nt hair, instead of the
magnificent brains beneath it, is to insult them. Yet when, in that old
court of law, Phryne bared her bosom as her complete case for the
defence, she proved herself a greater lawyer than will ever be made by
law examinations and bachelor's degrees; and even when women become
judges of the Supreme Court, a development easily within sight, they
will still retain the greater importance of being merely women. Yes, and
one can easily imagine some future woman President of the United States,
for all the acknowledged brilliancy of her administration, being
esteemed even more for her superb figure.

It is no use. Woman, if she would, "cannot shake off the god." She must
make up her mind, whatever other distinctions she may achieve, to her
inalienable distinction of being woman; nothing she can do will change
man's eternal attitude toward her, as a being made to be worshipped and
to be loved, a being of beauty and mystery, as strange and as lovely as
the moon, the goddess and the mother of lunatics. What a wonderful
destiny is hers! In addition to being the first of human beings, all
that a man can be, to be so much else as well; to be, so to say, the
president of a railroad and yet a priestess of nature's mysteries; a
stenographer at so many dollars a week and yet a nymph of the forest
pools--woman, "and yet a spirit still." Not without meaning has myth
endowed woman with the power of metamorphosis, to change at will like
the maidens in the legend into wild white swans, or like Syrinx, fleeing
from the too ardent pursuit of Pan, into a flowering reed, or like
Lamia, into a jewelled serpent--

Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
And full of silver moons.

Modern conditions are still more favourable than antique story for the
exhibition of this protean quality of woman, providing her with
opportunities of still more startling contrasts of transformation. Will
it not be a wonderful sight in that near future to watch that woman
judge of the Supreme Court, in the midst of some learned tangle of
inter-state argument, turn aside for a moment, in response to a
plaintive cry, and, unfastening her bodice, give the little clamourer
the silver solace it demands! What a hush will fall upon the assembled
court! To think of such a genius for jurisprudence, such a legal brain,
working in harmony--with such a bosom! So august a pillar of the law,
yet so divine a mother.

As it is, how p