Mr. Ruskin has the faculty of making his interviewer do most of the talking.  He is a rare listener, and leans forward, putting a hand behind his right ear to get each word you say.  He was particularly interested in the industrial conditions of America, and I soon found myself “occupying the time,” while an occasional word of interrogation from Mr. Ruskin gave me no chance to stop.  I came to hear him, not to defend our “republican experiment,” as he was pleased to call the United States of America.  Yet Mr. Ruskin was so gentle and respectful in his manner, and so complimentary in his attitude of listener, that my impatience at his want of sympathy for our “experiment” only caused me to feel a little heated.

“The fact of women being elected to mayoralties in Kansas makes me think of certain African tribes that exalt their women into warriors—­you want your women to fight your political battles!”

“You evidently hold the same opinion on the subject of equal rights that you expressed some years ago,” interposed my companion.

“What did I say—­really I have forgotten?”

“You replied to a correspondent, saying:  ’You are certainly right as to my views respecting the female franchise.  So far from wishing to give votes to women, I would fain take them away from most men.’”

“Surely that was a sensible answer.  My respect for woman is too great to force on her increased responsibilities.  Then as for restricting the franchise with men, I am of the firm conviction that no man should be allowed to vote who does not own property, or who can not do considerably more than read and write.  The voter makes the laws, and why should the laws regulating the holding of property be made by a man who has no interest in property beyond a covetous desire; or why should he legislate on education when he possesses none!  Then again, women do not bear arms to protect the State.”

“But what do you say to Mrs. Carlock, who answers that inasmuch as men do not bear children, they have no right to vote:  going to war possibly being necessary and possibly not, but the perpetuity of the State demanding that some one bear children?”

“The lady’s argument is ingenious, but lacks force when we consider that the bearing of arms is a matter relating to statecraft, while the baby question is Dame Nature’s own, and is not to be regulated even by the sovereign.”

Then Mr. Ruskin talked for nearly fifteen minutes on the duty of the State to the individual—­talked very deliberately, but with the clearness and force of a man who believes what he says and says what he believes.

Thus, my friend, by a gentle thrust under the fifth rib of Mr. Ruskin’s logic, caused him to come to the rescue of his previously expressed opinions, and we had the satisfaction of hearing him discourse earnestly and eloquently.

Maiden ladies usually have an opinion ready on the subject of masculine methods, and, conversely, much of the world’s logic on the “woman question” has come from the bachelor brain.