The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-01-19

We will be equals again when they tie
up our jaws for the last Sleep"
Waldo looked in wonder at the little,
quivering face. 1t was a glimpse into
a world Of passion and feeling wholly
new to him.
"Mark you," she said, I'VE have al
ways this advantage over you've can
at any time step into ease and COM
petence, where you must labor pa
tiently for it. A little weeping, little
wheeling, little self degradation, a
little careful use Of our advantages,
and then some man will say, Come, be
my wife! With good looks and youth,
marriage is easy to attain. There are
men enough, but woman who has
sold herself, even for ring and new
name, need hold her skirts aside for no
creature in the street. They both earn
their bread in one way. Marriage for
! love is the beautifulest external SYM
Dol Of the union of souls; marriage
| without 1t is the uncleanliest traffic
/ that deflles the world" She ran her
little finger savagely along the top
most bar, shaking off the dozen little
! dewdrops that still hung there. "And
! they tell us we have mems chivalrous
attention. she cried. "When we ask
/! to be doctors, lawyers lawmakers,
| anything but i'll paid drudges, they say:
No. but you have mems chiyalrous at
| tention. Now think Of that and be sat
isfed! What would you do without il? 2"
zee bitter little silvery laugh, so sell
| don heard, rang out across the bushes.
She hit her little teeth together.
~ vas coming up in Cobb & Co.'s the
other day. At little wayside hotel
We had to change the large coach for a
small one. We were ten passengers
| eight men and two women. AS sat
in the house the gentlemen came and
whispered to me: There is not room
for all in the new coach. Take your
seat quickly We hurried out, and
they gave me the best seat and cover
| ed me with rugs, because it was driz-
| zling. Then the last passenger came
running up to the coach-an old WON
an with d wonderful bonnet and a
black shawl pinned with yellow pin
There is nc room,' they said. You
must wait till next weeks coach takes
you up but she climbed on to the step,
and held on at the window with both
hands.
"'My son-in-la@ is ill, and must go
and see him. she said.
"'My good woman said one, 4 am
really exceedingly sorry that your
son-in-law is ill, but there is absolutely
no room for you here
you had better get down. said an
other, or the wheel will catch YOU
II got up to give her my place.
"'Oh, no, no! they cried. we will
not allow that
81 will rather kneel,' said one, and
he crouched down at my feet, so the
woman came in.
'There were nine of us in that coach,
and only one showed chivalrous atten-
ton, and that was a woman to O
| woman.
| II shall be old and ugly, too, one day,
and shall look for mems chivalrous
help, but 1 shall not find it.
"The bees are very attentive to the
flowers till their honey is done, and
then they fly over them. don't know
If the flowers feel grateful to the bees
They are great fools if they do"
"But some women" said Waldo,
speaking as though the words forced
themselves from him at that moment,
"some women have power"
She lifted her beautiful eyes to his
face
Power! Did you ever hear Of men
being asked whether other souls should
have power or not? 1t is born in them.
You may dam up the fountain of water
and make it stagnant marsh, or you
may let it run free and do it's work,
but you cannot say whether it shall be
there. 1t is there. And it will act, If
not openly for good, then covertly for
evil, but it will act If Goethe had
been stolen away child and reared in
robber horde in the depths Of a Ger
man forest, do you think the world
would have had Faust and Iphe-
genie?' But he would have been Goethe
/ still, stronger, wiser than his fellows.
At night round their watch fire he
would have chanted wild songs Of
rapine and murder till the dark faces
about him were moved and trembled.
His songs would have echoed on from
father to son and nerved the heart and
arm-for evil.
do you think if Napoleon had been
born woman that he would have been
contented to give small tea parties and
talk small scandal? He would have
risen. But the world would not have
heard of him as it hears of him now
man great and kingly, with all his
sins. He would have left one of those
names that stain the leaf of every
history, the names Of women who, hay
Ing power. but being denied the right
to exercise it openly. rule in the dark,
covertly and by stealth, through the
men whose passions they feed on and
by whom they climb.
"Power!' she said suddenly, shifting
her little hand upon the rail. Eyes, we
have power, and, since we are not to
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