battle in as close order as the peculiarity of their garments would
permit, and accompanied by a corps of cavalry in sidesaddles.
Such an assertion of woman's right would be grand beyond
description. I should not care to live on very intimate terms with
the colonel of the regiment, but I don't know as that has any thing
to do with this question.

I was talking, however, about the right of women to sing bass, and
must go on. It is declared by those who oppose this right that
woman has no natural organs and aptitudes for bass. This is the
strong-point of the enemy, but it amounts to nothing. If woman
fails, apparently, in organs and aptitudes for this part, it only
shows what long years of abuse will accomplish. Let us never
forget in this discussion that woman is only a female man, that
there is no such thing as "sex of soul," and that woman's vocal
organs are built exactly like man's--as much like man's as her
hands and her feet and her head are like his--a little smaller,
perhaps,--that's all. It is a familiar fact, I presume, that the
little colts born of South American dams take to ambling as their
natural step, simply because the men of South America have taught
the fathers and mothers of these colts to amble through uncounted
generations. Now in North America we train horses to trot, and the
consequence is that amblers are scarce, and in most cases have to
be educated to their gait. This is the way in which nature adapts
herself to popular want and popular usage. The large variety of
apples which load our orchards were developed from the insignificant
crab, and the peach was the child of the almond, or the almond of
the peach--I have forgotten which. Now I suppose (with some feeble
doubts about it) that man and woman started exactly together, that
her singing treble better than she does bass results from usage,