freely earth's beauty and sweetness. So I see her— this woman of a later day. It is this vision which makes me feel, with my sisters of the Women's Social and Political Union, that life itself would be but a small price to pay for the joy of being one of the pioneers of a movement whose aim it is to prepare and reveal her.
I am reminded as I write of a passage in Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound."
Jupiter, the tyrant, had fallen; the curse of tyranny was lifted from the earth; Prometheus had returned to his beloved earth-children, and the radiant spirit of that happy hour relates to him what she has seen in her passage over the regenerated world. Of the free woman then she says:—
"And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind,
As the free heaven which pours forth light and dew
On the wide earth pass'd: gentle, radiant forms,
From custom's evil taint exempt and pure,
Speaking the wisdom once they could not think,
Looking emotions once they dared not feel,
And changed in all which once they dared not be,
Yet, being now, made earth like heav'n. Nor pride,
Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame
Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love."
