IS 
 
 394 
 1615s 
 891 
 
 MILLfR 
 
 SIR IKE OF A 
 SEX
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ue/cenamy jjiorary. 
 
 TIHIIE 
 
 STRIKE-SEX 
 
 MOST 
 INTERESTING 
 
 10 XX BOTH 
 
 SEXES. 
 
 B Y GEORGE NOYES MILLER 
 
 Of The Oneida Community 
 (William Beeves, 83, Charing Cross Road, London, W.C.
 
 THE BELLAMY LIBRARY. 
 
 ONE SHILLING ( Entirely Revised E 
 
 THE AWAKENS 
 OF WOMEN 
 
 OR 
 
 WOMAN'S PART IN EVOLUTION, 
 
 By FRANCES SWINEY. 
 
 Organisation Woffli 
 as the Wife Woman 
 as the Worker in 
 :nd the Future. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 : CROSS ROAD, W
 
 SXRIKK OR A. SEX
 
 THE BELLAMY LIBRARY. No. 12 
 THE 
 
 feTRIKE OF A SEX 
 
 \ 
 
 GEORGE NOYES rMILLER. 
 
 (Member of the Oneiia Community). 
 
 LONDON : 
 WM. REEVES: 183, CHARING CROSS RD. W.C.
 
 Printed by the New Temple Press, Grant Road, Croydon.
 
 SPECIAL PREFACE TO ENGLISH 
 EDITION. 
 
 An English edition of this celebrated American 
 story seems called for by the great and increasing 
 interest felt in the problem of property in the old 
 and crowded countries of Europe. It is nearly a 
 hundred years since Malthus expounded the true 
 relation between poverty and the increase of the 
 human race : and it is more than thirty years since 
 Darwin, in his "Origin of Species," showed that 
 the Malthusian Law lies at the basis of all organic 
 evolution. No further apology is needed for a 
 tale which points to a discovery, already tested by 
 experience, which claims to solve, at one and the 
 same time, the Malthusian or population problem, 
 the Darwinian or eugenic problem, the problem 
 of social purity, and the problem of personal 
 health in relation to sex. 
 
 F. W. F. 
 
 1702O91
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 To tell the truth, I put forth this slight piece 
 of literature in much fear and trembling. Not 
 that I had any morbid dread of literary condem- 
 nation, or any solicitude about financial failure. 
 My anxiety was solely in regard to the reception 
 that my little book might meet from women. To 
 my mind, there was no other judge: and I 
 awaited her verdict in real suspense. 
 
 But my suspense was happily short and in its 
 relief, I think that I tasted something like the 
 overpowering joy which the prisoner feels when 
 he is declared to be innocent. The letters of grati- 
 tude which I have received and am receiving from 
 noble women in two continents have fairly over- 
 whelmed me and they have rewarded me a 
 hundredfold. 
 
 The whole world is plainly in travail to lift the 
 primeval curse of brutalizing labour from man. 
 But the just, at least, are beginning to perceive that 
 the primeval curse must also be lifted from woman. 
 When these long-borne curses are really lifted 
 from man and woman what then ? 
 
 The Garden of Eden ! 
 
 GEORGE NOYES MILLER. 
 1 88, WEST HOUSTON ST., N.Y. 
 JAN., 1891.
 
 WOMAN'S FUTURE. 
 
 Oppression with her leaden mein 
 Nor there is seen, 
 
 Nor can the wrinkled brow of Care 
 Find entrance there.
 
 THE STRIKE OF A SEX. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I w is greatly fatigued, and a feeling of irresistible 
 drowsiness had begun to creep over my senses, when 
 my flagging energies were suddenly aroused by the 
 appearance of a town which, though I had not 
 before observed it, now seemed quite close at hand. 
 Tall and graceful spires, glistening domes, and 
 high-rearing chimneys, from which poured plentiful 
 volumes of smoke, betokened a place of thrift and 
 business importance. I therefore began to enter one 
 of its residence streets with the pleasant mental ex- 
 hilaration which the pedestrian feels when he opens 
 his eyes and ears to the sights and sounds of a 
 strange city. 
 
 But I had not gone far before I was compelled to
 
 The Strike of a Bex. 
 
 acknowledge to myself that the city belied in some 
 unaccountable respects the smart appearance which 
 it had borne from a distance. The men whom I 
 began to meet, although seemingly full of a kind of 
 jaded activity, bore strange marks of carelessness, 
 not to say positive disorder in their attire. Their 
 untrimmed beards showed a great lack of taste and 
 neatness. Their collars and cuffs were soiled and 
 wrinkled, and their neckties, fastened about their 
 necks in all sorts of ungainly knots, were very much 
 awry. All had a deeply pre-occupied air, and I 
 noticed that many of them had a finger or hand 
 clumsily wrapped in rags of a mottled and dingy 
 hue, as if they had met with untoward accidents, 
 such as burns, cuts, or bruises. The odour of arnica 
 pervaded the atmosphere. 
 
 But I soon began to perceive that the most per- 
 plexing feature of this universal disorder, or I might 
 say dilapidation of attire, was the total absence of 
 buttons from garments of every description. 1 1 was as 
 if some greedy speculator or anaconda-like Trust had 
 suddenly made a corner of the entire product of 
 buttons and put them so far bsyond the reach of his 
 kind that man had been compelled to supply the 
 place of these indisj ensable little articles with all 
 sorts of mechanical makeshifts. Pins, strings, hooks,
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 and I observed in some instances, shingle nails, held 
 together the textile frame-work which invested every 
 man I saw. 
 
 When I had become somewhat accustomed to this 
 oddity, although inwardly much wondering what 
 should cause it, I began to observe that the residences 
 themselves although substantial in structure and 
 ornamental in design, bore the same marks of sur- 
 prising carelessness that I saw in their owners. The 
 fine stone and marble doorsteps were strangely 
 littered and untidy. Curious utensils for such places 
 such as coffee-pots and dishpans, stood in the front 
 windows of the various rooms. The parlours, which 
 I could plainly see through the carelessly left open 
 windows, were in a state of great disorder. Dust 
 and confusion seemed to reign unmolested, and the 
 curtains were clumsily fastened as if by unskilful 
 hands. 
 
 These visible signs of a slatternly kind of house- 
 keeping seemed to multiply as I advanced, but my 
 attention to them soon began to be somewhat dis. 
 tracted by my sense of smell. Mysterious and 
 inscrutable odours, defying all my powers of analysis, 
 emanated from these residences. From one it was 
 like burnt rags, from another it seemed to be grease 
 in some stage of decomposition, from another the
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 odour was that of musty and decaying food, while 
 from still others there proceeded an indescribable 
 mixture of all these. 
 
 More and more puzzled by the strange sights and 
 smells to which my senses had grown more acute as 
 I proceeded, I soon found that they were, after 
 all, almost wholly driven from my mind by an in- 
 finitely sharper sense of the utter joylessness of the 
 place. In spite of the hurrying crowds of men who 
 jostled one another upon the streets, I began to be 
 conscious of an overpowering sense of desolation 
 such as I had never before known. An unaccount- 
 able gloom, which seemed to cover the whole town 
 like a funeral pall, began to settle upon my hitherto 
 buoyant spirits. It was as if the sun were not 
 merely obscured by a passing cloud, but had been 
 wholly withdrawn from the heavens, leaving the earth 
 to be lighted only by some murky and baleful star. I 
 recalled the fact that though many of the irregulari- 
 ties of apparel which I had noticed were in a high 
 degree ludicrous, I had not seen the ghost of a 
 smile upon the face or heard anything approaching 
 a jest from the lips of a human being since I entered 
 the town. I attempted to arouse myself and shake 
 off the deadly chill that was beginning to envelope 
 me, and as I did so I unconsciously muttered, " One
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 would think it were the town of Hamelin from which 
 the Pied Piper had just drawn away all the children." 
 
