part in life which they have no wish to play. And if particular
emotional stresses accompany that development, that may seem to them
only one further reason for being annoyed at the nature of things.

I am sure too that the conventional notions of what a woman should be
must often prove very annoying, if not enraging. Many men still cherish
the idea of woman as a sort of household ornament--gentle and "sweet".
Many have not accommodated themselves to the notion that a woman should
know the blunt facts about this hard life and this disordered world.
Society often seems to expect of a woman that she should be submissive,
patient, and merely gentle. And of course nature has ordained that many
women should be strong, stimulating, and militant in spirit. Of a
really great woman it was said to me the other day that she is really
more like a flame than a "cow". But the "cow" idea holds the field in
many places. Well! happy those who have a sense of humor and can laugh
when society is very foolish.

I dare not enter farther on a discussion of what it means for a girl to
accept herself "as a woman". In that matter men seem always to flounder
into folly. Even women are not yet agreed about it. Perhaps it is one
of the things that is only gradually being discovered at this
particular stage of human experience. I am indeed sure that we do not
yet know all that women are meant to be and are capable of doing for
the world. And that being so I can see that the difficulties which lie
about the path of life for women to-day are peculiarly trying. It may
be a real privilege to be a woman during this particular period of
discovery and experiment. But it cannot but be also rather a strain.
The one thing that I can with certainty say is that a woman is called
to be like Christ--like Him in His meekness which was the outcome of
perfect selflessness and self-mastery--in His gentleness which was the