nd of this royal authority, arising out of noble
education, may rightly be possessed by women; and how far they also are
called to a true queenly power. Not in their households merely, but
over all within their sphere. And in what sense, if they rightly
understood and exercised this royal or gracious influence, the order
and beauty induced by such benignant power would justify us in speaking
of the territories over which each of them reigned, as "Queens'
Gardens."

54. And here, in the very outset, we are met by a far deeper question,
which--strange though this may seem--remains among many of us yet quite
undecided, in spite of its infinite importance.

We cannot determine what the queenly power of women should be, until we
are agreed what their ordinary power should be. We cannot consider how
education may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are
agreed what is their true constant duty. And there never was a time
when wilder words were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted,
respecting this question--quite vital to all social happiness. The
relations of the womanly to the manly nature, their different
capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem never to have been yet
estimated with entire consent. We hear of the "mission" and of the
"rights" of Woman, as if these could ever be separate from the mission
and the rights of Man;--as if she and her lord were creatures of
independent kind, and of irreconcilable claim. This, at least, is
wrong. And not less wrong--perhaps even more foolishly wrong (for I
will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove)--is the idea that woman
is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a
thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her
weakness, by the preeminence of his fortitude.

This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting her who was
made to be the helpmate of man. As if he could be helped effectively
by a shadow, or worthily by a slave!

55. I.--Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear and
harmonious idea (it must be harmonious if it is true) of what womanly
mind and virtue are in power and office, with respect to man's; and how
their relations rightly accepted, aid, and increase, the vigor, and
honor, and authority of both.

And now I must repeat one thing I said in the last lecture: namely,
that the first use of education was to enable us to consult with the
wisest and the greatest men on all p