Always man needs woman for his friend. He needs her clearer vision, her subtler insight, her softer thought, her winged soul, her pure and tender heart. Always woman needs man to be her friend. She needs the vigor of his purpose, the ardor of his will, his calmer judgment, his braver force of action, his reverence and his devotion.
The man born and bred a slave, even if freed, never loses wholly the feeling or manner of a slave.
Today the manliest man would be ashamed to look into the eyes of the woman by his side and tell her that he is the master because he could knock her down with perfect ease, and break her bones with much greater facility than she could his. And yet, out of man's brute nature, out of that most ignoble in himself, has come his loudest assumption of superiority, his longest and lowest tyranny.
Only a newspaper! Quick read, quick lost, Who sums the treasure that it carries hence? Torn, trampled under feet, who counts thy cost, Star-eyed intelligence?
What more degrades woman today than that she so often seeks marriage as a support? Why is the holy sacrament of love, the sanctity of the family state, so often prostituted and destroyed, but because marriage is entered upon as a necessity or a convenience? And what can so place marriage on its only true basis of mutual love, mutual fitness, mutual esteem, as for woman to make herself independent of it as a mere means of subsistence?
What is love at first sight but a proof of the powerful but silent language of physiognomy?
The woman born to physical subjection and degradation can never seek or use knowledge as her birthright. Never till she holds her sex in honor, as man holds his, can she be his equal, even in her own realm.
The deepest insult which can be shown to a human being is to associate it solely with material functions, with no cognizance and no consideration of its intellectual and spiritual power.
To serve thy generation, this thy fate: "Written in water," swiftly fades thy name; But he who loves his kind does, first and late, A work too late for fame.
A shining isle in a stormy sea, We seek it ever with smiles and sighs; To-day is sad. In the bland To-be, Serene and lovely To-morrow lies.
I lay my tasks down one by one; I sit in the silence of twilight grace. Out of the shadows, deep and dun, Steals, like a star, my Baby's face. .... I will take up my work once more, As if I had never laid it down. Who will dream that I ever wore, In triumph, motherhood's sacred crown? .... Nevertheless, the way is long, And tears leap up in the light of the sun. I'd give my world for a cradle-song, And a kiss from Baby?only one.
Most people carry an ideal man and woman in their head, and when the practical relations of the men and women of every day are discussed with reference only to these impossible ideals, we need not marvel at any ridiculous conclusions.
The Indian Summer, the dead Summer's soul.
