children was an obligation on the face of the new undertaking. Another
revolutionary duty put upon her was--_paying her way_. There can be no
real democracy where there is parasitism. She must achieve conscious
independence whether in or out of the family. Unquestionably there
came with the Revolution a vision of a new woman--a woman from whom
all of the willfulness and frivolity and helplessness of the "Lady" of
the old régime should be stripped, while all her qualities of
gentleness and charm should be preserved. The old-world lady was to
be merged into a woman strong, capable, severely beautiful, a creature
who had all of the virtues and none of the follies of femininity.

It was strong yeast they put into the pot in '76.

A fresh leaven in a people can never be distributed evenly. Moreover,
the mass to which it is applied is never homogeneous. There are spots
so hard no yeast can move them; there are others so light the yeast
burns them out. Taken as a whole, the change is labored and painful.
So our new notions worked on women. There were groups which resented
and refused them, became reactionary at the stating of them. There
were those which grew grave and troubled under them, shrinking from
the portentous upheaval they felt in their touch, yet sensing that
they must be accepted. There were still others where the notion
frothed and foamed, turning up unexpected ideas, revealing depths of
dissatisfaction, of desire, of unsuspected powers in woman that
startled the staid old world. It was in these quarters that there was
produced the uneasy woman typical of the day.

Her ferment went to the bottom of things this time. Not since the age
of the Amazon had a body of women broken more utterly with things as
they are. And like the Amazon, the revolt was against man and his