ated the doctrines of
Woman's Rights among us have not in all things seen their way clear in
this matter."

"Don't talk to me of those creatures," said Bob, "those men-women, those
anomalies, neither flesh nor fish, with their conventions, and their
cracked woman-voices strained in what they call public speaking, but
which I call public squeaking! No man reverences true women more than I
do. I hold a real, true, thoroughly good _woman_, whether in my parlor
or my kitchen, as my superior. She can always teach me something that I
need to know. She has always in her somewhat of the divine gift of
prophecy; but in order to keep it, she must remain a woman. When she
crops her hair, puts on pantaloons, and strides about in conventions,
she is an abortion, and not a woman."

"Come! come!" said I, "after all, speak with deference. We that choose
to wear soft clothing and dwell in kings' houses must respect the
Baptists, who wear leathern girdles and eat locusts and wild honey. They
are the voices crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for a coming
good. They go down on their knees in the mire of life to lift up and
brighten and restore a neglected truth; and we that have not the energy
to share their struggle should at least refrain from criticizing their
soiled garments and ungraceful action. There have been excrescences,
eccentricities, peculiarities about the camp of these reformers; but the
body of them have been true and noble women, and worthy of all the
reverence due to such. They have already in many of our States reformed
the laws relating to woman's position, and placed her on a more just and
Christian basis. It is through their movements that in many of our
States a woman can hold the fruits of her own earnings, if it be her ill
luck to have a worthless, drunken spendthrift for a husband. It is owing
to their exertions that new trades and professions are opening to woman;
and all that I have to say of them is, that in the suddenness of their
zeal for opening new paths for her feet, they have not sufficiently
considered the propriety of straightening, widening, and mending the one
broad, good old path of domestic labor, established by God Himself. It
does appear to me, that, if at least a portion of their zeal could be
spent in removing the stones out of this highway of domestic life, and
making it pleasant and honorable, they would effect even more. I would
not have them leave undone what they are doing; but I