At this question Horace quailed a very little. But it was not the quail of a weak man, there was principle in that quail, and a determination to argue to the end, which is one of the charicterestics of that great and good man. She that was Samantha Smith also possesses some of this spirit.
“Set down, Josiah Allen’s wife and don’t fatigue yourself too much,” says Horace, for almost carried away by my emotions, I had riz’ up and stood on my feet agin.
And he went on, “You put the case in a very strong light Josiah Allen’s wife. That is one of the peculiar weaknesses of your sect. You don’t possess sufficient moderation. You exaggerate too much.”
Says I, “publishin’ a daily paper for 20 years, has a tendency to make any man a good judge of exaggeration, and if you see by my symptoms that I have got it, I haint a goin’ to deny it. But you haint answered my question yet Horace.”
Says he “Josiah Allen’s wife, my mind is firmly made up on this subject. And nothin’ upon earth will ever change it. I am fully convinced that woman’s enterin’ into public duties would result in makin’ her coarse and unfeminine, and make her lose her love for home and husband. And then, suppose she were eligible for public offices; imagine a lady blacksmith! a lady constable! a lady president! it is absurd, Josiah Allen’s wife.”
Says I, “Horace, you are too smart a man to bring up such poor arguments. You don’t see a little sickly, literary, consumptive, broken backed blacksmith or constable. Men choose the occupations most congenial, and suitable for them, and wimmen would do the same, anyway. Rosa Bonheur chooses to live out doors half the time among cattle and horses, and I presume she haint half so afraid of ’em as Mr. A. Tennyson would be. I have heerd Thomas Jefferson read about ’em both. I don’t suppose any woman would be compelled to be made a constable of, though if they was, I presume men would submit to be incarcerated by ’em as quick as they would by a male man.
“As for the idee of a lady president, I don’t know as it would be any more absurd than a lady queen. Victory sets up pretty easy in her high chair, there don’t seem to be anything very absurd about the Widder Albert. You say public duties makes a woman coarse, and forgetful of home and husband. Horace, look for one minute at the Widder Albert. Where will you find among your weak fashionable wimmen, so lovin’ a wife, so devoted a mother? Where will you find a bigger housefull of children, brought up better than hern? She has had more public duties to perform than goin’ once a year by the side of her husband, and votin’ for Justice and Temperance. But did these public duties, that she performed so well, wean her from her husband?” Says I, “did they take up her mind so that she didn’t almost break her heart when he died?” says I, “Do you think a honest desire to live a full life—to use every power that God has given you—to do your very best for God and humanity, do you think that this desire modestly and consistently carried into action, will make a woman coarse and unwomanly, any more than this present fashionable education, to flirt and simper and catch a rich husband?”
Says I, “You seem to think that votin’ is goin’ to be such a weight onto a woman that it will drag her right down from her home into public and political affairs and leave her there. Such talk is simple, for love and domestic happiness will be the other weight to the steelyards, as long as the world stands, and keep a woman’s heart and mind jest as straight as a string. Votin’ haint a goin’ to spile any woman at all, be she married, or be she single, and there is a class at the mercy of the world, fightin’ its hard battle alone—it will help them. The idee of its hurtin’ a woman to know a little somethin’, is in my mind awful simple. That was what the slaveholders said about the black Africans—it would hurt ’em to know too much. That is what Mr. Pope says to-day about his church members. But I say that any belief, or custom that relies on oppression and ignorance and weakness to help it on in any degree, ought to be exploded up. Beautiful weakness and simplicity, haint my style at all in the line of wimmen. I have seen beautiful simplicities before now, and they are always affected, selfish critters, sly, underhanded, their minds all took up with little petty gossip and plottin’s. Why they can’t set a teacup on the table in a open-hearted noble way. They have to plot on some byway to get it there, unbeknown to somebody. Their mouths have been drawed so into simpers, that they couldn’t laugh a open generous laugh to save their lives. Always havin’ some spear ready under their soft mantilly, to sweetly spear some other woman in the back. Horace, they haint my style. Beautiful weakness and simplicity may do for one evenin’ in a ball room. But it don’t wear well for all the cares and emergencies that come in a life of from 40 to 50 years. Was George Washington’s mother any the less a industrious equinomical and affectionate wife and mother, because she took a interest in public affairs?” And says I, with a lower and more modest tone, “Is Josiah Allen’s wife on that account any the less devoted to Josiah?”
He knew I was perfectly devoted to that man. He set mewsin’ silently for a time seemin’ly on somethin’ I had said heretofore, and finally he spoke up. “The case of Victory is very different. A crown that descends on a hereditary head is a different thing.”