"N-o--no," said I, with some hesitation. "It is all so different."

"At any rate," said he, "one thing I think I can answer for:
whatever sentiment there is, it is real--and general; it is not
confined to people very specially refined. I am also pretty sure, as
I hinted to you just now, that there is not by a great way as much
suffering involved in these matters either to men or to women as
there used to be. But excuse me for being so prolix on this
question! You know you asked to be treated like a being from another
planet."

"Indeed I thank you very much," said I. "Now may I ask you about the
position of women in your society?"

He laughed very heartily for a man of his years, and said: "It is
not without reason that I have got a reputation as a careful student
of history. I believe I really do understand 'the Emancipation of
Women movement' of the nineteenth century. I doubt if any other man
now alive does."

"Well?" said I, a little bit nettled by his merriment.

"'Well," said he, "of course you will see that all that is a dead
controversy now. The men have no longer any opportunity of
tyrannising over the women, or the women over the men; both of which
things took place in those old times. The women do what they can do
best, and what they like best, and the men are neither jealous of it
or injured by it. This is such a commonplace that I am almost
ashamed to state it."