Now, of all the bitter cries ringing in the air at the present time, about the bitterest and most persistent is that not merely of women, but of woman with a capital W. It is the most appalling note of change that can pierce the ear of self-satisfied Conservatism. The patient Griselda has begun to protest against the tyranny of her lord and master. Love's martyr has at last begun to think that her martyrdom must have its limits. It is as if the Lamb, whose function we thought was to be dumb before its shearers and even sacrificers, had found a voice of protestation. It is a portent. And even men are constrained to listen to the cry; for it sounds like the birth-cry of regenerated Love. Not now "Love self-slain in some sweet shameful way," but Love the winged angel who shall finally cast out Lust, the adversary. But many things must come to pass before this triumph of love can be brought about; and in many respects the horoscope looks unpropitious enough. The first effect of the birth, or coming to the surface of a higher ideal, gradually evolved by the progress of society, is apparently to make confusion worse confounded. Not peace but a sword is the first gift of the Prince of Peace. Liberty comes masked like Tyranny, and cries "Fraternity or death!" Love goes wantonly about with the Mænads of licentiousness at his heels. But the divine Logos, incarnate as the Son of man, always comes not to destroy but to fulfil. Just now that highly moral being, Man in the masculine gender, is much shocked at the strangely immoral conduct of his feminine counterpart. In the first place, she has dared to look at the realities of things with her own eyes, not through the rose-coloured spectacles with which he has been at pains to provide her; and not only that, but to peep behind the sacred veil which man has modestly cast over many ugly things. Secondly, she has begun to talk openly about these ugly things, and to call them by non-euphemistic, ugly names, in a manner quite unprecedented. Thirdly, she has dared to attempt her own solution of things insoluble, her own achievement of things impossible. And fourthly, she has dared to formulate a demand for liberty, equality, fraternity on her own account--a demand which every day comes more and more within the sphere of practical politics. Here are pure women making common cause with prostitutes, married women crying out against the holy institution of matrimony, mothers rebelling against the tyranny of the beatific baby--nay, absolutely on strike against child-bearing, or at least demanding limited liability as regards that important function. Finally, here is Woman, whether as virgin, wife, or widow, demanding independence as to property and a fair share of the world's goods in return for a fair share of the general work of the world outside of her special womanly functions. "D----n it, sir, I say that women are unsexing themselves--unsexing themselves, by Jove!" as Major Pendennis might exclaim.