 No sooner had these words passed my lips than, 
 like an electric shock, I remembered that I had not 
 only not seen a child but I had not seen a woman 
 since I entered the town. This dizzying fact was 
 so astounding to me that I stopped in sheer and 
 sudden fright and leaned against a tree near at hand 
 in order to assure myself that it was true. Step by 
 step, with minutest accuracy, I went over in my 
 mind the ground which I had trodden. I recalled the 
 anxious, hurrying figures of men, whose oddities 
 of raiment no longer tempted me to smile, but not 
 the face of a woman could I conjure up in the retro- 
 spect, nor even the glimpse of a woman's garment. 
 I had not, with a weakness which I think the angels 
 forgive, turned on the streets to look after a woman's 
 beautiful figure. I surely had not seen a woman on 
 those unswept doorsteps, I had not caught a glimpse 
 of a woman in those dust-ridden parlours. Even the 
 blooming faces and joyous, sparkling chatter of 
 school-girls had been wholly absent from the streets 
 which I had traversed. 
 
 With a sigh I thought of the still younger girls, 
 the unspeakably innocent little ones of three and 
 four years of age whose charming prattle I tried tq
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 persuade myself that I had surely heard about some 
 doorstep. But no, I never failed to notice these 
 darlings, and my memory told me with unfailing 
 accuracy that I had seen only men. Men, no one 
 but men, bald, angular men, and these in their bold 
 loneliness appearing to be robbed of all the graces 
 and sweetness of immortal beings ! 
 
 My speculations as to the meaning of the strange 
 state of things which I had observed in the town 
 into which I had fallen, had hitherto been only those 
 prompted by a dignified and philosophical curiosity. 
 But the shock which I experienced on discovering 
 the utter absence of woman from my environment 
 had now made them positively painful. I stood still 
 and shivered in the street. Surely I had gotten into 
 an uncanny place, from which the sweetness and 
 beauty of woman and the innocence of children had 
 been banished ! I could bear the suspense no longer. 
 Casting my hitherto dignified deportment to the 
 winds I ran recklessly after a man who had emerged 
 from a drug store at some distance in front of me 
 and seized him almost rudely by the arm.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It was a fine-looking man that I had thus uncere- 
 moniously grasped by the arm, albeit he seemed to 
 be plunged into the same deep dejection that I had 
 observed in all his fellows. Like them, his hair and 
 beard were neglected and unkempt, and there was a 
 devouring melancholy in his eyes. His collar, in- 
 stead of being fastened by any mechanical con- 
 trivance, depended solely upon his scarf for being 
 held in place. This scarf was closely tied around 
 his neck in a hard knot. Occasionally, when he 
 turned his head to one side or the other, one end of 
 his collar would escape from the scarf and stand of! 
 from his throat at an obtuse angle. But of this he 
 appeared to be quite careless, and for the most part 
 unconscious. Like many other men whom I had 
 seen, one hand was awkwardly wrapped up in a 
 cloth of sombre hue, and in the other hand he carried 
 a bottle labelled " For Burns."
 
 8 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir,*' I cried, " but I beg you to tell 
 me what horrible misfortune has befallen this place. 
 It seems like a land of mysterious mourning. Has 
 some fearful plague devastated it ? For Heaven's 
 sake, tell me, where are the women ? " 
 
 The man regarded me with an air of deep surprise, 
 which, however, lent no animation to his cheerless 
 countenance as he replied : 
 
 " Is it possible that you are not aware of the Great 
 Woman's Strike which has now been in progress 
 here for more than three months ? The women of 
 this country have combined as a sex to utterly refuse 
 to perform any longer those duties and functions 
 which have hitherto been magnanimously marked 
 out for them by man as being the sole tasks pre- 
 destined for them by the Creator. They say that 
 the chains which have bound them for unnumbered 
 ages, although artfully garlanded with flowers and 
 called by sentimental and endearing names, are 
 older and more galling than those of any bonds- 
 people on the globe. They have decided that the 
 time has come to throw off those chains." 
 
 "Do you really mean," I gasped, " that the women 
 have struck for what they suppose to be their rights, 
 as a sex ? " 
 
 " That is exactly what I me-an," replied the man,
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 " They have struck for their rights as a sex ; " and 
 he fumbled for the end of his collar. 
 
 My surprise at this statement was so overwhelm- 
 ing, the idea of woman ever combining and striking 
 as a sex had been so utterly undreamed of in my 
 philosophy that I could not speak for several 
 moments, seeing which the man said, while for the 
 first time a sickly and self-conscious smile appeared 
 upon his features : 
 
 " I must be off. I left my clothes boiling on the 
 parlour stove this morning, and as it is now past 
 noon, I fear that the water has all boiled away." 
 And he turned away. 
 
 " But for God's sake," I cried after him, " where 
 have the women gone, and their innocent children ? 
 Tell me that before I flee from this accursed place 
 and shake its dust from off my feet forever. Surely 
 the women have not made away with themselves ? " 
 
 "Oh, no," said the man, " it is not quite so bad as 
 that. The women have simply wholly withdrawn 
 from their habitations with men. They have taken 
 possession of the commodious buildings of a large 
 institute on the hill overlooking the town. There 
 they confer with delegations from the masculine 
 authorities. They left not a single female of any 
 class in the town, taking with them even the poor,
 
 io The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 the sick, and the aged. The grandmothers, the 
 matrons, the blooming girls of sixteen, and the little 
 girls of four or five are all together there. All male 
 children who were so young as to be dependent on 
 their mothers for care they also took. There is not 
 a woman young or old in the town. Woman's 
 abandonment of man has been complete, and," he 
 added with a shudder, " final, unless the guarantee 
 they ask is given them." 
 
 Having said this the man hastened down a side 
 street, cutting, as I afterwards remembered, a very 
 grotesque figure, the tails of hisbuttonlesscoat flying 
 loosely behind him. 
 
 But the questions which now began to crowd my 
 excited mind respecting the strange state of affairs 
 by which I was surrounded, imperatively demanded 
 an answer, and I lost no time in looking for some 
 one who should further satisfy me. The man who 
 first caught my attention was loitering near a corner, 
 apparently studying the numerous advertisements of 
 pain-killers, salves, ointments and cures for burns 
 which were conspicuously displayed in the windows 
 of a drug store. He stood with his hands in his 
 pockets, and had a more jaunty air than any one 
 whom I had yet observed. He was tall and thin, 
 with whiskers on the end of his chin. There was a
 
 The Stnke of a Sex. n 
 
 look of loquacity about him which encouraged 
 approach, and also a " make the best of it " air which 
 had the effect of somewhat relieving my painful con- 
 cern of mind. This man had given up collars 
 entirely. His coat was wide open and his whole 
 attitude seemed to defiantly assert that collars and 
 buttons were not, and never had been, any essential 
 part of his make-up. To my observation respecting 
 the Woman's Strike, which I made as general and 
 incidental as possible in order to get at his view of 
 it, he replied : 
 
 " Yaas, it's a kind of a hinderment. But the worst 
 thing about it is the set-back it's going to give the 
 population here in Hustleburg. Now there's Sprawl- 
 town, the rival town in our county what's trying to 
 git the County Seat away from us. At the last 
 census by doin' some of the tallest kind of lyin' and 
 takin' names off from all the tombstones in the 
 cemetery, they made out that they had about five 
 more inhabitants than we had. Well, now to make 
 things wuss, the women of Sprawltown didn't tumble 
 to the idea of strikin' till about a month after the 
 women of Hustleburg did, an' the birth rate goin' 
 right on'll give it a great start. 1 ' 
 
 " Do you mean to say that the Strike has com- 
 pletely separated husbands and wives ?" I asked.
 
 12 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 " Reckon it has, stranger," replied the man. " Oh 
 a woman's got grit when she makes her mind up, 
 and they say they're goin' to have their rights this time 
 or they'll let the race die clean off from the globe. 
 Shouldn't wonder, if this thing ain't settled before 
 long, if some one should have the chance to act out 
 the part of ' Campbell's Last Man ' that I used to 
 speak when I went to school. If I am the last man 
 you can just bet I'll go over to Sprawltown to declaim 
 it after every one there's been laid out. I'd just 
 like to show that snipe that edits the Sprawltown 
 Git There that the population of Hustleburg was 
 ahead once without counting any dead men 
 either." 
 
 " But how did the women get the idea of striking 
 for their rights in this unheard of way ? Such an 
 idea was never before to my knowledge discussed 
 or dreamed of." 
 
