seem to have paid rather a heavy price for the feminine habit of turning a blind eye to evil which it dignifies by the name of innocence.
I have sufficient faith in my brethren to be in no wise alarmed by dismal prophecies of their rapid moral deterioration when our helplessness and general silliness no longer make a pathetic appeal to their sense of pity and authority. No doubt the consciousness of superiority is favourable to the cultivation of certain virtues—the virtues of the patron; just as the consciousness of inferiority is favourable to the cultivation of certain other virtues—the virtues of the patronized. But I will not do my brother the injustice of believing that the virtues of the patron are the only ones he possesses; on the contrary, I have found him to be possessed of many others, have seen him just to an equal, courteous and considerate to those whom he had no reason to pity or despise. When the ordinary man and the ordinary wife no longer stand towards each other in the attitude of patron and patronized the virtues of both will need overhauling—that is all.
Nor does one see how the advancement of
