committed to any particular worth-while task.

Perhaps the most disturbing side of the phenomenon is that it is
coincident with the emancipation of woman. At a time when she is freer
than at any other period of the world's history--save perhaps at one
period in ancient Egypt--she is apparently more uneasy.

Those who do not like the exhibit are inclined to treat her as if she
were a new historical type. The reassuring fact is, that ferment of
mind is no newer thing in woman than in man. It is a human ailment.
Its attacks, however, have always been unwelcome. Society distrusts
uneasiness in sacred quarters; that is, in her established and
privileged works. They are the best mankind has to show for itself. At
least they are the things for which the race has slaved longest and
which so far have best resisted attack. We would like to pride
ourselves that they were permanent, that we had settled some things.
And hence society resents a restless woman. And this is logical
enough.

Embroiled as man is in an eternal effort to conquer, understand, and
reduce to order both nature and his fellows, it is imperative that he
have some secure spot where his head is not in danger, his heart is
not harassed. Woman, by virtue of the business nature assigns her,
has always been theoretically the maker and keeper of this necessary
place of peace. But she has rarely made it and kept it with full
content. Eve was a revoltée, so was Medea. In every century they have
appeared, restless Amazons, protesting and remolding. Out of their
uneasy souls have come the varying changes in the woman's world which
distinguish the ages.