master the secret of her curious physical being, he has been forced to
stop short of his purpose, dumb and blind in the presence of that
wondrous complexity that no science of his own can master; and no
casuist has yet solved the _why_ of her equally wonderful and complex
mental and spiritual being. They have made Reason, cold, critical,
judge, the test; but the fine, delicate essence of her real being has
always eluded it. When Love seeks the solution--the large, generous
Love, that is one day to sit as the judge of all things, supreme over
purblind human Reason--then _she_ will be understood, for she will yield
to the asking of that all-seeing One. This will be when the world is
ripe for the advent of woman, who shall rule through love, the highest
rule of all. Slowly, slowly, though surely, is the world ascending,
through the wondrous secret chain of _influences_ binding her to the
moral order of the universe, to the height of this supernal law of love;
and there, in that new and holy kingdom, woman's crown and sceptre await
her.

But who shall say that a glimmer of this future royal beauty and glory
has yet dawned upon her?

If man has misunderstood woman, she has none the less misunderstood
herself. Indeed, her feet have for ages been treading debatable ground,
that has shaken beneath her through the clashings of man's ignorance and
her own vague, restless clamors and aimlessness. She has felt the
stirrings within of that real being she was created, but has never dared
to assert herself, or, to speak more truly, has only known to assert
herself in the wrong direction. False voices there have been without
number, but not even yet has true womanhood been able, in spite of its
irrepressible longings, to utter that clear, free, elevated speech that
shall yet stir the keenest pulses of the world.

As it is, the world has nearly outgrown the petty jealousy, the cool
assumption of inferiority, the flippant criticism of her weaknesses, the
insulting catering to her foibles, with which woman has been accustomed
to be treated, and which have made her either the slave, the toy, or the
ridicule of man; and it is getting to see that she is at least of as
much relative importance as man; that without her he will in vain
aspire to rise; that, by a law as infallible as that which moves and
regulates the spheres, his condition is determined by hers; that
wherever she has been a slave, he has been a tyrant, and that all
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