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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
worshiped and protected. Nowhere else is she so respected, obeyed and beloved. In three exterior forms of action women excel—talk, manner and dress. It is in talk— yes, in all three that American women take the lead. Great as is your proficiency in the handlingof manner and dress, it is by talk alone that you exercise a conquering force. I know that dress and manner are regarded as indispensable auxiliaries, but none except the foolish place them in the front rank of combat, while every woman who merits being counted as a social artist, takes care in using them as but subordinates to her speech. In society our American women are extremely self-poised, reasonable and capable of defending their own opinions and of abetting their desires, and as you talk more and laugh more you lead and dictate more to your brother man. It is to you women that men must go for exhilaration, elevation, brightening and appetizing, and above all, strengthening to do our duty, and contentment while we are doing it. Kate, I do wish that men’s rights could be regarded just a little—talked about, sung about, prayed about, and preached about.”
“ Men’s rights! What do you mean, Petruchio? Men have always had all the rights there were to have, and w T hat more can you cry for? ”
“ My dear Kate, this is the age of woman worship. Women are angels and men are mostly demons. Our modern literature makes all virtues feminine and all vices masculine. A well-formed, fair-faced, sweet-tempered, gentle-spoken woman, if young and accomplished, is an angel, though her heart may be cold, selfish, incapable of a generous emotion; an angel, though utterly regardless of the misery she ruthlessly inflicts upon others. What with women’s journals and women’s clubs and women's colleges and women’s departments, and women’s this and that, we are beginning to fear entire exclusion from the human family. Some one has said that we are in danger of forgetting that ‘ a woman is a human being first and a woman afterward.’ But we have one hope and one consolation, and that is in the motto on the letter-paper of the Woman’s Branch of the World’s Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition, viz.: ‘ Not things, but men.’ We are still recognized as a man and brother. For this I for one am devoutly thankful. I confess to you, Kate, that I have just joined the P. A. S. O. M. T. N. R., which in this age of cabalistic nomenclature, means the “ Protective Association for Securing to Oppressed Men Their Neglected Rights.’ I have never liked the ‘ Taming of the Shrew’ in Shakespeare version, and would like to get out an edition of my own. There is something so out of keeping with all reality in it. Whoever knew a man in the better circles of society have his way by any domineering method as against the contrary by his wife? I believe there are cases, such as that of the onetime invincible John L. Sullivan, where man’s superior muscular action is put into play to secure him what he is pleased to term his rights. But you know, Kate, that it is not considered good form for a man in the best society to beat his wife. This puts him at a certain disadvantage. If he is not permitted to show his superiority in the sense physical, where then can he show it? There is something so far-fetched in the whole conception of a man’s having his way that it seems to me that the play lacks human interest. Perhaps there will be a land some time—
“ ‘ Where wives will all obedient be,
And men will have their way.’
“ Meanwhile, Kate, there is another thing that you enjoy, and which seems to be denied to us men, for the most part, at least. I refer to the literary circles all over our land. Of the members of the Chautauqua and kindred circles, what an infinitesimal fraction are men. I know that we have, as a rule, less ability and taste for this sort of thing, but the reason is that we have been repressed for generations. Give us a chance. When you women gather to hear a play of Shakespeare, or to throw additional obscurity on Browning, or see what extravagant panegyric can do for Walt Whitman, men look on with envious eyes. When there are 9 o’clock breakfasts and formal luncheons and coffees and 5 o’clock teas, we men must rest content to stay without the portals. The one persistent and unquestioned right which we seem to