angriest man dare not touch her, while she provokes
him to a combat in which his hands are tied. She gets her own way in
everything, and everywhere. At home and abroad she is equally dominant
and irrepressible, equally free from obedience and from fear. Who breaks
all the public orders in sights and shows, and, in spite of king,
kaiser, or policeman X, goes where it is expressly forbidden that she
shall go? Not the large-boned, muscular woman, whatever her temperament;
unless, indeed, of the exceptionally haughty type in distinctly inferior
surroundings, and then she can queen it royally enough, and set
everything at most lordly defiance. But in general the large-boned woman
obeys the orders given, because, while near enough to man to be somewhat
on a par with him, she is still undeniably his inferior. She is too
strong to shelter herself behind her weakness, yet too weak to assert
her strength and defy her master on equal grounds. She is like a
flying-fish, not one thing wholly; and while capable of the
inconveniences of two lives, is incapable of the privileges of either.

It is not she, for all her well-developed frame and formidable looks,
but the little woman, who breaks the whole code of laws and defies all
their defenders--the pert, smart, pretty little woman, who laughs in
your face, and goes straight ahead if you try to turn her to the right
hand or to the left, receiving your remonstrances with the most sublime
indifference, as if you were talking a foreign language she could not
understand. She carries everything before her, wherever she is. You may
see her stepping over barriers, slipping under ropes, penetrating to the
green benches with a red ticket, taking the best places on the platform
over the heads of their rightful owners, settling herself among the
reserved seats without an inch of pasteboard to float her. You cannot
turn her out by main force. British chivalry objects to the public
laying on of hands in the case of a woman, even when most recalcitrant
and disobedient; more particularly if a small and fragile-looking woman.
So that, if it is only a usurpation of places especially masculine, she
is allowed to retain what she has got amid the grave looks of the
elders--not really displeased though at a flutter of her ribbons among
them--and the titters and nudges of the young fellows.

If the battle is between her and another woman, they are left to fight
it out as they best can, with the odds laid h