too high a price--at the price of youth, of
energy, and of enlightenment. The whole attitude of woman toward the
home is one of rebellion--not of all women, of course, for most of them
still accept that, though all that is may not be good, all that is must
be made to do. Resignation, humility, and self-sacrifice have for a
thousand generations been the worst vices of woman, but it is apparent
that at last aggressiveness and selfishness are developing her toward
nobility. She is growing aware that she is a human being, a discovery
which the centuries had not made, and naturally she hates her gilded
cage.

Woman is tired of a home that is too large, where the third floor gets
dirty while she is cleaning the first; of a home that cannot be left
lest it should be burglared; of a home where there is always a slate
wrong, or a broken window, or a shortage of coal. She is tired of being
immolated on the domestic hearth. One of them, neither advanced nor
protesting, gave me a little while ago an account of what she called a
characteristic day. I reproduce it untouched:

THE DAY OF A REALLY NICE ENGLISHWOMAN

8 A.M.--Early tea; rise; no bath. [The husband has the only bath,
and the boiler cannot make another until ten.]

9 A.M.--Breakfast. [The husband takes the only newspaper away to
the office.]

9.30 A.M.--Conversation with the cook: hardness of the butcher's
meat; difficulty because there are only three eatable animals;
degeneration of the butter; grocery and milk problems.

Telephone.--A social engagement is made.

Conversation with the cook resumed: report on a mysterious disease
of the kitchen boiler; report on the oil-man; report on the
plumber.

Correspondence begun and interrupted by the parlor-maid, who
demands a new stock of glass.

Correspondence resumed; interrupted by the parlor-maid's demand for
change with which to pay the cleaner.

Rush up-stairs to show which covers are to go.

Correspondence resumed, and interrupted by the telephone: the
green-grocer states that some of the vegetables she wants cannot be
procured.

Correspondence resumed; interrupted by the nurse, who wishes to
change the baby's milk.

Three telephone calls.

Correspondence resumed, and interrupted by the housemaid, who wants
new brooms.

11 A.M.--The children have gone; the servants are at work.