When the mere man approaches the woman to study her, we can imagine the fair ones getting together and nudging one another in keen amusement as to what this seer is going to say.  It is often sufficiently amusing when the clumsy male approaches her with self-satisfied air, thinking he has the secret of her mysterious being.  I have no intention here of entering a rival search for the secret.  But we can, perhaps, startle the gay ones from merriment to gravity by stating the simple fact that every man stands in some relationship to woman, either as son, brother, or husband; and if it be admitted that there is to be a fight to-morrow, then there are some things to be settled to-day.  How is the woman training for to-morrow?  How, then, will the man stand by that very binding relationship?  Will clinging arms hold him back or proud ones wave him on?  Will he have, in place of a comrade in the fight, a burden; or will the battle that has too often separated them but give them closer bonds of union and more intimate knowledge of the wonderful thing that is Life?

II

I wish to concentrate on one heroic example of Irish Womanhood that should serve as a model to this generation; and I do not mean to dwell on much that would require detailed examination.  But some points should be indicated.  For example, the awakening consciousness of our womanhood is troubling itself rightly over the woman’s place in the community, is concentrating on the type delineated in “The Doll’s House,” and is agitating for a more honourable and dignified place.  We applaud the pioneers thus fighting for their honour and dignity:  but let them not make the mistake of assuming the men are wholly responsible for “The Doll’s House,” and the women would come out if they could.  We have noticed the man who prefers his ease to any troubling duty:  he has his mate in the woman who prefers to be wooed with trinkets, chocolates, and the theatre to a more beautiful way of life, that would give her a nobler place but more strenuous conditions.  Again, the man is not always the lord of the house.  He is as often, if not more frequently, its slave.  Then there are the conventions of life.  In place of a fine sense of courtesy prevailing between man and woman, which would recognise with the woman’s finer sensibility a fine self-reliance, and with the man’s greater strength a fine gentleness, we have a false code of manners, by which the woman is to be taken about, petted and treated generally as the useless being she often is; while the man becomes an effeminate creature that but cumbers the earth.  Fine courtesy and fine comradeship go together.  But we have allowed a standard to gain recognition that is a danger alike to the dignity of our womanhood and the virility of our manhood.  It is for us who are men to labour for a finer spirit in our manhood:  we cannot throw the blame for any weakness over on external conditions.  The woman is in the same position.  She must understand that greater than the need of the suffrage is the more urgent need of making her fellow-woman spirited and self-reliant, ready rather to anticipate a danger than to evade it.  When she is thus trained, not all the men of all the nations can deny her recognition and equality.