... Men
are magnified because they succeed in taming a tiger, an elephant or
such like animals;" therefore what rank must belong to woman, "who
spends years in training that _fiercer animal_, MAN?" She instances a
journeyman tailor she once saw belabor his wife with a neck of mutton,
"to make her know, as he said, her _sovereign lord and master_. And
this is perhaps as strong an argument as their sex is able to produce,
though conveyed, in a greasy light.... To stoop to regard for the
strutting things is not enough; to humor them more than we could
children with any tolerable decency is too little; they must be
served, forsooth!" It is grievous injustice to Sophia, but one almost
fancies one hears Madame George Sand. She allows that to please man
ought to be part of the sex's business if it were likely to succeed;
"but such is the fanatical composition of their natures that the more
pains is taken in endeavoring to please them, the less generally is
the labor successful; ... and surely _women_ were created by Heaven
for some better end than to labor in vain their whole life long.
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