Like a true Yankee I avoided the question by asking another.
"Have you subscribed to it, Mr. Van Arsdel?"
"Well, yes," said he laughing, "I confess I have; and a pretty mess I have made of it. It is not a paper that any decent man ought to have in his house. But the woman came herself into my counting-room and, actually, she badgered me into it; I couldn't get her out. I didn't know what to do with her. I never had a woman go on so with me before. I was flustered, and gave her my five dollars to get rid of her. If she had been a man I'd have knocked her down."
"Oh, papa," said Ida, "I'll tell you what you should have done; you should have called me. She'd have got no money and no subscriptions out of me, nor you either if I'd been there."
"Now, Mr. Henderson, misery loves company; has she been to your room?" said Mr. Van Arsdel.
"I confess she has," said I, "and that I have done just what you did—yielded at once."
"Mr. Henderson, all this sort of proceeding is thoroughly vexatious and disagreeable," said Ida; "and all the more so that it tends directly to injure all women who are trying to be self-supporting and independent. It destroys that delicacy and refinement of feeling which men, and American men especially, cherish toward women, and will make the paths of self-support terribly hard to those who have to tread them. There really is not the slightest reason why a woman should cease to be a woman because she chooses to be independent and pursue a self-supporting career. And claiming a right to dispense with womanly decorums and act like a man is just as ridiculous as it would be for a man to claim the right to wear woman's clothes. Even if we supposed that society were so altered as to give to woman every legal and every social right that man has; and if all the customs of society should allow her to do the utmost that she can for herself, in the way of self-support, still, women will be relatively weaker than men, and there will be the same propriety in their being treated with consideration and delicacy and gentleness that there now is. And the assumptions of these hoydens and bullies has a tendency to destroy that feeling of chivalry and delicacy on the part of men. It is especially annoying and galling to me, because I do propose to myself a path different from that in which young women in my position generally have walked; and such reasoners as Aunt Maria and all the ladies of her circle will not fail to confound Miss Audacia's proceedings and opinions, and mine, as all belonging to the same class. As to the opinions of the paper, it is mainly by the half truths that are in it that it does mischief. If there were not real evils to be corrected, and real mistakes in society, this kind of thing would have no power. As it is, I have no doubt that it will acquire a certain popularity and do immense mischief. I think the elements of mischief and confusion in our republic are gathering as fast as they did in France before the revolution."
"And," said I, "after all, republics are on trial before the world. Our experiment is not yet two hundred years old, and we have all sorts of clouds and storms gathering—the labor question, the foreign immigration question, the woman question, the monopoly and corporation question, all have grave aspects."
"You see, Mr. Henderson," said Ida, "as to this woman question, the moderate party to which I belong is just at that disadvantage that people always are when there is a party on ahead of them who hold some of their principles and are carrying them to every ridiculous extreme. They have to uphold a truth that is constantly being brought into disrepute and made ridiculous by these ultra advocates. For my part, all I can do is to go quietly on with what I knew was right before. What is right is right, and remains right no matter how much ultraists may caricature it."
"Yes, my daughter," said Mr. Van Arsdel, "but what would become of our country if all the women could vote, and people like Miss Audacia Dangyereyes should stump the country as candidates for election?"