female existence, his wife languidly
presides for ever at an eternal five-o'clock tea. And it is not in the
province of this article to turn to him the seamy side of that charming
picture. Rather is it our mission to convince him of the substantial truth
of his intuition. He is quite right. It _is_ 'nice to be her.' And if men
had a little more common-sense in their consequential skulls, instead of
striving to resist the woman's invasion of their immemorial
responsibilities and worries, they would joyfully abdicate them--and skip
home to Nirvana and afternoon tea.

Foolish women! To want of your own free will to put yourselves in painful
harness; to take the bit of servitude between your rose-leaf lips; to
fight day-long in the reeking arena of bacon merchants; to settle accounts
instead of merely incurring them; to be confined in Stygian city-blocks
instead of silken bedchambers; to rise with the sparrow and leave by the
early morning train. What fatuity! Some day, when woman has had her way
and man has ceased to have his will, she will see of the travail of her
soul and be bitterly dissatisfied; for, unless man is a greater fool than
he looks, she shall demand back her petticoats in vain.

For what is the lot of woman? The first superficial fact about a woman is,
of course, her beauty. Secondly, as the leaves about a rose, comes her
dress. To be beautiful and to wear pretty things--these are two of the
obvious privileges of woman. To be a living rose, with bosom of gold and
petals of lace, a rose each passer-by longs to pluck from its
husband-stem, but dare not for fear of the husband-thorns. To be
privileged to play Narcissus all day long with your mirror, to love
yourself so much that you kiss the cold reflection, yet fear not to drown.
To reveal yourself to yourself in a thousand lovely poses, and bird-like
poises of the head. To kneel to yourself in adoration, to laugh and nod
and beckon to yourself with your own smiles and dimples, to yearn in
hopeless passion for your own loveliness. To finger silken garments,
linings to the casket of your beauty, never seen of men, to draw on stiff
embroidered gowns, to deck your hands with glittering jewels, and your
wrists with bands of gold--and then to sail forth from your boudoir like
the moon from a cloud, regally confident of public worship; to be at once
poet and poem, painter and painted: does not this belong to the lot of
woman?

But it was of nobler privileges than