You will understand me, I feel sure.  You believe, do you not? in the insignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from the brotherhood of mankind.  You believe, do you not? that they should be educated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, due regard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hard or light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing with the “stronger” or the “weaker” sex.  I mark these words because, notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not true.  Stronger!  Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of cider,—­though there have been women who could do that, and though when John Wesley was mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down three or four men, one after another, until she was at last overpowered and nearly murdered.  Talk about the weaker sex!  Go and see Miss Euthymia Tower at the gymnasium!  But no matter about which sex has the strongest muscles.  Which has most to suffer, and which has most endurance and vitality?  We go through many ordeals which you are spared, but we outlast you in mind and body.  I have been led away into one of my accustomed trains of thought, but not so far away from it as you might at first suppose.

My brother!  Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, a sister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the same roof?  And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes us all one family?  You are lonely, you must be longing for some human fellowship.  Take me into your confidence.  What is there that you can tell me to which I cannot respond with sympathy?  What saddest note in your spiritual dirges which will not find its chord in mine?

I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your existence.  I myself have known what it is to carry a brain that never rests in a body that is always tired.  I have defied its infirmities, and forced it to do my bidding.  You have no such hindrance, if we may judge by your aspect and habits.  You deal with horses like a Homeric hero.  No wild Indian could handle his bark canoe more dexterously or more vigorously than we have seen you handling yours.  There must be some reason for your seclusion which curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not the province of curiosity to inquire.  But in the irresistible desire which I have to bring you into kindly relations with those around you, I must run the risk of giving offence that I may know in what direction to look for those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and sister can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to change the course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in accordance with his true nature.