an able and well-written volume, entitled
"Letters from the Chimney Corner," written by a highly cultivated lady
of Chicago. This gifted lady has discussed the question with so much
clearness and force that I can make no mistake by substituting some
of the thoughts taken from her book for anything I might add on this
question. While discussing the relations of the sexes, and showing
that neither sex is of itself a whole, a unit, and that each requires
to be supplemented by the other before its true structural integrity
can be achieved, she adds:

Now, everywhere throughout nature, to the male and female ideal,
certain distinct powers and properties belong. The lines of
demarkation are not always clear, not always straight lines: they are
frequently wavering, shadowy, and difficult to follow, yet on the
whole whatever physical strength, personal aggressiveness, the
intellectual scope and vigor which manage vast material enterprises
are emphasized, there the masculine ideal is present. On the other
hand, wherever refinement, tenderness, delicacy, sprightliness,
spiritual acumen, and force, are to the fore, there the feminine ideal
is represented, and these terms will be found nearly enough for all
practical purposes to represent the differing endowments of actual men
and women. Different powers suggest different activities, and under
the division of labor here indicated the control of the state,
legislation, the power of the ballot, would seem to fall to the share
of man. Nor does this decision carry with it any injustice, any
robbery of just or natural right to woman.

In her hands is placed a moral and spiritual power far greater than
the power of the ballot. In her married or reproductive state the
forming and shaping of human souls in their most plastic period is her
destiny. Nor do her labors or her responsibilities end with infancy or
childhood. Throughout his entire course, from the cradle to the grave,
man is ever under the moral and spiritual influence and control of
woman. With this power goes a tremendous responsibility for its true
management and use. If woman shall ever rise to the full height of her
power and privileges in this direction, she will have enough of the
world's work upon her hands without attempting legislation.

It may be argued that the possession of civil power confers dignity,
and is of itself a re-enforcement of whatever natural power an
individual may possess; but the dignity of womanho