More Beetles 



formed by the leaven of the centuries and 

 the lessons of conscience; it is progressing 

 towards better things with heart-breaking 

 slowness. 



It was only yesterday that slavery disap- 

 peared, the foundation of the ancient com- 

 munity, and that people perceived that a 

 man, even though black, is really a man and 

 as such deserving of consideration. 



What was woman in the old days? What 

 she still is in the East: a pretty little animal 

 without a soul. The question was discussed 

 at great length by the scholars. The great 

 seventeenth-century bishop Bossuet ^ him- 

 self, looked upon woman as the diminutive 

 of man. The proof lay in the origin of Eve : 

 she was the superfluous bone, the thirteenth 

 rib which Adam had in the beginning. It 

 has at last been admitted that woman pos- 

 sesses a soul similar to our own and even its 

 superior in tenderness and devotion. She 

 has been permitted to educate herself, which 

 she does with a zeal at least equal to that of 

 her rival. But the law, that gloomy cavern 

 which is stilLthe lurking-place of so many 



1 Jacques Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux (1627- 

 1704), — author of many famous religious, historical and 

 political works. — Translator's Note. 

 282 



