duties, while
others hold their life most erect through public service and
enforced responsibilities.

It has taken the world, however, nearly 6,000 years to come to the
understanding that these latter souls must not be denied their proper
arena, that brains have no sex, and that it is well for the world to
have its work done irrespective of anything but the _capability_ of
the workers. But it has now so far accepted the doctrine that women
who must labor if they would live honestly and independently need no
longer do so under sufferance or suspicion. Wherever they can best
make their way the road is open, and they are encouraged to make it;
nor am I aware of any serious restriction laid on them, except one,
whose true kindness is in its apparent severity,--namely, that the
debutante must justify her work by her success in it. I call this
kind, because favor and toleration are here unkind; since she who
stands from any other reason than absolute fitness will sooner or
later fall by an inevitable law.

The great curse of women, educated and yet unprovided for, is not that
they have to labor, but that, having to work, they cannot find the
work to do. Nor is it generally their fault; they have probably been
miseducated in the old idea that marriage is the only social salvation
provided whereby woman can be saved; and no one having married them,
what are these compulsory social sinners to do?

A great number turn _instinctively_ to literature for help and
comfort; and their instinct in many respects is not at fault; for
literature is one of the few professions that from the first has dealt
kindly and honorably with women. Here the race is fair; if the female
pen is fleetest, it wins.

But writing _does not_ come by nature; it is an art to be seriously
and sedulously pursued. My own reflection and experience lead me to
believe that within the last thirty years its methods have radically
changed. That condition of inspiration and mental excitement once
considered the native air of genius has lost much of its importance;
and people now ordinarily write by the exercise of their reason and
reflection, and by the continual and faithful cultivation of such
natural powers as they are endowed with. Upon the whole, it is a mark
of rational progress, and opens the field to every woman who is
thoughtful and cultivated and willing to study industriously. Not
undervaluing the mood of inspiration, I yet honestly believe that for
pra