It is thus that the half man seeks to create woman in the likeness of his own image, to make her only half a woman.
There have never been so many books written in any century as in ours, when so much is written that men have long ceased to read at all, and they are by no means the worst men who do not care for literature. But women read for two; and the authors, who live by being read, write for the cultivated, thinking, studious woman—for the woman with the adjective.
Time passes, the century is drawing to a close, and the bankruptcy of its “intellectual attainments” becomes ever more apparent. Are we women to allow ourselves to be the only ones who are duped into the next century by these same intellectual attainments? Or shall we take our fate into our own hands and measure our being by a higher standard than that of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity?”
In order to do that there is no necessity for us to read the books that are written for women—it were better to read those that are written for men. Reading is a substitute for “living.” If we would build up for ourselves a life out of our own womanhood, we need have no recourse to authors, thinkers and prophets, such as this anæmic century produces; we must turn to our own natures—not to our intellect, for that will not bring us very far, but to our instinct. And it seems to me that the first signs are already to hand, that woman will again determine to be nothing more, but also nothing less, than the mother of future generations.
PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS,
EDINBURGH