"PROUDHON."
Taking up the discussion in turn, I replied as follows, in the ensuing February number:—
I am forbidden, sir, to answer your letter in the indecorous style which you have deemed proper to assume towards me:
By respect for the gravity of my subject;
By respect for our readers;
By respect for myself.
You find yourself ill at ease in the Popilian circle that has been traced around you by the hand of a woman; all understand this, I among the rest. Ill-armed for defence, worse armed, perhaps, for attack, you would like to escape; but your skill as a tactician will avail you nothing; you shall not quit the fatal circle till vanquished, either by me, or by yourself, if you confess your weakness on the point in litigation, by continuing to refuse a discussion under flimsy pretexts, or, lastly, by public opinion, which will award to you the quality of inconsistency, the least desirable of all to a dialectician.
This being understood, I must tell you that, personally, I am satisfied that you should attack, in the rights of woman, the cause of justice and progress. It is an augury of success to this cause; you have always been fatal to all that you have sought to sustain.
It is true that your attitude in this question makes you the ally of the dogmatism of the Middle Age; it is true that the official representatives of this dogmatism avail themselves, at the present time, of your arguments and your name to maintain their influence over women, and through them over men and children; and this in order to revive the past, to stifle the future. Is this your intention? I do not believe it. You are, in my eyes, a subverter, a destroyer, in whom instinct sometimes gets the better of intellect, and from whom it shuts out a clear view of the consequences of his writings. Formed for strife, you must have adversaries; and, in default of enemies, you cruelly fall on those who are fighting in the same ranks with yourself. In all your writings, one feels that the second part of education—that which inspires respect and love of woman—is completely wanting in you.
Let us come to your letter.