ntially the work of the male sex. The value of woman is precisely
the value of those priceless works of art for which we build
museums,--which we shelter and guard as the world's choicest heritage;
and a lovely, cultivated, refined woman, thus sheltered, and guarded,
and developed, has a worth that cannot be estimated by any gross,
material standard. So I subscribe to the sentiments of Miss Jennie's
friend without scruple."

"The great trouble in settling all these society questions," said I,
"lies in the gold-washing,--the cradling I think the miners call it. If
all the quartz were in one stratum and all the gold in another, it would
save us a vast deal of trouble. In the ideas of Jennie's friend of the
Evening Post there is a line of truth and a line of falsehood so
interwoven and threaded together that it is impossible wholly to assent
or dissent. So with your ideas, Rudolph, there is a degree of truth in
them, but there is also a fallacy.

"It is a truth, that woman as a sex ought not to do the hard work of the
world, either social, intellectual, or moral. There are evidences in her
physiology that this was not intended for her, and our friend of the
Evening Post is right in saying that any country will advance more
rapidly in civilization and refinement where woman is thus sheltered and
protected. And I think, furthermore, that there is no country in the
world where women _are_ so much considered and cared for and sheltered,
in every walk of life, as in America. In England and France,--all over
the continent of Europe, in fact,--the other sex are deferential to
women only from some presumption of their social standing, or from the
fact of acquaintanceship; but among strangers, and under circumstances
where no particular rank or position can be inferred, a woman travelling
in England or France is jostled and pushed to the wall, and left to take
her own chance, precisely as if she were not a woman. Deference to
delicacy and weakness, the instinct of protection, does not appear to
characterize the masculine population of any other quarter of the world
so much as that of America. In France, _les Messieurs_ will form a
circle round the fire in the receiving-room of a railroad station, and
sit, tranquilly smoking their cigars, while ladies who do not happen to
be of their acquaintance are standing shivering at the other side of the
room. In England, if a lady is incautiously booked for an outside place
on a coach, in ho