Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/138

Rh Women should now be the best helpers of women. From men, we need only ask the removal of arbitrary barriers.

The question naturally suggests itself, What use will women make of her liberty after so many ages of restraint ?

Margaret says, in answer, that this freedom will not be immediately given. But, even if it were to.come suddenly, she finds in her own sex. a reverence for decorums and limits inherited and enhanced from generation to generation, which years of other life could not efface." She believes, also, that woman as woman is characterized by a native love of proportion, —a Greek moderation,—which would immediately create a restraining party, and would gradually establish such rules as are needed to guard life without impeding it.

This opinion of Margaret's is in direct contradiction to one very generally held to-day, namely, that women tend more to extremes than men do, and are often seen to exaggerate to irrational frenzy the feelings which agitate the male portion of the community. The reason for this, if honestly sought, can easily be found. Women in whom the power of individual judgment has been either left without training or forcibly suppressed will naturally be led by impulse and enthusiasm, and will be almost certain to inflame still further the kindled passions of the men to whom they stand related. Margaret knew this well enough; but she had also known women of a very different type, who had trained and disciplined themselves by the help of that nice sense of measure which belongs to any normal human intelligence, and which, in women, is easily reached and rendered active. It was upon this best