“Do you suppose poor Mrs. Morley would seek to do that if she had her rights?” asked Isaura, with her musical laugh.
“Not a doubt of it; but perhaps you share her opinions.”
“I scarcely know what her opinions are, but--”
“There is a--what shall I call it?--a persuasion, a sentiment, out of which the opinions probably spring, that I do share.”
“Indeed? a persuasion, a sentiment, for instance, that a woman should have votes in the choice of legislators, and, I presume, in the task of legislation?”
“No, that is not what I mean. Still, that is an opinion, right or wrong, which grows out of the sentiment I speak of.”
“It is always so difficult to define a sentiment; but does it not strike you that in proportion as the tendency of modern civilization has been to raise women more and more to an intellectual equality with men, in proportion as they read and study and think, an uneasy sentiment, perhaps querulous, perhaps unreasonable, grows up within their minds that the conventions of the world are against the complete development of the faculties thus aroused and the ambition thus animated; that they cannot but rebel, though it may be silently, against the notions of the former age, when women were not thus educated, notions that the aim of the sex should be to steal through life unremarked; that it is a reproach to be talked of; that women are plants to be kept in a hothouse and forbidden the frank liberty of growth in the natural air and sunshine of heaven? This, at least, is a sentiment which has sprung up within myself; and I imagine that it is the sentiment which has given birth to many of the opinions or doctrines that seem absurd, and very likely are so, to the general public. I don’t pretend even to have considered those doctrines; I don’t pretend to say what may be the remedies for the restlessness and uneasiness I feel. I doubt if on this earth there be any remedies; all I know is, that I feel restless and uneasy.”
Graham gazed on her countenance as she spoke with an astonishment not unmingled with tenderness and compassion, astonishment at the contrast between a vein of reflection so hardy, expressed in a style of language that seemed to him so masculine, and the soft velvet dreamy eyes, the gentle tones, and delicate purity of hues rendered younger still by the blush that deepened their bloom.