As to the use of the pen, there was quite as much opposition to
Woman's possessing herself of that help to free agency as there is now
to her seizing on the rostrum or the desk; and she is likely to draw,
from a permission to plead her cause that way, opposite inferences to
what might be wished by those who now grant it.
As to the possibility of her filling with grace and dignity any such
position, we should think those who had seen the great actresses, and
heard the Quaker preachers of modern times, would not doubt that Woman
can express publicly the fulness of thought and creation, without
losing any of the peculiar beauty of her sex. What can pollute and
tarnish is to act thus from any motive except that something needs to
be said or done. Woman could take part in the processions, the songs,
the dances of old religion; no one fancied her delicacy was impaired
by appearing in public for such a cause.
As to her home, she is not likely to leave it more than she now does
for balls, theatres, meetings for promoting missions, revival
meetings, and others to which she flies, in hope of an animation for
her existence commensurate with what she sees enjoyed by men.
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