Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/86

 reasoning, cannot conceal. This is a matter worth insisting upon, for there is nothing which hinders the calm discussion of a political problem requiring for its solution something like judicial serenity so much as the difficulty, inseparable from all discussions involving reference to sex, of putting plain facts into plain language. The comparative weakness of women inevitably means loss of power. Nor can it be forgotten not only that women are physically, and probably mentally, weaker than men, but that they are inevitably, as a class, burdened with duties of the utmost national importance, and of an absorbing and exhausting nature, from which men are free. In any case, the close connection between government and force tells against the claim made on behalf of women to the possession of as much political authority as is conceded to men.