Is it easy to bear through life a name that in itself signifies defeat?
to dwell, as nine out of ten unmarried women must, under the finger of another woman?
Is it easy to look forward to an old age without honour, without the reward of useful labour, without love?
I wonder how many men there are who would give up everything that is dear in life for the sake of maintaining a high ideal purity." She laughed a little laugh that was clear without being pleasant.
"And then, when they have no other argument against us, they say, 'Go on; but when you have made woman what you wish, and her children inherit her culture, you will defeat yourself.

Man will gradually become extinct from excess of intellect, the passions which replenish the race will die.' Fools!" she said, curling her pretty lip.

"A Hottentot sits at the roadside and feeds on a rotten bone he has found there, and takes out his bottle of Cape-smoke and swills at it, and grunts with satisfaction; and the cultured child of the nineteenth century sits in his armchair, and sips choice wines with the lip of a connoisseur, and tastes delicate dishes with a delicate palate, and with a satisfaction of which the Hottentot knows nothing.

Heavy jaw and sloping forehead--all have gone with increasing intellect; but the animal appetites are there still--refined, discriminative, but immeasurably intensified.

Fools! Before men forgave or worshipped, while they were weak on their hind legs, did they not eat and drink, and fight for wives?
When all the latter additions to humanity have vanished, will not the foundation on which they are built remain ?" She was silent then for a while, and said somewhat dreamily, more as though speaking to herself than to him, "They ask, What will you gain, even if man does not become extinct ?--you will have brought justice and equality on to the earth, and sent love from it.