and sing:

"Gay without toil and lovely without art,
They spring to cheer the sense and glad the heart;
Nor blush, my fair, to own you copy these,
Your best, your sweetest empire is to please"?

No, no. At least, I will not insult her. I can say nothing. I
hang my head before that woman, as when in foreign lands I was
asked, "You are an American. That is the nation that forever
boasts of the equal liberty of all its citizens, and is the only
great nation in the world that traffics in human flesh!"

The very moment women passed out of the degradation of the Greek
household and the contempt of the Roman law, they began their
long and slow ascent through prejudice, sophistry, and passion to
their perfect equality of choice and opportunity as human beings;
and the assertion that when a majority of women ask for equal
political rights they will be granted, is a confession that there
is no conclusive reason against their sharing them. And if that
be so, how can their admission rightfully depend upon the
majority? Why should the woman who does not care to vote prevent
the voting of her neighbor who does? Why should a hundred fools
who are content to be dolls and do what Mrs. Grundy expects,
prejudice the choice of a single one who wishes to be a woman and
do what her conscience requires? You tell me that the great mass
of women are uninterested, indifferent, and, upon the whole,
hostile to the movement. You say what of course you can not know,
but even if it were so, what then? There are some of the noblest
and best of women, both in this country and in England, who are
not indifferent. They are the women who have thought for
themselves upon the subject. The others (the great multitude) are
those who have not thought at all; who have acquiesced in the
old order, and who have accepted the prejudices of men. Shall
their unthinking acquiescence or the intelligent wish of their
thoughtful sisters decide the question?

We can be patient. Our fathers won their independence of England
by the logic of English ideas. We will persuade America by the
eloquence of American principles. In one of the fierce Western
battles among the mountains, General Thomas was watching a body
of his troops painfully pushing their way up a steep h