“So ’tis,” says I, “But the difference is on the wrong side, for sposin’ it descends onto the head of a hereditary fool—or a hereditary mean woman. If a woman was voted for it would be for goodness, or some other good quality.”
Says Horace, wavin’ off that idee and pursuin’ after his own thoughts, “Man is sometimes mistaken in his honest beliefs, but Nature makes her laws unerringly. Nature intended the male of every species to take the preeminence. Nature designed man to be at the head of all public affairs. Nature never makes any mistakes.”
“Nature made queen bees Horace. Old Nature herself clapped the crown on to ’em. You never heard of king bees, did you? Industrious equinomical critters the bees are too. The public duties of that female don’t spile her, for where will you find house-work done up slicker than hern? Where will you find more stiddy, industrious, equinomical orderly doin’s through a whole nation than she has in hern? All her constituents up to work early in the mornin’, home at night too, jest as stiddy as the night comes. No foreign spys can come prowlin’ ’round her premises—speculators on other folks’es honey haint encouraged,—tobacco is obnoxious to ’em. Only one thing I don’t approve of, if food is skurce, if the females don’t get honey enough to last the whole hive, all winter, they slaughter the male bees in the fall to save honey. I don’t approve of it; but where will you find a great nater that haint got its peculiar excentricities? This is hern. She wants to dispose of the drones as they call the lazy husbands of the workin’ wimmen, and she thinks killin’ is the easiest way to dispose of ’em. I say plainly I don’t approve of it, it don’t seem exactly right to kill a husband to save winterin’ him, it would seem better to me to get divorces from ’em and set ’em up in business in a small way. But as I said, where is there a nater that haint got a weakness? this is hern. But aside from this where will you find a better calculator than she is? No dashin’ female lobsteresses pullin’ the wool over the eyes of her Senators. No old men bees gaddin’ ’round evenin’s when their confidin’ wives think they are a-bed dreamin’ about their lawful pardners—no wildcatishness, and smokin’ and drunkenness, and quarellin’ in her Congress. You can’t impeach her administration no how, for no clock work ever run smoother and honester. In my opinion there has a great many men set up in their high chairs that would have done well to pattern after this Executive female.”
As I finished, flushed with several different emotions, Horace rose up and grasped me by the hand, and says almost warmly,
“I am glad to have met you, Josiah Allen’s wife, you have presented the subject in a new, and eloquent light. I admire eloquence wherever I meet it.”
The praise of this great, and good man was like manny to an Isrealitess. My breast almost swelled with proud and triumphant emotions. But even then, in that blissful moment, I thought of Josiah, no rock was ever firmer than my allegience to that man, I withdrawed my hand gently from his’en, and I said to him, with a beamin’ face,
“You grasped holt of my hand, Horace, with the noblest and purest of feelin’s, but I don’t think Josiah would like to have me shake hands so often with any man.”
Says he, “I honor your sentiments, Josiah Allen’s wife, I think you are a firm principled woman, and a earnest, well wisher of your sect. But I do think you are in a error, I honestly think so. The Creator designed woman for a quiet, home life, it is there she finds her greatest happiness and content. God gave her jest those faculties that fit her for that life. God never designed her to go rantin’ round in public, preachin’ and lecturin’.”
Says I, “Horace, I agree with you in thinkin’ that home is the best place for most wimmen. But you say that wimmen have great influence, and great powers of perswasion, and why not use them powers to win men’s soles, and to influence men in the cause of Temperance and Justice, as well as to use ’em all up in teasin’ thier husbands to buy ’em a summer bunnet and a pair of earrings? And take such wimmen as Anna Dickinson—what under the sun did the Lord give her such powers of eloquence and perswasion for, if He didn’t calculate to have her use ’em? Why you would say a human bein’ was a fool, that would go to work and make a melodious piano, a calculatin’ to have it stand dumb forever, holdin’ back all the music in it not lettin’ any of it come out to chirk folks up, and make ’em better. When a man makes a cheese press, he don’t expect to get music out of it, it hain’t reasonable to expect a cheese press to play Yankee Doodle, and old Hundred. I, myself, wasn’t calculated for a preacher.
“I believe the Lord knows jest what He wants of his creeters here below from the biggest to the littlest. When He makes a grasshopper, He makes it loose jinted, on purpose to jump. Would that grasshopper be a fullfillin’ his mission and doin’ God’s will, if he should draw his long legs up under him, and crawl into a snail’s house and make a lame hermit of himself?”