincludes the less for her also. Of course this is a statement of general facts and tendencies. There mustbe among women, as among men, an endless variety of individualtemperaments. There will always be plenty whose career will illustrate theinfirmities of genius, and whom no training can convince that two and twomake four. But the general fact is sure. As no sensible man would seriouslyprefer for a wife a Hindoo or Tahitian woman rather than one bred inEngland or America, so every further advantage of education or opportunitywill only improve, not impair, the true womanly type. Lucy Stone once said, "Woman's nature was stamped and sealed by theAlmighty, and there is no danger of her unsexing herself while his eyewatches her. " Margaret Fuller said, "One hour of love will teach a womanmore of her true relations than all your philosophizing. " These were thetestimony of women who had studied Greek, and were only the more womanlyfor the study. They are worth the opinions of a million half-developedbeings like the Duchess de Fontanges, who was described as being "asbeautiful as an angel and as silly as a goose. " The greater includes theless. Your view from the mountain-side may be very pretty, but she who hastaken one step higher commands your view and her own also. It was no dreamyrecluse, but the accomplished and experienced Stendhal, who wrote, "Thejoys of the gay world do not count for much with happy women. "[1] If a highly educated man is incapable and unpractical, we do not say thathe is educated too well, but not well enough. He ought to know what heknows, and other things also. Never yet did I see a woman too well educatedto be a wife and a mother; but I know multitudes who deplore, or havereason to deplore, every day of their lives, the untrained and unfurnishedminds that are so ill-prepared for these sacred duties. Every step towardsequalizing the opportunities of men and women meets with resistance, ofcourse; but every step, as it is accomplished, leaves men still men, andwomen still women. And as we who heard Adelaide Phillipps felt that she hadnever had a better tribute to her musical genius than this young Irishgirl's tears, so the true woman will feel that all her college training forinstance, if she has it, may have been well invested, even for the sake ofthe baby on her knee. And it is to be remembered, after all, that eachhuman being lives to unfold his or her own powers, and do his or her ownduties first, and that neither woman nor man has the right to accept amerely secondary and subordinate life. A noble woman must be a noble humanbeing; and the most sacred special duties, as of wife or mother, are allincluded in this, as the greater includes the less. [Footnote 1: _De l'Amour_, par de Stendhal (Henri Beyle): "Les plaisirs dugrand monde n'en sont pas pour les femmes heureuses, " p. 189. ] A COPARTNERSHIP Marriage, considered merely in its financial and business relations, may beregarded as a permanent copartnership. Now, in an ordinary copartnership there is very often a complete divisionof labor among the partners. If they manufacture locomotive-engines, forinstance, one partner perhaps superintends the works, another attends tomechanical inventions and improvements, another travels for orders, anotherconducts the correspondence, another receives and pays out the money. Thelatter is not necessarily the head of the firm. Perhaps his place could bemore easily filled than some of the other posts. Nevertheless, more moneypasses through his hands than through those of all the others put together. Now, should he, at the year's end, call together the inventor and thesuperintendent and the traveller and the correspondent, and say to them, "I have earned all this money this year, but I will generously give yousome of it, "--he would be considered simply impertinent, and would hardlyhave a chance to repeat the offence the year after. Yet precisely what would be called folly in this business partnership isconstantly done by men in the copartnership of marriage, and is therecalled "common sense" and "social science" and "political economy. " For instance, a farmer works himself half to death in the hayfield, and hiswife meanwhile is working herself wholly to death in the dairy. Theneighbors come in to sympathize after her demise; and during the fewmonths' interval before his second marriage they say approvingly, "He wasalways a generous man to his folks! He was a good provider!" But where wasthe room for generosity, any more than the member of any other firm is tobe called generous, when he keeps the books, receipts the bills, anddivides the money? In case of the farming business, the share of the wife is so direct andunmistakable that it can hardly be evaded. If anything is earned by thefarm, she does her distinct and important share of the earning. But it isnot necessary that she should do even that, to make her, by all the rulesof justice, an equal partner, entitled to her full share of the financialproceeds. Let us suppose an ordinary case. Two young people are married, and beginlife together. Let us suppose them equally poor, equally capable, equallyconscientious, equally healthy. They have children. Those children must besupported by the earning of money abroad, by attendance and care at home. If it requires patience and labor to do the outside work, no less isrequired inside. The duties of the household are as hard as the duties ofthe shop or office. If the wife took her husband's work for a day, shewould probably be glad to return to her own. So would the husband if heundertook hers. Their duties are ordinarily as distinct and as equal asthose of two partners in any other copartnership. It so happens that theoutdoor partner has the handling of the money; but does that give him aright to claim it as his exclusive earnings? No more than in any otherbusiness operation. He earned the money for the children and the household. She disbursed itfor the children and the household. The very laws of nature, by giving herthe children to bear and rear, absolve her from the duty of their support, so long as he is alive who was left free by nature for that purpose. Hertask on the average is as hard as his: nay, a portion of it is soespecially hard that it is distinguished from all others by the name"labor. " If it does not earn money, it is because it is not to be measuredin money, while it exists, --nor to be replaced by money, if lost. If abusiness man loses his partner, he can obtain another: and a man, no doubt, may take a second wife; but he cannot procure for his children a secondmother. Indeed, it is a palpable insult to the whole relation of husbandand wife when one compares it, even in a financial light, to that ofbusiness partners. It is only because a constant effort is made to degradethe practical position of woman below even this standard of comparison, that it becomes her duty to claim for herself at least as much as this. There was a tradition in a town where I once lived, that a certain Quaker, who had married a fortune, was once heard to repel his wife, who had askedhim for money in a public place, with the response, "Rachel, where is thatninepence I gave thee yesterday?" When I read in "Scribner's Monthly" anarticle deriding the right to representation of the Massachusetts women whopay two millions of tax on one hundred and thirty-two million dollars ofproperty, --asserting that they produced nothing of it; that it was only"men who produced this wealth, and bestowed it upon these women;" that itwas "all drawn from land and sea by the hands of men whose largesstestifies alike of their love and their munificence, "--I must say that I amreminded of Rachel's ninepence. ONE RESPONSIBLE HEAD When we look through any business directory, there seem to be almost asmany copartnerships as single dealers; and three quarters of thesecopartnerships appear to consist of precisely two persons, no more, noless. These partners are, in the eye of the law, equal. It is not foundnecessary, under the law, to make a general provision that in each case onepartner should be supreme and the other subordinate. In many cases, by theterms of the copartnership there are limitations on one side and specialprivileges on the other, --marriage settlements, as it were; but the generallaw of copartnership is based on the presumption of equality. It would beconsidered infinitely absurd to require that, as the general rule, oneparty or the other should be in a state of _coverture_, during which thevery being and existence of the one should be suspended, or entirely mergedand incorporated into that of the other. And yet this requirement, which would be an admitted absurdity in the caseof two business partners, is precisely that which the English common lawstill lays down in case of husband and wife. The words which I employed todescribe it, in the preceding sentence, are the very phrases in whichBlackstone describes the legal position of women. And though the Englishcommon law has been, in this respect, greatly modified and superseded bystatute law; yet, when it comes to an argument on woman suffrage, it isconstantly this same tradition to which men and even women habituallyappeal, --the necessity of a single head to the domestic partnership, andthe necessity that the husband should be that head. This is especiallytrue of English men and women; but it is true of Americans as well. Nobody has stated it more tersely than Fitzjames Stephen, in his "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" (p. 216), when arguing against Mr. Mill's viewof the equality of the sexes. "Marriage is a contract, one of the principal objects in which is the government of a family. "This government must be vested, either by law or by contract, in the hands of one of the two married persons. " [Then follow some collateral points, not bearing on the present question. ] "Therefore if marriage is to be permanent, the government of the family must be put by law and by morals into the hands of the husband, for no one proposes to give it to the wife. " This argument he calls "as clear as that of a proposition in Euclid. " Hethinks that the business of life can be carried on by no other method. Howis it, then, that when we come to what is called technically and especiallythe "business" of every day, this whole fine-spun theory is disregarded, and men come together in partnership on the basis of equality? Nobody is farther than I from regarding marriage as a mere businesspartnership. But it is to be observed that the points wherein it differsfrom a merely mercantile connection are points that should make equalitymore easy, not more difficult. The tie between two ordinary businesspartners is merely one of interest: it is based on no sentiments, sealed byno solemn pledge, enriched by no home associations, cemented by no newgeneration of young life. If a relation like this is found to work well onterms of equality, --so well that a large part of the business of the worldis done by it, --is it not absurd to suppose that the same equal relationcannot exist in the married partnership of husband and wife? And if law, custom, society, all recognize this fact of equality in the one case, why, in the name of common-sense, should they not equally recognize it in theother? And, again, it may often be far easier to assign a sphere to each partnerin marriage than in business; and therefore the double headship of a familywill involve less need of collision. In nine cases out of ten, the externalsupport of the family will devolve upon the husband, unquestioned by thewife; and its internal economy upon the wife, unquestioned by the husband. No voluntary distribution of powers and duties between business partnerscan work so naturally, on the whole, as this simple and easy demarcation, with which the claim of suffrage makes no necessary interference. It mayrequire angry discussion to decide which of two business partners shallbuy, and which shall sell; which shall keep the books, and which do theactive work, and so on; but all this is usually settled in married life bythe natural order of things. Even in regard to the management of children, where collision is likely to come, if anywhere, it can commonly be settledby that happy formula of Jean Paul's, that the mother usually supplies thecommas and the semicolons in the child's book of life, and the father thecolons and periods. And as to matters in general, the simple and practicalrule, that each question that arises should be decided by that partner whohas personally most at stake in it, will, in ninety-nine times out of ahundred, carry the domestic partnership through without shipwreck. Thosewho cannot meet the hundredth case by mutual forbearance are in a conditionof shipwreck already. ASKING FOR MONEY One of the very best wives and mothers I have ever known once said to me, that, whenever her daughters should be married, she should stipulate intheir behalf with their husbands for a regular sum of money to be paidthem, at certain intervals, for their personal expenditures. Whether thissum was to be larger or smaller, was a matter of secondary importance, --that must depend on the income, and the style of living; but the essentialthing was, that it should come to the wife regularly, so that she should nomore have to make a special request for it than her husband would have toask her for a dinner. This lady's own husband was, as I happened to know, of a most generous disposition, was devotedly attached to her, and deniedher nothing. She herself was a most accurate and careful manager. There waseverything in the household to make the financial arrangements flowsmoothly. Yet she said to me, "I suppose no man can possibly understand howa sensitive woman shrinks from _asking_ for money. If I can prevent it, mydaughters shall never have to ask for it. If they do their duty as wivesand mothers they have a right to their share of the joint income, withinreasonable limits; for certainly no money could buy the services theyrender. Moreover, they have a right to a share in determining what thosereasonable limits are. " Now, it so happened that I had myself gone through an experience whichenabled me perfectly to comprehend this feeling. In early life I was for atime in the employ of one of my relatives, who paid me a fair salary but atno definite periods: I was at liberty to ask him for money up to a certainamount whenever I needed it. This seemed to me, in advance, a mostagreeable arrangement; but I found it quite otherwise. It proved to be verydisagreeable to apply for money: it made every dollar seem a special favor;it brought up all kinds of misgivings, as to whether he could spare itwithout inconvenience, whether he really thought my services worth it, andso on. My employer was a thoroughly upright and noble man, and I was muchattached to him. I do not know that he ever refused or demurred when I mademy request. The annoyance was simply in the process of asking; and thisbecame so great, that I often underwent serious inconvenience rather thando it. Finally, at the year's end, I surprised my relative very much bysaying that I would accept, if necessary, a lower salary, on condition thatit should be paid on regular days, and as a matter of business. The wishwas at once granted, without the reduction; and he probably never knew whata relief it was to me. Now, if a young man is liable to feel this pride and reluctance toward anemployer, even when a kinsman, it is easy to understand how many women mayfeel the same, even in regard to a husband. And I fancy that those who feelit most are often the most conscientious and high-minded women. It isunreasonable to say of such persons, "Too sensitive! Too fastidious!" Forit is just this quality of finer sensitiveness which men affect to prize ina woman, and wish to protect at all hazards. The very fact that a husbandis generous; the very fact that his income is limited, --these may bring inconscience and gratitude to increase the restraining influence of pride, and make the wife less willing to ask money of such a husband than if hewere a rich man or a mean one. The only dignified position in which a mancan place his wife is to treat her at least as well as he would treat ahousekeeper, and give her the comfort of a perfectly clear and definitearrangement as to money matters. She will not then be under the necessityof nerving herself to solicit from him as a favor what she really needs andhas a right to spend. Nor will she be torturing herself, on the other side, with the secret fear lest she has asked too much and more thanthey can really spare. She will, in short, be in the position of a womanand a wife, not of a child or a toy. I have carefully avoided using the word "allowance" in what has been said, because that word seems to imply the untrue and mean assumption that themoney is all the husband's to give or withhold as he will. Yet I have heardthis sort of phrase from men who were living on a wife's property or awife's earnings; from men who nominally kept boarding-houses, working alittle, while their wives worked hard, --or from farmers, who worked hard, and made their wives work harder. Even in cases where the wife has nodirect part in the money-making, the indirect part she performs, if shetakes faithful charge of her household, is so essential, so beyond allcompensation in money, that it is an utter shame and impertinence in thehusband when he speaks of "giving" money to his wife as if it were an actof favor. It is no more an act of favor than when the business manager of afirm pays out money to the unseen partner who directs the indoor businessor runs the machinery. Be the joint income more or less, the wife has aclaim to her honorable share, and that as a matter of right, without thedaily ignominy of sending in a petition for it. WOMANHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD I always groan in spirit when any advocate of woman suffrage, carried awayby zeal, says anything disrespectful about the nursery. It is contrary tothe general tone of feeling among reformers, I am sure, to speak of thispriceless institution as a trivial or degrading sphere, unworthy theemancipated woman. It is rarely that anybody speaks in this way; but asingle such utterance hinders progress more than any arguments of theenemy. For every thoughtful person sees that the cares of motherhood, though not the whole duty of woman, are an essential part of that duty, wherever they occur; and that no theory of womanly life is good foranything which undertakes to leave out the cradle. Even her schooleducation is based on this fact, were it only on Stendhal's theory that thesons of a woman who reads Gibbon and Schiller will be more likely to showtalent than those of one who only tells her beads and reads Mme. De Genlis. And so clearly is this understood among us, that, when we ask for suffragefor woman, it is almost always claimed that she needs it for the sake ofher children. To secure her in her right to them; to give her a voice intheir education; to give her a vote in the government beneath which theyare to live, --these points are seldom omitted in our statement of herclaims. Anything else would be an error. But there is an error at the other extreme, which is still greater. A womanshould no more merge herself in her child than in her husband. Yet we oftenhear that she should do just this. What is all the public sphere of woman, it is said, --what good can she do by all her speaking and writing andaction, --compared with that she does by properly training the soul of onechild? It is not easy to see the logic of this claim. For what service is that child to render in the universe, except that he, too, may write and speak and act for that which is good and true? And ifthe mother foregoes all this that the child, in growing up, may simply dowhat the mother has left undone, the world gains nothing. In sacrificingher own work to her child's, moreover, she exchanges a present good for aprospective and merely possible one. If she does this through overwhelminglove, we can hardly blame her; but she cannot justify it before reason andtruth. Her child may die, and the service to mankind be done by neither. Her child may grow up with talents unlike hers, or with none at all; as theson of Howard was selfish, the son of Chesterfield a boor, and the son ofWordsworth in the last degree prosaic. Or the special occasion when she might have done great good may have passedbefore her boy or girl grows up to do it. If Mrs. Child had refused towrite "An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans, " or Mrs. Stowe had laid aside "Uncle Tom's Cabin, " or Florence Nightingale haddeclined to go to the Crimea, on the ground that a woman's true work wasthrough the nursery, and they must all wait for that, the consequence wouldbe that these things would have remained undone. The brave acts of theworld must be performed _when occasion offers, by the first brave soul_ whofeels moved to do them, man or woman. If all the children in all the nurseries are thereby helped to do otherbrave deeds when their turn comes, so much the better. But when a greatopportunity offers for direct aid to the world, we have no right totransfer that work to other hands--not even to the hands of our ownchildren. We must do the work, and train the children besides. I am willing to admit, therefore, that the work of education, in any form, is as great as any other work; but I fail to see why it should be greater. Usefulness is usefulness: there is no reason why it should be postponedfrom generation to generation, or why it is better to rear a serviceablehuman being than to be one in person. Carry the theory consistently out: ifeach mother must simply rear her daughter that she in turn may rearsomebody else, then from each generation the work will devolve upon asucceeding generation, so that it will be only the last woman who willpersonally do any service, except that of motherhood; and when her timecomes it will be too late for any service at all. If it be said, "But some of these children will be men, who are necessarilyof more use than women, " I deny the necessity. If it be said, "The childrenmay be many, and the mother, who is but one, may well be sacrificed, " itmight be replied that, as one great act may be worth many smaller ones, soall the numerous children and grandchildren of a woman like Lucretia Mottmay not collectively equal the usefulness of herself alone. If she, likemany women, had held it her duty to renounce all other duties and interestsfrom the time her motherhood began, I think that the world, and even herchildren, would have lost more than could ever have been gained by her morecomplete absorption in the nursery. The true theory seems a very simple one. The very fact that during one halfthe years of a woman's average life she is made incapable of child-bearingshows that there are, even for the most prolific and devoted mothers, duties other than the maternal. Even during the most absorbing years ofmotherhood, the wisest women still try to keep up their interest insociety, in literature, in the world's affairs--were it only for theirchildren's sake. Multitudes of women will never be mothers; and those morefortunate may find even the usefulness of their motherhood surpassed bywhat they do in other ways. If maternal duties interfere in some degreewith all other functions, the same is true, though in a far less degree, of those of a father. But there are those who combine both spheres. TheGerman poet Wieland claimed to be the parent of fourteen children andforty books; and who knows by which parentage he served the world thebest? A GERMAN POINT OF VIEW Many Americans will remember the favorable impression made by ProfessorChristlieb of Germany, when he attended the meeting of the EvangelicalAlliance in New York some years ago. His writings, like his presence, showa most liberal spirit; and perhaps no man has ever presented the moreadvanced evangelical theology of Germany in so attractive a light. Yet Iheard a story of him the other day, which either showed him in an aspectquite undesirable, or else gave an unpleasant view of the social positionof women in Germany. The story was to the effect that a young American student recently calledon Professor Christlieb with a letter of introduction. The professorreceived him cordially, and soon entered into conversation about the UnitedStates. He praised the natural features of the country, and theenterprising spirit of our citizens, but expressed much solicitude aboutthe future of the nation. On being asked his reasons, he frankly expressedhis opinion that "the Spirit of Christ" was not here. Being still furtherpressed to illustrate his meaning, he gave, as instances of thisdeficiency, not the Crédit Mobilier or the Tweed scandal, but such alarmingfacts as the following. He seriously declared that, on more than oneoccasion, he had heard an American married woman say to her husband, "Dear, will you bring me my shawl?" and the husband had brought it. He further hadseen a husband return home at evening, and enter the parlor where his wifewas sitting, --perhaps in the very best chair in the room, --and the wifenot only did not go and get his dressing-gown and slippers, but she evenremained seated, and left him to find a chair as he could. These things, as Professor Christlieb pointed out, suggested a serious deficiency of thespirit of Christ in the community. With our American habits and interpretations, it is hard to see this matterjust as the professor sees it. One would suppose that, if there is anymeaning in the command, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil thelaw of Christ, " a little of such fulfilling might sometimes be good for thehusband, as for the wife. And though it would undoubtedly be more pleasingto see every wife so eager to receive her husband that she would naturallyspring from her chair and run to kiss him in the doorway, yet, where suchdevotion was wanting, it would be but fair to inquire which of the two haddone the more fatiguing day's work, and to whom the easy-chair justlybelonged. The truth is, I suppose, that the good professor's remarkindicated simply a "survival" in his mind, or in his social circle, of abarbarous tradition, under which the wife of a Mexican herdsman cannot eatat the table with her "lord and master, " and the wife of a German professormust vacate the best armchair at his approach. If so, it is not to be regretted that we in this country have outgrown arelation so unequal. Nor am I at all afraid that the great Teacher, who, pointing to the multitude for whom he was soon to die, said of them, "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sisterand my mother, " would have objected to any mutual and equal service betweenman and woman. If we assume that two human beings have immortal souls, there can be no want of dignity to either in serving the other. The greaterequality of woman in America seems to be, on this reasoning, a proof of thepresence not the absence, of the spirit of Christ; nor does Dr. Christliebseem quite worthy of the beautiful name he bears, if he feels otherwise. But if it is really true that a German professor has to cross the Atlanticto witness a phenomenon so very simple as that of a lover-like husbandbringing a shawl for his wife, I should say, Let the immigration fromGermany be encouraged as much as possible, in order that even the mostlearned immigrants may discover something new. CHILDLESS WOMEN It has not always been regarded as a thing creditable to woman that she wasthe mother of the human race. On the contrary, the fact was oftenmentioned, in the Middle Ages, as a distinct proof of inferiority. Thequestion was discussed in the mediæval Council of Maçon, and the positiontaken that woman was no more entitled to rank as human, because she broughtforth men, than the garden-earth could take rank with the fruit and flowersit bore. The same view was revived by a Latin writer of 1595, on the thesis"_Mulieres non homines esse_, " a French translation of which essay wasprinted under the title of "_Paradoxe sur les femmes_, " in 1766. NapoleonBonaparte used the same image, carrying it almost as far:-- "Woman is given to man that she may bear children. Woman is our property;we are not hers: because she produces children for us; we do not yield anyto her: she is therefore our possession, as the fruit-tree is that of thegardener. " Even the fact of parentage, therefore, has been adroitly converted into aground of inferiority for women; and this is ostensibly the reason whylineage has been reckoned, almost everywhere, through the male line only, ignoring the female; just as, in tracing the seed of some rare fruit, thegardener takes no genealogical account of the garden where it grew. Thisview is now seldom expressed in full force: but one remnant of it is to befound in the lingering impression, that, at any rate, a woman who is nota mother is of no account; as worthless as a fruitless garden or a barrenfruit-tree. Created only for a certain object, she is of course valuelessunless that object be fulfilled. But the race must have fathers as well as mothers; and if we look forevidence of public service in great men, it certainly does not always liein leaving children to the republic. On the contrary, the rule has ratherseemed to be, that the most eminent men have left their bequest of servicein any form rather than in that of a great family. Recent inquiries intothe matter have brought out some remarkable facts in this regard. As a rule, there exist no living descendants in the male line from thegreat authors, artists, statesmen, soldiers, of England. It is stated thatthere is not one such descendant of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Butler, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, or Moore; not one of Drake, Cromwell, Monk, Marlborough, Peterborough, or Nelson; not one of Strafford, Ormond, or Clarendon; not one of Addison, Swift, or Johnson; not one ofWalpole, Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Grattan, or Canning; notone of Bacon, Locke, Newton, or Davy; not one of Hume, Gibbon, or Macaulay;not one of Hogarth or Reynolds; not one of Garrick, John Kemble, or EdmundKean. It would be easy to make a similar American list, beginning withWashington, of whom it was said that "Providence made him childless thathis country might call him Father. " Now, however we may regret that these great men have left little or noposterity, it does not occur to any one as affording any serious drawbackupon their service to their nation. Certainly it does not occur to us thatthey would have been more useful had they left children to the world, butrendered it no other service. Lord Bacon says that "he that hath wife andchildren hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to greatenterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and ofgreatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried orchildless men; which, both in affection and means, have married and endowedthe public. " And this is the view generally accepted, --that the public isin such cases rather the gainer than the loser, and has no right tocomplain. Since, therefore, every child must have a father and a mother both, andneither will alone suffice, why should we thus heap gratitude on men whofrom preference or from necessity have remained childless, and yethabitually treat women as if they could render no service to their countryexcept by giving it children? If it be folly and shame, as I think, tobelittle and decry the dignity and worth of motherhood, as some are said todo, it is no less folly, and shame quite as great, to deny the grand andpatriotic service of many women who have died and left no children amongtheir mourners. Plato puts into the mouth of a woman, --the eloquentDiotima, in the "Banquet, "--that, after all, we are more grateful to Homerand Hesiod for the children of their brain than if they had left humanoffspring. THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO MOTHERS From the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals we have nowadvanced to a similar society for the benefit of children. When shall wehave a movement for the prevention of cruelty to mothers? A Rhode Island lady, who had never taken any interest in the woman-suffragemovement, came to me in great indignation the other day, asking if it wastrue that under Rhode Island laws a husband might, by his last will, bequeath his child away from its mother, so that she might, if the guardianchose, never see it again. I said that it was undoubtedly true, and thatsuch were still the laws in many States of the Union. "But, " she said, "it is an outrage. The husband may have been one of theweakest or worst men in the world; he may have persecuted his wife andchildren; he may have made the will in a moment of anger, and haveneglected to alter it. At any rate, he is dead, and the mother is living. The guardian whom he appoints may turn out a very malicious man, and maytake pleasure in torturing the mother; or he may bring up the children in away their mother thinks ruinous for them. Why do not all the mothers cryout against such a law?" "I wish they would, " I said. "I have been trying a good many years to makethem understand what the law is; but they do not. People who do not votepay no attention to the laws until they suffer from them. " She went away protesting that she, at least, would not hold her tongue onthe subject, and I hope she will not. The actual text of the law to whichshe objected is as follows:-- "Every person authorized by law to make a will, except married women, shall have a right to appoint by his will a guardian or guardians for his children during