 " Well," said the man, " that young fellow who is 
 coming yonder can tell you a good deal more about 
 it than I can. He was engaged to be married when 
 the Strike came on, and what did his best girl do 
 but drop her weddin'-dress, half finished as if it 
 were a hot pertater, and leave him like a shot. 
 Jehosophat ! to think that Solomon, the wisest man 
 that ever lived, should ask thousands of years ago, if
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 13 
 
 1 a bride could forget her attire,' and then to have 
 one up and do it here in this nineteenth century. 
 I'll introduce you to the young chap. He's naturally 
 desperately anxious to get things fixed up, and he 
 knows just what the women want." 
 
 The young man referred to, who had now come up 
 to where we stood, was a broad-shouldered, good- 
 looking young fellow who bore a serious, introspec- 
 tive air, together with one of brave manliness. My 
 chance acquaintance introduced the young man to 
 me as Mr. Justin Lister, and I offered my name in 
 return Rodney Carford. 
 
 I was impatient to begin serious conversation with 
 Mr. Lister, but our loquacious introducer stopped 
 long enough to say, as he pointed at the advertise- 
 ments, in the druggist's window, of oil for burns, 
 which were named after all the saints in the 
 calendar : 
 
 " This man who runs this drug store's gettin 1 
 ready to retire from business. Got rich sellin' arnica 
 and St. Huldy's oil since the strike began. You see 
 men can't monkey around stoves and flat-irons and 
 such things in a kitchen without knockin' the skin 
 off from their knuckles and burnin' their fingers. 
 They ain't got the patience of women, if they had the 
 skill. I'm thinking of buyin' this man out if the
 
 *4 
 
 Thz Strike of a Sex. 
 
 Strike continers, and as I know two or three other 
 men who've got their eyes on the place, I'll have 
 to leave you to close up the deal." And he disap- 
 peared into the drug store.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I turned eagerly toward Mr. Justin Lister, as soon 
 as our companion had left us. He was about my age, 
 and there was a certain sympathetic friendliness 
 in the glance of his frank blue eye that established a 
 kind of magnetic rapport between us at once. It 
 was therefore an easy matter for me to ask the 
 privilege of accompanying him wherever he was 
 going in order that I might have an opportunity to 
 talk with him. He assented to my request readily 
 and added that he was going to his own house, and 
 if I could put up with such awkward hospitality as 
 a man unassisted by woman could give, he would be 
 pleased to entertain me. I accepted his offer with 
 pleasure, and as we walked leisurely along the well- 
 paved and shaded street, I lost no time in begging 
 him to acquaint me with the beginning of this 
 astounding Woman's Strike. " How did it come 
 about ?" 
 
 fxd
 
 1 6 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 " Why," said Mr. Lister, " it came about in the 
 most simple way in the world, so simple in fact that 
 it reminds one of Artemus Ward's story about the 
 man who was confined for sixteen years in a loath- 
 some dungeon without food or drink. A bright idea 
 struck him and he opened the window and got out. 
 You remember what an eye-opener the great Strike 
 of the London dockmen was ; the whole world 
 suddenly realized, as by an electric shock, that 
 Labour, instead of being the footstool or fawning slave 
 of Capital as it had stupidly been assumed to be, 
 was easily its master. Through its enormous power 
 for combination, Labour was King, and could dictate 
 terms to Capital which it could enforce whenever it 
 pleased. This discovery, for it was as really a 
 discovery as if a new continent had been found, 
 illumined the whole civilised globe. All classes 
 of people in the world who were suffering from 
 oppression began to look carefully about them to see 
 if the weapons for their deliverance were not lying 
 unperceived and rusting in their own hands. Like 
 a flash of lightning the women of this country saw 
 that they possessed as great an advantage as the 
 ^jadon dockmen did. They saw that by combining 
 as a sex into one solid mass they could place such 
 limitations and embargoes upon man, as would wrest
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 17 
 
 from him at one master-stroke the tardy rights for 
 which they had been cringing and suing for wearisome 
 years. Why, good Heavens ! the very perpetuity of 
 the race was in their hands. About this time also 
 there was much earnest talk in many periodicals 
 which sprang up, about the ' Brotherhood of Man.' 
 Strange as it may appear, the women suddenly took 
 up the notion that if all men were brothers, all women 
 were none the less sisters, and as such should minister 
 to each other like sisters, and protect each other 
 from all harm. This great idea of the Sisterhood of 
 Women, joined with woman's discovery of her real 
 power when in combination, led to the Great Woman's 
 Strike which you see now in progress.' 1 
 
 " And this," I said, a sudden light breaking in 
 upon my mind, " is, of course, the cause of the utter 
 lack of taste and neatness which I see everywhere, 
 in the persons of men as well as in the keeping of the 
 dwellings. And can it also be the reason," I added 
 musingly, "that I see no buttons on the garments of 
 any one rich or poor ?" 
 
 " Oh, the buttons !" said Mr. Lister, with the first 
 genuine laugh that I had heard that day ; " one 
 of the first things that the women did after the strike 
 began, was to send word to the tailors, that inasmuch 
 as the sewing of buttons on to garments had from time
 
 iS The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 immemorial been the chief high prerogative which 
 man had grandly conceded to woman, they did not 
 propose to allow any one to take it from them. 
 Small and poor as woman's privileges had been in 
 the world's great history she could not part with a 
 single one of them. They made the poor tailors 
 quake in their shoes by threatening that they should 
 never know the smile of a woman again if they sewed 
 a single button on to a garment of any kind. The 
 tailors hastened to send a delegation to the Women's 
 Executive Committee, meekly promising to obey. 
 They even offered to take the buttons off from all 
 the garments they had on hand, if any such propitia- 
 tion was needed.'' 
 
 " This regulation in regard to buttons, must have 
 been rather hard on the button manufacturers ?" I 
 suggested, with an effort at jocularity which I 
 had not deemed possible under the circumstances. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Lister, "it has completely ex- 
 tinguished that industry for the present. I under- 
 stand that the Button Manufacturers have a delega- 
 tion now on its knees before the Woman's Executive 
 Committee imploring them to rescue them from 
 gaping ruin. But the young woman who is chair- 
 woman of that committee is a person of great spirit, a 
 regular Jeanne d' Arc. She will never yield," and Mr.
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 19 
 
 Justin Lister sighed so deeply that I suddenly 
 remembered that the Strike had summarily deprived 
 him of a prospective bride. 
 
 We walked along in silence for a few moments 
 when all at once it occurred to my mind that I had 
 not made any inquiry as to the nature of the rights 
 for which woman was contending. 
 
 In fact, I had assumed, so completely as a matter 
 of course, that the rights she was asking for were 
 simply those which I had seen from tims to time 
 sarcastically enumerated in some scoffing newspaper, 
 that it seemed unnecessary for me to say as I did to 
 Mr. Lister : 
 
 "These rights which women are asking in such 
 an imperious fashion are doubtless the old ones with 
 which I am familiar : greater security in the holding 
 of property, the right to vote, and to be eligible for 
 all civil offices, including, perhaps, the Presidency, 
 to be placed on an equal footing with man, as re- 
 gards wages and all material advantages. These, 
 doubtless cover all the things that they are con- 
 tending for?" 
 
 " Oh, no," said Mr. Lister, " every one of the things 
 which you mention were granted to women within 
 two weeks after the strike began. So far as they are 
 concerned, woman is to-day the full equ.-.l of man.
 
 2O The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 Those rights were all included in one great Omnibus 
 Bill, which was passed as quickly as the most expert 
 legislation could accomplish it. I assure you that 
 such was the awful completeness of the Great 
 Woman's Strike that it did not take man three days 
 to discover that life was not worth living without her. 
 If it had been simply the withdrawal of a single class 
 of women and their absence from a few scattered 
 households the effect would not have been so abso- 
 lutely terrifying. But to have woman forsake man 
 as a whole, completely withdrawing her graces and 
 softening in fluences from his environment, created a 
 monstrous chasm, a void, at which angels might 
 shudder. It was like the divorce of Heaven and Earth, 
 or as if the lamp of civilization had suddenly been 
 turned down, and men appeared to each other in the 
 twilight which ensued like strange, wolfish animals." 
 
