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Your answer to my provocation, as you call it, has, in spite of all your protestations to the contrary, only strengthened my suspicion that in your heart you have a poor opinion of women, and do not concede them equal rights with men. Or, indeed, if I am to spare you this suspicion, I can do it only by taking recourse to a supposition which is equally far from being flattering, namely, that you have not yet comprehended, or are not able to comprehend, what a woman's purpose really is, when she desires to become a free human being.

First, I wish to set you at ease with regard to my personal position, as it seems to be of importance to you in the treatment of the question at issue, whether I am Mrs. or a Miss. I am neither, and do not want to be either of the two, but I place some value upon being a "woman," to the use of which term in the essay of Mr. Heinzen you do object. I have not looked for, or addressed, either the husband or the bachelor in you, but the man, or the male human being; why do you not content yourself with the woman, or the female human being? The subject of our controversy is human rights, but neither Mrs.' nor Misses' rights.