public, and a woman's private. But this is not altogether so. A
man has a personal work or duty, relating to his own home, and a
public work or duty, which is the expansion of the other, relating
to the state. So a woman has a personal work or duty, relating to
her own home, and a public work or duty, which is also the expansion
of that.

Now the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure
its maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its
order, comfort, and loveliness.

Expand both these functions. The man's duty as a member of a
commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in
the defence of the state. The woman's duty, as a member of the
commonwealth, is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and
in the beautiful adornment of the state.

What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against
insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted
measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home,
if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work
there.

And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as
the centre of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty:
that she is also to be without her gates, where order is more
difficult, distress more imminent, loveliness more rare.

And as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for
all its real duties,--an instinct which you cannot quench, but only