"I am, sir,
"Your most obedient servant,
"C. B. Davidge."
Carlile printed both the announcement and the private letter in the Gauntlet, without comment. Davidge evidently was not afraid to lease any property of his to Carlile, for all of his high sounding charges in the public announcement. So it was in almost all the affairs of Carlile's life—publicly enemies, privately friends.
CHAPTER XV. SCATTERED THREADS
ON WOMAN.
"An amiable woman is one of Nature's perfect works, unspoiled and uncorrupted by man. Any number of men brought together without women could not be kept together in any other character than as slaves or under military discipline. Therefore, as women form the groundwork of society and civilisation, their presence and influence must be beneficial in the same ratio as the civilised is preferable to the savage state. All history gives us proof that the degree of virtue and amiableness in women is in proportion to the freedom they enjoy or the degree in which they can move and act independently and uncontrolled. The freedom and independence of woman is the best proof and guarantee for the freedom and independency of man. A despotism never exists in one degree alone, it is expansive and dangerous. If it exists in the head of a family, every member of it will be despotic according to the degree of power of some other member or members. With women there is no medium; they are neuter in nothing. It is, then, the duty of man to make virtuous the soil where woman treads, and she will be found to blossom in purity and Nature's most splendid and perfect work—a radiant and unclouded constellation, illuminating all within her sphere. Philosophers in general have not paid that deference which is due to the female in society; in speaking or writing for the improvement of society they have passed by woman as a secondary or insignificant object, whereas she forms the most important channel through which virtue can be propagated and the social state be rendered peaceable, prosperous, and happy. Every impression that is attempted to be made on the female mind that she is an inferior being, every step that is taken to degrade her, is a bar to virtue, an inlet to vice. It interesteth the welfare of society to raise the female character to the highest possible pitch in the scale of intellect, even to a competition with the male in all the fine arts, science, and general literature. A free and unlimited discussion on all the merits of this and all subjects is the sure harbinger of improvement. When we reach this climax the age of virtue as well as the age of reason will approach. Let them make themselves acquainted with the science of government upon the simple basis of republicanism or the representative system of government, and particularly to examine and weigh well the dogmas and pretensions of all priests.
"If I have read history correctly the best of women have been most virtuously bold and have been seen as public teachers. All public reforms are moral proceedings. All useful public teachings are moral proceedings, and in all such proceedings women, while their manners are mild and becoming, can never be wrong. The propriety of the thing will rest upon the way of doing it. The great fault I find in woman is that inanity in character which places them below the line of equality with men. Alive to female influence in the propagation and maintenance of opinion, I find my reason in paying them every proper compliment and attention, and I hold in contempt that contracted mind that would so narrow their sphere of usefulness as to represent them as criminals in publicity, or make it a crime to appear in public with them. This state of things has partly arisen from the circumstance that past politics have consisted of an advocacy of men rather than of principles, that there has not been in reality any code of morals existing, and that religion hitherto has been a prevailing and epidemic disease among the human race. It is impossible to describe what the high state of man and woman will be without religion, with a good code of morals, with good laws, with good and cheap government; and when party contentions are swallowed up in the advocacy of good principles. Female efforts can never be more usefully applied than toward the improvement of the human race. And nothing can be effectually done in the way of moral and physical improvement without the assistance of women.* I feel the necessity of a constant appeal on this point, and am not for treating women as the mere breeding machines for the human race, and men as the directing lords of the aggregate machinery. There is no kind of equality more deniably advantageous for the welfare of the human race than the equality of the sexes. The present (1828) general character of woman is that of a gaudily dressed doll, a toy made up as a plaything rather than as a companion for man. In the aggregate there exists no such a quality as female mind. There are men who think this is the most fit state for the female race to be kept. I think differently, knowing that woman is the mother, the nurse, the general instructress of the man, knowing that the mind of the man is in a great measure formed by that of the woman. I would have the woman most perfect as an essential preliminary to the greater perfection of man. I know no proper regulation with relation to the principle of knowledge, but that of the most unlimited acquirement that is possible to the acquisition of either sex. To say that this and the other point of knowledge is improper for the attention of woman, is to assume a tyrannical judgment and to put her below the pale of human equality. For a woman to be content under that pale of equality is to exhibit mental degradation."
* This is pretty nearly the state of America at the
present day.—Ed.