"Oh, well, Carrie, you know those old Doctors, they get a certain jog-trot way of arranging human life; and then men that are happily married are in such bliss, and such women-worshipers that they cannot make up their mind that anybody they care about should not enter their paradise." "I do not despise their paradise," said Caroline; "I think everybody most happy that can enter it. I am thankful to see that they can. I am delighted and astonished every day at beholding the bliss and satisfaction with which really nice, pretty girls take up with the men they do, and I think it all very delightful; but it's rather hard on me that, since I can't have that, I mustn't have anything else." "After all, Caroline, is not your dissatisfaction with the laws of nature?" "Not exactly; I won't quarrel with the will that made me a woman, not in my deepest heart. Neither being a woman do I want to be unwomanly. I would not, if I could, do as Georges Sand did, put on men's clothes and live a man's life. Anything of that sort in a woman is very repulsive and disgusting to me. At the same time, I do think that the customs and laws of society might be modified so as to give to women who do not choose to marry, independent position and means of securing home and fortune. Marriage never ought to be entered on as a means of support. It seems to me that our sex are enough weighted by nature, and that therefore all the laws and institutions of society ought to act in just the contrary direction, and tend to hold us up--to widen our way, to encourage our efforts, because we are the weaker party, and need it most. The world is now arranged for the strong, and I think it ought to be re-arranged for the weak." I paused, and pondered all that she had been saying. "My mother--" I began. "Now, please don't quote your mother to me. I know what she would say. If two angels were sent down from Heaven, the one to govern an empire, and the other to sweep the streets, they would not wish to change with each other; it is perhaps true. "But then, you see, that is only possible because they are angels. Your mother has got up somewhere into that region, but I am down in the low lands, and must do the best I can on my plane. I can conceive of those moral heights where one thing is just as agreeable as another, but I have not yet reached them. Besides, you know Jacob wrestled with his angel, and was commended for it; and I think we ought to satisfy ourselves by good, strong effort that our lot _is_ of God. If we really cannot help ourselves, we may be resigned to it as His will." "Caroline," I said, "if you might have exactly what you want, what would it have been?"