Now, in the face of all this evidence—and I do not pretend to know, much less to have adduced, a hundredth part of it—in view, moreover, of the prominent part that women, even of the most obscure origin, played in the literature of the eighteenth century, and the independence with which they moved in society, how can it any longer be maintained, with any semblance of honesty, that there has been, as if from malice aforethought, a male conspiracy to achieve the subjection of women? In trying to explain away certain female characteristics, which are as unanimously testified to to-day as they have been in all ages of history, by ascribing them to a distortion of “true” or “natural” woman—whoever or wherever she may be—as if woman were only just at this moment coming into her own, as if in fact she were only just emerging from a dark and stifling obscurity that had stunted her, Mill and his followers are guilty of a deliberate lie. They imply that which it is incumbent upon them to prove, and they do so with the full-throated sentimentality of romanticists, who cannot be quite sensible, who must have a tear in their eye, and a lump in their throat, when they pronounce the word “Woman.” But the falsehood, palpable as it was, succeeded by means of its flattering innuendo, in convincing every woman in Great Britain, who had reasons for being discontented and disgruntled. Indeed, so flattering was the innuendo, that even if the alleged subjection was not a historical fact, it was felt that at least it ought to have been. And what was this flattering innuendo in Mrs. Taylor’s falsehood?—It was this: That if hitherto women had produced no outstanding work, no epoch-making masterpiece in the arts or in the sciences, if, in fact, European women had not been so very different from the women of tradition and antiquity, it was not because men were specially gifted, or radically different from them, but simply because European women had been stunted by oppression! This was much too fascinating a lie ever to be suspected or distrusted by the overweening champions of Women’s Rights, either in the late nineteenth or the early twentieth century; hence the eager speed with which it was swallowed down—hence too Mill’s inordinate popularity! A large majority of women, it is true, were a little too thoughtful, or a little too well informed, to be duped by it; but the disgruntled and arrogant minority won the day.[178]