Page:Colymbia (1873).djvu/221

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WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WRONGS.
215

dethrone you from your present moral ascendency. Let those paltry crawling creatures who would make you mere beasts of burden and pieces of animated mechanism see that you are the cream of creation, the glittering diadem on the head of humanity. Show these artful schemers that you are their betters—a more perfect creature than they are or ever can be. Man's place in nature is to work for woman and worship her, woman's to contribute to the recreation and amusement of man after his labour of the day is over. If both work, life will lose its charms; for the exhausting effects of toil will deprive either of the power of contributing to the entertainment of the other. Therefore, fellow-countrywomen, resist with all your might this encroachment on your proper position, that of embellishing and beautifying the daily life of the community!"

Such appeals to women to maintain their rights and to resist the efforts of men to trample them under foot, had the desired effect of raising such a spirited opposition to the proposition that women should be employed in useful work, that it had to be abandoned, and the women remained mistresses of the situation. They were thus free to develop the beauties and graces of their exquisite figures, and to devote themselves to all those arts and occupations that contribute to sensuous and intellectual enjoyment? And, in truth, they took infinite pains to render life pleasant to the rougher sex after the labours of the day were over. They were ever devising new amusements and diversions, and took care that sameness should not produce satiety.

The proposal to make women work at trades, manufactures, book-keeping, to turn them into