The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1910-05-26

against which she fought Sex equality
was the supreme good to be desired in
her scheme of right relationships be-
tween the individual and the universe.
While she rebelled against her sex,
yet she rejoiced in it. Glad was she
sometimes on that very account that
to her was given the opportunity to
prove her superiority to the limita-
tions, disabilities and man-made tram
mels of womankind.
Born of two fanatics on the same
subject, whose insanity was modified
and mollifled by brilliancy of intellect
in every other field of investigation
and experiment, Katherine Brenton
had been trained to the hour for her
profession, for the exploitation of her
principles. The greatest of universi-
ties pointed to her with peculiar pride
as one of the children of the free;
free from everything in thought and
determined to be free from everything
in action. Much was expected from
her and the world was not disap-
pointed at the first result of her men
tai labor. There were certain old
fashioned people who deplored the
perversion of so much talent and even
genius to the defense of error, but
these did not count. The world bought
her book in thousands, read it avidly
and regarded it as the last word of
the last woman of the end of the age
on the sex problem. Cleverly disguis-
ing her philosophy in the form of fic-
ton, with one bound she had leaped
to the fore front of all the writers
struggling for recognition. Publishers
sought her. Magazines pursued her.
Another book took shape in her mind.
Singularly enough her education
and the erratic bent of her mind had
left her primarily quite unspoiled. She
was the product not merely of her age,
her environment, her parents, but Of
a long generation of people to whom
her thoughts would have been as alb
horTent as her person was agreeable.
The unconscious Christianity which
surrounds the world and especially
the world Of woman kept her pure
and sweet and lovable-these in spite
of, not because of, her perverse and
perverted philosophy. Though she
defied convention in its spirit, she was
naturally subject to it in its exercise.
For instance, to her the marriage bond
was, indeed, bond, the marriage VOW
a confession of weakness-on the part
of the woman, at least-and the mar
riage relation an acknowledgement Of
nferiority-again on the part of the
woman. She would have none of these
things in her life. Yet, as she thought,
she had given her heart to a man
alas, the submission to the eternal
law!-and although their relationship
was sanctioned by nothing but their
affection, it was to her as pure and
as holy a thing as if the contract had
been witnessed and blest by thou
sand priests. What was it to him? She
counted without the other sex. Many
other women unfortunately have done
the same.
Not content with the writing of
books, her intense devotion to her
cause, coupled with her unhagging
energy, had found vent upon the lee
ture platform. The curious crowded
to her feet at once, so bold, so radical,
so beautiful and so innocent. One Of
her first converts had been the only
son OF multi-millionaire, bygone bo-
nanza king of the Pacific slope. His
conversion was not so much an effort
of pure reason as of primal passion,
although that fact was in no wise ap-
parent to her. She would find that
out later. This modern Hypatia,
skilled in the learning of the schools
burning with exhaustless zeal, per
meated with fiery energy, was yet as
innocent in some ways as any of her
humber sisters. AS that good Book
which she disdained in the newer illu-
limitations which had come to her,
might have said Of her, she was in the
world but not of it.
Unconsciously she fulfilled many in.
functions of him who had sbe but
known it was the greatest Of philoso.
piers. Naturally she Eept herself
unspotted from the world. Yet when
the young man who had engaged her
affections proposed to her that they
should put har theories in practice,