They
say that women do not wish for the sphere and freedom we ask for them, and
would not use it!
"If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar and will not leave
it, why keep the door so very carefully shut? Why not open it, only a
little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break its wings against
the bars, but would fly if the doors were open?" She knit her forehead and
leaned further over the bars.
"Then they say, 'If the women have the liberty you ask for, they will be
found in positions for which they are not fitted!' If two men climb one
ladder, did you ever see the weakest anywhere but at the foot? The surest
sign of fitness is success. The weakest never wins but where there is
handicapping. Nature, left to herself, will as beautifully apportion a
man's work to his capacities as long ages ago she graduated the colours on
the bird's breast. If we are not fit, you give us, to no purpose, the
right to labour; the work will fall out of our hands into those that are
wiser."
She talked more rapidly as she went on, as one talks of that over which
they have brooded long, and which lies near their hearts.
Waldo watched her intently.
"They say women have one great and noble work left them, and they do it
ill. That is true; they do it execrably. It is the work that demands the
broadest culture, and they have not even the narrowest.
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