degradation, which had been the means of keeping eastern nations in barbarism, Europe in semi-barbarism, and, finally of bringing England—though the foremost country in recognising women’s rights—to Queenstown and the Revolution. So at last in Ousebridge our heroine saw that she would find a congenial society, the female society of a new era, whose members, whatever career they might choose, would at all events be prepared for it by the cultivation of a vigorous physical and moral constitution, unhampered by stolid prejudices and impossible compromises.
These minor effects of the Revolution, which have been selected for mention as pertinent to the story, if they were but little straws, showed at any rate that the wind had set in favour of making a tabula rasa of the old civilisation. The example soon proved contagious; the Spirit of the Revolution spread like a prairie fire among other nations. But space will not permit our following it abroad, nor even going far beyond this cursory glimpse of its work at home, which work, it need hardly be said, made a clean sweep, once for all, of women’s disabilities of every sort, social, political, professional, religious. They could now compete with men on a fair field and no favour, in every existing or possible walk of life.
