“Right, my young friend, right!” Mrs. Talbot’s manner grew earnest.  “No truer words were ever spoken.  Yes—­yes—­a woman needs a great deal more than these to fill the measure of her happiness; and it is through the attempt to restrict and limit her to such poor substitutes for a world-wide range and freedom that she has been so dwarfed in mental stature, and made the unhappy creature and slave of man’s hard ambition and indomitable love of power.  There were Amazons of old—­as the early Greeks knew to their cost—­strong, self-reliant, courageous women, who acknowledged no human superiority.  Is the Amazonian spirit dead in the earth?  Not so!  It is alive, and clothing itself with will, power and persistence.  Already it is grasping the rein, and the mettled steed stands impatient to feel the rider’s impulse in the saddle.  The cycle of woman’s degradation and humiliation is completed.  A new era in the world’s social history has dawned for her, and the mountain-tops are golden with the coming day.”

Irene listened with delight and even enthusiasm to these sentiments, uttered with ardor and eloquence.

“It is not woman’s fault, taking her in the aggregate, that she is so weak in body and mind, and such a passive slave to man’s will,” continued Mrs. Talbot.  “In the retrocession of races toward barbarism mere muscle, in which alone man is superior to woman, prevailed.  Physical strength set itself up as master.  Might made right.  And so unhappy woman was degraded below man, and held to the earth, until nearly all independent life has been crushed out of her.  As civilization has lifted nation after nation out of the dark depths of barbarism, the condition of woman physically has been improved.  For the sake of his children, if from no better motive, man has come to treat his wife with a more considerate kindness.  If she is still but the hewer of his wood and the drawer of his water, he has, in many cases, elevated her to the position of dictatress in these humble affairs.  He allows her ‘help!’ But, mentally and socially, he continues to degrade her.  In law she is scarcely recognized, except as a criminal.  She is punished if she does wrong, but has no legal protection in her rights as an independent human being.  She is only man’s shadow.  The public opinion that affects her is made by him.  The earliest literature of a country is man’s expression; and in this man’s view of woman is always apparent.  The sentiment is repeated generation after generation, and age after age, until the barbarous idea comes down, scarcely questioned, to the days of high civilization, culture and refinement.

“Here, my young friend, you have the simple story of woman’s degradation in this age of the world.  Now, so long as she submits, man will hold her in fetters.  Power and dominion are sweet.  If a man cannot govern a state, he will be content to govern a household—­but govern he will, if he can find anywhere submissive subjects.”