rulers of the synagogue that stirred up their followers to cry,
'Crucify Him, crucify Him!' And times have changed more than people. The
poor will hear gladly enough of healing that is to be had without money
and without price, and operations that may be avoided by simply keeping
well, but my experience is that the fetish of the professional man is a
jealous god, given to heresy hunting, and bowing down and worshiping at
the shrine of 'regularity.' They want to preserve the _status quo_ at
any cost."

"Yes," said Silvia bluntly, "even after it has long been lost. They are
like people who might discover an ostrich egg-shell after the bird was
half grown, and go chasing after it, trying to put it back inside the
shell. I think it is Emerson who says that there are quantities of
people who are always trying to become settled, whereas our only
salvation consists in being constantly unsettled. I think the English
women are infinitely braver and finer in their attitude on the suffrage
question than we are. What I feel, Dr. Earl, is this: we have come to a
time when nothing is really worth while unless it is worth fighting for.
There are other worth while things, of course, for the laboratory man or
woman, but for those of us who are in the thick of the fight, who want
to do things _now_, it is necessary that we should be willing to do
battle for our beliefs."

"But is that the way to win?" asked the doctor. "We've all heard about
catching flies with molasses, to use a homely simile."

"Yes," responded Silvia; "the more molasses the more flies. No, the old
methods are gone or are going. Do you suppose anything would do the
suffrage cause as much good in this country as clubbing a few old women
who want respectfully to present a petition to the other old women in
Congress? A few years ago a petition was presented, signed by a million
women, and a jocose member rolled it down the aisle with his foot,
saying it might as well be signed by mice! But just let them try the
English methods and every State in the Union would enfranchise its women
just as soon as they could get a popular vote on it." She stopped short.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, doctor, I didn't mean to give you a suffrage
lecture."

"You are not," he said. "At least, what I understand is that you are
trying to make me see that, the spirit of the age is the militant
spirit, that does not wait to have its own presented to it, but takes it
wherever it finds it." She nod