their minority. "[1] There is not associated with this, in the statute, the slightest clause infavor of the mother; nor anything which could limit the power of theguardian by requiring deference to her wishes, although he could, in caseof gross neglect or abuse, be removed by the court, and another guardianappointed. There is not a line of positive law to protect the mother. Now, in a case of absolute wrong, a single sentence of law is worth all thechivalrous courtesy this side of the Middle Ages. It is idle to say that such laws are not executed. They are executed. Ihave had letters, too agonizing to print, expressing the sufferings ofmothers under laws like these. There lies before me a letter, --not fromRhode Island, --written by a widowed mother who suffers daily tortures, evenwhile in possession of her child, at the knowledge that it is not legallyhers, but held only by the temporary permission of the guardian appointedunder her husband's will. "I beg you, " she says, "to take this will to the hilltop, and urgelaw-makers in our next legislature to free the State record from theshameful story that no mother can control her child unless it is born outof wedlock. " "From the moment, " she says, "when the will was read to me, I have made noeffort to set it aside. I wait till God reveals his plans, so far as my owncondition is concerned. But out of my keen comprehension of this greatwrong, notwithstanding my submission for myself, my whole soul isstirred, --for my child, who is a little woman; for all women, that the lawsmay be changed which subject a true woman, a devoted wife, a faithfulmother, to such mental agonies as I have endured, and shall endure till Idie. " In a later letter she says, "I now have his [the guardian's] solemn promisethat he will not remove her from my control. To some extent my sufferingsare allayed; and yet never, till she arrives at the age of twenty-one, shall I fully trust. " I wish that mothers who dwell in sheltered and happyhomes would try to bring to their minds the condition of a mother whosepossession of her only child rests upon the "promise" of a comparativestranger. We should get beyond the meaningless cry, "I have all the rightsI want, " if mothers could only remember that among these rights, in mostStates of the Union, the right of a widowed mother to her child is notincluded. By strenuous effort, the law on this point has in Massachusetts beengradually amended, till it now stands thus: The father is authorized toappoint a guardian by will; but the powers of this guardian do not entitlehim to take the child from the mother. "The guardian of a minor ... Shall have the custody and tuition of his ward; and the care and management of all his estate, except that the father of the minor, if living, and in case of his death the mother, they being respectively competent to transact their own business, shall be entitled to the custody of the person of the minor and the care of his education. "[2] Down to 1870 the cruel words "while she remains unmarried" followed theword "mother" in the above law. Until that time, the mother if remarriedhad no claim to the custody of her child, in case the guardian wishedotherwise; and a very painful scene once took place in a Boston court-room, where children were forced away from their mother by the officers, underthis statute, in spite of her tears and theirs; and this when no sort ofpersonal charge had been made against her. This could not now happen inMassachusetts, but it might still happen in some other States. It is truethat men are almost always better than their laws; but while a bad lawremains on the statute-book it gives to any unscrupulous man the power tobe as bad as the law. [Footnote 1: Gen. Statutes R. I. , chap. 154, sect. 1] [Footnote 2: Public Statutes, chap. 139, sect. 4. ] V SOCIETY "Place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a severe morality gives that essential charm to woman which educates all that is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing, breeds courtesy and learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate; so that I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women. "--EMERSON, Society and Solitude, p. 21. FOAM AND CURRENT Sometimes, on the beach at Newport, I look at the gayly dressed ladies intheir phaetons, and then at the foam which trembles on the breaking wave, or lies palpitating in creamy masses on the beach. It is as pretty as they, as light, as fresh, as delicate, as changing; and no doubt the gracefulfoam, if it thinks at all, fancies that it is the chief consummate productof the ocean, and that the main end of the vast currents of the mighty deepis to yield a few glittering bubbles like those. At least, this seems to mewhat many of the fair ladies think, as to themselves. Here is a nation in which the most momentous social and politicalexperiment ever tried by man is being worked out, day by day. There issomething ocean-like in the way in which the great currents of life, race, religion, temperament are here chafing with each other, safe from thestorms through which all monarchical countries may yet have to pass. Asthese great currents heave, there are tossed up in every watering-place andevery city in America, as on an ocean beach, certain pretty bubbles offoam; and each spot, we may suppose, counts its own bubbles brighter thanthose of its neighbors, and christens them "society. " It is an unceasing wonder to a thoughtful person, at any such resort, tosee the unconscious way in which fashionable society accepts the foam, andignores the currents. You hear people talk of "a position in society, " "theinfluential circles in society, " as if the position they mean were notliable to be shifted in a day; as if the essential influences in Americawere not mainly to be sought outside the world of fashion. In othercountries it is very different. The circle of social caste, whose centreyou touch in London, radiates to the farthest shores of the British empire;the upper class controls, not merely fashion, but government; it rules incountry as well as city; genius and wealth are but its tributaries. Wherever it is not so, it is because England is so far Americanized. But inAmerica the social prestige of the cities is nothing in the country; it isa matter of the pavement, of a three-mile radius. Go to the farthest borders of England: there are still the "countyfamilies, " and you meet servants in livery. On the other hand, in a littlevillage in northern New Hampshire, my friend was visited in the evening bythe landlady, who said that several of their "most fashionable ladies" hadhappened in, and she would like to show them her guest's bonnet. Then thedifferent cities ignore each other: the rulers of select circles in NewYork may find themselves nobodies in Washington, while a Washington socialpassport counts for as little in New York. Boston and Philadelphia affectto ignore both; and St. Louis and San Francisco have their own standards. The utmost social prestige in America is local, provincial, a matter of thesquare inch: it is as if the foam of each particular beach along theseacoast were to call itself "society. " There is something pathetic, therefore, in the unwearied pains taken byambitious women to establish a place in some little, local, transitorydomain, to "bring out" their daughters for exhibition on a given evening, to form a circle for them, to marry them well. A dozen years hence themillionaires whose notice they seek may be paupers, or these ladies may bedwelling in some other city, where the visiting cards will bear whollydifferent names. How idle to attempt to transport into American life thesocial traditions and delusions which require monarchy and primogeniture, and a standing army, to keep them up--and which cannot always hold theirown in England, even with the aid of these! Every woman, like every man, has a natural desire for influence; and ifthis instinct yearns, as it often should yearn, to take in more than herown family, she must seek it somewhere outside. I know women who bring tobear on the building-up of a frivolous social circle--frivolous, because itis not really brilliant, but only showy; not really gay, but only bored--talent and energy enough to influence the mind and thought of the nation, if only employed in some effective way. Who are the women of real influencein America? They are the schoolteachers, through whose hands eachsuccessive American generation has to pass; they are those wives of publicmen who share their husbands' labor, and help mould their work; they arethose women who, through their personal eloquence or through the press, aredistinctly influencing the American people in its growth. The influence ofsuch women is felt for good or for evil in every page they print, everynewspaper column they fill: the individual women may be unworthy theirposts, but it is they who have got hold of the lever, and gone the rightway to work. As American society is constituted, the largest "socialsuccess" that can be attained here is trivial and local; and you have to"make believe very hard, " like that other imaginary Marchioness, to find init any career worth mentioning. That is the foam, but these other women aredealing with the main currents. IN SOCIETY One sometimes hears from some lady the remark that very few people "insociety" believe in any movement to enlarge the rights or duties of women. In a community of more marked social gradations than our own, thisassertion, if true, might be very important; and even here it is worthconsidering, because it leads the way to a little social philosophy. Letus, for the sake of argument, begin by accepting the assumption that thereis an inner circle, at least in our large cities, which claims to be"society, " _par excellence_. What relation has this favored circle, iffavored it be, to any movement relating to women? It has, to begin with, the same relation that "society" has to everymovement of reform. The proportion of smiles and frowns bestowed from thisquarter upon the woman-suffrage movement, for instance, is about thatformerly bestowed upon the anti-slavery agitation: I see no greatdifference. In Boston, for example, the names contributed by "society" tothe woman-suffrage festivals are about as numerous as those which used tobe contributed to the anti-slavery bazaars; no more, no less. Indeed, theyare very often the same names; and it has been curious to see, for nearlyfifty years, how radical tendencies have predominated in some of thewell-known Boston families, and conservative tendencies in others. The traits of blood seem to outlast successive series of special reforms. Be this as it may, it is safe to assume, that, as the anti-slavery movementprevailed with only a moderate amount of sanction from "our best society, "the woman-suffrage agitation, which has at least an equal amount, has noreason to be discouraged. On looking farther, we find that not reforms alone, but often mostimportant and established institutions, exist and flourish with onlyincidental aid from those "in society. " Take, for instance, the wholepublic school system of our larger cities. Grant that out of twenty ladies"in society, " taken at random, not more than one would personally approveof women's voting: it is doubtful whether even that proportion of themwould personally favor the public school system so far as to submit theirchildren, or at least their girls, to it. Yet the public schools flourish, and give a better training than most private schools, in spite of thisinert practical resistance from those "in society. " The natural inferencewould seem to be, that if an institution so well established as the publicschools, and so generally recognized, can afford to be ignored by"society, " then certainly a wholly new reform must expect no better fate. As a matter of fact, I apprehend that what is called "society, " in thesense of the more fastidious or exclusive social circle in any community, exists for one sole object, --the preservation of good manners and socialrefinements. For this purpose it is put very largely under the sway ofwomen, who have, all the world over, a better instinct for these importantthings. It is true that "society" is apt to do even this duty veryimperfectly, and often tolerates, and sometimes even cultivates, just therudeness and discourtesy that it is set to cure. Nevertheless, this is itsmission; but so soon as it steps beyond this, and attempts to claim anyspecial weight outside the sphere of good manners, it shows its weakness, and must yield to stronger forces. One of these stronger forces is religion, which should train men and womento a far higher standard than "society" alone can teach. This standardshould be embodied, theoretically, in the Christian Church; but unhappily"society" is too often stronger than this embodiment, and turns the churchitself into a mere temple of fashion. Other opposing forces are known asscience and common-sense, which is only science written in shorthand. Onsome of these various forces all reforms are based, the woman-suffragereform among them. If it could really be shown that some limited socialcircle was opposed to this, then the moral would seem to be, "So much theworse for the social circle. " It used to be thought in anti-slavery daysthat one of the most blessed results of that agitation was the education itgave to young men and women who would otherwise have merely grown up "insociety, " but were happily taken in hand by a stronger influence. It isGoethe who suggests, when discussing Hamlet in "Wilhelm Meister, " that, ifan oak be planted in a flower-pot, it will be worse in the end for theflower-pot than for the tree. And to those who watch, year after year, theyoung human seedlings planted "in society, " the main point of interest liesin the discovery which of these are likely to grow into oaks. But the truth is that the very use of the word "society" in this sense isnarrow and misleading. We Americans are fortunate enough to live in alarger society, where no conventional position or family traditions exertan influence that is to be in the least degree compared with the influencesecured by education, energy, and character. No matter how fastidious thesocial circle, one is constantly struck with the limitations of itsinfluence, and with the little power exerted by its members as comparedwith that which may easily be wielded by tongue and pen. No merelyfashionable woman in New York, for instance, has a position sufficientlyimportant to be called influential compared with that of a woman who canspeak in public so as to command hearers, or can write so as to securereaders. To be at the head of a normal school, or to be a professor in acollege where co-education prevails, is to have a sway over the destiniesof America which reduces all mere "social position" to a matter of cardsand compliments and page's buttons. THE BATTLE OF THE CARDS The great winter's contest of the visiting-cards recommences at the end ofevery autumn. Suspended during the summer, or only renewed at Newport andsuch thoroughbred and thoroughly sophisticated haunts, it will set in withfury in the habitable regions of our cities before the snow falls. Now willthe atmosphere of certain streets and squares be darkened--or whitened--atthe appointed hour by the shower of pasteboard transmitted from daintykid-gloved hands to the cotton-gloved hands of "John, " and destinedthrough him to reach the possibly gloveless hands of some other John, who stands obsequious in the doorway. Now will every lady, after Johnhas slammed the door, drive happily on to some other door, rearranging, as she goes, her display of cards, laid as if for a game on the oppositeseat of her carriage, and dealt perhaps in four suits, --her own cards, her daughters', her husband's, her "Mr. And Mrs. " cards, and who knowshow many more? With all this ammunition, what a very _mitrailleuse_ ofgood society she becomes; what an accumulation of polite attentions shemay discharge at any door! That one well-appointed woman, as she sitsin her carriage, represents the total visiting power of self, husband, daughters, and possibly a son or two beside. She has all theircounterfeit presentments in her hands. How happy she is! and how happywill the others be on her return, to think that dear mamma has disposedof so many dear, beloved, tiresome, social foes that morning! It willbe three months at least, they think, before the A's and the B's andthe C's will have to be "done" again. Ah! but who knows how soon these fatiguing letters of the alphabet, rallying to the defence, will come, pasteboard in hand, to return theonset? In this contest, fair ladies, "there are blows to take as well asblows to give, " in the words of the immortal Webster. Some day, onreturning, you will find a half-dozen cards on your own table that willundo all this morning's work, and send you forth on the warpath again. Isit not like a campaign? It is from this subtle military analogy, doubtless, that when gentlemen happen to quarrel, in the very best society, theyexchange cards as preliminary to a duel; and that, when French journalistsfight, all other French journalists show their sympathy for the survivor bysending him their cards. When we see, therefore, these heroic ladies ridingforth in the social battle's magnificently stern array, our hearts renderthem the homage due to the brave. When we consider how complex theirmilitary equipment has grown, we fancy each of these self-devoted mothersto be an Arnold Winkelried, receiving in her martyr-breast the points of adozen different cards, and shouting, "Make way for liberty!" For is it notsecuring liberty to have cleared off a dozen calls from your list, andfound nobody at home? If this sort of thing goes on, who can tell where the paper warfare shallend? If ladies may leave cards for their husbands, who are never seen outof Wall Street, except when they are seen at their clubs; or for theirsons, who never forsake their billiards or their books, --why can they notalso leave them for their ancestors, or for their remotest posterity? Whoknows but people may yet drop cards in the names of the grandchildren whomthey only wish for, or may reconcile hereditary feuds by interchangingpasteboard in behalf of two hostile grandparents who died half a centuryago? And there is another social observance in which the introduction of thecard system may yet be destined to save much labor, --the attendance onfashionable churches. Already, it is said, a family may sometimes reconciledevout observance with a late breakfast, by stationing the family carriagenear the church-door--empty. Really, it would not be a much emptierobservance to send the cards alone by the footman; and doubtless in theprogress of civilization we shall yet reach that point. It will have manyadvantages. The _effete_ of society, as some cruel satirist has calledthem, may then send their orisons on pasteboard to as many differentshrines as they approve; thus insuring their souls, as it were, at severaldifferent offices. Church architecture may be simplified, for it willrequire nothing but a card-basket. The clergyman will celebrate his solemnritual, and will then look in that convenient receptacle for the names ofhis fellow-worshippers, as a fine lady, after her "reception, " looks overthe cards her footman hands her, to know which of her dear friends she hasbeen welcoming. Religion, as well as social proprieties, will glidesmoothly over a surface of glazed pasteboard; and it will be only veryhumble Christians, indeed, who will do their worshipping in person, andwill hold to the worn-out and obsolete practice of "No Cards. " SOME WORKING-WOMEN It is almost a stereotyped remark, that the women of the more fashionableand worldly class, in America, are indolent, idle, incapable, and livefeeble and lazy lives. It has always seemed to me that, on the contrary, they are compelled, by the very circumstances of their situation, to leadvery laborious lives, requiring great strength and energy. Whether many oftheir pursuits are frivolous, is a different question; but that they arearduous, I do not see how any one can doubt. I think it can be easily shownthat the common charges against American fashionable women do not holdagainst the class I describe. There is, for instance, the charge of evading the cares of housekeeping, and of preferring a boarding-house or hotel. But no woman with high aims inthe world of fashion can afford to relieve herself from household cares inthis way, except as an exceptional or occasional thing. She must keep housein order to have entertainments, to form a circle, to secure a position. The law of give and take is as absolute in society as in business; and thevery first essential to social position in our larger cities is a householdand a hospitality of one's own. It is far more practicable for a family ofhigh rank in England to live temporarily in lodgings in London, than forany family with social aspirations to do the same in New York. The marriedwoman who seeks a position in the world of society must, therefore, keephouse. And, with housekeeping, there comes at once to the American woman a worldof care far beyond that of her European sisters. Abroad, everything in domestic life is systematized; and services of anygrade, up to that of housekeeper or steward, can be secured for money, andfor a moderate amount of that. The mere amount of money might not troublethe American woman; but where to get the service? Such a thing as a trainedhousekeeper, who can undertake, at any salary, to take the work off theshoulders of the lady of the house, --such a thing America hardly affords. Without this, the multiplication of servants only increaseth sorrow; theservants themselves are often but an undisciplined mob, and the lady of thehouse is like a general attempting to drill his whole command personally, without the aid of a staff-officer or so much as a sergeant. For anoccasional grand entertainment, she can, perhaps, import a special force;some fashionable sexton can arrange her invitations, and some genteelcaterer her supper. But for the daily routine of the household--guests, children, door-bell, equipage--there is one vast, constant toil every day;and the woman who would have these things done well must give her ownorders, and discipline her own retinue. The husband may have no "business, "his wealth may supersede the necessity of all toil beyond daily billiards;but for the wife wealth means business, and the more complete the socialtriumph, the more overwhelming the daily toil. For instance, I know a fair woman in an Atlantic city who is at the head ofa household including six children and nine servants. The whole domesticmanagement is placed absolutely in her hands: she engages or dismissesevery person employed, incurs every expense, makes every purchase, andkeeps all the accounts; her husband only ordering the fuel, directing theaffairs of the stable, and drawing checks for the bills. Every hour of hermorning is systematically appropriated to these things. Among other things, she has to provide for nine meals a day; in dining-room, kitchen, andnursery, three each. Then she has to plan her social duties, and to driveout, exquisitely dressed, to make her calls. Then there are constantlydinner-parties and evening entertainments; she reads a little, and takeslessons in one or two languages. Meanwhile her husband has for dailyoccupation his books, his club, and the above-mentioned light and easyshare in the cares of the household. Many men in his position do not evenkeep an account of personal expenditures. There is nothing exceptional in this lady's case, except that the work maybe better done than usual: the husband could not well contribute more thanhis present share without hurting domestic discipline; nor does the wife doall this from pleasure, but in a manner from necessity. It is the conditionof her social position: to change it, she must withdraw herself from hersocial world. A few improvements, such as "family hotels, " are doingsomething to relieve this class to whom luxury means labor. The greatundercurrent which is sweeping us all toward some form of associated lifeis as obvious in this new improvement in housekeeping, as in coöperativestores or trades-unions; but it will nevertheless be long before the "womenof society" in America can be anything but a hard-working class. The question is not whether such a life as I have described is the ideallife. My point is that it is, at any rate, a life demanding far more ofenergy and toil, at least in America, than the men of the same class arecalled upon to exhibit. There is growing up a class of men of leisure inAmerica; but there are no women of leisure in the same circle. They holdtheir social position on condition of "an establishment, " and anestablishment makes them working-women. One result is the constant exodusof this class to Europe, where domestic life is just now easier. Anotherconsequence is that you hear woman suffrage denounced by women of thisclass, not on the ground that it involves any harder work than they alreadydo, but on the ground that they have work enough already, and will not bearthe suggestion of any more. THE EMPIRE OF MANNERS I was present at a lively discourse, administered by a young lady just fromEurope to a veteran politician. "It is of very little consequence, " shesaid, "what kind of men you send out as foreign ministers. The thing ofreal importance is that they should have the right kind of wives. Any mancan sign a treaty, I suppose, if you tell him what kind of treaty it mustbe. But all his social relations with the nations to which you send himwill depend on his wife. " There was some truth, certainly, in thisaudacious conclusion. It reminded me of the saying of a modern thinker, "The only empire freely conceded to women is that of manners, --but it isworth all the rest put together. " Every one instinctively feels that the graces and amenities of life must belargely under the direction of women. The fact that this feeling has beencarried too far, and has led to the dwarfing of women's intellect, must notlead to a rejection of this important social sphere. It is too strong apower to be ignored. George Eliot says well that "the commonest man, whohas his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference betweena lovely, delicate woman, and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a differencein their presence. " At a summer resort, for instance, one sees women whomay be intellectually very ignorant and narrow, yet whose mere manners givethem a social power which the highest intellects might envy. To lend joyand grace to all one's little world of friendship; to make one's house aplace which every guest enters with eagerness, and leaves with reluctance;to lend encouragement to the timid, and ease to the awkward; to repressviolence, restrain egotism, and make even controversy courteous, --thesebelong to the empire of woman. It is a sphere so important and sobeautiful, that even courage and self-devotion seem not quite enough, without the addition of this supremest charm. This courtesy is so far from implying falsehood, that its very best basisis perfect simplicity. Given a naturally sensitive organization, a lovingspirit, and the early influence of a refined home, and the foundation offine manners is secured. A person so favored may be reared in a log hut, and may pass easily into a palace; the few needful conventionalities are soreadily acquired. But I think it is a mistake to tell children, as wesometimes do, that simplicity and a kind heart are absolutely all that areneedful in the way of manners. There are persons in whom simplicity andkindness are inborn, and who yet never attain to good manners for want ofrefined perceptions. And it is astonishing how much refinement alone cando, even if it be not very genuine or very full of heart, to smooth thepaths and make social life attractive. All the acute observers have recognized the difference between the higheststandard, which is nature's, and that next to the highest, which is art's. George Eliot speaks of that fine polish which is "the expensive substitutefor simplicity, " and Tennyson says of manners, -- "Kind nature's are the best: those next to best That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great. " In our own national history we have learned to recognize that the personaldemeanor of women may be a social and political force. The slave-power owedmuch of its prolonged control at Washington, and the larger part of itsfavor in Europe, to the fact that the manners of Southern women had beenmore sedulously trained than those of Northern women. Evenat this moment, one may see at any watering-place that the relative socialinfluence of different cities does not depend upon the intellectualtraining of their women, so much as on the manners. And, even if this isvery unreasonable, the remedy would seem to be, not to go about lecturingon the intrinsic superiority of the Muses to the Graces, but to pay duehomage at all the shrines. It is a great deal to ask of reformers, especially, that they should beornamental as well as useful; and I would by no means indorse the views ofa lady who once told me that she was ready to adopt the most radical viewsof the women-reformers if she could see one well-dressed woman whoaccepted them. The place where we should draw the line between independenceand deference, between essentials and non-essentials, between great ideasand little courtesies, will probably never be determined--except by actualexamples. Yet it is safe to fall back on Miss Edgeworth's maxim in "Helen, "that "Every one who makes goodness disagreeable commits high treasonagainst virtue. " And it is not a pleasant result of our good deeds, thatothers should be immediately driven into bad deeds by the burning desire tobe unlike us. GIRLSTEROUSNESS They tell the story of a little boy, a young scion of the house of Beecher, that, on being rebuked for some noisy proceeding, in which his littlesister had also shared, he claimed that she also should be included in theindictment. "If a boy makes too much noise, " he said, "you tell him hemustn't be boisterous. Well, then, when a girl makes just as much noise, you ought to tell her not to be so _girlsterous_. " I think that we should accept, with a sense of gratitude, this addition tothe language. It supplies a name for a special phase of feminine demeanor, inevitably brought out of modern womanhood. Any transitional state ofsociety develops some evil with the good. Good results are unquestionablyproceeding from the greater freedom now allowed to women. The drawback isthat we are developing, here and now, more of "girlsterousness" than is aptto be seen in less enlightened countries. The more complete the subjection of woman, the more "subdued" in everysense she is. The typical woman of savage life is, at least in youth, gentle, shy, retiring, timid. A Bedouin woman is modest and humble; anIndian girl has a voice "gentle and low. " The utmost stretch of theimagination cannot picture either of them as "girlsterous. " That perilousquality can only come as woman is educated, self-respecting, emancipated. "Girlsterousness" is the excess attendant on that virtue, the shadow whichaccompanies that light. It is more visible in England than in France, inAmerica than in England. It is to be observed, that, if a girl wishes to be noisy, she can be asnoisy as anybody. Her noise, if less clamorous, is more shrill andpenetrating. The shrieks of schoolgirls, playing in the yard atrecess-time, seem to drown the voices of the boys. As you enter an eveningparty, it is the women's tones you hear most conspicuously. There is nodefect in the organ, but at least an adequate vigor. In travelling by rail, when sitting near some rather underbred party of youths and damsels, I havecommonly noticed that the girls were the noisiest. The young men appearedmore regardful of public opinion, and looked round with solicitude, lestthey should attract too much attention. It is "girlsterousness" that dashesstraight on, regardless of all observers. Of course reformers exhibit theirfull share of this undesirable quality. Where the emancipation of women ismuch discussed in any circle, some young girls will put it in practicegracefully and with dignity, others rudely. Yet even the rudeness may bebut a temporary phase, and at last end well. When women were being firsttrained as physicians, years ago, I remember a young girl who came from aSouthern State to a Northern city, and attended the medical lectures. Having secured her lecture-tickets, she also bought season-tickets to thetheatre and to the pistol-gallery, laid in a box of cigars, and began herprofessional training. If she meant it as a satire on the pursuits of theyoung gentlemen around her, it was not without point. But it was, Isuppose, a clear case of "girlsterousness;" and I dare say that she sowedher wild oats much more innocently than many of her male contemporaries, and that she has long since become a sedate matron. But I certainly cannotcommend her as a model. Yet I must resolutely deny that any sort of hoydenishness or indecorum isan especial characteristic of radicals, or even "provincials, " as a class. Some of the fine ladies who would be most horrified at the"girlsterousness" of this young maiden would themselves smoke theircigarettes in much worse company, morally speaking, than she evertolerated. And, so far as manners are concerned, I am bound to say that theworst cases of rudeness and ill-breeding that have ever come to myknowledge have not occurred in the "rural districts, " or among the lowerten thousand, but in those circles of America where the whole aim in lifemight