“A woman naturally wishes to respect and look up to her husband, therefore, we have decided that society, when it is perfected, should be looked upon as a flight of stairs,—conceding to man the position on the highest step, if you please, but there is a woman on the one just below, and the steps are not very high. In this way they alternate until we reach the lowest step, and what find we there? A disconsolate old bachelor, with disheveled hair, croaking a tune, the burden of which is that women have no business to vote.” MAY 18, 1877. The following little gem, published by Miss Kinsey in the _Spectator_ early in 1877, is here reproduced at the earnest solicitations of many friends:— OLD AGE. “It is a melancholy fact that the majority of mankind hate to grow old. If sin was looked upon with as much shrinking and dread as is the idea of growing old, there would speedily be a great reformation in the world. This is a bad state of affairs; an evidence, in fact, that we are looking through the wrong end of the glass. If we had a journey to make, at the end of which there was a delightful country, more beautiful than anything the imagination could picture, where all that heart could desire should be ours, the one nearest his journey’s end would not be looked upon as the most unfortunate. Yet this is often the case in life; looking upon one far in advance, we think, because his body is feeble and nearly worn out, he must be unhappy; he would not be so if, having understood the journey, he had taken pains to know and accept the blessings by the way. “We confess that, looking upon life as seen now, there is often much excuse for those who think youth the only pleasant season. Stopping to think a moment, we see this is all wrong. Advancement, not retrogression, is the proper watchword in all undertakings. Is the bud more perfect than the flower, or the flower than the fruit? Old age is the ripened fruit of life, and it remains entirely with _us_ to see that it shall be sweet and pleasant to the taste, instead of bitter and disagreeable. One cause for the latter condition we find lies in persons who, having been disappointed themselves, say to their children: ‘Have a good time while you are young; old age brings nothing but care and responsibility.’ Better give a child poison at once than start him out with that idea. Some will say: ‘Children are so happy, being so innocent; do let them be children forever.’ The innocence of childhood is unfortunately the result of ignorance, and can never make character; one who does good because he knows not how to do evil has no more character than the one who does evil because he knows no good.