h at the interval of ages have swept
across humanity, irresistibly modifying and reorganising it.

It is the perception of this fact, that, not for herself, nor even for
fellow-women alone, but for the benefit of humanity at large, it is
necessary she should seek to readjust herself to life, which lends to
the modern woman's most superficial and seemingly trivial attempts at
readjustment, a certain dignity and importance.

It is this profound hidden conviction which removes from the sphere of
the ridiculous the attitude of even the feeblest woman who waves her
poor little "Woman's rights" flag on the edge of a platform, and which
causes us to forgive even the passionate denunciations, not always
wisely thought out, in which she would represent the suffering and evils
of woman's condition, as wrongs intentionally inflicted upon her, where
they are merely the inevitable results of ages of social movement.

It is this over-shadowing consciousness of a large impersonal
obligation, which removes from the sphere of the contemptible and
insignificant even the action of the individual young girl, who leaves
a home of comfort or luxury for a city garret, where in solitude, and
under that stern pressure which is felt by all individuals in arms
against the trend of their environment, she seeks to acquire the
knowledge necessary for entering on a new form of labour. It is this
profound consciousness which makes not less than heroic the figure of
the little half-starved student, battling against gigantic odds to take
her place beside man in the fields of modern intellectual toil, and
which, whether she succeed or fail, makes her a landmark in the course
of our human evolution. It is this consciousness of large impersonal
ends to be attained, and to the attainment of which each individual is
bound to play her part, however small, which removes from the domain of
the unnecessary, and raises to importance, the action of each woman
who resists the tyranny of fashions in dress or bearing or custom which
impedes her in her strife towards the new adjustment.

It is this consciousness which renders almost of solemn import the
efforts of the individual female after physical or mental self-culture
and expansion; this, which fills with a lofty enthusiasm the heart of
the young girl, who, it may be, in some solitary farm-house, in some
distant wild of Africa or America, deep into the night bends over her
books with the passion and fervour wi