Dresden, August 1, 1902.
Richard is moulding my character. I, once so proud of rank and station, I, who upheld the Wettiners' robbery of a poor, defenseless woman, the Duke's wife, because Socialistic papers spoke in her favor,—Louise now allows anarchistic tendencies to be poured in her ears. She almost applauds them.
This easy change from one extreme to the other at a lover's behest is one of the things that make woman's rule—or co-rule—as the male's political equal—impossible. It's a sort of Phallus worship that always was and always will be.
"Though women have not unfrequently been the holders of temporary and precarious power, there are not many instances where they have held secure and absolute dominion," says Dr. William W. Ireland in his famous "Blot upon the Brain."
Because they were swayed by the male of the species, of course!
Though the characters of the world's female sovereigns differed as to blood, race, education, environment and personal traits, neither showed any inclination to resist the allurements of irregular amours.
Think of Semiramis, of Mary of Scots, of Elizabeth, Catherine I, of the Tsaritzas Elizabeth and the second Catherine—under the temptations of Power, they recruited paramours for themselves in all ranks of society.
Agrippina was more licentious than Caligula; Messalina's infamy surpassed Nero's, and the furthest reaching, the one irresistible Power swaying them all was MAN.
Augustus of the three hundred and fifty-four emphasized this in the negative and, in his own uncouth way, by "postering" the Countess Cosel's chief charm on penny coins.
"She cost Saxony twenty millions in gold—behold the penny's worth she gave in return."