seem to be the cultivation of its elegances. And what confirms me in the fear that the most profound and serious typesof this disease are not to be found in the wildcat regions is the fact thatso much of it is transplanted to Europe, among those who have the money totravel. It is there described broadly as "Americanism;" and, so surely asany peculiarly shrill group is heard coming through a Europeanpicture-gallery, it is straightway classed by all observers as belonging tothe great Republic. If the observers are enamoured at sight with the beautyof the young ladies of the party, they excuse the voices; "Strange or wild, or madly gay, They call it only pretty Fanny's way. " But other observers are more apt to call it only Columbia's way; and ifthey had ever heard the word "girlsterousness, " they would use that too. Emerson says, "A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene. " If weAmericans often violate this perfect maxim of good manners, it is somethingthat America has, at least, furnished the maxim. And, between Emerson and"girlsterousness, " our courteous philosopher may yet carry the day. ARE WOMEN NATURAL ARISTOCRATS? A clergyman's wife in England has lately set on foot a reform movement inrespect to dress; and, like many English reformers, she aims chiefly toelevate the morals and manners of the lower classes, without much referenceto her own social equals. She proposes that "no servant, under pain ofdismissal, shall wear flowers, feathers, brooches, buckles or clasps, earrings, lockets, neck-ribbons, velvets, kid gloves, parasols, sashes, jackets, or trimming of any kind on dresses, and, above all, no crinoline;no pads to be worn, or frisettes, or _chignons_, or hair-ribbons. The dressis to be gored and made just to touch the ground, and the hair to be drawnclosely to the head, under a round white cap, without trimming of any kind. The same system of dress is recommended for Sunday-school girls, schoolmistresses, church-singers, and the lower orders generally. " The remark is obvious, that in this country such a course of disciplinewould involve the mistress, not the maid, in the "pain of dismissal. " TheAmerican clergyman and clergyman's wife who should even "recommend" such acostume to a schoolmistress, church-singer, or Sunday-school girl, --to saynothing of the rest of the "lower orders, "--would soon find themselveswithout teachers, without pupils, without a choir, and probably without aparish. It is a comfort to think that even in older countries there is lessand less of this impertinent interference: the costume of different ranksis being more and more assimilated; and the incidental episode of a fewliveries in our cities is not enough to interfere with the general current. Never yet, to my knowledge, have I seen even a livery worn by a whitenative American; and to restrain the Sunday bonnets of her handmaidens, what lady has attempted? This is as it should be. The Sunday bonnet of the Irish damsel is only thesymbol of a very proper effort to obtain her share of all socialadvantages. Long may those ribbons wave! Meanwhile I think the fact that itis easier for the gentleman of the house to control the dress of his groomthan for the lady to dictate that of her waiting-maid, --this must countagainst the theory that it is women who are the natural aristocrats. Women are no doubt more sensitive than men upon matters of taste andbreeding. This is partly from a greater average fineness of naturalperception, and partly because their more secluded lives give them less ofmiscellaneous contact with the world. If Maud Muller and her husband hadgone to board at the same boarding-house with the Judge and his wife, thatlady might have held aloof from the rustic bride, simply from inexperiencein life, and not knowing just how to approach her. But the Judge, who mighthave been talking politics or real estate with the young farmer on thedoorsteps that morning, would certainly find it easier to deal with him asa man and a brother at the dinner-table. From these different causes womenget the credit or discredit of being more aristocratic than men are; sothat in England the Tory supporters of female suffrage base it on theground that these new voters at least will be conservative. But, on the other hand, it is women, even more than men, who are attractedby those strong qualities of personal character which are always theantidote to aristocracy. No bold revolutionist ever defied the establishedconventionalisms of his times without drawing his strongest support fromwomen. Poet and novelist love to depict the princess as won by the outlaw, the gypsy, the peasant. Women have a way of turning from the insipiditiesand proprieties of life to the wooer who has the stronger hand; from thesilken Darnley to the rude Bothwell. This impulse is the natural correctiveto the aristocratic instincts of womanhood; and though men feel it less, itis still, even among them, one of the supports of republican institutions. We need to keep always balanced between the two influences of refinedculture and of native force. The patrician class, wherever there is one, ispretty sure to be the more refined; the plebeian class, the more energetic. That woman is able to appreciate both elements is proof that she is quitecapable of doing her share in social and political life. This Englishclergyman's wife, who devotes her soul to the trimmings and gored skirts ofthe lower orders, is no more entitled to represent her sex than are thoseladies who give their whole attention to the "novel and intricate bonnets"advertised this season on Broadway. MRS. BLANK'S DAUGHTERS Mrs. Blank, of Far West--let us not draw her from the "sacred privacy ofwoman" by giving the name or place too precisely--has an insurmountableobjection to woman's voting. So the newspapers say; and this objection isthat she does not wish her daughters to encounter disreputable charactersat the polls. It is a laudable desire, to keep one's daughters from the slightest contactwith such persons. But how does Mrs. Blank precisely mean to accomplishthis? Will she shut up the maidens in a harem? When they go out, will shesend messengers through the streets to bid people hide their faces, as whenan Oriental queen is passing? Will she send them travelling on camels, veiled by _yashmaks?_ Will she prohibit them from being so much as seen bya man, except when a physician must be called for their ailments, and MissBlank puts her arm through a curtain, in order that he may feel her pulseand know no more? Who is Mrs. Blank, and how does she bring up her daughters? Does she sendthem to the post-office? If so, they may wait a half-hour at a time for themail to open, and be elbowed by the most disreputable characters, waitingat their side. If it does the young ladies no harm to encounter this forthe sake of getting their letters out, will it harm them to do it in orderto get their ballots in? If they go to hear a concert they may be kept halfan hour at the door, elbowed by saint and sinner indiscriminately. If theygo to Washington to the President's inauguration, they may stand two hourswith Mary Magdalen on one side of them and Judas Iscariot on the other. Ifthis contact is rendered harmless by the fact that they are receivingpolitical information, will it hurt them to stay five minutes longer inorder to act upon the knowledge they have received? This is on the supposition that the household of Blank are plain, practicalwomen, unversed in the vanities of the world. If they belong to fashionablecircles, how much harder to keep them wholly clear of disreputable contact!Should they, for instance, visit Newport, they may possibly be seen at theCasino, looking very happy as they revolve rapidly in the arms of some verydisreputable characters; they will be seen in the surf, attired in the mostscanty and clinging drapery, and kindly aided to preserve their balance bythe devoted attentions of the same companions. Mrs. Blank, meanwhile, willlook complacently on, with the other matrons: they are not supposed to knowthe current reputation of those whom their daughters meet "in society;"and, so long as there is no actual harm done, why should they care? Verywell; but why, then, should they care if they encounter those samedisreputable characters when they go to drop a ballot in the ballot-box? Itwill be a more guarded and distant meeting. It is not usual to danceround-dances at the ward-room, so far as I know, or to bathe in clingingdrapery at that rather dry and dusty resort. If such very close intimaciesare all right under the gas-light or at the beach, why should there bepoison in merely passing near a disreputable character at the City Hall? On the whole, the prospects of Mrs. Blank are not encouraging. Should sheconsult a physician for her daughters, he may be secretly or openlydisreputable; should she call in a clergyman, he may, though a bishop, havecarnal rather than spiritual eyes. If Miss Blank be caught in a shower, shemay take refuge under the umbrella of an undesirable acquaintance; shouldshe fall on the ice, the woman who helps to raise her may have sinned. There is not a spot in any known land where a woman can live in absoluteseclusion from all contact with evil. Should the Misses Blank even turnRoman Catholics, and take to a convent, their very confessor may not be agenuine saint; and they may be glad to flee for refuge to the busy, buying, selling, dancing, voting world outside. No: Mrs. Blank's prayers for absolute protection will never be answered, inrespect to her daughters. Why not, then, find a better model for prayer inthat made by Jesus for his disciples: "I pray Thee, not that Thou shouldsttake them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from theevil. " A woman was made for something nobler in the world, Mrs. Blank, thanto be a fragile toy, to be put behind a glass case, and protected fromcontact. It is not her mission to be hidden away from all life's evil, butbravely to work that the world may be reformed. THE EUROPEAN PLAN Every mishap among American women brings out renewed suggestions of whatmay be called the "European plan" in the training of young girls, --theplan, that is, of extreme seclusion and helplessness. It is usuallyforgotten, in these suggestions, that not much protection is really givenanywhere to this particular class as a whole. Everywhere in Europe therestrictions are of caste, not of sex. Even in Turkey, travellers tell us, women of the humbler vocations are not much secluded. It is not the objectof the "European plan, " in any form, to protect the virtue of young women, as such, but only of young ladies; and the protection is pretty effectuallylimited to that order. Among the Portuguese in the island of Fayal I foundit to be the ambition of each humble family to bring up one daughter in asort of lady-like seclusion: she never went into the street alone, orwithout a hood which was equivalent to a veil; she was taught indoorindustries only; she was constantly under the eye of her mother. But inorder that one daughter might be thus protected, all the other daughterswere allowed to go alone, day or evening, bareheaded or bare-footed, by theloneliest mountain-paths, to bring oranges or firewood or whatever theirwork may be--heedless of protection. The safeguard was for a class: theaverage exposure of young womanhood was far greater than with us. So inLondon, while you rarely see a young lady alone in the streets, thehousemaid is sent on errands at any hour of the evening with a freedom atwhich our city domestics would quite rebel; and one has to stay but a shorttime in Paris to see how entirely limited to a class is the allegedrestraint under which young French girls are said to be kept. Again, it is to be remembered that the whole "European plan, " so far as itis applied on the continent of Europe, is a plan based upon utter distrustand suspicion, not only as to chastity, but as to all other virtues. It isapplied among the higher classes almost as consistently to boys as togirls. In every school under church auspices, it is the French theory thatboys are never to be left unwatched for a moment; and it is as steadilyassumed that girls will be untruthful if left to themselves, as that theywill do every other wrong. This to the Anglo-Saxon race seems verydemoralizing. "Suspicion, " said Sir Philip Sidney, "is the way to lose thatwhich we fear to lose. " Readers of the Bronte novels will remember thedisgust of the English pupils and teachers in French schools at theconstant espionage around them; and I have more than once heard young girlswho had been trained at such institutions say that it was a wonder if theyhad any truthfulness left, so invariable was the assumption that it was thenature of young girls to lie. I cannot imagine anything less likely tocreate upright and noble character, in man or woman, than the systematicapplication of the "European plan. " And that it produces just the results that might be feared, the whole toneof European literature proves. Foreigners, no doubt, do habitual injusticeto the morality of French households; but it is impossible that fiction canutterly misrepresent the community which produces and reads it. When onethinks of the utter lightness of tone with which breaches, both of truthand chastity, are treated even in the better class of French novels andplays, it seems absurd to deny the correctness of the picture. Besides, itis not merely a question of plays and novels. Consider, for instance, thecontempt with which Taine treats Thackeray for representing the mother ofPendennis as suffering agonies when she thinks that her son has seduced ayoung girl, a social inferior. Thackeray is not really considered a modelof elevated tone, as to such matters, among English writers; but theFrenchman is simply amazed that the Englishman should describe even thesaintliest of mothers as attaching so much weight to such a small affair. An able newspaper writer, quoted with apparent approval by the "BostonDaily Advertiser, " praises the supposed foreign method for the "habit ofdependence and deference" that it produces; and because it gives to a youngman a wife whose "habit of deference is established. " But it must beremembered, that, where this theory is established, the habit of deferenceis logically carried much farther than mere conjugal convenience would takeit. Its natural outcome is the authority of the priest, not of the husband. That domination of the women of France by the priesthood which forms evennow the chief peril of the republic--which is the strength of legitimismand imperialism and all other conspiracies against the liberty of theFrench people--is only the visible and inevitable result of this dangerousdocility. One thing is certain, that the best preparation for freedom is freedom; andthat no young girls are so poorly prepared for American life as those whoseearly years are passed in Europe. Some of the worst imprudences, the mostunmaidenly and offensive actions, that I have ever heard of in decentsociety, have been on the part of young women educated abroad, who havebeen launched into American life without its early training, --have beentreated as children until they suddenly awakened to the freedom of women. On the other hand, I remember with pleasure, that a cultivated Frenchmother, whose daughter's fine qualities were the best seal of hermotherhood, once told me that the models she had chosen in her daughter'straining were certain families of American young ladies, of whom she had, through peculiar circumstances, seen much in Paris. FEATHERSES One of the most amusing letters ever quoted in any book is that given inCurzon's "Monasteries of the Levant, " as the production of a Turkishsultana who had just learned English. It is as follows:-- NOTE FROM ADILE SULTANA, THE BETROTHED OF ABBAS PASHA, TO HER ARMENIAN COMMISSIONER. CONSTANTINOPLE, 1844. MY NOBLE FRIEND:--Here are the featherses sent my soul, my noble friend, are there no other featherses leaved in the shop besides these featherses? and these featherses remains, and these featherses are ukly. They are very dear, who buyses dheses? And my noble friend, we want a noat from yourself; those you brought last tim, those you sees were very beautiful; we had searched; my soul, I want featherses again, of those featherses. In Kalada there is plenty of feather. Whatever bees, I only want beautiful featherses; I want featherses of every desolation to-morrow. (Signed) YOU KNOW WHO. The first steps in culture do not, then, it seems, remove from the femininesoul the love of pretty things. Nor do the later steps wholly extinguishit; for did not Grace Greenwood hear the learned Mary Somerville conferringwith the wise Harriet Martineau as to whether a certain dress should bedyed to match a certain shawl? Well! why not? Because women learn the useof the quill, are they to ignore "featherses "? Because they learn science, must they unlearn the arts, and, above all, the art of being beautiful? Ifmen have lost it, they have reason to regret the loss. Let women hold toit, while yet within their reach. Mrs. Rachel Rowland of New Bedford, much prized and trusted as a publicspeaker among Friends, and a model of taste and quiet beauty in costume, delighted the young girls at a Newport Yearly Meeting, a few years since, by boldly declaring that she thought God meant women to make the worldbeautiful, as much as flowers and butterflies, and that there was no sin intasteful dress, but only in devoting to it too much money or too much time. It is a blessed doctrine. The utmost extremes of dress, the love of colors, of fabrics, of jewels, of "featherses, " are, after all, but an effort afterthe beautiful. The reason why the beautiful is not always the result isbecause so many women are ignorant or merely imitative. They have no senseof fitness: the short wear what belongs to the tall, and brunettessacrifice their natural beauty to look like blondes. Or they have noadaptation; and even an emancipated woman may show a disregard forappropriateness, as where a fine lady sweeps the streets, or a fair oratorthe platform, with a silken or velvet train which accords only with acarpet as luxurious as itself. What is inappropriate is never beautiful. What is merely in the fashion is never beautiful. But who does not knowsome woman whose taste and training are so perfect that fashion becomes toher a means of grace instead of a despot, and the worst excrescence thatcan be prescribed--a _chignon_, a hoop, a panier--is softened intosomething so becoming that even the Parisian bondage seems but a chain ofroses? In such hands, even "featherses" become a fine art, not a matter of vanity. Are women so much more vain than men? No doubt they talk more about theirdress, for there is much more to talk about; yet did you never hear the menof fashion discuss boots and hats and the liveries of grooms? A good friendof mine, a shoemaker, who supplies very high heels for a great many prettyfeet on Fifth Avenue in New York, declares that women are not so vain inthat direction as men. "A man who thinks he has a handsome foot, " quoth ourfashionable Crispin, "is apt to give us more trouble than any lady amongour customers. I have noticed this for twenty years. " The testimony isconsoling--to women. And this naturally suggests the question, What is to be the future ofmasculine costume? Is the present formlessness and gracelessness andmonotony of hue to last forever, as suited to the rough needs of a workadayworld? It is to be remembered that the difference in this respect betweenthe dress of the sexes is a very recent thing. Till within a century or so, men dressed as picturesquely as women, and paid as minute attention totheir costume. Even the fashions in armor varied as extensively as thefashions in gowns. One of Henry III. 's courtiers, Sir J. Arundel, hadfifty-two complete suits of cloth of gold. No satin, no velvet, was tooelegant for those who sat to Copley for their pictures. In Puritan days thelaws could hardly be made severe enough to prevent men from wearingsilver-lace and "broad bone-lace, " and shoulder-bands of undue width, anddouble ruffs and "immoderate great breeches. " What seemed to the Cavaliersthe extreme of stupid sobriety in dress would pass now for the mostfantastic array. Fancy Samuel Pepys going to a wedding of to-day in his"new colored silk suit and coat trimmed with gold buttons, and gold broadlace round his hands, very rich and fine. " It would give to the ceremonythe aspect of a fancy ball; yet how much prettier a sight is a fancy ballthan the ordinary entertainment of the period! At intervals the rigor of masculine costume is a little relaxed; velvetsresume their picturesque sway: and, instead of the customary suit of solemnblack, gentlemen even appear in blue and gold editions at evening parties. Let us hope that good sense and taste may yet meet each other, for bothsexes; that men may borrow for their dress some womanly taste, women somemasculine sense; and society may again witness a graceful and appropriatecostume, without being too much absorbed in "featherses. " VI STUDY AND WORK "Movet me ingens scientiarum admiratio, seu legis communis aequitas, ut in nostro sexu, rarum non esse feram, id quod omnium votis dignissimum est. Nam cum sapientia tantum generis humani ornamentum sit, ut ad omnes et singulos (quoad quidem per sortem cujusque liceat) extendi jure debeat, non vidi, cur virgini, in qua excolendi sese ornandique sedulitatem admittimus, non conveniat mundus hic omnium longè pulcherrimus. "--ANNAE MARIAE À SCHURMAN EPISTOLAE. (1638. ) "A great reverence for knowledge and the natural sense of justice urge me to encourage in my own sex that which is most worthy the aspirations of all. For, since wisdom is so great an ornament of the human race that it should of right be extended (so far as practicable) to each and every one, I have not perceived why this fairest of ornaments should not be appropriate for the maiden, to whom we permit all diligence in the decoration and adornment of herself. " EXPERIMENTS Why is it, that, whenever anything is done for women in the way ofeducation, it is called "an experiment, "--something that is to be longconsidered, stoutly opposed, grudgingly yielded, and dubiously watched, --while, if the same thing is done for men, its desirableness is assumed as amatter of course, and the thing is done? Thus, when Harvard College wasfounded, it was not regarded as an experiment, but as an institution. The"General Court, " in 1636, "agreed to give 400 _l_. Towards a schoale orcolledge, " and the affair was settled. Every subsequent step in theexpanding of educational opportunities for young men has gone in the sameway. But when there seems a chance of extending, however irregularly, someof the same collegiate advantages to women, I observe that respectablenewspapers, in all good faith, are apt to speak of the measure as an"experiment. " It seems to me no more of an "experiment" than when a boy who has usuallyeaten up his whole apple becomes a little touched with a sense of justice, and finally decides to offer his sister the smaller half. If he has everregarded that offer as an experiment, the first actual trial will put theresult into the list of certainties; and it will become an axiom in hismind that girls like apples. Whatever may be said about the position ofwomen in law and society, it is clear that their educational disadvantageshave been a prolonged disgrace to the other sex, and one for which womenthemselves are in no way accountable. When Françoise de Saintonges, in thesixteenth century, wished to establish girls' schools in France, she washooted in the streets, and her father called together four doctors of lawto decide whether she was possessed of a devil in planning to teachwomen, --"_pour s'assurer qu'instruire des femmes n'était pas un oeuvre dudémon_. " From that day to this we have seen women almost always more readyto be taught than was any one else to teach them. Talk as you please abouttheir wishing or not wishing to vote: they have certainly wished forinstruction, and have had it doled out to them almost as grudgingly as ifit were the ballot itself. Consider the educational history of Massachusetts, for instance. The wifeof President John Adams was born in 1744; and she says of her youth that"female education, in the best families, went no farther than writing andarithmetic. " Barry tells us in his "History of Massachusetts, " that thepublic education was first provided for boys only; "but light soon brokein, and girls were allowed to attend the public schools two hours aday. "[1] It appears from President Quincy's "Municipal History ofBoston, "[2] that from 1790 girls were there admitted to such schools, butduring the summer months only, when there were not boys enough to fillthem, --from April 20 to October 20 of each year. This lasted until 1822, when Boston became a city. Four years after, an attempt was made toestablish a high school for girls, which was not, however, to teach Latinand Greek. It had, in the words of the school committee of 1854, "analarming success;" and the school was abolished after eighteen months'trial, because the girls crowded into it; and as Mr. Quincy, with exquisitesimplicity, records, "not one voluntarily quitted it, and there was noreason to suppose that any one admitted to the school would voluntarilyquit for the whole three years, except in case of marriage!" How amusing seems it now to read of such an "experiment" as this, abandonedonly because of its overwhelming success! How absurd now seem thediscussions of a few years ago!--the doubts whether young women reallydesired higher education, whether they were capable of it, whether theirhealth would bear it, whether their parents would permit it. An address Igave before the Social Science Association on this subject, at Boston, May14, 1873, now seems to me such a collection of platitudes that I hardly seehow I dared come before an intelligent audience with such needlessreasonings. It is as if I had soberly labored to prove that two and twomake four, or that ginger is "hot i' the mouth. " Yet the subsequentdiscussion in that meeting showed that around even these harmless andcommonplace propositions the battle of debate could rage hot; and it reallyseemed as if even to teach women the alphabet ought still to be mentionedas "a promising experiment. " Now, with the successes before us of so manycolleges; with the spectacle at Cambridge of young women actually readingPlato "at sight" with Professor Goodwin, --it surely seems as if the highereducation of women might be considered quite beyond the stage ofexperiment, and might henceforth be provided for in the same common-senseand matter-of-course way which we provide for the education of young men. And, if this point is already reached in education, how long before it willalso be reached in political life, and women's voting be viewed as a matterof course, and a thing no longer experimental? [Footnote 1: Vol. Iii. 323. ] [Footnote 2: Page 21. ] INTELLECTUAL CINDERELLAS When, some thirty years ago, the extraordinary young mathematician, TrumanHenry Safford, first attracted the attention of New England by his rarepowers, I well remember the pains that were taken to place him underinstruction by the ablest Harvard professors: the greater his abilities, the more needful that he should have careful and symmetrical training. Themen of science did not say, "Stand off! let him alone! let him strivepatiently until he has achieved something positively valuable, and he maybe sure of prompt and generous recognition--when he is fifty years old. " Ifsuch a course would have been mistaken and ungenerous if applied toProfessor Safford, why is it not something to be regretted that it wasapplied to Mrs. Somerville? In her case, the mischief was done: she was, happily, strong enough to bear it; but, as the English critics say, wenever shall know what science has lost by it. We can do nothing for hernow; but we could do something for future women like her, by pointing thisobvious moral for their benefit, instead of being content with a mere tardyrecognition of success, after a woman has expended half a century instruggle. It is commonly considered to be a step forward in civilization, thatwhereas ancient and barbarous nations exposed children to specialhardships, in order to kill off the weak and toughen the strong, modernnations aim to rear all alike carefully, without either sacrificing orenfeebling. If we apply this to muscle, why not to mind? and if to men'sminds, why not to women's? Why use for men's intellects, which are claimedto be stronger, the forcing process, --offering, for instance, many thousanddollars a year in gratuities at our colleges, that young men may be inducedto come and learn, --and only withhold assistance from the weaker minds ofwomen? A little schoolgirl once told me that she did not object to herteacher's showing partiality, but thought she "ought to show partiality toall alike. " If all our university systems are wrong, and the proper dietfor mathematical genius consists of fifty years' snubbing, let us employit, by all means; but let it be applied to both sexes. That it is the duty of women, even under disadvantageous circumstances, toprove their purpose by labor, to "verify their credentials, " is trueenough; but this moral is only part of the moral of Mrs. Somerville's book, and is cruelly incomplete without the other half. What a garden of roseswas Mrs. Somerville's life, according to some comfortable critics! "Allthat for which too many women nowadays are content to sit and whine, orfitfully and carelessly struggle, came naturally and quietly to Mrs. Somerville. And the reason was that she never asked for anything until shehad earned it; or, rather, she never asked at all, but was content toearn. " Naturally and quietly! You might as well say that Garrison foughtslavery "quietly, " or that Frederick Douglass's escape came to him"naturally. " Turn to the book itself, and see with what strong, thoughnever actually bitter, feeling, the author looks back upon her hardstruggle. "I was intensely ambitious to excel in something; for I felt in my own breast that women were capable of taking a higher place in creation than that assigned them in my early days, which was very low" (p. 60). "Nor ... Should I have had courage to ask any of them a question, for I should have been laughed at. I was often very sad and forlorn; not a hand held out to help me" (p. 47). "My father came home for a short time, and, somehow or other finding out what I was about, said to my mother, 'Peg, we must put a stop to this, or we shall have Mary in a strait-jacket one of these days'" (p. 54). "I continued my mathematical and other pursuits, but under great disadvantages; for, although my husband did not prevent me from studying, I met with no sympathy whatever from him, as he had a very low opinion of the capacity of my sex, and had neither knowledge of nor interest in science of any kind" (p. 75). "I was considered eccentric and foolish; and my conduct was highly disapproved of by many, especially by some members of my own family" (p. 80). "A man can always command his time under the plea of business: a woman is not allowed any such excuse" (p. 164). And so on. At last, in 1831, --Mrs. Somerville being then fifty-one, --her work on "TheMechanism of the Heavens" appeared. Then came universal recognition, generous if not prompt, a tardy acknowledgment. "Our relations, " she says, "and others who had so severely criticised and ridiculed me, astonished atmy success, were now loud in my praise. "[1] No doubt. So were, probably, Cinderella's sisters loud in her praise, when the prince at last took herfrom the chimney-corner, and married her. They had kept for themselves, tobe sure, as long as they could, the delights and opportunities of life;while she had taken the place assigned her in her early days, --"which wasvery low, " as Mrs. Somerville says. But, for all that, they were very kindto her in the days of her prosperity; and no doubt packed their littletrunks and came to visit their dear sister at the palace as often as shecould wish. And, doubtless, the Fairyland Monthly of that day, when it cameto review Cinderella's "Personal Recollections, " pointed out that, as soonas that distinguished lady had "achieved something positively valuable, "she received "prompt and generous recognition. " [Footnote 1: Page 176. ] CUPID-AND-PSYCHOLOGY The learned Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, is frequentlyfacetious; and his jokes are quoted with the deference due to the chiefofficer of the chief college of that great university. Now it is known thatthe Cambridge colleges, and Trinity College in particular, are doing agreat deal for the instruction of women. The young women of Girton Collegeand Newnham College--both of these being institutions for their benefit, inor near Cambridge--not only enjoy the instruction of the university, butthey share it under a guaranty that it shall be of the best quality;because they attend, in many cases, the very same lectures with the youngmen. Where this is not done, they sometimes use the vacant lecture-rooms ofthe college; and it was in connection with an application for thisprivilege that the Master of Trinity College made a celebrated joke. Whentold that the lecture-room was needed for a class of young women inpsychology, he said, "Psychology? What kind of psychology?Cupid-and-Psychology, I suppose. " Cupid-and-Psychology is, after all, not so bad a department of instruction. It may be taken as a good enough symbol of that mingling of head and heartwhich is the best result of all training. One of the worst evils of theseparate education of