 " I can readily understand that," I said with a 
 slight shudder, " but if all the rights I mentioned 
 have been granted to woman, I cannot conceive of 
 any further occasion for the Strike. Why is it not at 
 an end ?" 
 
 " It is not at an end," said Mr. Lister, "because 
 since woman has discovered her power, she has 
 greatly enlarged the category of her rights, and it 
 includes one now beside which all those you have
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 21 
 
 named are trivial indeed. She has fitly named this 
 great right her Magna Charta, nor could she have 
 ever made such an unprecedented stand as she is 
 now making on a less vital principal of justice than 
 that of Habeas Corpus. It is a striking evidence of 
 the tremendous attachment that exists between the 
 sexes, that man, eager for the restoration of the 
 cheering sunshine of his natural companion, was 
 disposed to grant this final great concession as pre- 
 cipitately as he did the right to political equality, 
 but it could not be done so lightly. It called for the 
 most serious, philosophical consideration on the part 
 of every individual man, and therefore some time has 
 unavoidably elapsed. But the frightful contingency 
 of allowing the race to lapse from the earth admits 
 of but little delay. The granting of Woman's Magna 
 Charta is to be decided by the ballot. To-day is 
 Friday and on Monday next the fate of the world 
 will be decided." 
 
 " What is this Magna Charta ?" I said in awe, for 
 the picture which my companion's words brought to 
 my mind of a desolated planet reeling through 
 space, made me teel strangely weak. I could 
 scarcely persuade myself that I was not dreaming. 
 
 "The Woman's Magna Charta," replied Mr. 
 Lister, " is "
 
 22 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 But at this moment a passing newsboy shouted, 
 11 Extra Hue and Cry ! Rejection of the Button 
 Manufacturers' Petition ! Complete collapse of the 
 Corset Industry! Great failures among the Ladies' 
 Tailors!" 
 
 My friend bought a copy of the paper and leading 
 the way up the steps of a handsome residence, at 
 which we had now arrived, said : 
 
 " You are heartily welcome to my home, but I 
 must again remind you that the soul of all delicate 
 and artistic hospitality has vanished from it. It 
 does not contain a woman."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Although the house to which Mr. Justin Lister 
 now introduced me was more orderly than many 
 which I had observed on the streets through which I 
 had passed, the absence of woman from its walls was 
 still painfully apparent. It was as if warmth and 
 light and flowers and sweet perfumes were suddenly 
 wanting in a place in which you had always been 
 accustomed to find them and to solace yourself with 
 them. Indeed, the suddenness of woman's flight, if 
 I may so term it, was brought much more sharply 
 to my consciousness by this visit to a house in 
 which she had so recently held sway. There were 
 unmistakable signs on every hand of unfinished 
 feminine occupations. The piano stood open with a 
 sonata by Beethoven lying upon it ; artistic needle- 
 work with the needles still sticking in it lay in a 
 window seat, and a half finished sketch upon an 
 easel all bore mute but telling testimony to the irre-
 
 24 The Strike oj a Sex. 
 
 parable loss of gentle and artistic hands. Plants 
 which had evidently had the cherishing care of 
 feminine tenderness were languishing in a window, 
 and a drooping canary disconsolately buried its head 
 in its feathers in its cage. But that which weighed 
 most heavily upon my sunken spirits was the inde- 
 scribably pathetic sighing and whining of a large 
 Newfoundland dog as he constantly roamed from 
 room to room in search of a mistress's caressing 
 hand. I finally had to entreat Mr. Lister with tears 
 in my eyes to put him away where I could not see 
 his grief. 
 
 Mr. Lister, as he explained to me, had lost not 
 only his sweetheart and prospective bride by the 
 Great Woman's Strike, but his mother and two sis- 
 ters as well. This fact raised the question in my 
 mind as to how the women were supported in their 
 retirement, and I said : 
 
 " I can easily understand how the dockmen of 
 London could stand the hunger of protracted idle- 
 ness with their muscular frames and rude tastes, but 
 how can refined and delicate women undergo the 
 hardships of such a siege ? " 
 
 " You forget," said Mr. Lister, " that the London 
 dockmen had many sympathizers who contributed 
 food and money to their cause. The women also have
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 25 
 
 a legion of sympathizers, and if they had not, no 
 man who has a mother or a sister would see them 
 want. The result is that the women are like a vast 
 army which is voluntarily supported by the very 
 persons with whom they are in controversy." 
 
 The meal which Mr. Lister now prepared with his 
 own hands, consisted wholly of canned meats and 
 vegetables which he had procured from a neighbour- 
 ing grocery. These he had warmed on the stove in 
 their original packages, in order, as he explained, 
 "to save dish-washing." " Fourier," he added, 
 " was claimed by his disciples to be a truly great 
 man, and in his 'Division of Labour ' he did not put 
 dish-washing into the ' Class of Attractiveness,' but 
 into the * Class of Necessity,' so you see I am trying 
 to dispense with it altogether." 
 
 But the rudeness of the service or the incomplete- 
 ness of the meal scarcely provoked a thought/so 
 deeply was my mind engrossed by the consideration 
 of the astounding facts of which I had that day for 
 the first time been made aware. I had read and 
 heard many times before, with a pang, of the breaking 
 up of single households and the parting of husbands 
 and wives by divorce, but to have the ties which 
 bound together all men and all women sundered so 
 suddenly, produced a groping confusion of mind that
 
 26 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 made it impossible for me to think with any con- 
 tinuity. I mention this fact because it may seem 
 strange to the reader that I did not immediately 
 pursue my inquiry as to the specific nature of the 
 right which woman was asking of man. To tell the 
 truth, that inquiry had for the time being entirely 
 passed out of my mind, and I could only express such 
 fitful ideas as came to me without any premedita- 
 tion. 
 
 When the simple meal was finished and the cans 
 containing it were (manlike) tucked away in the cor- 
 ner of a bookshelf, we settled ourselves in easy 
 chairs for the evening, and Mr. Lister produced 
 cigars. After we had smoked for a few minutes in 
 silence, I said, as the first thought that chanced to 
 come into my mind : 
 
 " I understood you to say that the Strike included 
 all classes of women, but of course you excepted the 
 courtesans. I cannot help wondering how the Strike 
 affects their condition." 
 
 " Courtesans ! " said Mr. Lister in a tone of deep 
 surprise. " Don't you know that there are no courte- 
 sans ? " 
 
 " No courtesans ! " I exclaimed- I abruptly arose 
 from my chair and walked aimlessly into the centre 
 of the room. Then, partly recovering myself, I walked
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 27 
 
 back and again sat down. The continuous suc- 
 cession of surprises which the day had brought to 
 me had insensibly worn upon my nervous system. I 
 repeated mechanically, more to myself than to Mr. 
 Lister, " No courtesans! " 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Lister. " I did not think but 
 that you knew it, there are no courtesans. When 
 woman saw that the success of her movement de- 
 pended upon her solidly combining into one vast 
 Sisterhood, she was confronted at the outset by the 
 fearful chasm which existed between her and her so- 
 called fallen sisters. How could the chasm be bridged ? 
 Studying this problem with agonizing earnestness, 
 woman soon saw that the only way to solve it was 
 for woman herself to at once and forever abolish the 
 courtesan class. She clearly recognized the fact, 
 and it was like a revelation to her, that the courtesan 
 was but the extreme victim of an intolerably cruel 
 and satanic dispensation ; that the courtesan had 
 been but a little more deeply trodden under foot 
 than her more respectable sister. With this new 
 view woman utterly discarded the idea that the 
 courtesan was a special sinner to be approached with 
 a moral tract and a condescending kind of forgive- 
 ness. The courtesan had been unspeakably sinned 
 against, not only by man but by woman as well, and
 
 28 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 more, perhaps, than any sufferer from cruelty on the 
 globe, deserved the loving pity and succour of her 
 sisters. Seeing this, with real contrition the women 
 decided at once that it was their first business to 
 take these sisters who had been so cruelly perverted 
 by man, to their own bosoms, not as if they 
 were prodigals, but as if they were loved ones who 
 had met with the most cruel blow of misfortune. 
 
