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THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

pared with that of European women, in a legal respect.

But their chief advantage consists in the liberty to agitate, and in that freedom from prejudice which allows them to themselves take an active part in the work of emancipation, as the woman conventions have shown.

But with this liberty they have not yet accomplished enough. True liberty does not appear like an oasis in the desert of barbarity surrounding it. Liberty, wherever it appears, stands in the closest connection, in constant interchange, with all other branches of development and with all mundane conditions. There is no narrower prejudice than that which considers American development independent of European development, which is its mother. That does not-only concern politicians, but also women. I do not speak of the fact that American women can gain an infinitely greater store of conceptions from the literature of Germany and France, from the profound discussions of the social and humane questions in Europe, than from the limited literature of materialistic America. But I should especially like to make it clear to them that it is indirectly for their greatest interest to see the ideas which have been awakened through German and French literature translated to action and life by the victory of the European revolution. The victory of the European revolution over barbarity and darkness will also have an