the sexes has been the easy assumption that men wereto become all head, and women all heart. It was to correct the evils ofthis that Ben Jonson proposed for his ideal woman "a learned and a manly soul. " It was an implied recognition of it from the other side when the greatmasculine intellect, Goethe, held up as a guiding force in his Faust "theeternal womanly" (_das ewige weibliche_). After all, each sex must teachthe other, and impart to the other. It will never do to have all the brainspoured into one human being, and christened "man;" and all the affectionsdecanted into another, and labelled "woman. " Nature herself rejects thistheory. Darwin himself, the interpreter of nature, shows that there is aperpetual effort going on, by unseen forces, to equalize the sexes, sincesons often inherit from the mother, and daughters from the father. And weall take pleasure in discovering in the noblest of each sex something ofthe qualities of the other, --the tender affections in great men, theimperial intellect in great women. On the whole, there is no harm, but rather good, in the new science ofCupid-and-Psychology. There are combinations for which no single word cansuffice. The phrase belongs to the same class with Lowell's wittydenunciation of a certain tiresome letter-writer, as being, not hisincubus, but his "pen-and-inkubus. " It is as well to admit it first aslast: Cupid-and-Psychology will be taught wherever young men and womenstudy together. Not in the direct and simple form of mutual love-making, perhaps; for they tell the visitor, at universities which admit both sexes, that the young men and maidens do not fall in love with each other, but areapt to seek their mates elsewhere. The new science has a wider bearing, andsuggests that the brain is incomplete, after all, without the affections;and so are the affections without the brain. A certain professorship atHarvard University which the Rev. Dr. Francis G. Peabody now fills, and which Phillips Brooks was once invited to fill, wasfounded by a woman, Miss Plummer; and the name proposed by her for it was"a professorship of the heart, " though they after all called it only aprofessorship of "Christian morals. " We need the heart in our colleges, itseems, even if we only get it under the ingenious title ofCupid-and-Psychology. SELF-SUPPORTING WIVES For one, I have never been fascinated by the style of domestic paradisethat English novels depict, --half a dozen unmarried daughters round thefamily hearth, all assiduously doing worsted-work and petting their papa. Ibelieve a sufficiency of employment to be the only normal and healthycondition for a human being; and where there is not work enough to employthe full energies of all at home, it seems as proper for young women as foryoung birds to leave the parental nest. If this additional work is done formoney, very well. It is the conscious dignity of self-support that removesthe traditional curse from labor, and woman has a right to claim her sharein that dignified position. Yet I cannot agree, on the other hand, with those who maintain that thetrue woman should be self-supporting, even in marriage. Woman's part of thefamily task--the care of home and children--is just as essential tobuilding up the family fortunes as the very different toil of the out-doorpartner. For young married women to undertake any more direct aid to thefamily income is in most cases utterly undesirable, and is asking ofthemselves a great deal too much. And this is not because they are to beencouraged in indolence, but because they already, in a normal condition ofthings, have their hands full. As, on this point, I may differ from some ofmy readers, let me explain precisely what I mean. As I write, there are at work, in another part of the house, twopaper-hangers, a man and his wife, each forty-five or fifty years of age. Their children are grown up, and some of them married: they have a daughterat home, who is old enough to do the housework, and leave the mother free. There is no way of organizing the labors of this household better thanthis: the married pair toil together during the day, and go home togetherto their evening rest. A happier couple I never saw; it is a delight to seethem cheerily at work together, cutting, pasting, hanging: their life seemslike a prolonged industrial picnic; and if I had the ill-luck to own asmany palaces as an English duke I should keep them permanently occupied inputting fresh papers on the walls. But the merit of this employment for the woman is that it interferes withno other duty. Were she a young mother with little children, and obliged byher paper-hanging to neglect them, or to leave them at a "day-nursery, " orto overwork herself by combining too many cares, then the sight of herwould be very sad. So sacred a thing is motherhood, so paramount andabsorbing the duty of a mother to her child, that in a true state ofsociety I think she should be utterly free from all other duties, --even, ifpossible, from the ordinary cares of housekeeping. If she has spare healthand strength to do these other things as pleasures, very well; but sheshould be relieved from them as duties. And as to the need ofself-support, I can hardly conceive of an instance where it can be to themother of young children anything but a disaster. As we all know, thiscalamity often occurs; I have seen it among the factory operatives at theNorth, and among the negro women in the cotton-fields at the South: in bothcases it is a tragedy, and the bodies and brains of mother and childrenalike suffer. That the mother should bear and tend and nurture, while thefather supports and protects, --this is the true division. Does this bear in any way upon suffrage? Not at all. The mother can informherself upon public questions in the intervals of her cares, as the fatheramong his; and the baby in the cradle is a perpetual appeal to her, as tohim, that the institutions under which that baby dwells may be kept pure. One of the most devoted young mothers I ever knew--the younger sister ofMargaret Fuller Ossoli--made it a rule, no matter how much her childrenabsorbed her, to read books or newspapers for an hour every day; in order, she said, that she should be more to them than a mere source of physicalnurture, and that her mind should be kept fresh and alive for them. But todemand in addition that such a mother should earn money for them is to asktoo much; and there is many a tombstone in New England, which, if it toldthe truth, would tell what comes of such an effort. THOROUGH "The hopeless defect of women in all practical matters, " said a shrewdmerchant the other day, "is that it is impossible to make them thorough. "It was a shallow remark, and so I told him. Women are thorough in thethings which they have been expected to regard as their sphere, --in theirhousekeeping and their dress and their social observances. There is nothingmore thorough on earth than the way housework is done in a genuine NewEngland household. There is an exquisite thoroughness in the way amilliner's or a dressmaker's work is done, --a work such as clumsy mancannot rival, and can hardly estimate. No general plans his campaigns ormarshals his armies better than some women of society--the late Mrs. ParanStevens, for instance--manage the circles of which they are the centre. Dayand night, winter and summer, at city or watering-place, year in and yearout, such a woman keeps open house for her gay world. She has a perpetualseries of guests who must be fed luxuriously, and amused profusely; shetalks to them in three or four languages; at her entertainments she noteswho is present and who absent, as carefully as Napoleon watched hissoldiers; her interchange of cards, alone, is a thing as complex as thearmy muster-rolls: thus she plans, organizes, conquers, and governs. Peoplespeak of her existence as that of a doll or a toy, when she is the mostuntiring of campaigners. Grant that her aim is, after all, unworthy, andthat you pity the worn face which has to force so many smiles. No matter:the smiles are there, and so is the success. I often wish that thereformers would do their work as thoroughly as the women of society dotheirs. No, there is no constitutional want of thoroughness in women. The troubleis that into the new work upon which they are just entering they have notyet brought their thoroughness to bear. They suffer and are defrauded andare reproached, simply because they have not yet nerved themselves to dowell the things which they have asserted their right to do. A distinguishedwoman, who earns one of the largest incomes ever honestly earned by any oneof her sex, off the stage, told me the other day that she left all herbusiness affairs to the management of others, and did not even know how todraw a check on a bank. What a melancholy self-exhibition was that of aclever American woman, whom I knew, the author of half a dozen successfulbooks, refusing to look her own accounts in the face until they had gotinto such a tangle that not even her own referees could disentangle them tosuit her! These things show, not that women are constitutionally wanting inthoroughness, but that it is hard to make them carry this quality into newfields. I wish I could possibly convey to the young women who write for advice onliterary projects something of the meaning of this word "thorough" asapplied to literary work. Scarcely any of them seem to have a conception ofit. Dash, cleverness, recklessness, impatience of revision or of patientinvestigation, these are the common traits. To a person of experience, no stupidity is so discouraging as a brilliancy that has no roots. Itbrings nothing to pass; whereas a slow stupidity, if it takes time enough, may conquer the world. Consider that for more than twenty years the path ofliterature has been quite as fully open for women as for men, in America, --the payment the same, the honor the same, the obstacles no greater. Collegiate education has until quite recently been denied them, but howmany men succeed as writers without that advantage! Yet how little, howvery little, of permanent literary work has yet been done by Americanwomen! Young girls appear one after another: each writes a single cleverstory or a single sweet poem, and then disappears forever. Look atGriswold's "Female Poets of America, " and you are disposed to turn back tothe title-page, and see if these utterly forgotten names do not reallyrepresent the "female poets" of some other nation. They are forgotten, asmost of the more numerous "female prose writers" are forgotten, becausethey had no root. Nobody doubts that women have cleverness enough, andenough of power of expression. If you could open the mails, and take outthe women's letters, as somebody says, they would prove far more graphicand entertaining than those of the men. They would be written, too, in whatMacaulay calls--speaking of Madame d'Arblay's early style--"true woman'sEnglish, clear, natural, and lively. " What they need, in order to convertthis epistolary brilliancy into literature, is to be thorough. You cannot separate woman's rights and her responsibilities. In all ages ofthe world she has had a certain limited work to do, and has done that well. All that is needed, when new spheres are open, is that she should carry thesame fidelity into those. If she will work as hard to shape the children ofher brain as to rear her bodily offspring, will do intellectual work aswell as she does housework, and will meet her moral responsibilities as shemeets her social engagements, then opposition will soon disappear. Thehabit of thoroughness is the key to all high success. Whatever is worthdoing is worth doing well. Only those who are faithful in a few things willrightfully be made rulers over many. LITERARY ASPIRANTS The brilliant Lady Ashburton used to say of herself that she had neverwritten a book, and knew nobody whose books she would like to have written. This does not seem to be the ordinary state of mind among those who writeletters of inquiry to authors. If I may judge from these letters, theyearning for a literary career is now almost greater among women than amongmen. Perhaps this is because of some literary successes lately achieved bywomen. Perhaps it is because they have fewer outlets for their energies. Perhaps they find more obstacles in literature than young men find, andhave, therefore, more need to write letters of inquiry about it. It iscertain that they write such letters quite often; and ask questions thattest severely the supposed omniscience of the author's brain, --questionsbearing on logic, rhetoric, grammar, and orthography; where to find apublisher, and how to obtain a well-disciplined mind. These letters may sometimes be too long or come too often for convenience, nor is the consoling postage-stamp always remembered. But they are of greatvalue as giving real glimpses of American social life, and of the presenttendencies of American women. They sometimes reveal such intellectual ardorand imagination, such modesty, and such patience under difficulties, as todo good to the reader, whatever they may do to the writer. They certainlysuggest a few thoughts, which may as well be expressed, once for all, inprint. Behind almost all these letters there lies a laudable desire to achievesuccess. "Would you have the goodness to tell us how success can beobtained?" How can this be answered, my dear young lady, when you leave itto the reader to guess what your definition of success may be? Forinstance, here is Mr. Mansfield Tracy Walworth, who was murdered the otherday in New York. He was at once mentioned in the newspapers as a"celebrated author. " Never in my life having heard of him, I looked in a "Manual of AmericanLiterature, " and there found that Mr. Walworth's novel of "Warwick" had asale of seventy-five thousand copies, and his "Delaplaine" of forty-fivethousand. Is it a success to have secured a sale like that for your books, and then to die, and have your brother penmen ask, "Who was he?" Yet, certainly, a sale of seventy-five thousand copies is not to be despised;and I fear I know many youths and maidens who would willingly write novelsmuch poorer than "Warwick" for the sake of a circulation like that. I donot think that Hawthorne, however, would have accepted these conditions;and he certainly did not have this style of success. Nor do I think he had any right to expect it. He had made his choice, andhad reason to be satisfied. The very first essential for literary successis to decide what success means. If a young girl pines after the success ofMarion Harland and Mrs. Southworth, let her seek it. It is possible thatshe may obtain it, or surpass it; and though she might do better, she mightdo far worse. It is, at any rate, a laudable aim to be popular: popularitymay be a very creditable thing, unless you pay too high a price for it. Itis a pleasant thing, and has many contingent advantages, --balanced by thisgreat danger, that one is apt to mistake it for real success. "Learning hath made the most, " said old Fuller, "by those books on whichthe booksellers have lost. " If this be true of learning, it is quite astrue of genius and originality. A book may be immediately popular and alsoimmortal, but the chances are the other way. It is more often the case thata great writer gradually creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. Wordsworth in England and Emerson in America were striking instances ofthis; and authors of far less fame have yet the same choice which they had. You can take the standard which the book market offers, and train yourselffor that. This will, in the present age, be sure to educate certainqualities in you, --directness, vividness, animation, dash, --even if itleaves other qualities untrained. Or you can make a standard of your own, and aim at that, taking your chance of seeing the public agree with you. Very likely you may fail; perhaps you may be wrong in your fancy, afterall, and the public may be right: if you fail, you may find it hard tobear; but, on the other hand, you may have the inward "glory and joy" whichnothing but fidelity to an ideal standard can give. All this applies to allforms of work, but it applies conspicuously to literature. Instead, therefore, of offering to young writers the usual comfortingassurance, that, if they produce anything of real merit, it will be sure tosucceed, I should caution them first to make their own definition ofsuccess, and then act accordingly. Hawthorne succeeded in his way, and Mr. M. T. Walworth in his way; and each of these would have been veryunreasonable if he had expected to succeed in both ways. There is always anopening for careful and conscientious literary work; and by such work manypersons obtain a modest support. There are also some great prizes to bewon; but these are commonly, though not always, won by work of a moretemporary and sensational kind. Make your choice; and, when you have gotprecisely what you asked for, do not complain because you have missed whatyou would not take. THE CAREER OF LETTERS A young girl of some talent once told me that she had devoted herself to"the career of letters. " I found, on inquiry, that she had obtained asituation as writer of society gossip for a New York newspaper. I canhardly imagine any life that leads more directly away from any reallyliterary career, or any life about which it is harder to give counsel. Thework of a newspaper correspondent, especially in the "society" direction, is so full of trials and temptations, for one of either sex, in our dear, inquisitive, gossiping America, that one cannot help watching with especialsolicitude all women who enter it. Their special gifts as women are asource of danger: they are keener of observation from the very fact oftheir sex, more active in curiosity, more skilful in achieving their ends;in a world of gossip they are the queens, and men but their subjects, hencetheir greater danger. In Newport, New York, Washington, it is the same thing. The unboundedappetite for private information about public or semi-public people createsits own purveyors; and these, again, learn to believe with unflinchingheartiness in the work they do. I have rarely encountered a successfulcorrespondent of this description who had not become thoroughly convincedthat the highest desire of every human being is to see his name in print, no matter how. Unhappily, there is a great deal to encourage this belief: Ihave known men to express great indignation at an unexpectednewspaper-puff, and then to send ten dollars privately to the author. Thisis just the calamity of the profession, that it brings one in contact withthis class of social hypocrites; and the "personal" correspondent graduallyloses faith that there is any other class to be found. Then there is theperilous temptation to pay off grudges in this way, to revenge slights, bythe use of a power with which few people are safely to be trusted. In manycases, such a correspondent is simply a child playing with poisoned arrows:he poisons others; and it is no satisfaction to know that in time he mayalso poison himself, and paralyze his own power for mischief. There lies before me a letter written some years ago to a young ladyanxious to enter on this particular "career of letters, "--a letter from anexperienced New York journalist. He has employed, he says, hundreds of ladycorrespondents, for little or no compensation; and one of his fewsuccessful writers he thus describes: "She succeeds by pushing her way intosociety, and extracting information from fashionable people and officialsand their wives.... She flatters the vain, and overawes the weak, and getsby sheer impudence what other writers cannot.... I would not wish you to belike her, or reduced to the necessity of doing what she does, for anysuccess journalism can possibly give. " And who can help echoing thisopinion? If this is one of the successful laborers, where shall we placethe unsuccessful; or, rather, is success, or failure, the greater honor? Personal journalism has a prominence in this country with which nothing inany other country can be compared. What is called publicity in England orFrance means the most peaceful seclusion, compared with the glare ofnotoriety which an enterprising correspondent can flash out at any time--asif by opening the bull's-eye of a dark lantern--upon the quietest of hiscontemporaries. It is essentially an American institution, and not one ofthose in which we have reason to feel most pride. It is to be observed, however, that foreigners, if in office, take to it very readily; and it issaid that no people cultivate the reporters at Washington more assiduouslythan the diplomatic corps, who like to send home the personal notices ofthemselves, in order to prove to their governments that they are highlyesteemed in the land to which they are appointed. But however it may bewith them, it is certain that many people still like to keep their publicand private lives apart, and shrink from even the inevitable eminence offame. One of the very most popular of American authors has said that henever, to this day, has overcome a slight feeling of repugnance on seeinghis own name in print. TALKING AND TAKING Every time a woman does anything original or remarkable, --inventing arat-trap, let us say, or carving thirty-six heads on a walnut-shell, --allobservers shout applause. "There's a woman for you, indeed! Instead oftalking about her rights, she takes them. That's the way to do it. What alesson to these declaimers upon the platform!" It does not seem to occur to these wise people that the right to talk isitself one of the chief rights in America, and the way to reach all theothers. To talk is to make a beginning, at any rate. To catch people withyour ideas is more than to contrive a rat-trap; and Isotta Nogarola, carving thirty-six empty heads, was not working in so practical a fashionas Mary Livermore when she instructs thirty-six hundred full ones. It shows the good sense of the woman-suffrage agitators, that they havedecided to begin with talk. In the first place, talking is the mostlucrative of all professions in America; and therefore it is the duty ofAmerican women to secure their share of it. Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble usedto say that she read Shakespeare in public "for her bread;" and when, aftermelting all hearts by a course of farewell readings, she decided to beginreading again, she said she was doing it "for her butter. " So long as womenare often obliged to support themselves and their children, and perhapstheir husbands, by their own labor, they have no right to work cheaply, unless driven to it. Anna Dickinson had no right to make fifteen dollars aweek by sewing, if, by stepping out of the ranks of needle-women into theranks of the talkers, she could make a hundred dollars a day. Theorize aswe may, the fact is that there is no kind of work in America which bringssuch sure profits as public speaking. If women are unfitted for it, or ifthey "know the value of peace and quietness, " as the hand-organ man says, and can afford to hold their tongues, let them do so. But if they havetongues, and like to use them, they certainly ought to make some money bythe performance. This is the utilitarian view. And when we bring in higher objects, it isplain that the way to get anything in America is to talk about it. Silenceis golden, no doubt, and like other gold remains in the bank-vaults, anddoes not just now circulate very freely as currency. Even literature inAmerica is utterly second to oratory as a means of immediate influence. Ofall sway, that of the orator is the most potent and most perishable; andthe student and the artist are apt to hold themselves aloof from it, forthis reason. But it is the one means in America to accomplish immediateresults, and women who would take their rights must take them throughtalking. It is the appointed way. Under a good old-fashioned monarchy, if a woman wished to secure anythingfor her sex, she must cajole a court, or become the mistress of a monarch. That epoch ended with the French Revolution. When Bonaparte wished tosilence Madame de Staël, he said, "What does that woman want? Does she wantthe money the government owes to her father?" When Madame de Staël heard ofit, she said, "The question is not what I want, but what I think. "Henceforth women, like men, are to say what they think. For all thatflattery and seduction and sin, we have substituted the simple weapon oftalk. If women wish education, they must talk; if better laws, they musttalk. The one chief argument against woman suffrage, with men, is that sofew women even talk about it. As long as the human voice can effect anything, it is the duty of women touse it; and in America, where it effects everything, they should talk allthe time. When they have obtained, as a class, absolute equality of rightswith men, their appeals on this subject may cease, and they may accept, ifthey please, that naughty masculine definition of a happy marriage, --theunion of a deaf man with a dumb woman. HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC There are other things that women wish to do, it seems, beside studying andvoting. There are a good many--if I may judge from letters thatoccasionally come to me--who are taking, or wish to take, their firstlessons in public speaking. Not necessarily very much in public, or beforemixed audiences, but perhaps merely to say to a roomful of ladies, orbefore the committee of a Christian Union, what they desire to say. "Howshall I make myself heard? How shall I learn to express myself? How shall Ikeep my head clear? Is there any school for debate?" And so on. My dearyoung lady, it does not take much wisdom, but only a little experience, toanswer some of these questions. So I am not afraid to try. The best school for debate is debating. So far as mere confidence andcomfort are concerned, the great thing is to gain the habit of speech, evenif one speaks badly. And the practice of an ordinary debating society hasalso this advantage, that it teaches you to talk sense (lest you be laughedat), to speak with some animation (lest your hearers go to sleep), to thinkout some good arguments (because you are trying to convince somebody), andto guard against weak reasoning or unfounded assertion (lest your opponenttrip you up). Speaking in a debating society thus gives you the sameadvantage that a lawyer derives from the presence of an opposing counsel:you learn to guard yourself at all points. It is the absence of this checkwhich is the great intellectual disadvantage of the pulpit When a lawyersays a foolish thing in an argument, he is pretty sure to find it out; buta clergyman may go on repeating his foolish thing for fifty years withoutdiscovering it, for want of an opponent. For the art of making your voice heard, I must refer you to anelocutionist. Yet one thing at least you might acquire for yourself, --athing that lies at the foundation of all good speaking, --the complete andthorough enunciation of every syllable. So great is the delight, to my earat least, of a perfectly distinct and clear-cut utterance, that I fear Ishould rather listen for an hour to the merest nonsense, so uttered, thanto the very wisdom of angels if given in a confused or nasal or slovenlyway. If you wish to know what I mean by a clear and satisfactory utterance, go to a woman-suffrage convention, and hear Miss Mary F. Eastman. As to your employment of language, the great aim is to be simple, and, in ameasure, conversational; and then let eloquence come of itself. If mostpeople talked as well in public as in private, public meetings would bemore interesting. To acquire a conversational tone, there is good sense inEdward Everett Hale's suggestion, that every person who is called on tospeak, --let us say, at a public dinner, --instead of standing up and talkingabout his surprise at being called on, should simply make his last remarkto his neighbor at the table the starting-point for what he says to thewhole company. He will thus make sure of a perfectly natural key, to beginwith; and can go on from this quiet "As I was just saying to Mr. Smith, " todiscuss the gravest question of Church or State. It breaks the ice for him, like the remark upon the weather by which we open our interview with theperson whom we have longed for years to meet. Beginning in this way at thelevel of the earth's surface, we can join hands and rise to the clouds. Begin in the clouds, --as some of my most esteemed friends are wont to do, --and you have to sit down before reaching the earth. And, to come last to what is first in importance, I am taking it forgranted that you have something to say, and a strong desire to say it. Perhaps you can say it better for writing it out in full beforehand. Butwhether you do this or not, remember that the more simple and consecutiveyour thought, the easier it will be both to keep it in mind and to utterit. The more orderly your plan, the less likely you will be to "getbewildered, " or to "lose the thread. " Think it out so clearly that thesuccessive parts lead to one another, and then there will be little strainupon your memory. For each point you make, provide at least one goodargument and one good illustration, and you can, after a little practice, safely leave the rest to the suggestion of the moment. But so much as thisyou must have, to be secure. Methods of preparation of course varyextremely; yet I suppose the secret of the composure of an experiencedspeaker to lie usually in this, that he has made sure beforehand of asufficient number of good points to carry him through, even if nothing goodshould occur to him on the spot. Thus wise people, in going on a fishingexcursion, take with them not merely their fishing tackle, but a few fish;and then, if they are not sure of their luck, they will be sure of theirchowder. These are some of the simple hints that might be given, in answer toinquiring friends. I can remember when they would have saved me someanguish of spirit; and they may be of some use to others now. I write, then, not to induce any one to talk for the sake of talking, --Heavenforbid!