remove this token of remembrance.
Should I thereby blot out the memory too? But even if her mother were
still alive, I do not think the child would be any different. She has a
very peculiar character."

"Be kind enough to permit me to differ from you," said the shoemaker
with great positiveness, despite the courteous language he studiously
adopted. "Women--true women--have generally no character of their own,
but one that belongs in common to all the sex. For the sole object for
which they are in the world, is, to use Salvenia's words, only to
continue the species, or, as we term it, for propagation. A woman who
desires anything else, has something wrong about her; I say this
without intending to cast any reflections upon your daughter."

The artist opened his little eyes to their widest extent. "My dear
Feyertag, why do you say such strange things?" he said, naively. "Is
not a woman as much a creature of the dear God as we ourselves? formed
in his image, and endowed with soul and mind?"

The shoemaker laughed, as if fully conscious of his own superiority.

"Don't take it amiss, Herr Koenig," he said, "but that is an exploded
opinion. Have you never heard of the great philosopher, Schopenhauer?
He will make you understand it thoroughly; he will prove as plainly as
that twice two make four, of what account is the so-called emancipation
of women."

"I don't have much time to read," replied the little artist. "But the
little you have told me does not render me anxious to become familiar
with an author who has thought so slightingly of the noblest and most
lovable portion of humanity. I prefer to say with my beloved Schiller,
'Honor to women'!"

"'They spin and weave,'" replied, the shoemaker. "Yes, and they
can do it very skillfully, and it is an extremely useful occupation.
But in other things, in the employments of men--this low-statured,
narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex, as Herr
Schopenhauer expresses it,--no, Herr Koenig, men must not allow them to
become too strong. Propagation, nothing more. But _propaganda_, you
see, for the liberal and progressive, is our affair. For instance,
there is my wife; the best woman in the world! But if I did not now and
then show her that I am master, where should I be? I admit that during
the last few years, out of pure indolence, I have allowed her to do and
say more than was well. But Schopenhauer has brought me to myself. Now,
when she mistakes her social