Mothers reared their
daughters and sent them to fulfil their mission in life, of being
wives and mothers, versed in everything except the two things they
were destined to be. It was as if a physician were taught
architecture, music, and painting, and then sent out to practise his
unskill in medicine upon a helpless humanity.
Then the new woman opened her eyes. She read those sturdy words which
are much quoted, but which never can be repeated too often: "The
situation which has not its duty, its ideals, was never yet occupied
by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable
Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal;
work it out therefrom, and working, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is
in thyself; thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape this same
Ideal out of; what matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that,
so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? Oh, thou that pinest in
the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a
kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth--the thing
thou seekest is already with thee, 'here, or nowhere,' couldst thou
only see."
It read like book-learning when applied to other women. It read like a
revelation when applied to herself.
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