on a question of real importance she
has a good chance of getting her own way by working on his
greater susceptibility. Perhaps an illustration will show what I
mean. I was listening to the band and a girl and her _fiance_
came up to occupy two seats near me. The girl sank into one seat,
but for some reason the man wished her to take the other. She
refused. He repeated his order twice, the second time so
peremptorily that she changed places, and I heard him say: 'I
don't think you heard what I said. I don't expect to give an
order three times.'

"This little scene interested me, and I afterward asked the girl
the following questions:--

"'Had you any reason for taking one chair more than the other?'

"'No.'

"'Did Mr. ----'s insistence on your changing give you any
pleasure?'

"'Yes' (after a little hesitation).

"'Why?'

"'I don't know.'

"'Would it have done so if you had particularly wished to sit in
that chair; if, for instance, you had had a boil on your cheek
and wished to turn that side away from him?'

"'No; certainly not. The worry of thinking he was looking at it
would have made me too cross to feel pleased.'

"Does this explain what I mean? The occasion, by the way, need
not be really important, but, as in this imaginary case of the
boil, if it _seems important_ to the woman, irritation will
outweigh the physical sensation."

I am well aware that in thus asserting a certain tendency in women to
delight in suffering pain--however careful and qualified the position I
have taken--many estimable people will cry out that I am degrading a whole
sex and generally supporting the "subjection of women." But the day for
academic discussion concerning the "subjection of women" has gone by. The
tendency I have sought to make clear is too well established by the
experience of normal and typical women--however numerous the exceptions
may be--to be called in question. I would point out to those who would
deprecate the influence of such facts in relation to social progress that
nothing is gained by regarding women as simply men of smaller growth. They
are not so; they have the laws of their own nature; their development must
be along their own lines, and not along masculine lines. It is as true now
as in Bacon's day that we only learn to command nature by obeying her. To
ignore facts is to court disappoi