English poetry -- 19th century; Women -- History; Women -- Social conditions; Women -- Suffrage
1.—“_Nor blankly epicene_ ...”
“Bring up a boy and girl side by side, and educate them both for the
same profession under the same masters, and a novelist who depicts
character could yet weave a story out of the mental and emotional
differences between them, which will cause them to look at life from
totally opposite points of view.”—Mabel Collins (“On Woman’s Relation to
the State”).
2.-“... _sequence of that day_.”
“We have seen that a deep difference in constitution expresses itself in
the distinctions between male and female, whether these be physical or
mental. The differences may be exaggerated or lessened, but to
obliterate them it would be necessary to have all the evolution over
again on a new basis. What was decided among the Prehistoric Protozoa
cannot be annulled by Act of Parliament.”—Geddes and Thomson (“Evolution
of Sex,” p. 267).
3, 4.—“... _not ... by aping falser sex shall truer grow_.”
“While man and woman still are incomplete
I prize that soul where man and woman meet,
Which types all Nature’s male and female plan,
But, friend, man-woman is not woman-man.”
—Tennyson (“On One who Affected an Effeminate Manner”).
XLVIII.
8.—“_Happy what each may bring to help the common fate_.”
“I would submit to a severe discipline, and to go without many things
cheerfully, for the good and happiness of the human race in the future.
Each one of us should do something, however small, towards that great
end.... How pleasant it would be each day to think, to-day I have done
something that will tend to render future generations more happy. The
very thought would make this hour sweeter. It is absolutely necessary
that something of this kind should be discovered.... It should be the
sacred and sworn duty of everyone, once at least during lifetime, to do
something in person towards this end. It would be a delight and a
pleasure to me to do some thing every day, were it ever so minute. To
reflect that another human being, if at a distance of ten thousand years
from the year 1883, would enjoy one hour’s more life, in the sense of
fulness of life, in consequence of anything I had done in my little
span, would be to me a peace of soul.”—Richard Jefferies (“The Story of
My Heart,” pp. 129, 131, 160).
XLIX.
1.—“_By mutual aid perfecting complex man_.”
Kant says: “Man and woman constitute, when united, the whole and entire
being, one sex completes the other.”—Bebel (“Woman,” Walther’s
Translation, p. 44).
2, 3.—“_Their twofold vision human life may scan
From differing standpoints_ ...”
See Note XLVII., 1.
LI.
4.—“_Her brain untutored_ ...”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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