When, however, Josephine asked me the other day to
specify the field, I was obliged to admit that my ideas were a trifle
hazy. My state of mind doubtless proceeds from a rooted conviction
that the emancipation of woman has only just begun, and a certain
sympathetic curiosity with her each and every effort to advance. To
realize her progress, I have only to glance up at my ancestor with the
mended eye and consider what a doll and a toy she was to him. Then I
look at my wife, who was brought up on the old system, and say to
myself that, unless indeed, man is to be utterly snuffed out and
extinguished, there are certain feminine characteristics in the
preservation of which he is deeply interested, even when, like myself,
he is at heart an aider and abettor of emancipation. No more
gingerbread education, no more treatment as dolls and nincompoops, no
more discrimination between one sex and the other as to knowledge of
this world's wickedness, no more curtailment of personal liberty on the
score of that bugaboo, propriety--all these, if you like, ladies; but
we men, we fathers and philosophers, ask that you retain, for our
sakes, beauty of face and form, beauty of raiment, low, modulated
voices, and a graceful carriage, faith, hope, and charity, even though
you continue to reveal these last-named as at present with sweet,
illogical inconsequence.
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