 This, bear in mind, was the first great act in the 
 Woman's Strike. By an edict which was as effectual 
 and will be as celebrated in history as Lincoln's 
 Proclamation of Emancipation, woman has forever 
 abolished the courtesan class. There can never be 
 another courtesan, simply because woman has formed 
 a self-protecting league that will never permit it. 
 Dastards there may be among men who will here- 
 after seek to take advantage of woman's love, or her 
 sweet complaisance toward man, but if such there be 
 it were better for them if they had never been born. 
 They only will be the sufferers. Held up to the 
 scorn of the universe and forever ostracised by 
 woman, their punishment will be as heavy as Cain's. 
 But whatever may take place, woman will never 
 again allow one of her own sex to lose caste through 
 man's treachery. They will defend each other 
 against the world.''
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 29 
 
 " Can it be possible," I said, "that so terrible a 
 problem as the social evil, that has been hopelessly 
 discussed by moral philosophers for ages, could be 
 solved so quickly, and by woman, too ? " 
 
 11 And who in God's name," said Mr. Lister, "if 
 you stop to think of it, who but woman could ever 
 abolish the courtesan class ? Certainly not man. 
 He is constantly creating courtesans. Nothing but 
 a self protecting league among all women, uniting 
 them into one common sisterhood, could ever have 
 stopped this evil. Moreover, the power to do it came 
 with their combination into a universal sisterhood." 
 
 Too much overwhelmed by the strange things that 
 I had heard to keep up the conversation, I sank into 
 a seemingly hopeless labyrinth of confusing thoughts. 
 This lasted till Mr. Lister, who observed that I 
 was very tired, showed me to my room, having first 
 accomplished the somewhat difficult and precarious 
 task of filling a lamp with coal oil. The room to which 
 he conducted me was evidently the choicest guest- 
 chamber in the house, and it was equally evident 
 that it had not been occupied since the flight of the 
 women. It was in the most exquisite order. No 
 man's hand could have equalled the artistic precision 
 with which the snowy coverings were laid upon the 
 spotless bed. Weary as I was I gazed upon it with
 
 30 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 a feeling of profound awe. To lie upon that couch 
 which showed the last skilful touch of a vanished 
 woman's hand was a profanation of which, thank 
 Heaven, I was not capable. A luxurious rug which 
 lay on the floor beside the bed better accorded with 
 my feeling of deep humility. I stretched myself 
 upon it, and, completely worn out by the fatigues and 
 mental shocks of the day, swiftly sank into a deep 
 and dreamless sleep.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 When I awoke the next morning my mind was 
 clear, and though the recollection of the fact that 
 woman had forsaken man came back to me like the 
 memory of a deeply painful blow, I was still enough 
 like myself to assist Mr. Lister in the task of break- 
 fast-getting with some show of cheerfulness. Break- 
 fast was, however, with the exception of coffee, in 
 the making of which Mr. Lister showed some skill, a 
 repetition of the supper of the previous evening. 
 That it was not again eaten from the original tin 
 cans was, I remember, due to my calling Mr. Lister's 
 attenticn to the fact that it was sa ; d to be dangerous 
 to eat food which had stood for even a brief period of 
 time in open tin cans. This suggestion threw him 
 back unwillingly upon the necessity of dish-washing, 
 for he had to open fresh cans and empty the contents 
 into dishes, which he procured from the pantry. I 
 had observed before during my life that where men, 
 (3')
 
 32 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 under the stress of circumstances, had assumed the 
 function of dish-washing their dish-cloths speedily 
 took on a grotesque blackness that made them 
 a positively fascinating study. Two or three times 
 after this, in spite of the strange faets which were 
 pressing upon my attention, I found myself absorbed 
 in a kind of rapt contemplation of Mr. Lister's 
 dish-cloths. 
 
 While the meal was in progress I remember that I 
 inquired of Mr. Lister how I could possibly pass the 
 time till the ballots should be cast, for I was conscious 
 of such a horror of home-sickness that I felt I must 
 do something to divert my rnind till the terrible 
 suspense should be over. Among other things which 
 I suggested at random, I spoke of visiting some club, 
 as I presumed, without doubt, that there must be 
 several in the town. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Carford," said Mr. Lister looking at 
 me sympathetically, " I fear you have only just begun 
 to fathom the depth of the effect of this desolating 
 and singular Strike, if you suppose that men's clubs 
 could possibly exist after wjmin had forsaken man 
 as she has now done." 
 
 "Clubs not exist !" I replied in astonishment. " I 
 should suppose that they would be the only solace in 
 this intolerable gloom."
 
 u Strike of a Sex. 33 
 
 " I know,' 1 said Mr. Lister, " that clubs drew men 
 from their homes before the Strike began, and that 
 they were therefore the source of some domestic 
 trouble from woman's natural jealousy of them. But 
 this you must bear in mind was when the man who 
 went to his club possessed a home made radiant bya 
 patient, beautiful, subjugated woman who awaited his 
 lordly pleasure. Man took the ownership of woman 
 as a matter of course, a desirable and comforting 
 thing to be sure, but still something that was always 
 to be at his beck and ca 11, and therefore a thing for 
 which he was not called upon to make any sacrifice. 
 But when all women, calling each other sisters, with- 
 drew themselves utterly from men with the awful 
 completeness which you now see, there was a fearful 
 reaction. For days men shunned each other as if 
 they were wild beasts, and the thought of assembling 
 together for anything like social interchange, was 
 simply intolerable. The club houses closed im- 
 mediately." 
 
 " But there are the theatres, are there not ? " 
 " Unfortunately, no," said Mr. Lister. " The 
 theatres made a desperate effort to continue for a 
 time, and even sought to carry on their dramas by 
 having their male actors personate women. But all 
 men fled irom this hollow deceit as if it were a
 
 34 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 ghastly mockery, and the actors were soon stalking 
 before empty seats. The theatres, too, closed." 
 
 " But the churches," I said, with a groan ; " sure- 
 ly the churches are accessible ? " 
 
 Mr. Lister shook his head. " I am sorry," said 
 he, "to have to deny you that last consolation. 
 When the Strike began the churches were suddenly 
 filled to overflowing by men who seldom or never 
 went there before. They seemed to have an un- 
 reasoning instinct that the church might afford them 
 some salutary consolation in their unexampled 
 bereavement, but such did not prove to be the case. 
 The truth was, that the ministers themselves felt as 
 much as any class the deep reproach which woman's 
 action cast upon all mankind. They justly felt that 
 teachers though they were, and exemplars though 
 they were supposed to be, they had done even less 
 than far less favoured men to lighten woman's woes. 
 Hence their perfunctory ministrations were without 
 force, utterly inadequate, valueless, and comfortless. 
 It was but a little while before they were feebly 
 talking to empty pews. The churches closed. 
 There are no assemblies of men of any kind except 
 such as are for urging on the completion of the 
 guarantee, and arranging for the casting of the 
 ballots. This, as I told you, will take place the day
 
 Tlis Strike of a Sex. 35 
 
 after to-morrow. Till then I will spend as much 
 time as possible with you, but 1 must now excuse 
 myself as I have some clerical duties to perform in 
 connection with the coming casting of the ballots." 
 
 Having said this, Mr. Lister withdrew from the 
 house, but before doing so he showed me into his 
 well-filled library and promised to return at noon. 
 
 Left alone, I essayed to read a volume of new 
 poems, but the face of a woman, not that of any par- 
 ticular woman whom I had known, but a typical 
 face representing all women, hovered persistently, 
 and with reproachful mien, between mine eyes and 
 the page. I cast the book aside. I was strangely 
 nervous. Presently the door-bell rang, and I sprang 
 from my chair in unreasoning terror. For several 
 moments I stood motionless in the centre of the 
 room, muttering only, like Macbeth, " Silence that 
 dreadful bell," but at last arousing myself I went to 
 the door. A boy stood there holding a bundle of 
 papers under his arm, one of which he pertly ex- 
 tended toward me. 
 
