"The art of Mrs. Humphry Ward," Miss Hamilton was again speaking (he had missed a connecting link through the shock of discovering Margaret's presence), "has been a steady, upward growth and development: every novel produced by her is more artistic than its predecessor. But though her art is now at its climax, she is no longer read as she used to be, because her point of view is one that the world has passed by; the women of her books are the ideal feminine creations of fifty years ago and they don't interest us any longer. Now most of us have not yet grown up to Bernard Shaw's point of view, yet we are nearer to him than to Mrs. Ward. To my mind the whole feminist problem is an economic one. No man or woman can be spiritually free who is economically dependent, Emerson and Marcus Aurelius and the Christian Scientists to the contrary notwithstanding. Even the vote isn't going to help women until they make up their minds to 'get off of men's backs,' as Charlotte Perkins Gilman says."
"How about married women who are bearing children?" asked Margaret. "They've got to be financially dependent on some one."
"Since the state does not support women who are giving citizens to it and who are thereby disabled from self-support, they should have a legal right over a fair proportion of their husband's income."
"But in America men don't need to be coerced by laws to treat women generously," suggested Margaret.
"That's your Southern idea. A self-respecting human being does not want generosity; she does not want to stretch out her hand and ask for what she needs. It is humiliating, degrading. Fancy a grown woman asking a man, 'May I buy a hat to-day?' I'd rather take in stairs to scrub!"
"Well," Margaret returned, "I shall educate all my daughters to professions, because, quite apart from the economic side of it, women become such drivelling fools when they live in aimless idleness, when they have no definite interest in life. And they are so discontented and restless. An occupation, an interest, surely makes for happiness and for a higher personal development."
"I believe," said Miss Hamilton, "that a mother wrongs a daughter, just as much as she would wrong a son, when she fails to educate her for a self-supporting occupation. Look at these women of New Munich who live only to kill time—how they lack the personal dignity, the character, that a life of service, of producing, gives to either man or woman! Of course mere work doesn't ennoble—beasts of burden can work—it's work that vitally interests us, as you say, and that we love for its own sake, that is the joy and health of any soul."
"Do you love being Mr. Leitzel's secretary like that?"
"Of course not. Being Mr. Leitzel's secretary is two thirds drudgery and only one third humanly interesting. I'm threatening to take to the platform to expound the Truth that women who have to support themselves are invariably overworked, while women who live on men haven't enough to do to keep them wholesome. Middle-aged married women, for instance, whose children are grown up, go almost insane for want of an interest in life. No wonder human creatures so situated grow fretful and petty and small-souled."
"Perhaps the window-smashing Suffragette is only reacting from too long want of occupation," suggested Margaret. "The emptiness of her life makes her hysterical and she shrieks with rage and throws things! But, my dear, why do you, clever as you are, remain in a position that is two thirds drudgery? Drudgery is for dull people, who of course prefer it to work that would tax them to think."