bei Zeiten das Weib nach ihrer Bestimmung,
Denn durch Dienen allein gelangt sie endlich zum Herrschen
Zu der verdienten Gewalt, die doch ihr im Hause gehoeret,
Dienet die Schwester dem Bruder doch frueh, sie dienet den Eltern;
Und ihr Leben ist immer ein ewiges Gehen und Kommen,
Oder ein Heben und Tragen, Bereiten und Schaffen fuer Andre;
Wohl ihr, wenn sie daran sich gewoehnt, dass kein Weg ihr zu sauer
Wird, und die Stunden der Nacht ihr sind wie die Stunden des Tages:
Dass ihr niemals die Arbeit zu klein und die Nadel zu fein duenkt,
Dass sie sich ganz vergisst, und leben mag nur in Andern!"

She is to serve her brothers and parents. Her whole life is to be a
going and coming, a lifting and carrying, a preparing and acting for
others. Well for her if she treads her way unweariedly, if night is as
day to her, if no task seems too small and no needle too fine. She is
to forget herself altogether and live in others.

It is a beautiful passage, and an unabashed magnificent masculine
egotism speaks in every line of it. Whenever I read it I think of the
little girl in _Punch_ whose little brother called to her, "Come here,
Effie. I wants you." And Effie answered, "Thank you, Archie, but I
wants myself!" Herr Riehl quotes the passage at the end of his own
exhortations to his countrywomen, which are all in the same spirit,
and were not needed by them. German women have always been devoted to
their homes and their families, and they are as subservient to their
menfolk as the Japanese. They do not actually fall on their knees
before their lords, but the tone of voice in which a woman of the old
school speaks of _die Herren_ is enough to make a French, American, or
Englishwoman think there is something to be said for the modern revolt
against men. For any woman with a spice of feminine perversity in her
nature will be driven to the other camp when she meets extremes; so
that in Germany she feels ready to rise against overbearing males;
whilst in America she misses some of the regard for masculine judgment
and authority that German women show in excess. At least, it seems an
excess of duty to us when we hear of a German bride who will not go
down to dinner with the man appointed by her hostess till she has
asked her husband's permission; and when we hear of another writing
from Germany that, although in England she had ardently believed in
total abstention, she had now changed her opinion be