Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/231

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE OLD ADAM AND THE NEW
207

to be the same as they were before these changes; and, secondly, that unlimited power is more demoralising even than subjection. Where men are treating women as equally human, the sense of comradeship is growing. One of the most moving speeches made at Budapest, at the Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in June 1913, was a very simple statement by Miss Jenny af Forselles, a Finnish Member of Parliament. She said that, in the great national sorrow and the terrible struggle with a less civilised nation, their solace and inspiration was the comradeship between the women and men. Those who heard her will not forget the quiet thrill of her aspiration, expressed in her Biblical, slightly archaic German—"Wir wollen seyn ein einig Volk," and the hope it gave, that in some distant day the union of peoples might be a union of the whole free people.

I have refrained as much as possible from dogmatism about the true nature of Woman and about what women will do. I know some people confidently assert that women are better than men, and that women are going to perform miracles. Well, some of us think that the movement itself, now, is miraculous, and have had ample reward in the comradeship of men in the movement.

"Divinity hath surely touched my heart;
 I have possessed more joy than earth can lend;
 I may attain what time shall never spend.
 Only let not my duller days destroy
 The memory of thy witness and my joy."