deny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally
hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal
training, equal claims and obligations: that is a TYPICAL sign of
shallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at
this dangerous spot--shallow in instinct!--may generally be regarded as
suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered; he will probably prove
too "short" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well as
present, and will be unable to descend into ANY of the depths. On the
other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and
has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and
harshness, and easily confounded with them, can only think of woman as
ORIENTALS do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable
property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her
mission therein--he must take his stand in this matter upon the immense
rationality of Asia, upon the superiority of the instinct of Asia, as
the Greeks did formerly; those best heirs and scholars of Asia--who,
as is well known, with their INCREASING culture and amplitude of power,
from Homer to the time of Pericles, became gradually STRICTER towards
woman, in short, more Oriental. HOW necessary, HOW logical, even HOW
humanely desirable this was, let us consider for ourselves!