'By the oppressions of their own statutes and institutions, they render us insignificant; and then speak of us as if we were so born! But what have we tried, in which we have been foiled? They dare not trust us with their own education, and their own opportunities for distinction:--I except the article of fighting; against that, there may, perhaps, be some obstacles: but to be condemned, as weaker vessels in intellect, because, inferiour in bodily strength and stature, we cannot cope with them as boxers and wrestlers! They appreciate not the understandings of one another by such manual and muscular criterions. They assert not that one man has more brains than another, because he is taller; that he is endowed with more illustrious virtues, because he is stouter. They judge him not to be less ably formed for haranguing in the senate; for administering justice in the courts of law; for teaching science at the universities, because he could ill resist a bully, or conquer a footpad! No!--Woman is left out in the scales of human merit, only because they dare not weigh her!' Then, turning suddenly to Ellis, 'And you, Ellis, you!' she cried, 'endowed with every power to set prejudice at defiance, and to shew and teach the world, that woman and man are fellow-creatures, you, too, are coward enough to bow down, unresisting, to this thraldom?' Juliet hazarded not any reply. 'Yet what futile inconsistency dispenses this prejudice! This Woman, whom they estimate thus below, they elevate above themselves. They require from her, in defiance of their examples!--in defiance of their lures!--angelical perfection. She must be mistress of her passions; she must never listen to her inclinations; she must not take a step of which the purport is not visible; she must not pursue a measure of which she cannot publish the motive; she must always be guided by reason, though they deny her understanding!--Frankness, the noblest of our qualities, is her disgrace;--sympathy, the most exquisite of our feelings, is her bane!--' She stopt here, conscious, colouring, indignant, and dropt the subject, to say, 'Tell me, I again demand, what is it you mean to do? Return to your concert-singing and harping?' 'Ah, Madam,' cried Juliet, reproachfully, 'can you believe me not yet satisfied with attempting any sort of public exhibition? 'Nay, nay,' cried Elinor, resuming her careless gaiety, 'what passed that evening will only have served to render you more popular. You may make your own terms, now, with the managers, for the subscription will fill, merely to get a stare at you. If I were poor myself, I would engage to acquire a large fortune, in less than a week, by advertising, at two-pence a head, a sight of the lady that stabbed herself.'