e asserted only in behalf of the privileged
classes. In a polemic against Fanny Lewald's efforts in behalf of the
emancipation of woman, Mathilde Reichhardt-Stromberg expresses herself
this wise:

"If you (Fanny Lewald) claim the complete equality of woman with man in
social and political life, George Sand also must be right in her
struggles for emancipation, which aim no further than at what man has
long been in undisputed possession of. Indeed, there is no reasonable
ground for admitting the head and not the heart of woman to this
equality, to give and to take as freely as man. On the contrary, if
woman has by nature the right, and, consequently, also the duty--for we
should not bury the talent bestowed upon us--of exerting her brain
tissue to the utmost in the race with the intellectual Titans of the
opposite sex, she must then have precisely the same right to preserve
her equilibrium by quickening the circulation of her heart's blood in
whatever way it may seem good to her. Do we not all read without the
slightest moral indignation how Goethe--to begin with the greatest as an
illustration--again and again wasted the warmth of his heart and the
enthusiasm of his great soul on a different woman? Reasonable people
regard this as perfectly natural by the very reason of the greatness of
his soul, and the difficulty of satisfying it. Only the narrow-minded
moralist stops to condemn his conduct. Why, then, deride the 'great
souls' among women!... Let us suppose that the whole female sex
consisted of great souls like George Sand, that every woman were a
Lucretia Floriani, whose children are all children of love and who
brought up all these children with true motherly love and devotion, as
well as with intelligence and good sense. What would become of the
world? There can be no doubt that it could continue to exist and to
progress, just as it does now; it might even feel exceptionally
comfortable under the arrangement."[224]

Accordingly, Mathilde Reichhardt-Stromberg is of the opinion that, if
every woman were a Lucretia Floriani, that is, a great soul like George
Sand, who draws her own picture in Lucretia Floriani, they should be
free for the "preservation of their equilibrium to quicken the
circulation of their heart's blood in whatever way it may seem good to
them." But why should that be the privilege of the "great souls" only,
and not of the others also, who are no "great souls," and can be none?
No such difference