Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/220

204 would amount to an actual declaration of war. So long as a dishonorable and unscrupulous act, directed against us, has not the same value to you as when it is directed against yourselves, you show that you do not consider us as responsible human beings, that you are our tyrants in life, as you are in politics, and that all your assurances to the contrary are simply lies.

I have begun to discuss a subject which is better adapted for a book than for a newspaper article. In order not to stray too far I will turn aside from my course, and merely add a few concluding remarks about the position which men, entirely apart from their relations to us, now occupy in life and in politics.

Men! What is a man? What exuberance of beauty and greatness is contained in the meaning of this word! It lies in the nature of things, that each of the two sexes should exercise severe criticism over itself, while they are mutually inclined to view each other with favorable eyes, and to discover each other's good qualities. There surely is no woman of any intelligence who would not be willing to find in every man an ideal, and, it seems to me, that the reverse must be just as true. But how bitter the disappointment whenever this willingness casts about for objects of appreciation, among the present masculine world! Can it really have been thus, in all times? It would be terrible to be forced to admit this and to build our expectations of the future upon