“It is the great question of the day,” said Daniel. “But manœuvres on the part of men to disguise from women the conditions of this crucial epoch will not help the cause along. Men must come into recognition of the fact that perfect frankness between men and women will lead up to a natural settlement of the matter as nothing else will do. In fact, it depends altogether upon the courageous doings of the dualized.”
“Just what do you mean by dualized?” said Robert.
“I mean first, as Bacon says, the men and women ‘who have procured the will to obey the reason, not to invade it.’”
“He called that the moralization of the whole being; you call it the dualization. But you include something else,” said Robert, “in your last meaning.”
“Oh, that last point comes later. And no person is ready even to discuss that, until first the subjection of the will to the reason is accomplished by them and in them. That includes the real moralization of the whole being, body and spirit,” said Daniel.
“And so, Robert,” said Ethel, “it is mother-wisdom, full of divinest love which impels Bertha to protect herself and child against what she fears in Reginald. But perhaps the same mother-wisdom, full of divine love, will—now that she is financially independent of him—bring her, in the near future, to be as noble a wife-friend to Reginald as ever a poor, struggling fellow-creature had. She is a noble woman, rightly considered.”
“She is,” said Mrs. Mancredo. “And she is quite the person to never rest until she puts one for whom she feels responsible (as she now does for Reginald) into the way of finding his best self. She wants to help Reginald exactly as she will Waldemar. That is, to tell him all the facts, and then leave him free to become what he adores in—well—that is—oh, how can one express it!
“For my part,” she resumed, “my love for humanity is and always has been broader, more intelligent and spiritualizing than a self-arrested, masculine soul can imagine. The fact is, men in the past have praised a simulacrum of womanhood which with dire ARTS and infernal-wizzardry they, themselves demonologically concocted. Then they have set up before the androgynous mind of a vigorous, virginal womanhood, this unclean SIMULACRUM of woman, as the thing that she must emulate, or be damned, to use ‘pulpit words.’
“It is of no use opening your eyes, Robert; I may take my departure the next moment, but I will tell the truth this. But the best way to stop talking disagreeable things is to set vigorously about doing agreeable things. So now what I have to propose is this: In this house we bachelor-maids (glancing toward Ethel) and MAIDENLY-MOTHERS who enjoy a celibate life, and who are legally and financially independent of men, should hold on to our shekels and our homes (NOT AS FOOLISH SOCIAL-CENTERS or as unremunerative idols, to be scrubbed and garnished, but) as centers where we can do what the Bible speaks of when it says, ‘He sets the solitary in families.’
“It takes so much time to run up and down the earth and to salary officers to show us how not to do it, that I would rather permanently go right on here, ready for emergencies, with an occasional timely home-extension.”