 11 Have a Bitter Cry, Mister ? " 
 
 "A Bitter Cry /" said I patulantly, " what in 
 Heaven's name is that ? " 
 
 The boy stared at me for a moment in great sur- 
 prise, and then said ;
 
 36 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 "Why it is the paper which the women print 
 every morning ; just out, don't yer know ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, to be sure," said I, eagerly snatching 
 at the paper which he held toward me. "Give me 
 the Bitter Cry ; it is the echo of my own soul." The 
 boy stared at me in irreverent wonder, but took the 
 coin I gave him and dashed down the street, while I 
 closed the door and sank into a chair to read. I 
 absorbed rather than read the contents of this 
 strange paper, and this was the first article upon 
 which my eye fell in the Bitter Cry : 
 
 "TIMOTHY'S COMING." 
 
 Considering the vast number of people who posi- 
 tively did not want little Timothy Totten, but who 
 would have felt infinitely obliged to him if he had 
 utterly stayed away, it is somewhat surprising that 
 he should have ventured into this cold world. 
 
 In the first place, his once patient, much-enduring 
 mother, on whose breast he lay alternately squalling 
 and sleeping, cannot be said to have wanted him for 
 she had already borne nine like him, and had long, 
 long ago spent all of her beauty and most of her 
 strength in bearing and caring for Timothy's trouble- 
 some predecessors. On her part, then, it must be 
 admitted at the outset, that the bearing of Timothy
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 37 
 
 was simply a common example of the sublime and 
 unsurpassable endurance of woman, combined with 
 the stolid submission of a drudge who sees no escape 
 from her lot. Indeed, the sentiments of Timothy's 
 mother in regard to having children had long ago 
 come to be quite the reverse of those of the Bible 
 Rachel. Instead of saying, " Give me children or I 
 die," the feelings of her heart on this subject, had 
 they found any expression, through many wearisome 
 years, would have taken this form : " Save me from 
 undesired children or I die." Certainly, whoever 
 else in the wide world may have wanted Timothy, it 
 was clear that his mother did not want him. 
 
 There is but little less doubt that Timothy's coming 
 was unwelcome to his father, although he observed 
 it with his usual stolid indifference. He was a day- 
 labourer, and already had so many children that he 
 could not support them in anything like comfort or 
 decency; and for Timothy to come and swell the 
 number of gaping mouths, just when it was so diffi- 
 cult to get work, and labour was so cheap, was 
 decidedly inconsiderate on his part and a downright 
 piece of ill-luck. Then there would be some 
 scanty clothing to be bought for Timothy, and 
 possibly a doctor's bill, and school taxes (provided 
 Timothy had any schooling), and as all these things
 
 38 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 loomed up, in prospect, before Timothy's father, he 
 felt decidedly inhospitable toward Timothy, and as 
 though, if it were possible, he would like to send him 
 back where he came from with a surly note of rejec- 
 tion. Yes, nothing was plainer than that, so far as 
 Timothy's father was concerned, Timothy was not 
 wanted. He was superfluous, or de trop, as the French 
 say. 
 
 As Timothy's parents clearly did not want him, 
 neither can it be said that Timothy's brothers and 
 sisters wanted him. They always licked their plates 
 and fingers very clean at their meagre table, and 
 sighed ruefully for more, and had they in any way 
 realized that their already too scanty rations were to 
 be divided with this new-comer, they would have 
 clamored louder than anybody against his coming. 
 Timothy's brothers and sisters, already poorly cared 
 for, were evidently to gain nothing by his coming, 
 therefore they could not possibly want him. He 
 had better have stayed away so far as they were con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Then there was a silent but general conviction on 
 the part of the inhabitants of the town in which 
 Timothy was born, that there were Tottens enough. 
 Although they might not have held a town-meeting 
 to take any steps to prevent the coming of Timothy,
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 if they had had a foreknowledge of it, there is none 
 the less doubt that they regarded his coming as 
 something of a public calamity. They could not ex- 
 pect that Timothy, with his slender chances for 
 education and moral training, would be any improve- 
 ment on the other nine Tottens, and these had long 
 been looked upon as a grevious infliction. All of 
 the boys had been in the Reform School (the only 
 schooling they ever had) and they were generally 
 accredited with all the hen-roost robbing, water- 
 melon thieving, and miscellaneous trouble-making 
 which took place in the village. The overseer of the 
 poor regarded them as a future inheritance, and even 
 the Census Taker (although a stranger), when he 
 visited the house, looked as though he thought there 
 were too many of them. But perhaps his prejudice 
 may have been owing to the fact that when he got up 
 to wipe his pen Bill Totten moved his chair back a 
 little, and when he sat down again it was not there. 
 In this swelling tide of remonstrance against the 
 coming of Timothy, it cannot injustice be omitted 
 that even the dogs and cats of his native village, 
 as well as an ancient donkey who grazed upon the 
 Common, would have loudly joined eould they have 
 had any intelligent sense of it. Nor would the very 
 frogs in the adjacent marshes, already sorely stoned
 
 40 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 by Timothy's brothers, have failed to add their dis- 
 mal, croaking protest to the universal cry. To all 
 these helpless creatures the coming of Timothy 
 simply meant the advent of another tormentor. It 
 was of course utterly impossible that they should 
 want him. 
 
 Finally to add to this cloud of objectors to 
 Timothy's coming, a dry and hard-headed and terri- 
 ble old man by the name of Malthus, had written a 
 book on Population, in which he had proved by many 
 stony facts and immutable figures, that Timothy was 
 not wanted; that, in fact, the world would be greatly 
 better off without him, and that he ought, by every 
 reasonable means, to be discouraged from coming. 
 
 All scientific people had great respect for this 
 book, so that if all the conditions had been under- 
 stood, and a vote had been taken throughout the 
 whole world as to whether Timothy should come or 
 not, there is no doubt that there would have been an 
 overwhelming, universal negative. 
 
 But in spite of this general, though silent protest, 
 beginning with his own father and mother, and ex- 
 tending in larger and larger circles to society and 
 the great public, and even including the mute 
 sufferers among the beasts and birds and fishes } 
 Timothy has come, and, as he has thus audaciously
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 41 
 
 braved the public, and defied the very universe, as 
 it were, he must smart for it. Of course he ought 
 to smart for it, and happily his worst enemy could 
 not wish him a greater punishment than that which 
 will befall him. Indeed, we doubt not that if 
 Timothy himself could see the stony path which lies 
 before him, he would bitterly repent of having come, 
 and would cry out as Cain did : " My punishment is 
 greater than I can bear ! " 
 
 In the first place, though the milk which he draws 
 from his mother's breast may taste sweet to him, 
 there will be no love in his mother's heart for him, 
 but in its stead a dull sense of hopeless bitterness 
 and abuse, of which, in spite of herself, Timothy 
 will be the scape-goat. Her motherly nature, long 
 deadened to patience and gentleness, will have left 
 only harsh words for Timothy's baby-fretfulness, 
 and rude blows for his baby-mischievousness. 
 Kisses and caresses, a mother's yearning tenderness 
 toward him, a mother's guiding influence over him, 
 a mother's aspirations for him, these Timothy will 
 never know. He will simply be sullenly and 
 peevishly endured, so long as it would be a flagrant 
 crime to expel him, and will be left to his own harmful 
 devices as soon as possible. But then what business 
 had Timothv to come ? He was not wanted.
 
 42 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 To his father, little, curious Timothy will simply 
 be as one of the hens or pigs with which he plays 
 around the back door, though of course of nothing 
 like the same importance to the Totten household. 
 Rough words, and blows unalternated by anything 
 kindlier, rags and dirt, cold and hunger, will be his 
 home associations, and his education will be gotten 
 in the street. Brought up to no habits of settled 
 industry, yet impelled to in some way feed fierce 
 passions which have been trained to no other 
 restraint than that of cruel want, what wonder that 
 Timothy becomes the little wild bsast which society 
 so much dreaded, and which it was so fearfully 
 interested to have kept back ! 
 
 But Timothy grows up a predaceous, devouring 
 creature, with life before him which he must get 
 through in some way. 
 