--but that those who are longing to say something should not fancythe obstacles insurmountable, when they are really slight. VII PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT "That liberty, or freedom, consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every man's life, property, and peace; for the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another, and the poor man has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the legislature than the rich one. That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf. "--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, in Sparks's Franklin, ii. 372. WE THE PEOPLE I remember that when I went to school I used to look with wonder on thetitle of a now forgotten newspaper of those days which was then often inthe hands of one of the older scholars. I remember nothing else about thenewspaper, or about the boy, except that the title of the sheet he used tounfold was "We the People;" and that he derived from it his schoolnickname, by a characteristic boyish parody, and was usually mentioned as"Us the Folks. " Probably all that was taught in that school, in regard to American history, was not of so much value as the permanent fixing of this phrase in ourmemories. It seemed very natural, in later years, to come upon my oldfriend "Us the Folks, " reproduced in almost every charter of our nationalgovernment, as thus:-- "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. "--_United States Constitution, Preamble_. "WE THE PEOPLE of Maine do agree, " etc. --_Constitution of Maine_. "All government of right originates from THE PEOPLE, is founded in their consent, and instituted for the general good. "--_Constitution of New Hampshire_. "The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; it is a social compact, 'by which THE WHOLE PEOPLE covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. "--_Constitution of Massachusetts_. "WE THE PEOPLE of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations ... Do ordain and establish this constitution of government. "--_Constitution of Rhode Island_. "The people of Connecticut do, in order more effectually to define, secure, and perpetuate the liberties, rights, and privileges which they have derived from their ancestors, hereby ordain and establish the following constitution and form of civil government. "--_Constitution of Connecticut_. And so on through the constitutions of almost every State in the Union. Ourgovernment is, as Lincoln said, "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. " There is no escaping it. To question this is to denythe foundations of the American government. Granted that those who framedthese provisions may not have understood the full extent of the principlesthey announced. No matter: they gave us those principles; and, having them, we must apply them. Now, women may be voters or not, citizens or not; but that they are a partof the people, no one has denied in Christendom--however it may be inJapan, where, as Mrs. Leonowens tells us, the census of population takes inonly men, and the women and children are left to be inferred. "WE THEPEOPLE, " then, includes women. Be the superstructure what it may, thefoundation of the government clearly provides a place for them: it isimpossible to state the national theory in such a way that it shall notinclude them. It is impossible to deny the natural right of women to vote, except on grounds which exclude all natural right. The fundamental charters are on our side. There are certain statutelimitations which may prove greater or less. But these are temporary andtrivial things, always to be interpreted, often to be modified, byreference to the principles of the Constitution. For instance, when aconstitutional convention is to be held, or new conditions of suffrage tobe created, the whole people should vote upon the matter, including thosenot hitherto enfranchised. This is the view insisted on, many years since, by that eminent jurist, William Beach Lawrence. He maintained, in a letterto Charles Sumner and in opposition to his own party, that if the questionof "negro suffrage" in the Southern States of the Union were put to vote, the colored people themselves had a natural right to vote on the question. The same is true of women. It should never be forgotten by advocates ofwoman suffrage, that the deeper their reasonings go, the strongerfoundation they find; and that we have always a solid fulcrum for our leverin that phrase of our charters, "We the people. " THE USE OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE When young people begin to study geometry, they expect to begin with hardreasoning on the very first page. To their surprise, they find that theearly pages are not occupied by reasoning, but by a few simple, easy, andrather commonplace sentences, called "axioms, " which are really a set ofpegs on which all the reasoning is hung. Pupils are not expected to go backin every demonstration and prove the axioms. If Almira Jones happens to bedoing a problem at the blackboard on examination day, at the high school, and remarks in the course of her demonstration that "things which are equalto the same thing are equal to one another, " and if a sharp questionerjumps up, and says, "How do you know it?" she simply lays down her bit ofchalk, and says fearlessly, "That is an axiom, " and the teacher sustainsher. Some things must be taken for granted. The same service rendered by axioms in the geometry is supplied in America, as to government, by the simple principles of the Declaration ofIndependence. Right or wrong, they are taken for granted. Inasmuch as allthe legislation of the country is supposed to be based in them, --theystating the theory of our government, while the Constitution itself onlyputs into organic shape the application, --we must all begin with them. Itis a great advantage, and saves great trouble in all reforms. To theAbolitionists, for instance, what an inestimable labor-saving machine wasthe Declaration of Independence! Let them have that, and they asked nomore. Even the brilliant lawyer Rufus Choate, when confronted with itsplain provisions, could only sneer at them as "glittering generalities, "which was equivalent to throwing down his brief, and throwing up his case. It was an admission that, if you were so foolish as to insist on applyingthe first principles of the government, it was all over with him. Now, the whole doctrine of woman suffrage follows so directly from thesesame political axioms, that they are especially convenient for women tohave in the house. When the Declaration of Independence enumerates as among"self-evident" truths the fact of governments "deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed, " then that point may be considered assettled. In this school-examination of maturer life, in this grown-upgeometry class, the student is not to be called upon by the committee toprove that. She may rightfully lay down her demonstrating chalk, and say, "That is an axiom. You admit that yourselves. " It is a great convenience. We cannot always be going back, like a Hindoohistory, to the foundations of the world. Some things may be taken forgranted. How this simple axiom sweeps away, for instance, the cobwebspeculations as to whether voting is a natural right, or a privilegedelegated by society! No matter which. Take it which way you please. Thatis an abstract question; but the practical question is a very simple one. "Governments owe their just powers to the consent of the governed. " Eitherthat axiom is false, or, whenever women as a class refuse their consent tothe present exclusively masculine government, it can no longer claim justpowers. The remedy then may be rightly demanded, which the Declaration ofIndependence goes on to state: "Whenever any form of government becomesdestructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or toabolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation onsuch principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shallseem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. " This is the use of the Declaration of Independence. Women, as a class, maynot be quite ready to use it. It is the business of this book to help makethem ready. But so far as they are ready these plain provisions are theaxioms of their political faith. If the axioms mean anything for men, theymean something for women. If men deride the axioms, it is a concession, like that of Rufus Choate, that these fundamental principles are very muchin their way. But so long as the sentences stand in that document they canbe made useful. If men try to get away from the arguments of women bysaving, "But suppose we have nothing in our theory of government whichrequires us to grant your demand?" then women can answer, as thestraightforward Traddles answered Uriah Heep, "But you have, you know:therefore, if you please, we won't suppose any such thing. " SOME OLD-FASHIONED PRINCIPLES There has been an effort, lately, to show that when our fathers said, "Taxation without representation is tyranny, " they referred not to personalliberties, but to the freedom of a state from foreign power. It isfortunate that this criticism has been made, for it has led to a morecareful examination of passages; and this has made it clear, beyonddispute, that the Revolutionary patriots carried their statements more intodetail than is generally supposed, and affirmed their principles forindividuals, not merely for the state as a whole. In that celebrated pamphlet by James Otis, for instance, published as earlyas 1764, "The Rights of the Colonies Vindicated, " he thus clearly lays downthe rights of the individual as to taxation:-- "The very act of taxing, exercised over those who are not represented, appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen; and, if continued, seems to be, in effect, an entire disfranchisement of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush, after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure, without his consent? If a man is not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone, or he is entirely at the mercy of others. " [1] This fine statement has already done duty for liberty, in another contest;for it was quoted by Mr. Sumner in his speech of March 7, 1866, with thiscommentary:-- "Stronger words for universal suffrage could not be employed. His argument is that if men are taxed without being represented, they are deprived of essential rights; and the continuance of this deprivation despoils them of every civil right, thus making the latter depend upon the right of suffrage, which by a neologism of our day is known as a political right instead of a civil right. Then, to give point to this argument, the patriot insists that in determining taxation, 'every man must be his own assessor, in person or by deputy, ' without which his liberty is entirely at the mercy of others. Here, again, in a different form, is the original thunderbolt, 'Taxation without representation is tyranny;' and the claim is made not merely for communities, but for 'every man. '" In a similar way wrote Benjamin Franklin, some six years after, in thatremarkable sheet found among his papers, and called "Declaration of thoseRights of the Commonalty of Great Britain, without which they cannot befree. " The leading propositions were these three:-- "That every man of the commonalty (excepting infants, insane persons, and criminals) is of common right and by the laws of God a freeman, and entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That liberty, or freedom, consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every man's life, property, and peace; for the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another; and the poor man has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the legislature than the rich one. That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf. "[2] In quoting these words of Dr. Franklin, one of his biographers feels movedto add, "These principles, so familiar to us now and so obviously just, were startling and incredible novelties in 1770, abhorrent to nearly allEnglishmen, and to great numbers of Americans. " Their fair application isstill abhorrent to a great many; or else, not willing quite to deny thetheory, they limit the application by some such device as "virtualrepresentation. " Here, again, James Otis is ready for them; and CharlesSumner is ready to quote Otis, as thus:-- "No such phrase as virtual representation was ever known in law or constitution. It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd. We must not be cheated by any such phantom, or any other fiction of law or politics, or any monkish trick of deceit or blasphemy. " These are the sharp words used by the patriot Otis, speaking of those whowere trying to convince American citizens that they were virtuallyrepresented in Parliament Sumner applied the same principle to thefreedmen: it is now applied to women. "Taxation without representation istyranny. " "Virtual representation is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd. " No ingenuity, no evasion, can give any escapefrom these plain principles. Either you must revoke the maxims of theAmerican Revolution, or you must enfranchise woman. Stuart Mill well saysin his autobiography, "The interest of woman is included in that of manexactly as much (and no more) as that of subjects in that of kings. " [Footnote 1: Otis, _Rights of the Colonies_, p. 58. ] [Footnote 2: Sparks's _Franklin_, ii. 372. ] FOUNDED ON A ROCK If there is any one who is recognized as a fair exponent of our nationalprinciples, it is our martyr-president Abraham Lincoln; whom Lowell calls, in his noble Commemoration Ode at Cambridge, -- "New birth of our new soil, the first American. " What President Lincoln's political principle was, we know. On his journeyto Washington for his first inauguration he said, "I have never had afeeling that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declarationof Independence. " To find out what was his view of those sentiments, wemust go back several years earlier, and consider that remarkable letter ofhis to the Boston Republicans who had invited him to join them incelebrating Jefferson's birthday, in April, 1859. It was well called byCharles Sumner "a gem in political literature;" and it seems to me almostas admirable, in its way, as the Gettysburg address. "The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied and evaded with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them 'glittering generalities. ' Another bluntly styles them 'self-evident lies. ' And others insidiously argue that they apply only to 'superior races. '" "These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect, --the subverting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. They are the vanguard, the sappers and miners of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. " "All honor to Jefferson. '--the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document _an abstract truth applicable to all men and all times_, and so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression. " The special "abstract truth" to which President Lincoln thus attaches avalue so great, and which he pronounces "applicable to all men and alltimes, " is evidently the assertion of the Declaration that governmentsderive their just powers from the consent of the governed, following theassertion that all men are born free and equal; that is, as some one haswell interpreted it, equally men. I do not see how any person but a dreamyrecluse can deny that the strength of our republic rests on theseprinciples; which are so thoroughly embedded in the average American mindthat they take in it, to some extent, the place occupied in the averageEnglish mind by the emotion of personal loyalty to a certain reigningfamily. But it is impossible to defend these principles logically, asSenator Hoar has well pointed out, without recognizing that they are asapplicable to women as to men. If this is the case, the claim of womenrests on a right, --indeed, upon the same right which is the foundation ofall our institutions. The encouraging fact in the present condition of the whole matter is notthat we get more votes here or there for this or that form of womansuffrage--for experience has shown that there are great ups and downs inthat respect; and States that at one time seemed nearest to woman suffrage, as Maine and Kansas, now seem quite apathetic. But the real encouragementis that the logical ground is more and more conceded; and the point nowusually made is not that the Jeffersonian maxim excludes women, but that"the consent of the governed" is substantially given by the general consentof women. That this argument has a certain plausibility may be conceded;but it is equally clear that the minority of women, those who do wish tovote, includes on the whole the natural leaders, --those who are foremost inactivity of mind, in literature, in art, in good works of charity. It is, therefore, pretty sure that they only predict the opinions of the rest, whowill follow them in time. And even while waiting it is a fair questionwhether the "governed" have not the right to give their votes when theywish, even if the majority of them prefer to stay away from the polls. Wedo not repeal our naturalization laws, although only the minority of ourforeign-born inhabitants as yet take the pains to become naturalized. THE GOOD OF THE GOVERNED In Paris, some years ago, I was for a time a resident in a cultivatedFrench family, where the father was non-committal in politics, the motherand son were republicans, and the daughter was a Bonapartist. Asking themother why the young lady thus held to a different creed from the rest, Iwas told that she had made up her mind that the streets of Paris were keptcleaner under the empire than since its disappearance: hence herimperialism. I have heard American men advocate the French empire at home and abroad, without offering reasons so good as those of the lively French maiden. ButI always think of her remark when the question is seriously asked, as Mr. Parkman, for instance, once gravely put it in "The North AmericanReview, "--"The real issue is this: Is the object of government the good ofthe governed, or is it not?" Taken in a general sense, there is probably nodisposition to discuss this conundrum, for the simple reason that nobodydissents from it. But the important point is: What does "the good of thegoverned" mean? Does it merely mean better street cleaning, or somethingmore essential? There is nothing new in the distinction. Ever since De Tocqueville wrotehis "Democracy in America, " forty years ago, this precise point has beenunder active discussion. That acute writer himself recurs to it again andagain. Every government, he points out, nominally seeks the good of thepeople, and rests on their will at last. But there is this difference: Amonarchy organizes better, does its work better, cleans the streets better. Nevertheless De Tocqueville, a monarchist, sees this advantage in arepublic, that when all this is done by the people for themselves, althoughthe work done may be less perfect, yet the people themselves are moreenlightened, better satisfied, and, in the end, their good is betterserved. Thus in one place he quotes "a writer of talent" who complains ofthe want of administrative perfection in the United States, and says, "Weare indebted to centralization, that admirable invention of a great man, for the uniform order and method which prevails alike in all the municipalbudgets (of France) from the largest town to the humblest commune. " But, says De Tocqueville, -- "Whatever may be my admiration of this result, when I see the communes (municipalities) of France, with their excellent system of accounts, plunged in the grossest ignorance of their true interests, and abandoned to so incorrigible an apathy that they seem to vegetate rather than to live; when, on the other hand, I observe the activity, the information, and the spirit of enterprise which keeps society in perpetual labor, in these American townships, whose budgets are drawn up with small method and with still less uniformity, --I am struck by the spectacle; _for, to my mind, the end of a good government is to insure the welfare of a people_, and not to establish order and regularity in the midst of its misery and its distress. "[1] The italics are my own; but it will be seen that he uses a phrase almostidentical with Mr. Parkman's, and that he uses it to show that there issomething to be looked at beyond good laws, --namely, the beneficial effectof self-government. In another place he comes back to the subject again:-- "It is incontestable that the people frequently conducts public business very ill; but it is impossible that the lower order should take a part in public business without extending the circle of their ideas, and without quitting the ordinary routine of their mental acquirements; the humblest individual who is called upon to cooperate in the government of society acquires a certain degree of self-respect; and, as he possesses authority, he can command the services of minds much more enlightened than his own. He is canvassed by a multitude of applicants, who seek to deceive him in a thousand different ways, but who instruct him by their deceit.... Democracy does not confer the most skilful kind of government upon the people; but it produces that which the most skilful governments are frequently unable to awaken, namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it, and which may, under favorable circumstances, beget the most amazing benefits. These are the true advantages of democracy. "[2] These passages and others like them are worth careful study. They clearlypoint out the two different standards by which we may criticise allpolitical systems. One class of thinkers, of whom Froude is the mostconspicuous, holds that the "good of the people" means good laws and goodadministration, and that, if these are only provided, it makes no sort ofdifference whether they themselves make the laws, or whether some Cæsar orLouis Napoleon provides them. All the traditions of the early and laterFederalists point this way. But it has always seemed to me a theory ofgovernment essentially incompatible with American institutions. If we couldonce get our people saturated with it, they would soon be at the mercy ofsome Louis Napoleon of their own. When President Lincoln claimed, following Theodore Parker, that ours wasnot merely a government for the people, but of the people, and by thepeople as well, he recognized the other side of the matter, --that it is notonly important what laws we have, but who makes the laws; and that "the endof a good government is to insure the welfare of a people, " in this farwider sense. That advantage which the French writer admits in democracy, that it develops force, energy, and self-respect, is as essentially a partof "the good of the governed" as is any perfection in the details ofgovernment. And it is precisely these advantages which we expect thatwomen, sooner or later, are to share. For them, as for men, "the good ofthe governed" is not genuine unless it is that kind of good which belongsto the self-governed. [Footnote 1: Sparks's _Franklin_, ii. 372. ] [Footnote 2: De Tocqueville, vol. Ii. Pp. 74, 75. ] RULING AT SECONDHAND In the last century the bitter satirist, Charles Churchill, wrote a versewhich will do something to keep alive his name. It is as follows:-- "Women ruled all; and ministers of state Were at the doors of women forced to wait, -- Women, who we oft as sovereigns graced the land, But never governed well at second-hand. " He touches the very kernel of the matter, and all history is on his side. The Salic Law excluded women from the throne of France, --"the kingdom ofFrance being too noble to be governed by a woman, " as it said. Accordinglythe history of France shows one long line of royal mistresses ruling insecret for mischief; while more liberal England points to the reigns ofElizabeth and Anne and Victoria, to show how usefully a woman may sit upona throne. It was one of the merits of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, that she always pointedout this distinction. "Any woman can have influence, " she said, "in someway. She need only to be a good cook or a good scold, to secure that. Womanshould not merely have a share in the power of man, --for of that omnipotentNature will not suffer her to be defrauded, --but it should be a _chartered_power, too fully recognized to be abused. " We have got to meet, at anyrate, this fact of feminine influence in the world. Demosthenes said thatthe measures which a statesman had meditated for a year might be overturnedin a day by a woman. How infinitely more sensible then, to train the womanherself in statesmanship, and give her open responsibility as well asconcealed power! The same demoralizing principle of subordination runs through the wholeposition of women. Many a husband makes of his wife a doll, dresses her infine clothes, gives or withholds money according to his whims, and laughsor frowns if she asks any questions about his business. If only a pettedslave, she naturally develops the vices of a slave; and when she wants moremoney for more fine clothes, and finds her husband out of humor, shecoaxes, cheats, and lies. Many a woman half ruins her husband by herextravagance, simply because he has never told her frankly what his incomeis, or treated her, in money matters, like a rational being. Bankruptcy, perhaps, brings both to their senses; and thenceforward the husbanddiscovers that his wife is a woman, not a child. But for want of this wholefamilies and generations of women are trained to deception. I knew aninstance where a fashionable dressmaker in New York urged an economicalyoung girl, about to be married, to buy of her a costly _trousseau_ orwedding outfit. "But I have not the money, " said the maiden. "No matter, " said thecomplaisant tempter: "I will wait four years, and send in the bill to yourhusband by degrees. Many ladies do it. " Fancy the position of a pure younggirl, wishing innocently to make herself beautiful in the eyes of herhusband, and persuaded to go into his house with a trick like this upon herconscience! Yet it grows directly out of the whole theory of life which ispreached to many women, --that all they seek must be won by indirectmanoeuvres, and not by straightforward living. It is a mistaken system. Once recognize woman as born to be the equal, notinferior, of man, and she accepts as a right her share of the familyincome, of political power, and of all else that is capable ofdistribution. As it is, we are in danger of forgetting that woman, in mindas in body, was-born to be upright. The women of Charles Reade--never byany possibility moving in a straight line where it is possible to find acrooked one--are distorted women; and Nature is no more responsible forthem than for the figures produced by tight lacing and by high-heeledboots. These physical deformities acquire a charm, when the taste adjustsitself to them; and so do those pretty tricks and those interminable lies. But after all, to make a noble woman you must give a noble training. VIII SUFFRAGE "No such phrase as virtual representation was ever known in law or constitution. It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd. We must not be cheated by any such phantom or any other trick of law and politics. "--JAMES OTIS, quoted by Charles Sumner in speech, March 7, 1866. DRAWING THE LINE When in Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" the coal-heaver calls at thefashionable barber's to be shaved, the barber declines that service. Thecoal-heaver pleads that he saw a baker being shaved there the day before. But the barber points out to him that it is necessary to draw the linesomewhere, and he draws it at bakers. It is, doubtless, an inconvenience, in respect to woman suffrage, that somany people have their own theories as to drawing the line, and decidingwho shall vote. Each has his hobby; and as the opportunity for applying itto men has passed by, each wishes to catch at the last remaining chance, and apply it to women. One believes in drawing an educational line;another, in a property qualification; another, in new restrictions onnaturalization; another, in distinctions of race; and each wishes to keepwomen, for a time, as the only remaining victims for his experiment. Fortunately the answer to all these objections, on behalf of womansuffrage, is very brief and simple. It is no more the business of itsadvocates to decide upon the best abstract basis for suffrage, than it isto decide upon the best system of education, or of labor, or of marriage. Its business is to equalize, in all these directions; nothing more. Whenthat is done, there will be plenty still left to do, without doubt; but itwill not involve the rights of women, as such. Simply to strike out theword "male" from the statute, --that is our present work. "What is sauce forthe goose"--but the proverb is somewhat musty. These educational andproperty restrictions may be of value; but wherever they are alreadyremoved from the men they must be removed from women also. Enfranchise themequally, and then begin afresh, if you please, to legislate for the wholehuman race. What we protest against is that you should have let down thebars for one sex, and should at once become conscientiously convinced thatthey should be put up again for the other. When it was proposed to apply an educational qualification at the Southafter the war, the Southern white loyalists all objected to it. If you makeit universal, they said, it cuts off many of the whites. If you apply it tothe blacks alone, it is manifestly unjust. The case is the same with womenin regard to men. As woman needs the ballot primarily to protect herself, it is manifestly unjust to restrict the suffrage for her, when man has itwithout restriction. If she needs protection, then she needs it all themore from being poor, or ignorant, or Irish, or black. If we do not seethis, the freedwomen of the South did. There is nothing like personal wrongto teach people logic. We hear a great deal said in dismay, and sometimes even by oldabolitionists, about "increasing the number of ignorant voters. " InMassachusetts, there is an educational restriction for men, such as it is;in Rhode Island, a property qualification is required for voting on certainquestions. Personally, I believe with "Warrington, " that, if ignorantvoting be bad, ignorant non-voting is worse; and that the enfranchised"masses, " which have a legitimate outlet for their political opinions, arefar less dangerous than disfranchised masses, which must rely on mobs andstrikes. I will go farther, and say that I believe our republic is, on thewhole, in less danger from its poor men, who have got to stay in it andbring up their children, than from its rich men, who have always Paris andLondon to fall back upon. I do not see that even a poll-tax or registry-taxis of any use as a safeguard; for if men are to be bought the tax merelyoffers a more indirect and palatable form in which to pay the price. Many aman consents to have his poll-tax paid by his party or his candidate, whenhe would reject the direct offer of a dollar bill. But this is all private speculation, and has nothing to do with thewoman-suffrage movement. All that we can ask, as advocates of this reform, is that the inclusion or the exclusion should be the same for both sexes. We cannot put off the equality of woman till that time, a few centurieshence, when the Social Science Association shall have succeeded in agreeingon the true basis of "scientific legislation. " It is as if we urged thatwives should share their husbands' dinners, and were told that thephysicians had not decided whether beefsteak were wholesome. The answeris, "Beefsteak or tripe, yeast or saleratus, which you please. But, meanwhile, what is good enough for the wife is good enough for thehusband. " FOR SELF-PROTECTION I remember to have read, many years ago, the life of Sir Samuel Romilly, the English philanthropist. He was the author of more beneficent legalreforms than any man of his day, and there was in that very book a longlist of the changes he still meant to bring about. It struck me very much, that among these proposed reforms not one of any importance referred to thelaws about women. It shows--what all experience has shown--that no class or race or sex cansafely trust its protection in any hands but its own. The laws of Englandin regard to woman were then so bad that Lord Brougham afterwards said theyneeded total reconstruction, if they were to be touched at all. Yet it isonly since woman suffrage began to be talked about, that the work oflaw-reform has really taken firm hold. In many cases in America thebeneficent measures are directly to be traced to some appeal from feminineadvocates. Even in Canada, as was once stated by Dr. Cameron of Toronto, the bill protecting the property of married women was passed under theimmediate pressure of Lucy Stone's eloquence. And even where this directagency could not be traced, the general fact that the atmosphere was fullof the agitation had much to do with all the reforms that took place. Legislatures, unwilling to give woman the ballot, were shamed into givingher something. The chairman of the judiciary committee in Rhode Island toldme that until he heard women argue before the committee he had notreflected upon their legal disabilities, or thought how unjust these were. While the matter was left to the other sex only, even men like Sir SamuelRomilly forgot the wrongs of woman. When she began to advocate her owncause men also waked up. But now that they are awake they ask, Is not this sufficient? Not at all Ifan agent who has cheated you surrenders reluctantly one half your stolengoods, you do not stop there and say, "It is enough. Your intention ishonorable. Please continue my agent with increased pay. " On the contrary, you say, "Your admission of wrong is a plea of guilty. Give me the rest ofwhat is mine. " There is no defence like self-defence, no protection likeself-protection. All theories of chivalry and generosity and vicarious representation fallbefore the fact that woman has been grossly wronged by man. That being thecase, the only modest and honest thing for man to do is to say, "Henceforward have a voice in making your own laws. " Till this is done, shehas no sure safeguard, since otherwise the same men who made the oldbarbarous laws may at any time restore them. It is common to say that woman suffrage will make no great difference; thatwomen will think very much as men do, and it will simply double the votewithout varying the result. About many matters this may be true. To besure, it is probable that on questions of conscience, like slavery andtemperance, the woman's vote would by no means coincide with man's. Butgrant that it would. The fact remains, --and all history shows it, --that onall that concerns her own protection a woman needs her own vote. Would awoman vote to give her husband the power of bequeathing her children to thecontrol and guardianship of somebody else? Would a woman vote to sustainthe law by which a Massachusetts chief justice bade the police take thosecrying children from their mother's side in the Boston court-room a fewyears ago, and hand them over to a comparative stranger, because thatmother had married again? You might as well ask whether the colored votewould sustain the Dred Scott decision. Tariffs or banks may come or go thesame, whether the voters be white or black, male or female; but when thewrongs of an oppressed class or sex are to be righted the ballot is theonly guaranty. After they have gained a potential voice for themselves, theSir Samuel Romillys will remember them. WOMANLY STATESMANSHIP The newspapers periodically express a desire to know whether women havegiven evidence, on the whole, of superior statesmanship to men. There areconstant requests that they will define their position as to the tariff andthe fisheries and the civil-service question. If they do not speak, it isnaturally assumed that they will forever after hold their peace. Let us seehow that matter stands. It is said that the greatest mechanical skill in America is to be foundamong professional burglars who come here from England. Suppose one ofthese men were in prison, and we were to stand outside and taunt himthrough the window: "Here is a locomotive engine: why do you not mend ormanage it? Here is a steam printing-press: if you know anything, set it upfor me! You a mechanic, when you have not proved that you understand any ofthese things? Nonsense!" But Jack Sheppard, if he condescended to answer us at all, would coollysay, "Wait a while, till I have finished my present job. Being in prison, my first business is to get out of prison. Wait till I have picked thislock, and mined this wall; wait till I have made a saw out of awatch-spring, and a ladder out of a pair of blankets. Let me do my firsttask, and get out of limbo, and then see if your little printing-pressesand locomotives are too puzzling for my fingers. " Politically speaking, woman is in jail, and her first act of skill must bein getting through the wall. For her there is no tariff question, noproblem of the fisheries. She