LET US THEREWITH BE CONTENT. .3^5 



perfectly well what it will mean in their career. And they need 

 not be looked upon as fools for so doing, being in fact possessed 

 of the average degree of common sense of the race. They choose 

 it because they want it, and they want it because, in spite of its 

 restrictions, it brings the most satisfactory fulfillment of their 

 aspirations and development of their powers. 



The same masculine thinker is firmly convinced that " women 

 wish to be men, but men do not wish to be women." Both parts 

 of this proposition are delightfully characteristic of the sex which 

 has never been backward in claiming its superiority, and the last 

 clause, by the same sign, is doubtless unquestionable. But the 

 first is as unjust to woman's ideals as it is derogatory to her mis- 

 sion. If she give up social pleasures, literary activity, pecuniary 

 independence, or a hundred other personal ambitions, to minister 

 to the interests of one modest home, and the career of one average 

 husband ; if she turn from the gratification of public recognition 

 to years of the unapplauded cares of the nursery ; if she drop out 

 of the onward march of purely intellectual progress, and spend 

 her life marking time in the ranks of the housekeeper it is not 

 because she is the poor-spirited victim of circumstances. It is not 

 that one half the race is, by some mischance of destiny, doomed 

 to a life of tragedy. The bird with one wing broken droops in 

 its flight, and humanity thus hampered would have sorely lagged 

 in its onward sweep. On the contrary, she chooses these things 

 because law and the satisfaction of her life are not that of indi- 

 vidual ambition or attainment, but the law of love and service 

 " unto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks foolish- 

 ness." 



Women, it is true, do not always feel or admit this. Many of 

 them have a taste for pity, and they pet and pity themselves and 

 each other. Yet the more sincere own willingly that everything 

 has its price, and that they have paid none too dear for that 

 which they have gained by their sacrifice. The strongest scorn to 

 pose as martyrs, because they see clearly that in life as it runs, a 

 woman, exactly as a man, gets what she pays for, and must pay 

 for what she gets. And they conceive of no more just equality 

 of the sexes than this. 



As to the women of America, to begin with, they are not, as 

 some would have us think, downtrodden drudges, manacled 

 slaves, or what not, after the same order. Rejoicing in the most 

 perfect social freedom the world has seen, proud in a position 

 and influence quite equal to those of men, they can afi^ord to laugh 

 at such tirades. With the exceptions that must always accom- 

 pany general statements, woman in America may do whatever 

 she wishes to do. She may run the typewriter in an office instead 

 of a sewing machine at home. She may carry on a farm or a 



VOL. LI. 27 



