ations to man, symbolized
and perpetuated, as I have already said, by this dress, will make your
striving vain.

Woman must first fight against herself--against personal and mental
habits so deep-rooted and controlling, and so seemingly inseparable
from herself, as to be mistaken for her very nature. And when she has
succeeded there, an easy victory will follow. But where shall be the
battle-ground for this indispensable self-conquest? She will laugh at
my answer when I tell her, that her dress, aye, her dress, must be
that battle-ground. What! no wider, no sublimer field than this to
reap her glories in! My further answer is, that if she shall reap them
anywhere, she must first reap them there. I add, that her triumph
there will be her triumph everywhere; and that her failure there will
be her failure everywhere.

Affectionately yours,
GERRIT SMITH.

MRS. STANTON'S REPLY.

SENECA FALLS, _Dec. 21, 1855_.

MY DEAR COUSIN:--Your letter on the "Woman's Right Movement" I have
thoroughly read and considered. I thank you, in the name of woman, for
having said what you have on so many vital points. You have spoken
well for a man whose convictions on this subject are the result of
reason and observation; but they alone whose souls are fired through
personal experience and suffering can set forth the height and depth,
the source and center of the degradation of women; they alone can feel
a steadfast faith in their own native energy and power to accomplish a
final triumph over all adverse surroundings, a speedy and complete
success. You say you have but little faith in this reform, because the
changes we propose are so great, so radical, so comprehensive; whilst
they who have commenced the work are so puny, feeble, and undeveloped.
The mass of women are developed at least to the point of discontent,
and that, in the dawn of this nation, was considered a most dangerous
point in the British Parliament, and is now deemed equally so on a
Southern plantation. In the human soul, the steps between discontent
and action are few and short indeed. You, who suppose the mass of
women contented, know but little of the silent indignation, the deep
and settled disgust with which they contemplate our present social
arrangements. You claim to believe that in every sense, thought, and
feeling, man and woman are th