Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/285

 scenes of republicanism,—successful as these tendencies may be,—cannot transform Woman; and she will not step out of her Shakspearean Self. On the figured coast of his page her Essence stands, as yet without the right of suffrage, limited to household cares, or raised to queenly ones; as learned as Portia can become, but not yet admitted to the profession which she mimicked; provided for by the various dexterities of man, and still undriven by the modern threat of starvation into risking a single quality that is her birthright. There she stands; the modern world, stooping at her feet, will have to yield some of the reputed exclusiveness of men, but only such traits of it as Imogen, Cordelia, Beatrice, Portia, will select. In all this complicated period of over-crowded cities, over-stimulated competition, vices overfed, employers over-purse-proud, and politicians over-careless, there is no strait cruel enough to compel the essential woman to choose a career which would have unsexed one of Shakspeare's plays. I have no fear. Stand aside: cease that frantic bracing of the masculine back against so many doors of prescription. Throw them wide open, and let Shakspeare's stately crowd pass up and down to scan the vista through them. Come, patient, chaste, obedient, high-spirited Imogen, too docile Ophelia, frank Perdita, warm Julia, bright and witty Beatrice, whose tongue is a pen already, or the etcher's tool; come, thou accomplished, grave, acute, and self-possessed Portia; thou unsophisticated Miranda, who would fain share thy lover's toil; thou shifty, prompt Maria, hater of humbug; thou tender Viola,—come, choose how many of