ution. We have no reason to hope that
pantaloons would do more for us than they have done for man himself.
The negro slave enjoys the most unlimited freedom in his attire, not
surpassed even by the fashions of Eden in its palmiest days; yet in
spite of his dress, and his manhood, too, he is a slave still. Was the
old Roman in his toga less of a man than he now is in swallow-tail and
tights? Did the flowing robes of Christ Himself render His life less
grand and beautiful? In regard to dress, where you claim to be so
radical, you are far from consistent.

Believing, as you do, in the identity of the sexes, that all the
difference we see in tastes, in character, is entirely the result of
education--that "man is woman and woman is man"--why keep up these
distinctions in dress? Surely, whatever dress is convenient for one
sex must be for the other also. Whatever is necessary for the perfect
and full development of man's physical being, must be equally so for
woman. I fully agree with you that woman is terribly cramped and
crippled in her present style of dress. I have not one word to utter
in its defense; but to me, it seems that if she would enjoy entire
freedom, she should dress just like man. Why proclaim our sex on the
house-tops, seeing that it is a badge of degradation, and deprives us
of so many rights and privileges wherever we go? Disguised as a man,
the distinguished French woman, "George Sand," has been able to see
life in Paris, and has spoken in political meetings with great
applause, as no woman could have done. In male attire, we could travel
by land or sea; go through all the streets and lanes of our cities and
towns by night and day, without a protector; get seven hundred dollars
a year for teaching, instead of three, and ten dollars for making a
coat, instead of two or three, as we now do. All this we could do
without fear of insult, or the least sacrifice of decency or virtue.
If nature has not made the sex so clearly defined as to be seen
through any disguise, why should we make the difference so striking?
Depend upon it, when men and women in their every-day life see and
think less of sex and more of mind, we shall all lead far purer and
higher lives.

Your letter, my noble cousin, must have been written in a most
desponding mood, as all the great reforms of the day seem to you on
the verge of failure. What are the experiences of days and months and
years in the lifetime of a mighty nation? Can one man