But the desire to do good is latent in all
of them; show them the way, and it will make itself apparent."
"But what is the reason of all this dissatisfaction?" I asked. "Why
don't you go to your husbands and brothers to be set right, as of old?"
"Ah! when you ask me that, you get to the first cause of the trouble,"
she answered. "The truth is that we have lost faith in our men. They
claim some superiority for themselves, but we find none. The age
requires people to practise what they preach, and yet expects us to be
guided by the counsels of those whose own lives, we know, have rendered
them contemptible. They are not fit to guide us, and we are not fit to
go alone. I suppose we shall come to an understanding eventually--
either they must be raised or we must be lowered. It is for the death
of manliness we women mourn. We marry, and find we have taken upon
ourselves misery, and lifelong widowhood of the mind and moral nature.
Do you wonder that some of us ask: Why should we keep ourselves pure if
impurity is to be our bedfellow? You make us breathe corruption, and
wonder that we lose our health.
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