Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/230

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Since I have, some time ago, spoken my mind freely concerning the male sex, I seem to have taken upon myself the obligation to criticise the faults of my own sex with the same frankness. It is not from a lack of good intention that I have failed to do so sooner.

Mr. Ruge's last attack has given me a new impetus, and, I must confess, the necessary energy to speak. But he is to blame if, instead of the prosecutor of my sex, I again appear as its defendant.

I was surprised, indeed, to see how a thinking man like Mr. Ruge can judge so superficially and vulgarly of woman. And I cannot understand how he can praise Goethe and even call him the "freest German." In what did Goethe's freedom consist? As regards religion, it is not even established that he was an "atheist," and as regards politics, his position as minister to a prince testifies against him. What then remains? First of all his individual independence from the prejudices of the age, and his aesthetic sense of freedom, which asserted itself in the realm of the ideal. But who constituted his society in this realm? The women! His men, including Faust, command little respect and admiration. Tell me, Mr. Ruge, what would Goethe be