Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar EssaysHolland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Philosophy
Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar Essays
Holland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Conduct of life
The truth is that women have never had a fair chance. They can do
any thing they are trained to do. The proper physical culture of
woman, carried on through a competent number of generations, would
develop her beyond all our present conceptions. She would be
likely to arrive at a high condition of muscle and a low condition
of mind, very unlike our present idea of the noblest type of
womanhood; but very possibly our ideals of womanhood are
conventional, or traditional. She has hands, and has a right to
use them; a tongue, and the right to wag it in her own way;
powers corresponding to those of man in all important respects,
and the right to develop and employ them according to her taste
and choice. I deny, to man, the privilege of defining the rights
and duties of woman. A woman is mistress of her own actions and
judge of her own powers and aptitudes; and if any woman thinks
that she can do a man's work better than what society considers
her own, then she has an undeniable right to do it, if she can get
it to do, and is willing to accept the work with the conditions
that attend it.
I am a firm believer in "woman's rights"--especially her right to
do as she pleases. It is possible that, before the law, she is not
in possession of all her rights, but all wrongs in this direction
will be corrected as time progresses. I speak particularly at this
time of her right to sing bass, because it is a representative
right, and covers, as with a lid, a whole chest full of others.
Yet while I claim this right, I confess that I should not care to
see it exercised to any great extent, for I think that treble is,
by all odds, the finer and more attractive part in music. Is it
worth while to exercise the right of singing bass, when it costs a
good deal to get up a voice for it, and when treble comes natural
and easy, and is very much pleasanter to the ear? Bass would be a
bad thing for a lullaby, and could only silence a baby by scaring
it. If I should have committed to me the melodies of the world, I
would care very little about my right to sing those subordinate
parts that gather around them in obedient harmonies. At least, I
think I would, unless some upstart man should deny my right to
sing any thing but melodies. If it were committed to me to sing
like a bird, I would not care, I think, to exercise my right to
roar like a bull. If I can witch the ears and win the hearts of
men and women by doing that which I can do easily and naturally
and well, then I shall do best not to exercise my right to do that
which I can only do difficultly, and unnaturally, and ill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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