s an instinct for motherhood; the perpetuity of
the species is at the bottom of it all. Woman knows how to make her
dress alluring, how to make it provocative, how much to reveal, how
much to conceal. A certain voluptuousness is the ambition of all
women; anything but to be skinny and raw-boned. She does not want to
be muscular and flat-chested, nor, on the other hand, to be
over-stout, but she prays for the flowing lines and the plumpness that
belong to youth. A lean man does not repel her, nor a rugged, bony
frame. Woman's garments are of a different texture and on a different
scale than those of man, and much more hampering. Her ruffles and
ribbons and laces all play their part. Her stockings even are a vital
problem, more important than her religion. We do not care where she
worships if her dress is attractive. Emerson reports that a lady said
to him that a sense of being well-dressed at church gave a
satisfaction which religion could not give.

With man the male defends and safeguards the female. True that among
savage tribes he makes a slave of her, but in the white races he will
defend her with his life. She does not take up arms, she does not go
to sea. She does not work in mines, or as a rule engage in the rough
work of the world. In Europe she works in the field, and we have had
farmerettes in this country, but I know of no feminine engineers or
carpenters or stone masons. There have been a few women explorers and
Alpine climbers, and investigators in science, but only a few. The
discovery of radium is chiefly accredited to a woman, and women have a
few valuable inventions to their credit. I saw a valuable and
ingenious machine, in a great automobile factory, that was invented by
a woman. Now that woman has won the franchise in this country, we are
waiting to see if politics will be purified.

The "weaker sex," surely. How much easier do women cry than men! how
much more easily are they scared! And yet, how much more pain they can
endure! And how much more devoted are they to their children!

* * * * *

Why does any extended view from a mountain-top over a broad landscape,
no matter what the features of that landscape, awaken in us the
emotion of the beautiful? Is it because the eye loves a long range, a
broad sweep? Or do we have a sense of victory? The book of the
landscape is now open before us, and we can read it page after page.
All these weary miles where we tramped, an