eart, with which it has
been my privilege to be associated in this movement. That is a
small thing, and it is the experience of every man who has
entered into this reform, that if he had a fiber of manhood in
him heretofore, that fiber had been doubled, trebled, and
quadrupled before he had been in it a year. Instead of requiring
courage for a man to enter into this movement, it rather requires
courage to keep out of it, if he is a logical, clear-headed man.
But with a woman it is different. She needs much courage. A woman
who, for instance, has been engaged in some literary avocation,
and obtained some position, does not wish to risk her reputation
by connecting herself with those who advocate the right of woman,
not merely to write and to speak, but to vote also; hence, while
admitting, secretly admitting, the justice of the claim, she will
shrink back from avowing it for fear of "losing her position."
How can any brave man honor such a recreant woman as that, who,
having gained all she wants to herself, under cover of the bolder
efforts of these nobler spirits, then settles back upon the ease
and comfort of that position, and turns her small artillery on
her own sisters? I feel a sense of shame for American literature,
when I think how our literary women shrink, and cringe, and
apologize, and dodge to avoid being taken for "strong-minded
women." Oh, there's no danger. I don't wonder that their literary
efforts are stricken with the palsy of weakness from the
beginning. I don't wonder that our magazines are filled with
diluted stories, in which sentimental heroines sigh, cry, and die
through whole pages of weary flatness, and not a single noble
thought relieves that Sahara of emptiness and barrenness. It is a
retribution on them. A man or woman can not put in a book more
than they have in themselves, and if woman is not noble enough to
appreciate a great thought, she is not noble enough to write one.
I don't wonder that their fame does not keep the promise of its
dawn, when that dawn is so dastardly.

The time will come, let me tell you, ladies, when the first
question asked about any woman in this age who is worth
remembering will be, "Did that woman comprehend her whole sphere?
Did she stand beside her sisters who were laboring for the rig