Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/232

 218 one another has been a matter of vital interest from the beginning, and no new light has dawned suddenly upon this century or this people. The shrill contempt heaped by a few vehement women upon men, the bitter invectives, the wholesale denunciations are as valueless and as much to be regretted as the old familiar Billingsgate which once expressed what Mr. Arnold termed "the current compliments" of theology. It is not convincing to hear that "man has shrunk to his real proportions in our estimation," because we are still in the dark as to what these proportions are. It is doubtless true that he is "imperfect from the woman's point of view," and imperfect, let us conclude, from his own; but "whether we have attained that sure superiority which will enable us to work out his salvation is at least a matter for dispute. There is an ancient and unpopular virtue called humility which might be safely recommended to a woman capable of writing such a passage as this, which is taken from an article published recently in the "North American Review." "We know the weakness of man, and will be patient with him, and help him with his lesson.