 Happily for society, he may be fenced in by jails 
 for a part of the time, and thus gotten rid of, but 
 reappearing again at inteivals with accumulated 
 terrors, he pursues his predatory career until, his 
 constitution too broken for active violence, he be- 
 comes an unsightly, malodorous, pestiferous tramp, 
 and thus ends his short, eventful history, a mourn- 
 ful example of retributive justice for coming where 
 he was not wanted.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Are you prepared to enjoy the sight of a woman's 
 face ? " was Mr. Lister's first salutation to me as he 
 entered the parlour where I was sitting soon after 
 noon. The copy of The Bitter Cry which I was 
 reading fell from my hands. I looked at him search- 
 ingly, thinking that he must be jesting ; but as his 
 face was perfectly serious I concluded that he must 
 refer to the golden time when the "Strike" should be 
 peacefully settled, and woman should happily resume 
 her wonted place in the universe, or a much larger 
 one. I accordingly assured him sincerely that there 
 was no sight on earth that would give me greater 
 pleasure than the sight of a woman, and that I 
 should await the result of the ballot on Monday with 
 feverish impatience. 
 
 " But you need not wait the result of the ballot/' 
 said Mr. Lister, " for the women have given notice 
 (43)
 
 44 2V* Strike of a Sex. 
 
 that they will pass in procession through the town 
 to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 " Do you really mean that the women are going to 
 parade?" I asked, aghast at this unexpected novelty. 
 
 "Well," replied Mr. Lister, "I suppose it might 
 be called a parade, though that term usually carries 
 the idea of a noisy and sensational display, and 
 there will be none of this in the women's passage 
 through the town. Drums, trumpets, banners, 
 inscriptions, uniforms, speeches, and all the para- 
 phernalia of customary parades will be conspicuously 
 absent. Clothed in their ordinary garb, the women 
 will exhibit nothing but themselves, in simple, 
 critical sincerity. Before the ballots are cast they 
 deem it to be both just and proper that man should 
 see, in a simple panorama, exactly the condition of 
 woman as it has been up to to-day. To-morrow will 
 be Sunday, but as there are no church services the 
 women think it the most proper time for them to 
 walk quietly through the town." 
 
 Again it seemed to me that I must be dreaming. 
 Mobs there might have been in history of women 
 clamouring for bread in some oppressed and king- 
 ridden city, but the organization of all the women of 
 Free America into one vast Sisterhood, and their 
 peaceful, speechless procession through streets lined
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 45 
 
 with homes which they had so lately occupied with 
 men, and of which they had been the beacon, was a 
 thought calculated to fill one with speculative awe ! 
 
 But there were still many things concerning the 
 Strike which I did not understand, and about which 
 I wished to be fully informed before I should witnes 
 any such public exhibition. Accordingly, as Mr. 
 Lister was at leisure that afternoon, I gave myself 
 wholly to the task of learning all that I could about 
 this strange situation of the sexes. And first I 
 said : 
 
 " It is still exceedingly difficult for me to realize 
 that woman could ever take such a bold step as 
 to practically declare her independence of man. 
 Although I have always known of a few so-called 
 strong-minded women, yet these were not only 
 covertly ridiculed by the men, but by the majority of 
 their own sex as well. It certainly has been generally 
 supposed, and with much apparent reason, that 
 woman, as a whole did not possess that strength and 
 earnestness of character that would ever enable 
 her to carry out any great concerted movement for 
 what she might suppose to be her emancipation. I 
 confess," I continued, with a new and sudden sense 
 of shame, " that now I think of it, I have always 
 regarded woman mysel somewhat as I would a
 
 46 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 beautiful toy, the sweetest and most charming acces- 
 ory to life's happiness, but still so much devoted to 
 personal ornament as to be forever incapable of any 
 serious, persistent contention of a principle. The 
 sight of a gay ribbon or the prospect of a new bonnet 
 was, it was believed, sufficient to divert woman from 
 any such vagary as man denominated her * rights ' 
 to be. Moreover, at the time that I last gave any 
 attention to the subject, woman's vaulting social 
 ambition was preternaturally active in seeking and 
 buying, through marriage, the titled coronets of a 
 profligate and imbecile nobility. How then could 
 there be a transformation of character so sudden, 
 and a precipitate movement requiring such sheer, 
 desperate earnestness as this Woman's strike? " 
 
 " All that you say," replied Mr. Lister, " has been 
 more or less true of woman's character in the narrow 
 conditions into which she has been forced in the 
 past, but you must bear in mind that man as yet has 
 never seen woman in her deepest and truest 
 character. The warped and distorted exhibi- 
 tion of woman which has been given up to this 
 day, has been, in the main, like the acting 
 of fantastically dressed puppets in a children's 
 show. It is for the future, dating from this great 
 Woman's Strike to show the sublime possibilities of
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 47 
 
 woman's real character. And how in Heaven's 
 name could woman have shown any strength of 
 purpose in the past ? Robbed of all other means of 
 employing her brilliant faculties, and bowed down to 
 the doctrine that to look pretty was the chief end of 
 her being, what wonder that her taste for the trap- 
 ings and frivolities of life should have become 
 abnormally developed ? What wonder that being 
 denied all distinction but a vain and showy social 
 distinction, to be obtained only through marriage, 
 she should have aimed at the tinsel stars in that 
 firmament ? If you bring up a child on bon-bons 
 and charlotte russe to the exclusion of a more 
 natural diet, you will have a very different kind of 
 being from what you would have if a less artificial 
 regimen were adopted. But after all it was the sudden 
 discovery of her hitherto unsuspected power that 
 transformed, or, rather, gave vent to woman's true 
 character, as quickly as the turning of a wheel. So 
 long as she felt, as she had done for centuries, that she 
 was a beggar, beholden to man's bounty for every- 
 thing she had, she submitted to being cajoled and 
 wheedled by the airy trifles which he prescribed for 
 her, and which developed only one side of her cha- 
 racter. But when woman realized that she was in 
 very truth a queen, that she was man's indispensa-
 
 48 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 ble complement, and that as such she had an equal 
 right to the free development of all her faculties, and 
 that she possessed the means for enforcing that right, 
 the scales fell from her eyes. She struck so quickly 
 that it was like the sudden stopping of a clock, but 
 it was the world's pendulum that ceased to move." 
 
 " But I cannot conceive," I said, " what woman 
 should want more than you have told me has already 
 been given her. As I understood you, she already 
 nas every political and economic right that pertains 
 to man. Does she wish to compel man to do pen- 
 ance for the blackness of his past sins toward her ? 
 Does she wish to make man acknowledge that he is 
 inferior to woman ? " 
 
 " By no means," said Mr. Lister. " The women 
 were very careful in framing the statement of their 
 grievances, not only to acknowledge but to dis- 
 tinctly proclaim their belief that man was the true 
 head of woman, and as such, was, when a true rela- 
 tionship should be established, entitled to her most 
 loyal recognition. But while she thus nobly recog- 
 nised his dynamic character, she none the less 
 declared, as I have told you, that she was his indis- 
 pensable complement, that she was not a whit less 
 essential than he in the great plan of the universe, 
 and that she was, therefore, clearly entitled to the
 
 The Stnke of a Sex. 49 
 
 free development of her own nature, untrammelled 
 by the heavy burdens which have been heaped upon 
 her. Woman, who was made to be the glory of 
 man, claims that man knows nothing whatever of 
 what that glory might be if she existed in an atmo- 
 sphere of freedom. She would be like the electric 
 light as compared with the tallow candle of our fore- 
 fathers. It would be a glory that would dazzle 
 mankind." 
 
 " But what is this freedom that woman seeks ? " I 
 said. " 1 beg you to tell me at once what this great 
 right is that she calls her MAGNA CHARTA." 
 
 11 It is," said Mr. Lister, turning and looking me 
 squarely in the face, " the right to the perfect owner- 
 ship of her own person."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I did not fully understand the meaning of Mr. 
 Lister's words. " In what respect," I said, " does 
 woman want the ownership of her own person ? 
 Does she not have it already ? " 
 
 " In respect to maternity," he replied. 
 
