discouragement of the antislavery reformer: so women, contented in
ignominious dependence, restless even to insanity from the need of healthy
employment and the perversion of their instincts, and confessedly looking
to marriage for salvation, are at once a stimulus to exertion, and an
obstacle in our way. But no kind, wise heart will heed this obstacle.
Having spoken plain to society, having won the sympathy of men, let us see
if we cannot compel the attention of these well-disposed but thoughtless
damsels.

"Six years out of the very bloom of our lives to be spent in the
printing-office or the laboratory!" exclaim the dismayed band; and they
flutter out of reach along the sidewalks of Beacon Street, or through the
mazes of the "Lancers."

But what happens ten years afterward, when, from twenty-six to thirty,
they find themselves pushed off the _pavé_, or left to blossom on the
wall? Desolate, because father and brother have died; disappointed,
because well-founded hopes of a home or a "career" have failed;
impoverished, because they depended on strength or means that are
broken,--what have they now to say to the printing-office or the
apothecary's shop? They enter both gladly; with quick woman's wit,
learning as much in six months as men would in a year; but grumbling and
discontented, that, in competing with men who have spent their whole lives
in preparation, they can only be paid at half-wages. What does common
sense demand, if not that women should make thorough preparation for
trades or professions; and, having taken up a resolution, should abide by
all its consequences like men?

Before cases like these my lips are often sealed, and my hands drop
paralyzed. Not that they alter God's truth, or make the duty of protest