and shapes his life so, come at length the hand for the helm, the
voice for the law, and the arm to enforce law--what do you want
more for a woman's opportunity and control?

Which would you choose as a force, an advantage, in settling
any question of public moment, or as touching your own private
interest through the general management--the right to go upon
election day and cast one vote, or a hold beforehand upon the
individual ear and attention of each voter now qualified? The
ability to present to him your argument, to show him the real
point at issue, to convince and persuade him of the right and
lasting, instead of the weak and briefly politic way? This initial
privilege is in the hands of woman; assuming that she can be
brought to feel and act as a unit, which appears to be what is
claimed for her in the argument for her regeneration of the outer
political word.

But already and separately, if every intelligent, conscientious
woman can but reach one man, and influence him from the principle
involved--from her interior perception of it, kept pure on purpose
from bias and temptation that assail him in the outside mix and
jostle--will she not have done her work without the casting of a
ballot? And what becomes of "taxation without representation,"
when, from Eden down, Eve can always plead with Adam, can have the
first word instead of the last--if she knows what that first word
is, in herself and thence in its power with him--can beguile him
to his good instead of to his harm, as indeed she only meant to do
in that first ignorant experiment? Would it be any less easy to
qualify for and accomplish this than to convince and outnumber in
public gathering not only bodies of men but the mass of women that