will come to that by and by, if you please;but for the present her statesmanship must be employed nearer home. The"civil-service reform" in which she is most concerned is a reform whichshall bring her in contact with the civil service. Her political creed, forthe present, is limited to that of Sterne's starling in the cage, --"I can'tget out. " If she is supposed to have any common-sense at all, she will bestshow it by beginning at the point where she is, instead of at the pointwhere somebody else is. She would indeed be as foolish as these editorsthink her if she now spent her brains upon the tariff question, which shecannot reach, instead of upon her own enfranchisement, which she isgradually reaching. The woman-suffrage movement in America, in all its stages and subdivisions, has been the work of woman. No doubt men have helped in it: much of thetalking has been done by them, and they have furnished many of the printeddocuments. But the energy, the methods, the unwearied purpose, of themovement, have come from women: they have led in all councils; they haveestablished the newspapers, got up the conventions, addressed thelegislatures, and raised the money. Thirty years have shown, with whatevertemporary variations, one vast wave of progress toward success, both inthis country and in Europe. Now success is statesmanship. I remember well the shouts of laughter that used to greet the anti-slaveryorators when they claimed that the real statesmen of the country were notthe Clays and Calhouns, who spent their strength in trying to sustainslavery, and failed, but the Garrisons, who devoted their lives to itsoverthrow, and were succeeding. Yet who now doubts this? Tried by the samestandard, the statesmanship of to-day does not lie in the men who can findno larger questions before them than those which concern the fisheries, butin the women whose far-reaching efforts will one day make every existingvoting-list so much waste paper. Of course, when the voting-lists with the women's names are ready to beprinted, it will be interesting to speculate as to how these new monarchsof our destiny will use their power. For myself, a long course ofobservation in the anti-slavery and woman-suffrage movements has satisfiedme that women are not idiots, and that, on the whole, when they give theirminds to a question, whether moral or practical, they understand it quiteas readily as men. In the anti-slavery movement it is certain that a woman, Elizabeth Heyrick, gave the first impulse to its direct and simple solutionin England; and that another woman, Mrs. Stowe, did more than any man, except perhaps Garrison and John Brown, to secure its right solution here. There was never a moment, I am confident, when any great political questiongrowing out of the anti-slavery struggle might not have been put to votemore safely among the women of New England than among the clergy, or thelawyers, or the college professors. If they did so well in that greatissue, it is fair to assume that, after they have a sufficient inducementto study out future issues, they at least will not be very much behind themen. But we cannot keep it too clearly in view, that the whole question, whetherwomen would vote better or worse than men on general questions, is a minormatter. It was equally a minor matter in case of the negroes. We gave thenegroes the ballot, simply because they needed it for their own protection;and we shall by and by give it to women for the same reason. Tried by thattest, we shall find that their statesmanship will be genuine. When theycome into power, drunken husbands will no longer control their wives'earnings, and a chief justice will no longer order a child to be removedfrom its mother, amid its tears and outcries, merely because that motherhas married again. And if, as we are constantly assured, woman's first dutyis to her home and her children, she may count it a good beginning instatesmanship to secure to herself the means of protecting both. That oncesettled, it will be time enough to "interview" her in respect to the properrate of duty on pig-iron. TOO MUCH PREDICTION "Seek not to proticipate, " says Mrs. Gamp, the venerable nurse in "MartinChuzzlewit"--"but take 'em as they come, and as they go. " I am persuadedthat our woman-suffrage arguments would be improved by this sage counsel, and that at present we indulge in too many bold anticipations. Is there not altogether too much tendency to predict what women will dowhen they vote? Could that good time come to-morrow, we should be startledto find to how many different opinions and "causes" the new voters werealready pledged. One speaker wishes that women should be emancipated, because of the fidelity with which they are sure to support certaindesirable measures, as peace, order, freedom, temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come. Then the next speaker has his or her schedule ofpolitical virtues and is equally confident that women, if onceenfranchised, will guarantee clear majorities for them all. The trouble isthat we thus mortgage this new party of the future, past relief, beyondpossibility of payment, and incur the ridicule of the unsanctified bycommitting our cause to a great many contradictory pledges. I know an able and high-minded woman of foreign birth, who courageously, but as I think mistakenly, calls herself an atheist, and who has for yearsadvocated woman suffrage as the only antidote to the rule of the clergy. Onthe other hand, an able speaker in a Boston convention soon after advocatedthe same thing as the best way of defeating atheism, and securing thepositive assertion of religion by the community. Both cannot be correct:neither is entitled to speak for woman. That being the case, would it notbe better to keep clear of this dangerous ground of prediction, and keep tothe argument based on rights and needs? If our theory of government beworth anything, woman has the same right to the ballot that man has: shecertainly needs it as much for self-defence. How she will use it, when shegets it, is her own affair. It may be that she will use it more wisely thanher brothers; but I am satisfied to believe that she will use it as well. Let us not attribute infallible wisdom and virtue, even to women; for, asdear Mrs. Poyser says in "Adam Bede, " "God Almighty made some of 'emfoolish, to match the men. " It is common to assume, for instance, that all women by nature favor peace;and that, even if they do not always seem to promote it in their socialwalk and conversation, they certainly will in their political. When weconsider how all the pleasing excitements, achievements, and glories ofwar, such as they are, accrue to men only, and how large a part of themiseries are brought home to women, it might seem that their vote on thismatter, at least, would be a sure thing. Thus far the theory: the factbeing that we have been through a civil war which convulsed the nation, andcost half a million lives; and which was, from the very beginning, fomented, stimulated, and applauded, at least on one side, by the unitedvoice of the women. It will be generally admitted by those who know, that, but for the women of the seceding States, the war of the Rebellion wouldhave been waged more feebly, been sooner ended, and far more easilyforgotten. Nay, I was told a few days since by an able Southern lawyer, whowas long the mayor of one of the largest Southern cities, that in hisopinion the practice of duelling--which is an epitome of war--owes itscontinued existence at the South to a sustaining public sentiment among thefair sex. Again, where the sympathy of women is wholly on the side of right, it is byno means safe to assume that their mode of enforcing that sentiment will beequally judicious. Take, for instance, the temperance cause. It is quitecommon to assume that women are a unit on that question. When we look atthe two extremes of society, --the fine lady pressing wine upon hervisitors, and the Irishwoman laying in a family supply of whiskey to lastover Sunday, --the assumption seems hasty. But grant it. Is it equally sure, that when woman takes hold of that most difficult of all legislation, thelicense and prohibitory laws, she will handle them more wisely than menhave done? Will her more ardent zeal solve the problem on which so muchzeal has already been lavished in vain? In large cities, for instance, where there is already more law than is enforced, will her additionalballots afford the means to enforce it? It may be so; but it seems wisernot to predict nor to anticipate, but to wait and hope. It is no reproach on woman to say that she is not infallible on particularquestions. There is much reason to suppose that in politics, as in everyother sphere, the joint action of the sexes will be better and wiser thanthat of either singly. It seems obvious that the experiment of republicangovernment will be more fairly tried when one half the race is no longerdisfranchised. It is quite certain, at any rate, that no class can trustits rights to the mercy and chivalry of any other, but that, the weaker itis, the more it needs all political aids and securities forself-protection. Thus far we are on safe ground; and here, as it seems tome, the claim for suffrage may securely rest. To go farther in ourassertions seems to me unsafe, although many of our wisest and mosteloquent may differ from me; and the nearer we approach success, the moreimportant it is to look to our weapons. It is a plausible and temptingargument, to claim suffrage for woman on the ground that she is an angel;but I think it will prove wiser, in the end, to claim it for her asbeing human. FIRST-CLASS CARRIAGES In a hotly contested municipal election, the other day, an active politicalmanager was telling me his tactics. "We have to send carriages for some ofthe voters, " he said. "First-class carriages! If we undertake to wait on'em, we must do it in good shape, and not leave the best carriages to behired by the other party. " I am not much given to predicting just what will happen when women vote;but I confidently assert that they will be taken to the polls, if theywish, in first-class carriages. If the best horses are to be harnessed, andthe best cushions selected, and every panel of the coach rubbed till youcan see your face in it, merely to accommodate some elderly man who livestwo blocks away, and could walk to the polls very easily, then how muchmore will these luxuries be placed at the service of every woman, young orold, whose presence at the polls is made doubtful by mud, or snow, or theprospect of a shower. But the carriage is only the beginning of the polite attentions that willsoon appear. When we see the transformation undergone by every ferryboatand every railway station, so soon as it comes to be frequented by women, who can doubt that voting-places will experience the same change? They willsoon have--at least in the "ladies' department"--elegance instead ofdiscomfort, beauty for ashes, plenty of rocking-chairs, and no need ofspittoons. Very possibly they may have all the modern conveniences andinconveniences, --furnace registers, teakettles, Washington pies, and ayoung lady to give checks for bundles. Who knows what elaborate comforts, what queenly luxuries, may be offered to women at voting-places, when thetime has finally arrived to sue for their votes? The common impression has always been quite different from this. Peoplelook at the coarseness and dirt now visible at so many voting-places, andsay, "Would you expose women to all that?" But these places are not dirtierthan a railway smoking-car; and there is no more coarseness than in anyferryboat which is, for whatever reason, used by men only. You do not lookinto those places, and say with indignation, "Never, if I can help it, shall my wife or my beloved great-grandmother travel by steamboat or byrail!" You know that with these exemplary relatives will enter order andquiet, carpets and curtains, brooms and dusters. Why should it be otherwisewith ward rooms and town halls? There is not an atom more of intrinsic difficulty in providing a decorousladies' room for a voting-place, than for a post-office or a railwaystation; and it is as simple a thing to vote a ticket as to buy one. Thisbeing thus easily practicable, all men will desire to provide it. And theexample of the first-class carriages shows that the parties will vie witheach other in these pleasing arrangements. They will be driven to it, whether they wish it or not. The party which has most consistently andresolutely kept woman away from the ballot-box will be the very partycompelled, for the sake of self-preservation, to make her "rights"agreeable to her when once she gets them. A few stupid or noisy men mayindeed try to make the polls unattractive to her, the very first time; butthe result of this little experiment will be so disastrous that theoffenders will be sternly suppressed by their own party leaders, beforeanother election day comes. It will soon become clear, that of all possibleways of losing votes the surest lies in treating women rudely. Lucy Stone tells a story of a good man in Kansas who, having done all hecould to prevent women from being allowed to vote on school questions, wasfinally comforted, when that measure passed, by the thought that he shouldat least secure his wife's vote for a pet schoolhouse of his own. Electionday came, and the newly enfranchised matron showed the most culpableindifference to her privileges. She made breakfast as usual, went about herhousework, and did on that perilous day precisely the things that heranxious husband had always predicted that women never would do under suchcircumstances. His hints and advice found no response; and nothing short ofthe best pair of horses and the best wagon finally sufficed to take thefarmer's wife to the polls. I am not the least afraid that women will findvoting a rude or disagreeable arrangement. There is more danger of theirbeing treated too well, and being too much attacked and allured by thesecheap cajoleries. But women are pretty shrewd, and can probably be trustedto go to the polls, even in first-class carriages. EDUCATION _via_ SUFFRAGE I know a rich bachelor of large property who fatigues his friends byperpetual denunciations of everything American, and especially of universalsuffrage. He rarely votes; and I was much amazed, when the popular vote wasto be taken on building an expensive schoolhouse, to see him go to thepolls, and vote in the affirmative. On being asked his reason, he explainedthat, while we labored under the calamity of universal (male) suffrage, hethought it best to mitigate its evils by educating the voters. In short, hewished, as Mr. Lowe said in England when the last Reform Bill passed, "toprevail upon our future masters to learn their alphabets. " These motives may not be generous; but the schoolhouses, when they arebuilt, are just as useful. Even girls get the benefit of them, though thelong delay in many places before girls got their share came in part fromthe want of this obvious stimulus. It is universal male suffrage thatguarantees schoolhouse and school. The most selfish man understands thatargument: "We must educate the masses, if it is only to keep them from ourthroats. " But there is a wider way in which suffrage guarantees education. At everyelection time political information is poured upon the whole votingcommunity till it is deluged. Presses run night and day to print newspaperextras; clerks sit up all night to send out congressional speeches; themost eloquent men in the community expound the most difficult matters tothe ignorant. Of course each party affords only its own point of view; butevery man has a neighbor who is put under treatment by some other party, and who is constantly attacking all who will listen to his provoking andpestilent counter-statements. All the common school education of the UnitedStates does not equal the education of election day; and as in some Stateselections are held very often, this popular university seems to be kept insession almost the whole year round. The consequence is a remarkableaverage popular knowledge of political affairs, --a training which Americanwomen now miss, but which will come to them with the ballot. And in still another way there will be an education coming to woman fromthe right of suffrage. It will come from her own sex, proceeding fromhighest to lowest. We often hear it said that after enfranchisement themore educated women will not vote, while the ignorant will. But Mrs. Howeadmirably pointed out, at a Philadelphia convention, that the moment womenhave the ballot it will become the pressing duty of the more educatedwomen, even in self-protection, to train the rest The very fact of thedanger will be a stimulus to duty, with women, as it already is with men. It has always seemed to me rather childish, in a man of superior education, or talent, or wealth, to complain that when election day comes he has nomore votes than the man who plants his potatoes or puts in his coal Thetruth is that under the most thorough system of universal suffrage the manof wealth or talent or natural leadership has still a disproportionateinfluence, still casts a hundred votes where the poor or ignorant or feebleman throws but one. Even the outrages of New York elections turned out tobe caused by the fact that the leading rogues had used their brains andenergy, while the men of character had not. When it came to the point, itwas found that a few caricatures by Nast and a few columns of figures inthe "Times" were more than a match for all the repeaters of the ring. It isalways so. Andrew Johnson, with all the patronage of the nation, had notthe influence of "Nasby" with his one newspaper. The whole Chinese questionwas perceptibly and instantly modified when Harte wrote "The HeathenChinee. " These things being so, it indicates feebleness or dyspepsia when aneducated man is heard whining, about election time, with his fears ofignorant voting. It is his business to enlighten and control thatignorance. With a voice and a pen at his command, with a town hall in everytown for the one, and a newspaper in every village for the other, he hassuch advantages over his ignorant neighbors that the only doubt is whetherhis privileges are not greater than he deserves. For one, in writing forthe press, I am impressed by the undue greatness, not by the littleness, ofthe power I wield. And what is true of men will be true of women. If theeducated women of America have not brains or energy enough to control, inthe long run, the votes of the ignorant women around them, they willdeserve a severe lesson, and will be sure, like the men in New York, toreceive it. And thenceforward they will educate and guide that ignorance, instead of evading or cringing before it. But I have no fear about the matter. It is a libel on American women to saythat they will not go anywhere or do anything which is for the good oftheir children and their husbands. Travel West on any of our great lines ofrailroad, and see what women undergo in transporting their households totheir new homes. See the watching and the feeding, and the endless answersto the endless questions, and the toil to keep little Sarah warm, andlittle Johnny cool, and the baby comfortable. What a hungry, tired, jaded, forlorn mass of humanity it is, as the sun rises on it each morning, in thesoiled and breathless railway-car! Yet that household group is America inthe making; those are the future kings and queens, the little princes andprincesses, of this land. Now, is the mother who has undergone for thetransportation of these children all this enormous labor to shrink at herjourney's end from the slight additional labor of going to the polls tovote whether those little ones shall have schools or rumshops? The thoughtis an absurdity. A few fine ladies in cities will fear to spoil their silkdresses, as a few foppish gentlemen now fear for their broadcloth. But themass of intelligent American women will vote, as do the mass of men. FOLLOW YOUR LEADERS "There go thirty thousand men, " shouted the Portuguese, as Wellington, witha few staff-officers, rode along the mountain-side. The action of theleaders' minds, in any direction, has a value out of all proportion totheir numbers. In a campaign there is a council of officers, --Grant andSherman and Sheridan perhaps. They are but a trifling minority, yet whatthey plan the whole army will do; and such is the faith in a real leader, that, were all the restraints of discipline for the moment relaxed, therank and file would still follow his judgment. What a few general officerssee to be the best to-day, the sergeants and corporals and private soldierswill usually see to be best to-morrow. In peace, also, there is a silent leadership; only that in peace, as thereis more time to spare, the leaders are expected to persuade the rank andfile, instead of commanding them. Yet it comes to the same thing in theend. The movement begins with certain guides, and if you wish to know thefuture, keep your eye on them. If you wish to know what is already decided, ask the majority; but if you wish to find out what is likely to be donenext, ask the leaders. It is constantly said that the majority of women do not yet desire to vote, and it is true. But to find out whether they are likely to wish for it, wemust keep our eyes on the women who lead their sex. The representativewomen, --those who naturally stand for the rest, those most eminent forknowledge and self-devotion, --how do they view the thing? The rank and filedo not yet demand the ballot, you say; but how is it with the generalofficers? Now, it is a remarkable fact, about which those who have watched thismovement for twenty years can hardly be mistaken, that almost any woman whoreaches a certain point of intellectual or moral development will presentlybe found desiring the ballot for her sex. If this be so, it predicts thefuture. It is the judgment of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan as againstthat of the average private soldier of the Two Hundredth Infantry. Setaside, if you please, the specialists of this particular agitation, --thosewho were first known to the public through its advocacy. There is no justreason why they should be set aside, yet concede that for a moment. Thefact remains that the ablest women in the land--those who were recognizedas ablest in other spheres, before they took this particular duty uponthem--are extremely apt to assume this cross when they reach a certainstage of development. When Margaret Fuller first came forward into literature, she supposed thatliterature was all she wanted. It was not till she came to write uponwoman's position that she discovered what woman needed. Clara Barton, driving her ambulance or her supply wagon at the battle's edge, did notforesee, perhaps, that she should make that touching appeal, when thebattle was over, imploring her own enfranchisement from the soldiers shehad befriended. Lydia Maria Child, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa Alcott, came to the claim for the ballot earlier than a millionothers, because they were the intellectual leaders of American womanhood. They saw farthest, because they were in the highest place. They were therecognized representatives of their sex before they gave in their adhesionto the new demand. Their judgment is as the judgment of the council ofofficers, while Flora McFlimsey's opinion is as the opinion of John Smith, unassigned recruit. But if the generals make arrangements for a battle, thechance is that John Smith will have to take a hand in it, or else run away. It is a rare thing for the petition for suffrage from any town to comprisethe majority of women in that town. It makes no difference: if there arefew women in the town who want to vote, there is as much propriety in theirvoting as if there were ten millions, so long as the majority are equallyprotected in their right to stay at home. But when the names of petitionerscome to be weighed as well as counted, the character, the purity, theintelligence, the social and domestic value of the petitioners is seldomdenied. The women who wish to vote are not the idle, the ignorant, thenarrow-minded, or the vicious; they are not "the dangerous classes:" theyrepresent the best class in the community, when tried by the higheststandard. They are the natural leaders. What they now see to be right willalso be perceived even by the foolish and the ignorant by and by. In a poultry-yard in spring, when the first brood of duckling's goestoddling to the waterside, no doubt all the younger or feebler broods, justhatched out of similar eggs, think these innovators dreadfully mistaken. "You are out of place, " they feebly pipe. "See how happy we are in our safenests. Perhaps, by and by, when properly introduced into society, we mayrun about a little on land, but to swim!--never!" Meanwhile their elderkindred are splashing and diving in ecstasy; and, so surely as they areborn ducklings, all the rest will swim in their turn. The instinct of thefirst duck solves the problem for all the rest. It is a mere question oftime. Sooner or later, all the broods in the most conservative yard willfollow their leaders. HOW TO MAKE WOMEN UNDERSTAND POLITICS An English member of Parliament said in a speech, some years ago, that thestupidest man had a clearer understanding of political questions than thebrightest woman. He did not find it convenient to say what must be thecondition of a nation which for many years has had a woman for itssovereign; but he certainly said bluntly what many men feel. It is notindeed very hard to find the source of this feeling. It is not merely thatwomen are inexperienced in questions of finance or administrative practice, for many men are equally ignorant of these. But it is undoubtedly true of alarge class of more fundamental questions, --as, for instance, of some nowpending at Washington, --which even many clear-headed women find it hard tounderstand, while men of far less general training comprehend thementirely. Questions of the distribution of power, for instance, between theexecutive, judicial, and legislative branches of government, --or betweenthe United States government and those of the separate States, --belong tothe class I mean. Many women of great intelligence show a hazyindistinctness of views when the question arises whether it is the businessof the general government to preserve order at the voting-places at acongressional election, for instance, as the Republicans hold; or whetherit should be left absolutely in the hands of the state officials, as theDemocrats maintain. Most women would probably say that so long as order waspreserved, it made very little difference who did it. Yet, if one goes intoa shoe-shop or a blacksmith's shop, one may hear just these questionsdiscussed in all their bearings by uneducated men, and it will be seen thatthey involve a principle. Why is this difference? Does it show someconstitutional inferiority in women, as to this particular faculty? The question is best solved by considering a case somewhat parallel. TheSouth Carolina negroes were considered very stupid, even by many who knewthan; and they certainly were densely ignorant on many subjects. Put faceto face with a difficult point of finance legislation, I think they wouldhave been found to know even less about it than I do. Yet the abolition ofslavery was held in those days by many great statesmen to be a subject sodifficult that they shrank from discussing it; and nevertheless I used tofind that these ignorant men understood it quite clearly in all itsbearings. Offer a bit of sophistry to them, try to blind them with falselogic on this subject, and they would detect it as promptly, and answer itas keenly, as Garrison or Phillips would have done; and, indeed, they wouldgive very much the same answers. What was the reason? Not that they werehalf wise and half stupid; but that they were dull where their owninterests had not trained them, and they were sharp and keen where theirown interests were concerned. I have no doubt that it will be so with women when they vote. About somethings they will be slow to learn; but about all that immediately concernsthemselves they will know more at the very beginning than many wise menhave learned since the world began. How long it took for English-speakingmen to correct, even partially, the iniquities of the old common law!--buta parliament of women would have set aside at a single sitting the allegedright of the husband to correct his wife with a stick no bigger than histhumb. It took the men of a certain State of this Union a good many yearsto see that it was an outrage to confiscate to the State one half theproperty of a man who died childless, leaving his widow only the otherhalf; but a legislature of women would have annihilated that enormity by asingle day's work. I have never seen reason to believe that women ongeneral questions would act more wisely or more conscientiously, as a rule, than men: but self-preservation is a wonderful quickener of the brain; andin all questions bearing on their own rights and opportunities as women, itis they who will prove shrewd and keen, and men who will prove obtuse, asindeed they have usually been. Another point that adds force to this is the fact that wherever women, bytheir special position, have more at stake than usual in public affairs, even as now organized, they are apt to be equal to the occasion. When themen of South Carolina were ready to go to war for the "State-Rights"doctrines of Calhoun, the women of that State had also those doctrines attheir fingers'-ends. At Washington, where politics make the breath of life, you will often find the wives of members of Congress following the debates, and noting every point gained or lost, because these are matters in whichthey and their families are personally concerned; and as for that army ofwomen employed in the "departments" of the government, they are politiciansevery one, because their bread depends upon it. The inference is, that if women as a class are now unfitted for politics itis because they have not that pressure of personal interest andresponsibility by which men are unconsciously trained. Give this, andself-interest will do the rest, aided by that power of conscience andaffection which is certainly not less in them than in men, even if we claimno more. A young lady of my acquaintance opposed woman suffrage inconversation on various grounds, one of which was that it would, ifenacted, compel her to read the newspapers, which she greatly disliked. I pleaded that this was not a fatal objection; since many men voted"early and often" without reading them, and in fact without knowinghow to read at all. She said, in reply, that this might do for men, but that women were far more conscientious, and, if they were oncecompelled to vote, they would wish to know what they were voting for. This seemed to me to contain the whole philosophy of the matter; andI respected the keenness of her suggestion, though it led me to anopposite conclusion. INFERIOR TO MAN, AND NEAR TO ANGELS If it were anywhere the custom to disfranchise persons of superior virtuebecause of their virtue, and to present others with the ballot, simplybecause they had been in the state prison, --then the exclusion of womenfrom political rights would be a high compliment, no doubt. But I can findno record in history of any such legislation, unless so far as it iscontained in the doubtful tradition of the Tuscan city of Pistoia, wheremen are said to have been ennobled as a punishment for crime. Among uscrime may often be a covert means of political prominence, but it is notthe ostensible ground; nor are people habitually struck from thevoting-lists for performing some rare and eminent service, such as savinghuman life, or reading every word of a presidential message. If a man hasbeen President of the United States, we do not disfranchise himthenceforward; if he has been governor, we do not declare him thenceforthineligible to the office of United States senator. On the contrary, thesupposed reward of high merit is to give higher civic privileges. Sometimesthese are even forced on unwilling recipients, as when Plymouth Colony in1633 imposed a fine of twenty pounds on any one who should refuse theoffice of governor. It is utterly contrary to all tradition and precedent, therefore, tosuppose that women have been hitherto disfranchised because of any supposedsuperiority. Indeed, the theory is self-annihilating, and has alwaysinvolved all supporters in hopeless inconsistency. Thus the Southernslaveholders were wont to argue that a negro was only blest when a slave, and there was no such inhumanity as to free him. Then, if a slave happenedto save his master's life, he was rewarded by emancipation immediately, amid general applause. The act refuted the theory. And so, every time wehave disfranchised a rebel, or presented some eminent foreigner with thefreedom of a city, we have recognized that enfranchisement, after all, means honor, and disfranchisement implies disgrace. I do not see how any woman can avoid a thrill of indignation when she firstopens her eyes to the fact that it is really contempt, not reverence, thathas so long kept her sex from an equal share of legal, political, andeducational rights. In spite of the duty paid to individual women asmothers, in spite of the reverence paid by the Greeks and the Germanicraces to certain women as priestesses and sibyls, the fact remains thatthis sex has been generally recognized, in past ages of the human race, asstamped by hopeless inferiority, not by angelic superiority. This iscarried so far that a certain taint of actual inferiority is held to attachto women, in barbarous nations. Among