The great Russian romantic poet, Lermontof, lamented the moral inferiority of the women of his country. "Man," said this Russian Byron, "should not be satisfied with the submission of his slave or the devotion of his dog; he needs the love of a human being who will repay insight for insight, soul for soul." This noble aspiration, derived from the profound Platonic allegory of the two soul-halves that seek each other and thereby find completion, the Russian intelligence desired to realize, and as a step toward it procured participation for woman in intellectual and political life; she, on her part, proved her worth by bringing to nihilism a passionate devotion, absolute faith, and initiative energy. When the early Christians rehabilitated the pagan woman, somewhat the same thing happened, and a tender gratitude toward the gentle Nazarene led virgins and matrons to vie with strong men in the heroism displayed in the amphitheatre. But in our times the systematic efforts toward female emancipation have a tendency to stumble into absurdities. To show to what an extent conjugal equality has been carried in certain Russian families of humble position, I was told that the wife cooks one day and the husband the next! At the beginning of the reign of Alexander II. the longing for feminine independence was expressed in the wearing of short hair, blue spectacles, and extraordinary dress; in smoking, in scorn of neatness, and the assumption of viragoish and disgusting manners. The serious side of the movement led them on the other hand to study, to throw themselves into every career open to them, to show a brave front in the hospitals of typhus and the plague, to win honors in the clinics, and to practise medicine in the small villages with noble self-abnegation, seriousness, and sagacity. It is worthy of note, in examining Russian revolutionary tendencies, that political rights are a secondary consideration, and that they go down to the root of the matter, and seek first to reclaim natural rights. In countries that are under parliamentary regimen, half of the human race is judicially and civilly the servant of the other half; while in the classic land of absolutism all parts are equal before the law, especially among the reformatory class, the nobility.