167
impediment would have prevented the success of women, had they been equally capable of success. I cannot conceive disputing the general fact, because exceptional instances arise, in which individual women are superior to individual men. As well might it be argued, because a clever child of ten, in a school class, took down his rivals and seniors in every answer, that all children of ten, were cleverer than lads of fifteen. Masculine superiority is incontestable; and with the superiority should come protection. To refuse it because some women exist, who talk of "women's rights," of "women's equality," is to say that John Mitchell's exaggerated orations for Ireland, or the Chartist and Rebecca riots in Wales, or Swing fires in the rural districts in England, would have been a sound and sufficient reason for refusing justice to all the Queen's other subjects in the United Kingdom. The rebellion of a group, against legitimate authority, is not to deprive the general subject-party of general protection. Women have one right (perhaps only that one). They have a right—founded on nature, equity, and religion—to the protection of man. Power is on the side of men—power of body, power of mind, power of position. With that power should come, not only the fact, but the instinct of protection. Even the poor dumb animal will defend its companion and its young. Even the tiny bird, that pants to death in a child's hand, will resist, to the extent of its fragile force, an attack upon its nestlings and its mate. Power, in its purer form, is protection. Power, in its corrupt form, is oppression. What is the meaning of that sympathy with the heroic, which shews itself in all classes and on all occasions? Why does a blow struck, or a sword drawn, in behalf of the helpless, seem to make a hero of the peasant and a warrior of the Prince? Because the deep instinct of protection which lies in the human heart, applauds, as the noblest and most natural exercise of power, the resolution to defend:—whether it be home, country, the honour of woman, or the safety of infancy and age.