certain Indian tribes, the service ofthe gods is defiled if a woman but touches the implements of sacrifice; anda Turk apologizes to a Christian physician for the mention of the women ofhis family, in the very phrases used to soften the mention of any degradingcreature. Mr. Leland tells us that among the English gypsies any objectthat a woman treads upon, or sweeps with the skirts of her dress, isdestroyed or made away with in some way, as unfit for use. In reading thehistory of manners, it is easy to trace the steps from this degradation upto the point now attained, such as it is. Yet even the habit ofphysiological contempt is not gone, and I do not see how any one can readhistory without seeing, all around us, in society, education, and politics, the tradition of inferiority. Many laws and usages which in themselvesmight not strike all women as intrinsically worth striving for--as theexclusion of women from colleges or from the ballot-box--assume greatimportance to a woman's self-respect, when she sees in these the plainsurvival of the same contempt that once took much grosser forms. And it must be remembered that in civilized communities the cynics, whostill frankly express this utter contempt, are better friends to women thanthe flatterers, who conceal it in the drawing-room, and only utter itfreely in the lecture-room, the club, and the "North American Review. "Contempt at least arouses pride and energy. To be sure, in the face ofhistory, the contemptuous tone in regard to women seems to me untrue, unfair, and dastardly; but, like any other extreme injustice, it leads toreaction. It helps to awaken women from that shallow dream ofself-complacency into which flattery lulls them. There is something tonicin the manly arrogance of Fitzjames Stephen, who derides the thought thatthe marriage contract can be treated as in any sense a contract betweenequals; but there is something that debilitates in the dulcet counsel givenby an anonymous gentleman, in an old volume of the "Ladies' Magazine" thatlies before me, --"She ought to present herself as a being made to please, to love, and to seek support; _a being inferior to man, and near toangels_. " IX OBJECTIONS TO SUFFRAGE "When you were weak and I was strong, I toiled for you. Now you are strong and I am weak. Because of my work for you, I ask your aid. I ask the ballot for myself and my sex. As I stood by you, I pray you stand by me and mine. "--CLARA BARTON. [Appeal to the returned soldiers of the United States, written from Geneva, Switzerland, by Clara Barton, invalidated by long service in the hospitals and on the field daring the civil war. ] THE FACT OF SEX It is constantly said that the advocates of woman suffrage ignore the factof sex. On the contrary, they seem to me to be the only people who do notignore it. Were there no such thing as sexual difference, the wrong done to woman bydisfranchisement would be far less. It is precisely because her traits, habits, needs, and probable demands are distinct from those of man, thatshe is not, never was, never can, and never will be, justly represented byhim. It is not merely that a vast number of human individuals aredisfranchised; it is not even because in many of our States thedisfranchisement extends to a majority, that the evil is so great; it isnot merely that we disfranchise so many units and tens: but we exclude aspecial element, a peculiar power, a distinct interest, --in a word, a sex. Whether this sex is more or less wise, more or less important, than theother sex, does not affect the argument: it is a sex, and, being such, ismore absolutely distinct from the other than is any mere race from anyother race. The more you emphasize the fact of sex, the more you strengthenour argument. If the white man cannot justly represent the negro, --although the two races are now so amalgamated that not even the microscopecan always decide to which race one belongs, --how impossible that one sexshould stand in legislation for the other sex! This is so clear that, so soon as it is stated, there is a shifting of theground. "But consider the danger of introducing the sexual influence intolegislation!" ... Then we are sure to be confronted with the case of MissVinnie Ream, the sculptor. See how that beguiling damsel cajoled allCongress into buying poor statues! they say. If one woman could do so much, how would it be with one hundred? Precisely the Irishman's argument againstthe use of pillows: he had put one feather on a rock, and found it a veryuncomfortable support. Grant, for the sake of argument, that Miss Ream gaveus poor art; but what gave her so much power? Plainly that she was but asingle feather. Congress being composed exclusively of men, the mere factof her sex gave her an exceptional and dangerous influence. Fill a dozen ofthe seats in Congress with women, and that danger at least will becancelled. The taste in art may be no better; but an artist will no more beselected for being a pretty girl than now for being a pretty boy. So in allsuch cases. Here, as everywhere, it is the advocate of woman suffrage whowishes to recognize the fact of sex, and guard against its perils. It is precisely so in education. Believing boys and girls to be unlike, andyet seeing them to be placed by the Creator on the same planet and in thesame family, we hold it safer to follow his method. As they are born tointerest each other, to stimulate each other, to excite each other, itseems better to let this impulse work itself off in a natural way, --to letin upon it the fresh air and the daylight, instead of attempting tosuppress and destroy it. In a mixed school, as in a family, the fact of sexpresents itself as an unconscious, healthy, mutual stimulus. It is in theseparate schools that the healthy relation vanishes, and the thought of sexbecomes a morbid and diseased thing. This observation first occurred to mewhen a pupil and a teacher in boys' boarding-schools years ago: there wassuch marked superiority as to sexual refinement in the day-scholars, whosaw their sisters and the friends of their sisters every day. All laterexperience of our public-school system has confirmed this opinion. It isbecause I believe the distinction of sex to be momentous, that I dread tosee the sexes educated apart. The truth of the whole matter is that Nature will have her rights--innocently if she can, guiltily if she must; and it is a little amusingthat the writer of an ingenious paper on the other side, called "Sex inPolitics, " in an able New York journal, puts our case better than I can putit, before he gets through, only that he is then speaking of wealth, notwomen: "Anybody who considers seriously what is meant by the conflictbetween labor and capital, of which we are only just witnessing thebeginning, and what is to be done _to give money legitimately thatinfluence on legislation which it now exercises illegitimately, _ mustacknowledge at once that the next generation will have a thorny path totravel. " The italics are my own. Precisely what this writer wishes tosecure for money, we claim for the disfranchised half of the human race, --open instead of secret influence; the English tradition instead of theFrench; women as rulers, not as kings' mistresses; women as legislators, not merely as lobbyists; women employing in legitimate form that powerwhich they will otherwise illegitimately wield. This is all our demand. HOW WILL IT RESULT? "It would be a great convenience, my hearers, " said old Parson Withingtonof Newbury, "if the moral of a fable could only be written at the beginningof it, instead of the end. But it never is. " Commonly the only thing to bedone is to get hold of a few general principles, hold to those, and trustthat all will turn out well. No matter how thoroughly a reform may havebeen discussed, --negro emancipation or free-trade, for instance, --it is astep in the dark at last, and the detailed results never turn out to beprecisely according to the programme. An "esteemed correspondent, " who has written some of the best things yetsaid in America in behalf of the enfranchisement of woman, writes privatelyto express some solicitude, since, as she thinks, we are not ready for ityet. "I am convinced, " she writes, "of the abstract right of women to vote;but all I see of the conduct of the existing women, into whose hands thischange would throw the power, inclines me to hope that this power will notbe conceded till education shall have prepared a class of women fit to takethe responsibilities. " Gradual emancipation, in short!--for fear of trusting truth and justice totake care of themselves. Who knew, when the negroes were set free, whetherthey would at first use their freedom well, or ill? Would they work? wouldthey avoid crimes? would they justify their freedom? The theory ofeducation and preparation seemed very plausible. Against that, there wasonly the plain theory which Elizabeth Heyrick first announced toEngland, --"Immediate, unconditional emancipation. " "The best preparationfor freedom is freedom. " What was true of the negroes then is true of womennow. "The lovelier traits of womanhood, " writes earnestly our correspondent, "simplicity, faith, guilelessness, unfit them to conduct public affairs, where one must deal with quacks and charlatans.... We are not all at once'as gods, knowing good and evil;' and the very innocency of our lives, andthe habits of pure homes, unfit us to manage a certain class who will flockto this standard. " But the basis of all republican government is in the assumption that goodis ultimately stronger than evil. If we once abandon this, our theory hasgone to pieces, at any rate. If we hold to it, good women are no morehelpless and useless than good men. The argument that would heredisfranchise women has been used before now to disfranchise clergymen. Ibelieve that in some States they are still disfranchised; and, if they arenot, it is partly because good is found to be as strong as evil, after all, and partly because clergymen are not found to be so angelically good as tobe useless. I am very confident that both these truths will be found toapply to women also. Whatever else happens, we may be pretty sure that one thing will. The firststep towards the enfranchisement of women will blow to the winds thetradition of the angelic superiority of women. Just so surely as womenvote, we shall occasionally have women politicians, women corruptionists, and women demagogues. Conceding, for the sake of courtesy, that none suchnow exist, they will be born as inevitably, after enfranchisement, as thefrogs begin to pipe in the spring. Those who doubt it ignore human nature;and, if they are not prepared for this fact, they had better consider it inseason, and take sides accordingly. In these pages, at least, they havebeen warned. What then? Suppose women are not "as gods, knowing good and evil:" they arenot to be emancipated as gods, but as fallible human beings. They are tocome out of an ignorant innocence, that may be only weakness, into a wiseinnocence that will be strength. It is too late to remand American womeninto a Turkish or Jewish tutelage: they have emerged too far not to comefarther. In a certain sense, no doubt, the butterfly is safest in thechrysalis. When the soft thing begins to emerge, the world certainly seemsa dangerous place; and it is hard to say what will be the result of theemancipation. But when she is once half out, there is no safety for thepretty creature but to come the rest of the way, and use her wings. I HAVE ALL THE RIGHTS I WANT When Dr. Johnson had published his English Dictionary, and was asked by alady how he chanced to make a certain mistake that she pointed out, heanswered, "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance. " I always feel disposed tomake the same comment on the assertion of any woman that she has all therights she wants. For every woman is, or may be, or might have been, amother. And when she comes to know that even now, in many parts of theUnion, a married mother has no legal right to her child, I should think hertongue would cleave to her mouth before she would utter those foolish wordsagain. All the things I ever heard or read against slavery did not fix in my soulsuch a hostility to it as a single scene in a Missouri slave-jail manyyears ago. As I sat there, a purchaser came in to buy a little girl to waiton his wife. Three little sisters were brought in, from eight to twelveyears old: they were mulattoes, with sweet, gentle manners; they hadevidently been taken good care of, and their pink calico frocks were cleanand whole. The gentleman chose one of them, and then asked her, good-naturedly enough, if she did not wish to go with him. She burst intotears, and said, "I want to stay with my mother. " But her tears were aspowerless, of course, as so many salt drops from the ocean. That was all. But all the horrors of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, " the stories toldme by fugitive slaves, the scarred backs I afterwards saw by dozens amongcolored recruits, did not impress me as did that hour in the jail. Thewhole probable career of that poor, wronged, motherless, shrinking childpassed before me in fancy. It seemed to me that a man must be utterly lostto all manly instincts who would not give his life to overthrow such asystem. It seemed to me that the woman who could tolerate, much less defendit, could not herself be true, could not be pure, or must be fearfully andgrossly ignorant. You acquiesce, fair lady. You say it was horrible indeed, but, thank God!it is past. Past? Is it so? Past, if you please, as to the law of slavery, but as to the legal position of woman still a fearful reality. It is notmany years since a scene took place in a Boston court-room, before ChiefJustice Chapman, which was worse, in this respect, than that scene in St. Louis, inasmuch as the mother was present when the child was taken away, and the wrong was sanctioned by the highest judicial officer of the State. Two little girls, who had been taken from their mother by their guardian, their father being dead, had taken refuge with her against his wishes; andhe brought them into court under a writ of habeas corpus, and the courtawarded them to him as against their mother. "The little ones were verymuch affected, " says the "Boston Herald, " "by the result of the decisionwhich separated them from their mother; and force was required to removethem from the court-room. The distress of the mother was also veryevident. " There must have been some special reason, you say, for such a seemingoutrage: she was a bad woman. No: she was "a lady of the highestrespectability. " No charge was made against her; but, being left a widow, she had married again; and for that, and that only, so far as appears, thecourt took from her the guardianship of her own children, --bone of herbone, and flesh of her flesh, the children for whom she had borne thedeepest physical agony of womanhood, --and awarded them to somebody else. You say, "But her second husband might have misused the children. " Might?So the guardian might, and that where they had no mother to protect them. Had the father been left a widower, he might have made a half-dozensuccessive marriages, have brought stepmother after stepmother to controlthese children, and no court could have interfered. The father isrecognized before the law as the natural guardian of the children. Themother, even though she be left a widow, is not. The consequence is aseries of outrages of which only a few scattered instances come before thepublic; just as in slavery, out of a hundred little girls sold away fromtheir parents, only one case might ever be mentioned in any newspaper. This case led to an alteration of the law in Massachusetts, but the samething might yet happen in some States of the Union. The possibility of asingle such occurrence shows that there is still a fundamental wrong in thelegal position of woman. And the fact that most women do not know it onlydeepens the wrong--as Dr. Channing said of the contentment of the Southernslaves. The mass of men, even of lawyers, pass by such things, as theyformerly passed by the facts of slavery. There is no lasting remedy for these wrongs, except to give woman thepolitical power to protect herself. There never yet existed a race, nor aclass, nor a sex, which was noble enough to be trusted with political powerover another sex, or class, or race. It is for self-defence that womanneeds the ballot. And in view of a single such occurrence as I have given, I charge that woman who professes to have "all the rights she wants, "either with a want of all feeling of motherhood, or with "ignorance, madam, pure ignorance. " SENSE ENOUGH TO VOTE There is one special point on which men seem to me rather insincere towardwomen. When they speak to women, the objection made to their voting isusually that they are too angelic. But when men talk to each other, thegeneral assumption is, that women should not vote because they have notbrains enough--or, as old Theophilus Parsons wrote a century ago, have not"a sufficient acquired discretion. " It is an important difference. Because, if women are too angelic to vote, they can only be fitted for it by becoming more wicked, which is notdesirable. On the other hand, if there is no objection but the want ofbrains, then our public schools are equalizing that matter fast enough. Still, there are plenty of people who have never got beyond this objection. Listen to the first discussion that you encounter among men on thissubject, wherever they may congregate. Does it turn upon the question ofsaintliness, or of brains? Let us see. I travelled the other day upon the Boston and Providence Railroad with aparty of mechanics, mostly English and Scotch. They were discussing thisvery question, and, with the true English habit, thought it was all amatter of property. Without it a woman certainly should not vote, theysaid; but they all favored, to my surprise, the enfranchisement of women ofproperty. "As a general rule, " said the chief speaker, "a woman that's gotproperty has got sense enough to vote. " There it was! These foreigners, who had found their own manhood by comingto a land which not only the Pilgrim Fathers but the Pilgrim Mothers hadsettled, and subdued, and freed for them, were still ready to disfranchisemost of the daughters of those mothers, on the ground that they had not"sense enough to vote. " I thanked them for their blunt truthfulness, somuch better than the flattery of most of the native-born. My other instance shall be a conversation overheard in a railway stationnear Boston, between two intelligent citizens, who had lately listened toAnna Dickinson. "The best of it was, " said one, "to see our ministerintroduce her. " "Wonder what the Orthodox churches would have said to thatten years ago?" said the other. "Never mind, " was the answer. "Things havechanged. What I think is, it's all in the bringing up. If women werebrought up just as men are, they'd have just as much brains. " (Brainsagain!) "That's what Beecher says. Boys are brought up to do business, andtake care of themselves: that's where it is. Girls are brought up to dressand get married. Start 'em alike! That's what Beecher says. Start 'emalike, and see if girls haven't got just as much brains. " "Still harping on my daughter, " and on the condition of her brains! It ison this that the whole question turns, in the opinion of many men. Ask tenmen their objections to woman suffrage. One will plead that women areangels. Another fears discord in families. Another points out that womencannot fight, --he himself being very likely a non-combatant. Another quotesSt. Paul for this purpose, --not being, perhaps, in the habit of consultingthat authority on any other point. But with the others, very likely, everything will turn on the question of brains. They believe, or think theybelieve, that women have not sense enough to vote. They may not say so towomen, but they habitually say it to men. If you wish to meet the commonpoint of view of masculine voters, you must find it here. It is fortunate that it is so. Of all points, this is the easiest tosettle; for every intelligent woman, even if she be opposed to womansuffrage, helps to settle it. Every good lecture by a woman, every goodbook written by one, every successful business enterprise carried on, helpsto decide the question. Every class of girls that graduates from every goodschool helps to pile up the argument on this point. And the vast army ofwomen, constituting nine out of ten of the teachers in our Americanschools, may appeal as logically to their pupils, and settle the argumentbased on brains. "If we had sense enough to educate you, " they may say toeach graduating class of boys, "we have sense enough to vote beside you. " "The ladies actively working to secure the cooperation of their sex in caucuses and citizens' conventions are not actuated by love of notoriety, and are not, therefore, to be classed with the absolute woman suffragists. "--Boston Daily Transcript, Sept. 1, 1879. AN INFELICITOUS EPITHET When the eloquent colored abolitionist, Charles Remond, once said upon theplatform that George Washington, having been a slaveholder, was a villain, Wendell Phillips remonstrated by saying, "Charles, the epithet is notfelicitous. " Reformers are apt to be pelted with epithets quite asill-chosen. How often has the charge figured in history, that they were"actuated by love of notoriety"! The early Christians, it was generallybelieved, took a positive pleasure in being thrown to the lions, under theinfluence of this motive; and at a later period there was a firm convictionthat the Huguenots consented readily to being broken on the wheel, or sawedin pieces between two boards, and felt amply rewarded by the pleasure ofbeing talked about. During the whole anti-slavery movement, while theabolitionists were mobbed, fined, and imprisoned, --while they were tabooedby good society, depleted of their money, kept out of employment, by themere fact of their abolitionism, --there never was a moment when theirmotive was not considered by many persons to be the love of notoriety. Whyshould the advocates of woman suffrage expect any different treatment now? It is not necessary, in order to dispose of this charge, to claim that allreformers are heroes or saints. Even in the infancy of any reform, it takesalong with it some poor material; and unpleasant traits are often developedby the incidents of the contest. Doubtless many reformers attain to acertain enjoyment of a fight, at last: it is one of the dangeroustendencies which those committed to this vocation must resist. But, so faras my observation goes, those who engage in reform for the sake ofnotoriety generally hurt the reform so much that they render it their chiefservice when they leave it; and this happy desertion usually comes prettyearly in their career. The besetting sin of reformers is not, so far as Ican judge, the love of notoriety, but the fate of power and of flatterywithin their own small circle, --a temptation quite different from theother, both in its origin and its results. Notoriety comes so soon to a reformer that its charms, whatever they maybe, soon pall upon the palate, just as they do in case of a popular poet ororator, who is so used to seeing himself in print that he hardly noticesit. I suppose there is no young person so modest that he does not, on firstseeing his name in a newspaper, cut out the passage with a certain tendersolicitude, and perhaps purchase a few extra copies of the fortunatejournal. But when the same person has been battered by a score or two ofyears in successive unpopular reforms, I suppose that he not only wouldleave the paper uncut or unpurchased, but would hardly take the pains evento correct a misstatement, were it asserted that he had inherited a fortuneor murdered his grandmother. The moral is that the love of notoriety issoon amply filled, in a reformer's experience, and that he will not, as arule, sacrifice home and comfort, money and friends, without some strongerinducement. This is certainly true of most of the men who have interestedthemselves in this particular movement, the "weak-minded men, " as thereporters, with witty antithesis, still describe them; and it must be muchthe same with the "strong-minded women" who share their base career. And it is to be remembered, above all, that, considered as an engine forobtaining notoriety, the woman-suffrage agitation is a great waste ofenergy. The same net result could have been won with far less expenditurein other ways. There is not a woman connected with it who could not haveachieved far more real publicity as a manager of charity fairs or as asensation letter-writer. She could have done this, too, with far lesstrouble, without the loss of a single genteel friend, without forfeiting asingle social attention, without having a single ill-natured thing saidabout her--except perhaps that she bored people, a charge to which thehighest and lowest forms of prominence are equally open. Nay, she mighthave done even more than this, if notoriety was her sole aim: for she mighthave become a "variety" minstrel or a female pedestrian; she might havewritten a scandalous novel; she might have got somebody to aim at her thatharmless pistol, which has helped the fame of so many a wandering actress, while its bullet somehow never hits anything but the wall. All this shemight have done, and obtained a notoriety beyond doubt. Instead of this, she has preferred to prowl about, picking up a precarious publicity bygiving lectures to willing lyceums, writing books for eager publishers, organizing schools, setting up hospitals, and achieving for her sexsomething like equal rights before the law. Either she has shown herself, as a seeker after notoriety, to be a most foolish or ill-judging person, --or else, as was said of Washington's being a villain, "the epithet is notfelicitous. " THE ROB ROY THEORY "The Saturday Review, " in an article which denounces all equality inmarriage laws and all plans of woman suffrage, admits frankly the practicalobstacles in the way of the process of voting. "Possibly the presence ofwomen as voters would tend still further to promote order than has beendone by the ballot. " It plants itself wholly on one objection, which goesfar deeper, thus:-- "If men choose to say that women are not their equals, women have nothing to do but to give in. Physical force, the ultimate basis of all society and all government, must be on the side of the men; and those who have the key of the position will not consent permanently to abandon it. " It is a great pleasure when an opponent of justice is willing to fall backthus frankly upon the Rob Roy theory:-- "The good old rule Sufficeth him, the simple plan That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can. " It is easy, I think, to show that the theory is utterly false, and that thebasis of civilized society is not physical force, but, on the contrary, brains. In the city where the "Saturday Review" is published, there are threeregiments of "Guards" which are the boast of the English army, and arebelieved by their officers to be the finest troops in the world. They havedeteriorated in size since the Crimean war; but I believe that the men ofone regiment still average six feet two inches in height; and I am surethat nobody ever saw them in line without noticing the contrast betweenthese magnificent men and the comparatively puny officers who command them. These officers are from the highest social rank in England, the governingclasses; and if it were the whole object of this military organization togive a visible proof of the utter absurdity of the "Saturday Review's"theory, it could not be better done. There is no country in Europe, Isuppose, where the hereditary aristocracy is physically equal to that ofEngland, or where the intellectual class has so good a physique. But seteither the House of Lords or the "Saturday Review" contributors upon ahand-to-hand fight against an equal number of "navvies" or"coster-mongers, " and the patricians would have about as much chance as acrew of Vassar girls in a boat-race with Yale or Harvard. Take the men ofEngland alone, and it is hardly too much to say that physical force, instead of being the basis of political power in any class, is apt to befound in inverse ratio to it. In case of revolution, the strength of thegoverning class in any country is not in its physical, but in its mentalpower. Rank and money, and the power to influence and organize and command, are merely different modifications of mental training, brought to bear bysomebody. In our country, without class distinctions, the same truth can be easilyshown. Physical power lies mainly in the hands of the masses: wherever aclass or profession possesses more than its numerical share of power, ithas usually less than its proportion of physical vigor. This is easilyshown from the vast body of evidence collected during our civil war. In thevolume containing the medical statistics of the Provost Marshal General'sBureau, we have the tabulated reports of about 600, 000 persons subject todraft, and of about 500, 000 recruits, substitutes, and drafted men; showingthe precise physical condition of more than a million men. It appears that, out of the whole number examined, rather more than 257 ineach 1000 were found unfit for military service. It is curious to see howgenerally the physical power among these men is in inverse ratio to thesocial and political prominence of the class they represent. Out of 1000unskilled laborers, for instance, only 348 are physically disqualified;among tanners, only 216; among iron-workers, 189. On the other hand, amonglawyers, 544 out of 1000 are disqualified; among journalists, 740; amongclergymen, 954. Grave divines are horrified at the thought of admittingwomen to vote, since they cannot fight; though not one in twenty of theirown number is fit for military duty, if he volunteered. Of the editors whodenounce woman suffrage, only about one in four could himself carry amusket; while of the lawyers who fill Congress, the majority could not bedefenders of their country, but could only be defended. If we were todistribute political power with reference to the "physical basis" which the"Saturday Review" talks about, it would be a wholly new distribution, andwould put things more hopelessly upside down than did the worst phase ofthe French Commune. If, then, a political theory so utterly breaks downwhen applied to men, why should we insist on resuscitating it in order toapply it to women? The truth is that as civilization advances the world isgoverned more and more unequivocally by brains; and whether those brainsare deposited in a strong body or a weak one becomes a matter of less andless importance. But it is only in the very first stage of barbarism thatmere physical strength makes mastery; and the long head has controlled thelong arm since the beginning of recorded time. And it must be remembered that even these statistics very imperfectlyrepresent the case. They do not apply to the whole male sex, but actuallyto the picked portion only, to the men presumed to be of military age, excluding the very old and the very young. Were these included, theproportion unfit for military duty would of course be far greater. Moreover, it takes no account of courage or cowardice, patriotism or zeal. How much all these considerations tell upon the actual proportion may beseen from the fact that in the town where I am writing, for instance, outof some twelve thousand inhabitants and about three thousand voters, thereare only some three hundred who actually served in the civil war, --a numbertoo small to exert a perceptible influence on any local election. When wesee the community yielding up its voting power into the hands of those whohave actually done military service, it will be time enough to excludewomen for not doing such service. If the alleged physical basis operates asan exclusion of all non-combatants, it should surely give a monopoly to theactual combatants. THE VOTES OF NON-COMBATANTS The tendency of modern society is not to concentrate power in the hands ofthe few, but to give a greater and greater share to the many. ReadFroissart's Chronicles, and Scott's novels of chivalry, and you will seehow thoroughly the difference between patrician and plebeian was then adifference of physical strength. The knight, being better nourished andbetter trained, was apt to be the bodily superior of the peasant, to beginwith; and this strength was reinforced by armor, weapons, horse, castle, and all the resources of feudal warfare. With this greater strength wentnaturally the assumption of greater political power. To the heroes of"Ivanhoe, " or "The Fair Maid of Perth, " it would have seemed as absurd thatyeomen and lackeys should have any share in the government, as it wouldseem to the members in an American legislature that women should have anysuch share. In a contest of mailed knights, any number of unarmed men werebut so many women. As Sir Philip Sidney said, "The wolf asketh not how manythe sheep may be. " But time and advancing civilization have tended steadily in one direction. "He giveth power to the weak, and to them who have no might He increasethstrength. " Every step in the extension of political rights has consisted inopening them to a class hitherto humbler. From kings to nobles, from noblesto burghers, from burghers to yeomen; in short, from strong to weak, fromhigh to low, from rich to poor. All this is but the unconscious followingout of one sure principle, --that legislation is mainly for the protectionof the weak against the strong, and that for this purpose the weak must bedirectly represented. The