been waiting
impatiently again to declaim, "that men, even ministers of religion,
from Paul if you like downwards, have been willing enough to exalt
woman so long as they claim to sit above her. The higher the
oppressed, so much higher the self-exaltation of the oppressor.
Paul and Peter exalt their virtuous woman, but only as their own
appendage, adorning themselves; and while society with religious
ministers at the head of it call on woman to submit, and degrade the
sex, we shall continue to hear of such disgraces to England as I see
in your police reports--brutal mechanics beating their wives."

"I fear while physical force is on the side of the brute," said
Julius, "no abstract recognition of equality would save her."

"Society would take up her cause, and protect her."

"So it is willing to do now, if she asks for protection."

"Yes," broke in Rosamond, "but nothing would induce a woman worth
sixpence to take the law against her husband."

"There I think Lady Rosamond has at once demonstrated the higher
nature of the woman," said Mrs. Tallboys. "What man would be
capable of such generosity?"

"No one denies," said Julius, "that generous forbearance, patience,
fortitude, and self-renunciation, belong almost naturally to the
true wife and mother, and are her great glory; but would she not be
stripped of them by self-assertion as the peer in power?"

"Turning our flank again with a compliment," said Mrs. Duncombe.
"These fine qualities are very convenient to yourselves, and so you
praise them up."

"Not so!" returned Julius, "because they are really the higher
virtues!"

"Patience!" at once exclaimed the American and English emancipators
with some scorn.

"Yes," said Julius, in a low tone of thorough earnest. "The
patience of strength and love is the culmination of virtue."

Jenny knew what was in his mind, but Mrs. Tallboys, with a curious
tone, half pique, half triumph, said, "You acknowledge this which
you call the higher nature in woman--that is to say, all the passive
qualities,--and you are willing to allow her a finer spiritual
essence, and yet you do not agree to her equal rights. This is the
injustice of the prejudice which has depressed her all these
centuries."

"Stay," broke in Jenny, evidently not to the lady's satisfaction.
"That does not state the question. Nobody denies that woman is
often of a higher and finer essence, as you say, than man, and has
some noble qualities in a highe