and hurl them in to stop the breaches made in their ramparts by the enemy,
unconsideringly and merely because they came first to hand, not valuing
them more than had they been paving-stones. But one man could not do this-
-the sculptor! He, who, though there might be no work of his own chisel
among them, yet knew what each of these works of art had cost, knew by
experience the long years of struggle and study and the infinitude of toil
which had gone to the shaping of even one limb, to the carving of even one
perfected outline, he could never so use them without thought or care.
Instinctively he would seek to throw in household goods, even gold and
silver, all the city held, before he sacrificed its works of art!

Men's bodies are our woman's works of art. Given to us power of control,
we will never carelessly throw them in to fill up the gaps in human
relationships made by international ambitions and greeds. The thought
would never come to us as woman, "Cast in men's bodies; settle the thing
so!" Arbitration and compensation would as naturally occur to her as
cheaper and simpler methods of bridging the gaps in national relationships,
as to the sculptor it would occur to throw in anything rather than
statuary, though he might be driven to that at last!

This is one of those phases of human life, not very numerous, but very
important, towards which the man as man, and the woman as woman, on the
mere ground of their different sexual function with regard to reproduction,
stand, and must stand, at a somewhat differing angle. The physical
creation of human life, which, in as far as the male is concerned, consists
in a few moments of physical pleasure; to the female must always signify
months of pressure and physical endurance, crowned with danger to life. To
the male, the giving of life is a laugh; to the female, blood, anguish, and
sometimes death. Here we touch one of the few yet important differences
between man and woman as such.