strong are already protected by their strength:it is the weak who need all the vantage-ground that votes and legislaturescan give them. The feudal chiefs were stronger without laws than with them. "Take care of yourselves in Sutherland, " was the anxious message of the oldHighlander: "the law has come as far as Tain. " It was the peaceful citizenwho needed the guaranty of law against brute force. But can laws be executed without brute force? Not without a certain amountof it, but that amount under civilization grows less and less. Just inproportion as the masses are enfranchised, statutes execute themselveswithout crossing bayonets. "In a republic, " said De Tocqueville, "if lawsare not always respectable, they are always respected. " If every step infreedom has brought about a more peaceable state of society, why shouldthat process stop at this precise point? Besides, there is no possibilityin nature of a political division in which all the men shall be on one sideand all the women on the other. The mutual influence of the sexes forbidsit. The very persons who hint at such a fear refute themselves at othertimes, by arguing that "women will always be sufficiently represented bymen, " or that "every woman will vote as her husband thinks, and it willmerely double the numbers. " As a matter of fact, the law will prevail inall English-speaking nations: a few men fighting for it will be strongerthan many fighting against it; and if those few have both the law and thewomen on their side, there will be no trouble. The truth is that in this age _cedant arma togae:_ it is the civilian whorules on the throne or behind it, and who makes the fighting-men his mereagents. Yonder policeman at the corner looks big and formidable: heprotects the women and overawes the boys. But away in some corner of theCity Hill there is some quiet man, out of uniform, perhaps a consumptive ora dyspeptic or a cripple, who can overawe the burliest policeman by hisauthority as city marshal or as mayor. So an army is but a larger police;and its official head is that plain man at the White House, who makes orunmakes, not merely brevet-brigadiers, but major-generals in command, --whocan by the stroke of the pen convert the most powerful man of the army intothe most powerless. Take away the occupant of the position, and put in awoman, and will she become impotent because her name is Elizabeth or MariaTheresa? It is brains that more and more govern the world; and whetherthose brains be on the throne, or at the ballot-box, they will soon makethe owner's sex a subordinate affair. If woman is also strong in theaffections, so much the better. "Win the hearts of your subjects, " saidLord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you will have their hands andpurses. " War is the last appeal, and happily in these days the rarest appeal, ofstatesmanship. In the multifarious other duties that make up statesmanshipwe cannot spare the brains, the self-devotion, and the enthusiasm of woman. One of the most important treaties of modern history, the peace of Cambray, in 1529, was negotiated, after previous attempts had failed, by twowomen, --Margaret, aunt of Charles V. , and Louisa, mother of Francis I. Voltaire said that Christina of Sweden was the only sovereign of her timewho maintained the dignity of the throne against Mazarin and Richelieu. Frederick the Great said that the Seven Years' War was waged against threewomen, --Elizabeth of Russia, Maria Theresa, and Mme. Pompadour. There isnothing impotent in the statesmanship of women when they are admitted toexercise it: they are only powerless for good when they are obliged toobtain by wheedling and flattery a sway that should be recognized, responsible, and limited. MANNERS REPEAL LAWS There is in Boswell's "Life of Johnson" a correspondence which is wellworth reading by both advocates and opponents of woman suffrage. Boswell, who was of an old Scotch family, had a difference of opinion with hisfather about an entailed estate which had descended to them. Boswell wishedthe title so adjusted as to cut off all possibility of female heirship. Hisfather, on the other hand, wished to recognize such a contingency. Boswellwrote to Johnson in 1776 for advice, urging a series of objections, physiological and moral, to the inheritance of a family estate by a woman;though, as he magnanimously admits, "they should be treated with greataffection and tenderness, and always participate of the prosperity of thefamily. " Dr. Johnson, for a wonder, took the other side, defended female heirship, and finally summed up thus: "It cannot but occur that women have naturaland equitable claims as well as men, and these claims are not to becapriciously or lightly superseded or infringed. When fiefs inspiredmilitary service, it is easily discerned why females could not inheritthem; but the reason is at an end. _As manners make laws, so mannerslikewise repeal them_. " This admirable statement should be carefully pondered by those who holdthat suffrage should be only coextensive with military duty. The positionthat woman cannot properly vote because she cannot fight for her voteefficiently is precisely like the position of feudalism and of Boswell, that she could not properly hold real estate because she could not fightfor it. Each position may have had some plausibility in its day, but thesame current of events has made each obsolete. Those who in these daysbelieve in giving woman the ballot argue precisely as Dr. Johnson did in1776. Times have changed, manners have softened, education has advanced, public opinion now acts more forcibly; and the reference to physical force, though still implied, is implied more and more remotely. The politicalevent of the age, the overthrow of American slavery, would not have beenaccomplished without the "secular arm" of Grant and Sherman, let us agree:but neither would it have been accomplished without the moral power ofGarrison the non-resistant, and Harriet Beecher Stowe the woman. When thework is done, it is unfair to disfranchise any of the participants. Dr. Johnson was right: "When fiefs [or votes] implied military service, it iseasily discerned why women should not inherit [or possess] them; but thereason is at an end. As manners make laws, so manners likewise repealthem. " Under the feudal system it would have been absurd that women should holdreal estate, for the next armed warrior could dispossess her. By GailHamilton's reasoning, it is equally absurd now: "One man is stronger thanone woman, and ten men are stronger than ten women; and the nineteenmillions of men in this country will subdue, capture, and execute or expelthe nineteen millions of women just as soon as they set about it. " Verywell: why, then, do not all the landless men in a town unite, and take awaythe landed property of all the women? Simply because we now live incivilized society and under a reign of law; because those men's respect forlaw is greater than their appetite for property; or, if you prefer, becauseeven those landless men know that their own interest lies, in the long-run, on the side of law. It will be precisely the same with voting. When anycommunity is civilized up to the point of enfranchising women, it will becivilized up to the point of sustaining their vote, as it now sustainstheir property rights, by the whole material force of the community. Whenthe thing is once established, it will no more occur to anybody that awoman's vote is powerless because she cannot fight, than it now occurs toanybody that her title to real estate is invalidated by the samecircumstance. Woman is in the world; she cannot be got rid of: she must be a serf or anequal; there is no middle ground. We have outgrown the theory of serfdom ina thousand ways, and may as well abandon the whole. Women have now a placein society: their influence will be exerted, at any rate, in war and inpeace, legally or illegally; and it had better be exerted in direct, legitimate, and responsible methods, than in ways that are dark, and bytricks that have not even the merit of being plain. DANGEROUS VOTERS One of the few plausible objections brought against women's voting is this:that it would demoralize the suffrage by letting in very dangerous voters;that virtuous women would not vote, and vicious women would. It is a veryunfounded alarm. For, in the first place, our institutions rest--if they have any basis atall--on this principle, that good is stronger than evil, that the majorityof men really wish to vote rightly, and that only time and patience areneeded to get the worst abuses righted. How any one can doubt this, whowatches the course of our politics, I do not see. In spite of the greatdisadvantage of having masses of ignorant foreign voters to deal with, --andof native black voters, who have been purposely kept in ignorance, --wecertainly see wrongs gradually righted, and the truth by degrees prevail. Even the one great, exceptional case of New York city has been reached atlast; and the very extent of the evil has brought its own cure. Now, whyshould this triumph of good over evil be practicable among men, and notapply to women also? It must be either because women, as a class, are worse than men, --whichwill hardly be asserted, --or because, for some special reason, bad womenhave an advantage over good women such as has no parallel in the other sex. But I do not see how this can be. Let us consider. It is certain that good women are not less faithful and conscientious thangood men. It is generally admitted that those most opposed to suffrage willvery soon, on being fully enfranchised, feel it their duty to vote. Theymay at first misuse the right through ignorance, but they certainly willnot shirk it. It is this conscientious habit on which I rely without fear. Never yet, when public duty required, have American women failed to meetthe emergency; and I am not afraid of it now. Moreover, when they are onceenfranchised and their votes are needed, all the men who now oppose orridicule the demand for suffrage will begin to help them to exercise it. When the wives are once enfranchised, you may be sure that the husbandswill not neglect those of their own household: they will provide them withballots, vehicles, and policemen, and will contrive to make thevoting-places pleasanter than many parlors, and quieter than some churches. On the other hand, it seems altogether probable that the very worst women, so far from being ostentatious in their wickedness upon election day, will, on the contrary, so disguise and conceal themselves as to deceive the veryelect, and, if it were possible, the very policemen. For whatever partythey may vote, they will contribute to make the voting-places as orderly asrailway stations. These covert ways are the very habit of their lives, atleast by daylight; and the women who have of late done the most conspicuousand open mischief in our community have done it, not in their truecharacter as evil, but, on the contrary, under a mask of elevated purpose. That women, when they vote, will commit their full share of errors I havealways maintained. But that they will collectively misuse their power seemsto me out of the question; and that the good women are going to stay athome, and let bad women do the voting, appears quite as incredible. Infact, if they do thus, it is a fair question whether the epithets "good"and "bad" ought not, politically speaking, to change places. For itnaturally occurs to every one, on election day, that the man who votes, even if he votes wrong, is really a better man, so far as political dutiesgo, than the very loftiest saint who stays at home and prays that otherpeople may vote right And it is hard to see why it should be otherwise withwomen. HOW WOMEN WILL LEGISLATE It is often said that when women vote their votes will make no differencein the count, became they will merely duplicate the votes of their husbandsand brothers. Then these same objectors go on and predict all sorts of evilthings for which women will vote quite apart from their husbands andbrothers. Moreover, the evils thus predicted are apt to be diametricallyopposite. Thus Goldwin Smith predicts that women will be governed bypriests, and then goes on to predict that women will vote to abolishmarriage; not seeing that these two predictions destroy each other. On the other hand, I think that the advocates of woman suffrage often errby claiming too much, --as that all women will vote for peace, for totalabstinence, against slavery, and the rest. It seems better to rest theargument on general principles, and not to seek to prophesy too closely. The only thing which I feel safe in predicting is that woman suffrage willbe used, as it should be, for the protection of woman. Self-respect andself-protection, --these are, as has been already said, the two great thingsfor which woman needs the ballot. It is not in the nature of things, I take it, that a class politicallysubject can obtain justice from the governing class. Not the least of thebenefits gained by political equality for the colored people of the Southis that the laws now generally make no difference of color in penalties forcrime. In slavery times there were dozens of crimes which were punishedmore severely by the statute if committed by a slave or a free negro thanif done by a white. I feel very sure that under the reign of impartialsuffrage we should see fewer such announcements as this, which I cut from alate New York "Evening Express:"-- "Last night Capt. Lowery, of the Twenty-seventh Precinct, made a descent upon the dance-house in the basement of 96 Greenwich Street, and arrested fifty-two men and eight women. The entire batch was brought before Justice Flammer, at the Tombs Police Court, this morning. Louise Maud, the proprietoress, was held in five hundred dollars bail to answer at the Court of General Sessions. _The fifty-two men were fined three dollars each, all but twelve paying at once; and the eight women were fined ten dollars each, and sent to the Island for one month. _" The italics are my own. When we reflect that this dance-house, whatever itwas, was unquestionably sustained for the gratification of men, rather thanof women; when we consider that every one of these fifty-two men camethere, in all probability, by his own free will, and to spend money, not toearn it; and that probably a majority of the women were driven there bynecessity or betrayal, or force or despair, --it would seem that even anequal punishment would have been cruel injustice to the women. But when weobserve how trifling a penalty was three dollars each to these men, whosemoney was likely to go for riotous living in some form, and forty of whomhad the amount of the fine in their pockets; and how hopelessly large anamount was ten dollars each to women who did not, probably, own even theclothes they wore, and who were to be sent to prison for a month inaddition, --we see a kind of injustice which would stand a fair chance ofbeing righted, I suspect, if women came into power. Not that they wouldpunish their own sex less severely; probably they would not: but they wouldput men more on a level as to the penalty. It may be said that no such justice is to be expected from women; becausewomen in what is called "society" condemn women for mere imprudence, andexcuse men for guilt. But it must be remembered that in "society" guilt israrely a matter of open proof and conviction, in case of men: it is usuallya matter of surmise; and it is easy for either love or ambition to set thesurmise aside, and to assume that the worst reprobate is "only a littlewild. " In fact, as Margaret Fuller pointed out years ago, how littleconception has a virtuous woman as to what a dissipated young man reallyis! But let that same woman be a Portia, in the judgment-seat, or even alegislator or a voter, and let her have the unmistakable and actualoffender before her, and I do not believe that she will excuse him for apaltry fine, and give the less guilty woman a penalty more than quadruple. Women will also be sure to bring special sympathy and intelligent attentionto the wrongs of children. Who can read without shame and indignation thisreport from "The New York Herald"? THE CHILD-SELLING CASE. Peter Hallock, committed on a charge of abducting Lena Dinser, a young girl thirteen years old, whom, it was alleged, her father, George Dinser, had sold to Hallock for purposes of prostitution, was again brought yesterday before Judge Westbrook in the Supreme Court Chambers, on the writ of habeas corpus previously obtained by Mr. William F. Howe, the prisoner's counsel. Mr. Howe claimed that Hallock could not be held on either section of the statute for abduction. Under the first section the complaint, he insisted, should set forth that the child was taken contrary to the wish and against the consent of her parents. On the contrary, the evidence, he urged, showed that the father was a willing party. Under the second section, it was contended that the prisoner could not be held, as there was no averment that the girl was of previous chaste character. Judge Westbrook, a brief counter argument having been made by Mr. Dana, held that the points of Mr. Howe were well taken, and ordered the prisoner's discharge. Here was a father who, as the newspapers allege, had previously sold twoother daughters, body and soul, and against whom the evidence seemed to bein this case clear. Yet through the defectiveness of the statute, or theremissness of the prosecuting attorney, he goes free, without even a trial, to carry on his infamous traffic for other children. Grant that the pointswere technically well taken and irresistible, --though this is by no meanscertain, --it is very sure that there should be laws that should reach suchatrocities with punishment, whether the father does or does not consent tohis child's ruin; and that public sentiment should compel prosecutingofficers to be as careful in framing their indictments where human soulsare at stake as where the question is of dollars only. It is upon suchmatters that the influence of women will make itself felt in legislation. INDIVIDUALS _vs. _ CLASSES As the older arguments against woman suffrage are abandoned, we hear moreand more of the final objection, that the majority of women have not yetexpressed themselves on the subject. It is common for such reasoners tomake the remark, that if they knew a given number of women--say fifty, or ahundred, or five hundred--who honestly wished to vote, they would favor it. Produce that number of unimpeachable names, and they say that they havereconsidered the matter, and must demand more, --perhaps ten thousand. Bringten thousand, and the demand again rises. "Prove that the majority of womenwish to vote, and they shall vote. " "Precisely, " we say: "give us a chanceto prove it by taking a vote;" and they answer, "By no means. " And, in a certain sense, they are right. It ought not to be settled thatway, --by dealing with woman as a class, and taking the vote. The agitatorsdo not merely claim the right of suffrage for her as a class: they claim itfor each individual woman, without reference to any other. If there is onlyone woman in the nation who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it. In Oriental countries all legislation is for classes, and in England it isstill mainly so. A man is expected to remain in the station in which he isborn; or, if he leaves it, it is by a distinct process, and he comes underthe influence, in various ways, of different laws. If the iniquities of the"Contagious Diseases" act in England, for instance, had not been confinedin their legal application to the lower social grades, the act would neverhave passed. It was easy for men of the higher classes to legislate awaythe modesty of women of the lower classes; but if the daughter of an earlcould have been arrested, and submitted to a surgical examination at thewill of any policeman, as the daughter of a mechanic might be, the lawwould not have stood a day. So, through all our slave States, there wasclass legislation for every person of negro blood: the laws of crime, ofpunishment, of testimony, were all adapted to classes, not individuals. Emancipation swept this all away, in most cases: classes ceased to existbefore the law, so far as men at least were concerned; there were onlyindividuals. The more progress, the less class in legislation. We claim theapplication of this principle as rapidly as possible to women. Our community does not refuse permission for women to go unveiled till itis proved that the majority of women desire it; it does not even ask thatquestion: if one woman wishes to show her face, it is allowed. If a womanwishes to travel alone, to walk the streets alone, the police protects herin that liberty. She is not thrust back into her house with the reproof, "My dear madam, at this particular moment the overwhelming majority ofwomen are indoors: prove that they all wish to come out, and you shallcome. " On the contrary, she comes forth at her own sweet will: thepoliceman helps her tenderly across the street, and waves back withimperial gesture the obtrusive coal-cart. Some of us claim for eachindividual woman, in the same way, not merely the right to go shopping, butto go voting; not merely to show her face, but to show her hand. There will always be many women, as there are many men, who are indifferentto voting. For a time, perhaps always, there will be a larger percentage ofthis indifference among women. But the natural right to a share in thegovernment under which one lives, and to a voice in making the laws underwhich one may be hanged, --this belongs to each woman as an individual; andshe is quite right to claim it as she needs it, even though the majority ofher sex still prefer to take their chance of the penalty, withoutperplexing themselves about the law. The demand of every enlightened womanwho asks for the ballot--like the demand of every enlightened slave forfreedom--is an individual demand; and the question whether they representthe majority of their class has nothing to do with it. For a republic likeours does not profess to deal with classes, but with individuals; since"the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with thewhole people, for the common good, " as the constitution of Massachusettssays. And, fortunately, there is such power in an individual demand that itappeals to thousands whom no abstract right touches. Five minutes withFrederick Douglass settled the question, for any thoughtful person, of thatman's right to freedom. Let any woman of position desire to enter what iscalled "the lecture-field, " to support herself and her children, and atonce all abstract objections to women's speaking in public disappear: herfriends may be never so hostile to "the cause, " but they espouse herindividual cause; the most conservative clergyman subscribes for tickets, but begs that his name may not be mentioned. They do not admit that women, as a class, should speak, --not they; but for this individual woman theythrong the hall. Mrs. Dahlgren abhors politics: a woman in Congress, awoman in the committee-room, --what can be more objectionable? But Iobserve that when Mrs. Dahlgren wishes to obtain more profit by herhusband's inventions all objections vanish: she can appeal to Congressmen, she can address committees, she can, I hope, prevail. The individual ranksfirst in our sympathy: we do not wait to take the census of the "class. "Make way for the individual, whether it be Mrs. Dahlgren pleading for therights of property, or Lucy Stone pleading for the rights of the mother toher child. DEFEATS BEFORE VICTORIES After one of the early defeats in the War of the Rebellion, the commanderof a Massachusetts regiment wrote home to his father: "I wish people wouldnot write us so many letters of condolence. Our defeat seemed to troublethem much more than it troubles us. Did people suppose there were to be noups and downs? We expect to lose plenty of battles, but we have enlistedfor the war. " It is just so with every successful reform. While enemies and half-friendsare proclaiming its defeats, those who advocate it are rejoicing that theyhave at last got an army into the field to be defeated. Unless this war isto be an exception to all others, even the fact of having joined battle isa great deal. It is the first step. Defeat first; a good many defeats, ifyou please: victory by and by. William Wilberforce, writing to a friend in the year 1817, said, "Icontinue faithful to the measure of Parliamentary reform brought forward byMr. Pitt. I am firmly persuaded that at present a prodigious majority ofthe people of this country are adverse to the measure. In my view, so farfrom being an objection to the discussion, this is rather arecommendation. " In 1832 the reform bill was passed. In the first Parliamentary debate on the slave trade, Colonel Tarleton, whoboasted to have killed more men than any one in England, pointing toWilberforce and others, said, "The inspiration began on that side of thehouse;" then turning round, "The revolution has reached to this also, andreached to the height of fanaticism and frenzy. " The first vote in theHouse of Commons, in 1790, after arguments in the affirmative byWilberforce, Pitt, Fox, and Burke, stood, ayes, 88; noes, 163: majorityagainst the measure, 75. In 1807 the slave trade was abolished, and in 1834slavery in the British colonies followed; and even on the very night whenthe latter bill passed, the abolitionists were taunted by Gladstone, thegreat Demerara slaveholder, with having toiled for forty years and donenothing. The Roman Catholic relief bill, establishing freedom of thought inEngland, had the same experience. It passed in 1829 by a majority of ahundred and three in the House of Lords, which had nine months beforerefused by a majority of forty-five to take up the question at all. The English corn laws went down a quarter of a century ago, after a similarcareer of failures. In 1840 there were hundreds of thousands in England whothought that to attack the corn laws was to attack the very foundations ofsociety. Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, said in Parliament, that "hehad heard of many mad things in his life, but, before God, the idea ofrepealing the corn laws was the very maddest thing of which he had everheard. " Lord John Russell counselled the House to refuse to hear evidenceon the operation of the corn laws. Six years after, in 1846, they wereabolished forever. How Wendell Phillips, in the anti-slavery meetings, used to lashpro-slavery men with such formidable facts as these, --and to quote how Clayand Calhoun and Webster and Everett had pledged themselves that slaveryshould never be discussed, or had proposed that those who discussed itshould be imprisoned, --while, in spite of them all, the great reform wasmoving on, and the abolitionists were forcing politicians and people totalk, like Sterne's starling, nothing but slavery! We who were trained in the light of these great agitations have learnedtheir lesson. We expect to march through a series of defeats to victory. The first thing is, as in the anti-slavery movement, so to arouse thepublic mind as to make this the central question. Given this prominence, and it is enough for this year or for many years to come. Wellington saidthat there was no such tragedy as a victory, except a defeat. On the otherhand, the next best thing to a victory is a defeat, for it shows that thearmies are in the field. Without the unsuccessful attempt of to-day, nosuccess to-morrow. When Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble came to this country, she was amazed to findAmericans celebrating the battle of Bunker Hill, which she had always heardclaimed as a victory for King George. Such it was doubtless called; butwhat we celebrated was the fact that the Americans there threw upbreastworks, stood their ground, fired away their ammunition, --and weredefeated. Thus the reformer, too, looking at his failures, often sees inthem such a step forward, that they are the Bunker Hill of a newrevolution. Give us plenty of such defeats, and we can afford to wait ascore of years for the victories. They will come. INDEX Acidalius, ValensAdams, J. Q. Adams, Mrs. JohnAddison, JosephAdelung, J. C. Agassiz, AlexanderAgrippa, CorneliusAlabaster, HenryAlcott, LouisaAlderson, BaronAmalasontha, QueenAnne, QueenAntisthenesAponte, EmanueleArblay, Madame d'AristotleAshburton, Lady Bacon, FrancisBagehot, WalterBarry, J. S. Barton, ClaraBeaujour, L. F. DeBeecher, H. W. Behn, Mrs. AphraBennett, Mr. Beyle, Henri (Stendhal)Blackburn, HenryBlackstone, WilliamBlind, KarlBolingbroke, H. S. Bonaparte, NapoleonBonheur, RosaBoswell, JamesBoufflet, MargaretBrigitta, SaintBrooks, PhillipsBrougham, LordBrown, JohnBrowne, C. F. (Artemus Ward)Browning, Elizabeth B. Browning, RobertBuchan, Countess ofBuckle, H. T. Buffon, Count deBulan, MadameBurke, EdmundBurleigh, LordButler, SamuelByron, Lord Cæsar, JuliusCalhoun, J. C. Cameron, Dr. Canning, George, Catherine II. , EmpressChanning, W. E. Chapman, Chief JusticeCharlemagneChatham, Earl ofChaucer, GeoffreyChesterfield, Earl ofChild, Lydia M. Choate, RufusChoisi, AbbéChristina of SwedenChristlieb, ProfessorChurchill, CharlesClarendon, Earl ofClarke, E. H. Clay, HenryColeridge, JusticeComer, Mr. Comte, AugusteConfuciusCopley, J. S. Cornaro, ElenaCowper, WilliamCrocker, Mrs. H. (Mather)Cromwell, OliverCurrie, JamesCurzon, George Dacier, MadameDahlgren, Mrs. M. V. Dall, Mrs. Caroline A. Dana, Mr. Dante degli AlighieriDarling, GraceDarwin, CharlesDavy, Sir HumphryDemosthenesDickens, CharlesDickinson, AnnaDinser, GeorgeDinser, LenaDix, DorotheaDobell, SidneyDomenichi, LudovicoDouglass, FrederickDrake, Sir FrancisDryden, JohnDudevant, Madame (George Sand)Dufour, Madame Gacon Eastman, Mary F. Edgeworth, MariaElizabeth, QueenElizabeth of RussiaElstob, ElizabethEmerson, R. W. Everett, Edward Fénelon, Francis de S. De la M. Fern, Fanny. _See_ Parton. Flammer, JusticeFontanges, Duchesse deFonte, ModerataFox, C. J. Franklin, BenjaminFrederick II. Frederick, PrinceFrith, W. P. Froissart, JohnFroude J. A. Fuller, Thomas Garrick, DavidGarrison, W. L. Genlis, Mme. DeGibbon, EdwardGibson, AnthonyGladstone, W. E. Godwin, Mary WollstonecraftGoethe, J. W. VonGoguet, A. Y. Goldsmith, OliverGoodwin, W. W. Grant, U. S. Grattan, HenryGreenwood, Grace. _See_ LippincottGriswold, R. W. Guillaume, JacquetteGuion, Madame Hale, E. E. Hallock, PeterHamilton, GailHarland, MarionHarte, F. B. Haüy, R. J. Hawthorne, NathanielHerbert, SidneyHesiodHeyrick, ElizabethHoar, G. F. Hogarth, WilliamHomerHopkins, MarkHoward, JohnHowe, Mrs. Julia W. Howe, W. F. Howland, RachelHumboldt, F. H. A. VonHume, DavidHuxley, T. H. Hyacinthe, Père James I. , KingJameson, Mrs. AnnaJefferson, ThomasJoan of ArcJohnson, AndrewJohnson, SamuelJones, C. C. Jonson, Ben Kean, EdmundKemble, Frances A. Kemble, JohnKent, James Lagrange, MadameLamb, CharlesLaunay, Mlle. DeLawrence, W. B. Layard, Sir A. H. Leland, C. G. Leonowens, Mrs. Leopold, Grand Duke of TuscanyLessing, G. E. Lewes, Mrs. (George Eliot)LibussaLincoln, AbrahamLippincott, Mrs. S. J. (Grace Greenwood)Liszt, AbbéLivermore, MaryLivingstone, DavidLocke, JohnLockhart, J. G. Louise of SavoyLowe. _See_ SherbrookeLowell, J. R. Lowery, CaptainLubbock, Sir JohnLucretia Macaulay, T. B. Magann, WilliamMahaffy, J. P. Maintenon, Madame deMalibran, MadameMaréchal, SylvainMargaret of AustriaMarguerite of NavarreMaria Theresa, EmpressMarmella, LucreziaMarlborough, Duke ofMartineau, HarrietMazarm, JuliusMelbourne, LordMill, J S. MohammedMolière, J. B. P. DeMonk, GeorgeMontpensier, Mlle. DeMoore, ThomasMott, LucretiaMuloch, D. M. Napoleon, LouisNelson, HoratioNewton, Sir IsaacNiebuhr, CarstenNightingale, FlorenceNogarola, IsottaNorton, Hon. Mrs. Caroline Ormond, James Butler, Duke ofOssoli, Margaret (Fuller)Otis, JamesOvid Parker, TheodoreParkman, FrancisParsons, TheophilusParton, Mrs. (Fanny Fern)Patten, Mrs. Paul, Jean _See_ RichterPeabody, F. G. Pembroke, Earl ofPepys, SamuelPericlesPeterborough, Charles Mordaunt, Earl ofPetersdorffPetrarchPhilip II, KingPhillipps, AdelaidePhillips, WendellPitt, WilliamPlato, Plummer, MissPompadour, Mme. Pope, AlexanderPorson, RichardPythagoras Quincy, EdmundQuincy, Josiah Ramsay, AllanReade, CharlesReam, VinmeRemond, CharlesReynolds, Sir JoshuaRichelieu, Armand J. Duplessis, CardinalRichter, J. P. F. Robert the BruceRobin, AbbéRobinson, W. S. (Warrington)Rochambeau, GeneralRogers, SamuelRoland, MadameRomilly, Sir SamuelRossi, Properzia deRussell, Lord John Safford, T. H. Saint AugustineSaintouges, Françoise deSand George. _See_ DudevantSapphoSchiller, J. C. F. VonSchurman, Anna MariaScott, Sir WalterShakespeare, WilliamSheppard, JackSherbrooke, Lord (Robert Lowe)Sheridan, P. H. Sherman W. T. Sidney, Sir PhilipSmith, GoldwinSocratesSomerville, Mrs. MarySouthworth, E. D E. N. Sparks, JaredSpenser EdmundStael, Madame deStendhal _See_ Beyle. Stephen, FitzjamesSterne, LaurenceStevens, Mrs. ParanStone, LucyStory, W. W. Stove, Harriet (Beecher)Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl ofSumner, CharlesSwift, Jonathan Taine, H. A. Tambroni, ClotildaTarleton, ColonelTen BroeckTennyson, AlfredThackeray, W. P. Thoreau, H. D. Thou, J. A. DeTimon of AthensTocqueville, Alexis deTrench, Mrs. Richard Varro, M. T. Victoria, QueenVolney, C. F. Chasseboeuf, Count deVoltaire, F. M. A. De Wallace, A. R. Walpole, HoraceWalworth, M. T. Ward, Artemus. _See_ Browne, C. F. Warrington. _See_ Robinson. Washington, GeorgeWebster, Daniel, Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, Westbrook, JudgeWhipple, E. P. Whittier, J. G. Wieland, C. M. Wilberforce, WilliamWinkelried, ArnoldWithington, LeonardWlaslaWollstonecraft, Mary. _See_ Godwin. Woodbury, AugustusWordsworth, William