Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/58

 sound reason in its favour. A friend, whose sound and impartial judgment we both respect, fully agrees with me. 'I can't,' he writes, 'feel at all sure that women's influence would make for peace. Where wars excite popular feeling it seems to me that women's influence tends to fan the flame. Surely it was not the women, as such, who wanted peace in the Southern States of America, or in France, or in Germany.' In 1870 a Marylander told me that Maryland would have stood out for peace had it not been for the young women of his State, who clamoured for secession and war. Women are more emotional than men, and liability to emotion is no guarantee against warlike passion.

3. I admit, however, though it is not certain, that woman suffrage may give greater weight in public life to the feminine virtues than they now obtain. It is then a duty on a serious matter to speak plainly. At the risk of being misunderstood, I must confess to a grave doubt whether a general increase of tenderness, charity, and humanity in the conduct of public affairs would not be bought