such assertions fostered their love of power,
and the idea of their own self-consequence, it was natural for them to
accept them without question, as undoubted truth. With women, until
within the present century, the facilities for acquiring an education
have been so meagre that, except where they were possessed of both a
large fortune and an unlimited amount of perseverance, they had slight
opportunities for acquiring accurate information on that or any other
subject. What their fathers, husbands, or brothers told them, they might
believe if they chose; for the rest, to the very large majority of
women, history was a sealed book; so that, for want of correct
information, they were not in a position to contradict any assertion,
however extravagant, untruthful, or absurd it might be.

In the foregoing pages of this treatise, it has been maintained that the
statements concerning the alleged mental inferiority of women are
untruthful; and that history, both ancient and modern, proves them to be
so. In order, therefore, to establish this proposition more fully, the
following sketches have been added, giving an account of a few women
eminent for the founding of colonies, for piety, for patriotism, and for
attainments in science, literature, and arts; and some, alas! for
wickedness.

ELISA, OR DIDO, FOUNDER OF CARTHAGE.

Carthage, one of the most noted nations of antiquity, was founded by a
woman, and flourished under her rule. A Tyrian princess, Dido--or Elisa,
as she is indiscriminately named in history--was in jeopardy from the
tyranny and oppression of an unnatural brother, who, not content with
what he had inherited from his father, had cast covetous eyes upon the
immense possessions of his sister's husband, whose death he compassed.
All the powers of mind which had hitherto lain dormant within her, being
roused by the horrid act of her brother, Dido at once set about
rescuing her treasure from his grasp, and her retainers from his
unbridled fury. Not choosing to seek protection from any of the princes
of the surrounding countries, and knowing herself to be unsafe while in
the vicinity of her brother, she, as speedily as possible, and with the
utmost secresy, gathered what she was possessed of together, and, with
her followers, embarked in search of some country where she might live
free from tyranny and oppression. Undaunted by the dangers, real and
imaginary, which beset the paths of the early navigators of the
M