e as citizens, no less than
the men. But having done these things I fancy they would have done
enough; the margin of their life would be devoted to dignified and
cultivated leisure. They would leave to men the tilling of the soil, the
building and navigation of marine or aerial ships, the working of mines
and metals, the erection of houses, the construction of roads, railways,
and communications, perhaps even the entire manufacturing work of the
community. Medicine and the care of the sick might still be a charge to
some; education to most; art, in one form or another, to almost all. But
the hard work of the world might well be left to men, upon whom it more
naturally and fitly devolves. No hateful drudgery of "earning a
livelihood." Women might rest content with being free and beautiful,
cultivated and artistic, good citizens to the State, the mothers and
guardians of the coming generations. If any woman asks more than this,
she is really asking less--for she is asking that a heavier burden
should be cast on some or most of her sex, in order to relieve the
minority of a duty which to well-organised women ought to be a
privilege.

"But all this has no practical bearing!" I beg your pardon. An ideal has
often two practical uses. In the first place, it gives us a pattern
towards which we may approximate. In the second place, it gives us a
standard by which we may judge whether any step we propose to take is a
step forward or a step backward.

XXIV.

_OF SECOND CHAMBERS._

A Second Chamber acts as a drag. Progress is always uphill work. So we
are at pains to provide a drag beforehand--for an uphill journey.

There, in one word, you have the whole philosophy of Second Chambers.

How, then, did the nations of Europe come to hamper their legislative
systems with such a useless, such an illogical adjunct? In sackcloth and
ashes, let us confess the truth--we English led them astray: on us the
shame; to us the dishonour. Theorists, indeed (wise after the fact, as
is the wont of theorists), have discovered or invented an imaginary
function for Second Chambers. They are to preserve the people, it seems,
from the fatal consequences of their own precipitancy. As though the
people--you and I--the vast body of citizens, were a sort of foolish
children, to be classed with infants, women, criminals, and imbeciles (I
adopt the chivalrous phraseology of an Act of Parliament), incapable of
knowing their own minds for two min