which they have but a vague and
cloudy conception. The edge does not cut them, and so they think it is
not much of a sword after all. But women have, or ought to have, a
more subtle and intimate acquaintance with realities. They ought to
know what is fact and what is fol-de-rol. They ought to distinguish
between the really noble and the simply physical, not to say faulty.
If men do not, it is women's duty to help them. I think, if women
would only not be quite so afraid of being thought unwomanly, they
would be a great deal more womanly than they are. To be brave, and
single-minded, and discriminating, and judicious, and clear-sighted,
and self-reliant, and decisive, that is pure womanly. To be womanish
is not to be womanly. To be flabby, and plastic, and weak, and
acquiescent, and insipid, is not womanly. And I could wish sometimes
that women would not be quite so patient. They often exhibit a degree
of long-suffering entirely unwarrantable. There is no use in suffering,
unless you cannot help it; and a good, stout, resolute protest would
often be a great deal more wise, and Christian, and beneficial on all
sides, than so much patient endurance. A little spirit and "spunk"
would go a great way towards setting the world right. It is not
necessary to be a termagant. The firmest will and the stoutest heart
may be combined with the gentlest delicacy. Tameness is not the stuff
that the finest women are made of. Nobody can be more kind,
considerate, or sympathizing towards weakness or weariness than men, if
they only know it exists; and it is a wrong to them to go on bolstering
them up in their bungling opinions, when a few sensible ideas, wisely
administered, would do so much to enlighten them, and reveal the path
which needs only to be revealed to secure their unhesitating entrance
upon it. It is absurd to suppose that unvarying acquiescence is
necessary to secure and retain their esteem, and that a frank avowal of
differing opinions, even if they were wrong, would work its forfeiture.
A respect held on so frail a tenure were little worth. But it is not
so. I believe that manhood and womanhood are too truly harmonious to
need iron bands, too truly noble to require the props of falsehood.
Truth, simple and sincere, without partiality and without hypocrisy, is
the best food for both. If any are to be found on either side too weak
to administer or digest it, the remedy is not to mix it with folly or
falsehood