ecause of the law of sex attraction.

And you, poor, puny, pallid woman, dare decry and despise that law, and
dare insult God's animate creature!

Know this, madam, there is no strength worth boasting that has not
conquered weakness. No virtue worth the name that has not conquered
temptation. No greatness of character that has not overcome unworthy
impulses.

Enjoy your negative goodness and be glad you are "good."

Morality is acceptable to the world, however it conies; but dare not sit
in judgment on other human beings fighting battles whose smoke never
reaches your nostrils, striving for heights of which you never even
dream, and who meanwhile have missed certain degradations which you seem
to consider creditable achievements.

Madam, I bid you adieu. That word means "I commend you to God," the God
who made the two sexes, and intended love to unite them.

May He enlighten you in other lives, if not in this.

To Maria Owens

_A New Woman Contemplating Marriage_

Surprise, I am free to confess, was my dominant emotion on reading your
letter. Marriage and Maria had never associated themselves in my mind,
fond as I am of alliteration.

Never in the ten years I have known you have I heard you devote ten
minutes to the subject of any man's good qualities. You always have
discoursed upon men's faults and vices, and upon their tendency, since
the beginning of time, to tyrannize over woman. I was unable to
disprove many of your statements, for I know the weight of argument is
upon your side, even while I boldly confess my admiration and regard for
men, as a class, is greater than that for women.

The fact that the world has allowed men such latitude, and such
license, and made them pay such very small penalties, comparatively
speaking, for very large offences, causes me to admire their wonderful
achievements in noble living all the more: and to place the man of
unblemished reputation and unquestioned probity on a pedestal higher
than any I could yet ask builded for woman.

It is more difficult to be great before the extended tentacles of the
self-indulgence octopus than in the face of oppression and danger. When
the laws of the land and the sentiment of the people permit a man to be
selfish, licentious, tyrannical, and yet call him great if he
accomplishes heroic deeds, it proves what intrinsic worth must lie in
the nature of those who attain the heights of unselfishness and
benevolence, and martyrdom,