"I fear while physical force is on the side of the brute," said Julius, "no abstract recognition of equality would save her." "Society would take up her cause, and protect her." "So it is willing to do now, if she asks for protection." "Yes," broke in Rosamond, "but nothing would induce a woman worth sixpence to take the law against her husband." "There I think Lady Rosamond has at once demonstrated the higher nature of the woman," said Mrs. Tallboys. "What man would be capable of such generosity?" "No one denies," said Julius, "that generous forbearance, patience, fortitude, and self-renunciation, belong almost naturally to the true wife and mother, and are her great glory; but would she not be stripped of them by self-assertion as the peer in power?" "Turning our flank again with a compliment," said Mrs. Duncombe. "These fine qualities are very convenient to yourselves, and so you praise them up." "Not so!" returned Julius, "because they are really the higher virtues!" "Patience!" at once exclaimed the American and English emancipators with some scorn. "Yes," said Julius, in a low tone of thorough earnest. "The patience of strength and love is the culmination of virtue." Jenny knew what was in his mind, but Mrs. Tallboys, with a curious tone, half pique, half triumph, said, "You acknowledge this which you call the higher nature in woman--that is to say, all the passive qualities,--and you are willing to allow her a finer spiritual essence, and yet you do not agree to her equal rights. This is the injustice of the prejudice which has depressed her all these centuries." "Stay," broke in Jenny, evidently not to the lady's satisfaction. "That does not state the question. Nobody denies that woman is often of a higher and finer essence, as you say, than man, and has some noble qualities in a higher degree than any but the most perfect men; but that is not the question. It is whether she have more force and capacity than man, is in fact actually able to be on an equality." "And, I say," returned Mrs. Tallboys, "that man has used brute force to cramp woman's intellect and energy so long, that she has learnt to acquiesce in her position, and to abstain from exerting herself, so that it is only where she is partially emancipated, as in my own country, that any idea of her powers can be gained." "I am afraid," said Julius, "that more may be lost to the world than is gained! No; I am not speaking from the tyrant point of view. I am thinking whether free friction with the world way not lessen that sweetness and tender innocence and purity that make a man's home an ideal and a sanctuary--his best earthly influence." "This is only sentiment. Innocence is worthless if it cannot stand alone and protect itself!" said Mrs. Tallboys.