Now influence has a fluidity of nature that runs to waste and loses itself as a direct force, unless it is collected compactly together, and brought to bear in a particular manner; and women are so dependent, so sympathetic, so by their very nature swayed and prejudiced by their husbands and fathers, that if they mix themselves up in the affairs of men, recognize all their national and State divisions, and take sides in all their political disputes and discussions, I believe their influence, which, specifically applied, might be so powerful and so beneficent, will be like water poured out upon the sand. Carried away by the vaster masculine interests, they will forget and overlook their own. Consequently they themselves will reap but little honour or advantage; like the Irish or the negro, they will be the tools of party, and they will leave the political world no better, if not worse, than they found it.
It seems as if some such theory as this must, in fact, be latent in the feminine mind, else why its indifference, and even dislike, of the efforts of the champions of woman's rights? Furthermore, I doubt whether the sex in general admits the proposition that men are its wilful tyrants and oppressors, from whom, for its own defence, it must wrest a portion of their power. Were women deliberately to discuss it, I think they would rather conclude that, first, being excessively absorbed in themselves, men forget us; and, second, acting always together in large masses, while every one of us is solitary, they are not aware that any strictly feminine rights and privileges exist which they should respect. The true remedy, then, is for the feminine hosts to come quietly together, and form themselves, not into an antagonistic, but simply a separate camp, where, removed from all disturbing influence, they could calmly and dispassionately take counsel as to what they would have men do either for their own or the mutual benefit. I believe this spectacle alone would set our masculine lawgivers thinking more than they have ever thought before. Conscience-smitten, they would begin to ask themselves whether they had indeed comported themselves generously and
