of character, a greater purity of mind, a
heavenlike patience and magnanimity. She is not an angel, but a woman;
yet she should shine with angelic qualities and aspire to angelic
virtues, and prove herself, morally and spiritually, to be so superior
to man, that he will render to her an instinctive deference; not a mock
and ironical deference, because she is supposed to be inferior and weak,
but a real deference, a genuine respect on which all permanent
friendship rests,--and even love itself, which every woman, as well as
every man, craves from the bottom of the soul, and without which life
has no object, no charm, and no interest.

Is woman necessarily made a drudge by assuming those domestic duties
which add so much to the unity and happiness of a family, and which a
man cannot so well discharge as he can the more arduous labors of
supporting a family? Are her labors in directing servants or educating
her children more irksome than the labors of a man, in heat and cold,
often among selfish and disagreeable companions? Is woman, in
restricting herself to her sphere, thereby debarred from the pleasures
of literature and art? As a rule, is she not already better educated
than her husband? However domestic she may be, cannot she still paint
and sing, and read and talk on the grandest subjects? Is she not really
more privileged than her husband or brother, with more time and less
harassing cares and anxieties? Would she really exchange her graceful
labors for the rough and turbulent work of men?

But here I am stopped with the inquiry, What will you do with those
women who are unfortunate, who have no bright homes to adorn, no means
of support, no children to instruct, no husbands to rule: women cast out
of the sphere where they would like to live, and driven to hard and
uncongenial labors, forced to run races with men, or starve? To such my
remarks do not apply; they are exceptions, and not the rule. To them I
would say, Do cheerfully what Providence seems to point out for _you_;
do the best you can, even in the sphere into which you are forced. If
you are at any time thrown upon your own resources, and compelled to
adopt callings which task your physical strength, accept such lot with
resignation, but without any surrender of your essentially feminine and
womanly qualities; do not try to be like men, for men are lower than you
in their ordinary tastes and occupations. And I would urge all women,
rich and poor, to purs