 " I do not understand you," I said ; " please ex- 
 plain more fully." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Lister, " the women say that 
 while they are willing, under all proper conditions, 
 to undergo what George Sand grandly called * the 
 august martyrdom of maternity,' they utterly refuse 
 to have that martyrdom imposed upon them any 
 longer. They say that maternity, multiplied and 
 practically enforced as it is, constitutes the primeval 
 curse that has rested upon them since they were 
 driven out from the Garden of Eden. They say 
 that they can bear that curse no longer, and that the 
 time has come for man, by the same enlightenment 
 (50)
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 51 
 
 that is flooding all other fields of knowledge, to adopt 
 a manner of life that shall remove it." 
 
 " In short, they demand, as a final, inalienable 
 right, that man shall give them an irrevocable, per- 
 petual guarantee, that no woman from this time 
 forth and forever, shall be subjected to the woes of 
 maternity without her free and specific consent in 
 all cases." 
 
 " What a preposterous idea ! " I exclaimed in 
 astonishment. "Upon what ground do they base 
 this extraordinary claim ? " 
 
 " Simply," replied my friend, " upon the ground 
 that maternity is what George Sand called it, a 
 * martyrdom.' It puts the life of every woman who 
 enters upon it in real jeopardy. It imperils an exist- 
 ence which is as sweet to woman under true condi- 
 tions as man's existence is to him. The terrible 
 risks of maternity are woman's and woman's alone. 
 They cannot be shared by man, and woman there- 
 fore contends that she alone should freely elect when 
 she should incur those risks. Besides the real peril 
 and physical anguish of maternity, there are the 
 weary months of sleepless watching, of wearing care 
 and wasting anxiety. For man to lightly or indiffer- 
 ently expose woman to such peril and suffering 
 without her free and undoubted assent, is, she claims,
 
 52 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 worse than the worst form of African slavery, obso- 
 lete, barbaric and unchristian." 
 
 " Unchristian ! " I feeble echoed, for the sudden 
 opening of such an entirely new field to me for woman's 
 rights confused me so that I mechanically repeated 
 his last word in a kind of stupor, " Unchristian !" 
 
 " Yes, unchristian," he resumed ; " the women 
 quote the saying of St. Paul, ' Love worketh no ill 
 to his neighbour,' and say that man, under the sacred 
 name of love, casts upon woman, who is his nearest 
 and dearest neighbour, the most grievous ills that 
 humanity is capable of bearing. He compels woman 
 to continually run a gauntlet as cruel as the Indian's 
 tomahawk, and multitudes of them sink down before 
 it is run. In the face of such terrible ills as man 
 heaps upon woman, ' the clods of the valley are sweet 
 to her/ See, here is a specimen of the exceeding 
 bitter cry which began to be heard in the public maga- 
 zines just before the Strike began." And Mr. Lister 
 picked up a magazine which lay on the table, and 
 opening it, pointed to a letter which was contained 
 in an article entitled " To marry or not to marry." 
 This letter was entitled 
 WHY I CANNOTTHANK GOD FOR MY CHILDREN. 
 
 Poetically speaking, children are the rose-buds of 
 life ; practically, they are the torments of existence,
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 53 
 
 I speak from a long and miserable experience. 
 Married at twenty-five, I am now, at thirty-five, the 
 mother of seven children, the eldest nine years, the 
 youngest nine weeks. I am called their mother, but 
 am really their slave. I was once a careless, happy, 
 joyous girl, but my children have made me a fretful, 
 nervous, care-worn woman. All the romance of my 
 life has gone, the poetry of existence has changed to 
 the dullest prose. I live in the midst of quarrelling 
 children, instead of enjoying the society of congenial 
 friends. From Monday morning till Saturday night 
 I am working for my children, yet they show not the 
 slightest gratitude, and make not the least return for 
 all the devotion lavished upon them. Sick or well, 
 
 am compelled to live in a state of noise and con- 
 fusion, distracting to my nerves and detestable to all 
 my finer feelings. 
 
 I do not think my children are exceptionally bad 
 or mischievous ; all children are more or less so ; 
 and, of course, the more children there are in a family, 
 the more trouble they give. Had the Roman matron, 
 Cornelia, been the mother of seven children, instead 
 of two, she would not have treasured them so highly, 
 and called them her " jewels," as the story says. 
 Instead of being her pets, they would have been the 
 pests of her life, as my seven children are of mine.
 
 54 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 I feel I know I am made for a better, a higher 
 destiny than to be the helpless victim of seven little 
 domestic despots. The delicious bloom of my life is 
 gone for ever. The sweet fancies, the lovely aspira- 
 tions, the serene happiness that made my girlhood a 
 perpetual joy, will nevermore be mine. My days are 
 passed in a pandemonium from which there is no 
 escape. 
 
 I love my husband devotedly, and he deserves all 
 my love, for a kinder, sweeter, tenderer husband 
 never lived ; but, dear as he is to me, had I known 
 that marriage would have made my life what it is, I 
 never would have married him. 
 
 A MISERABLE MOTHER. 
 
 II But surely," said I, after I had finished reading 
 the letter, " this must be a very extreme case. There 
 are women who prefer large families, and who 
 think the rearing of them no hardship." 
 
 II 1 scarcely think that it can be said that they do 
 not consider it any hardship to rear such families," 
 replied Mr. Lister. "I remember hearing my grand- 
 mother say once that for nineteen years she did not 
 know a single night's unbroken rest. She had nine 
 children. But if there be now and then a woman 
 who is content to become a mere propagative drudge,
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 55 
 
 the great majority of them are not. They have tastes 
 and aspirations of their own, and do not care to merge 
 them all in children. But I beg you to remember 
 that the essential point which woman seeks to gain 
 in her controversy with man on this subject, is the 
 acknowledgment of her undeniable right to the com- 
 plete ownership of her own person, whether the 
 children she bears may be many or few. And on 
 this point I assure you that woman is in dead earnest. 
 She will have this ownership of her own person or 
 she will allow the race to lapse from the face of the 
 earth. Malthus certainly never foresaw any such 
 fearful contingency. It can be compared to nothing 
 in the entire history of the human race, unless it be 
 the stopping of the sun at Joshua's command." 
 
 " But if woman is granted this astonishing right," 
 I said, " will she not seek to escape the burden of 
 maternity to such a degree as to seriously diminish 
 the population?" 
 
 11 Of that," replied Mr. Lister, " we have no 
 certain means of judging. Nor does it, indeed, con- 
 cern the principle of justice involved. Fiat justitia 
 mat cesium. But if woman is really given her 
 freedom, her innate instincts will undoubtedly ex- 
 pand naturally and strongly, and certainly the 
 desire for children is strongly implanted in her,.
 
 56 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 But her children from this time forward, if she ever 
 has any, will be only children which are desired, and 
 to the bearing of which she has joyfully consented. 
 This simple condition alone must mark the beginning 
 of a new race." 
 
 As at many times before during the last two days, I 
 could scarcely persuade myself that I was not dream- 
 ing. The discovery of this astounding separation be- 
 tween the sexes, the strange intelligence that woman, 
 by a simple edict of her own, had solved the social 
 evil and swept it summarily into the limbo of the 
 abominations of the past, and now this undreamed of 
 right to say whether she should bear children or not I 
 
 I knew not what to say ; the world seemed turned 
 to sudden and inexplicable chaos ; a thousand diffi- 
 culties and perplexities presented themselves to my 
 mind, and I was about to excuse myself and go out 
 into the street to cool my heated brain, when a dull, 
 heavy alarm bell sounded in the town. 
 
 "It is fire," said Mr. Lister, springing from his 
 chair. " Good God ! what if it should be among the 
 buildings occupied by the women ! " 
 
 Even as he spoke there came the sound of the 
 swelling, hurrying rush and tread that springs up in 
 the track of a dread ravager. We rushed tumultu- 
 pusly into the street,
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I had known the terror that seizes upon the heart 
 at the sudden alarm of devastating fires before. I 
 had been awakened by such alarms from a peaceful 
 sleep at midnight. I had felt rather than hsard the 
 dull vibration of heavy axes beating in barred doors 
 to break an entrance into buildings where fierce 
 fires were raging. Through the rents made by 
 frenzied blows, I had caught intermittent gleams of 
 licking tongues of fire curling upward with devouring 
 eagerness. I had heard the blood-curdling cries of 
 the watchmen. I had witnessed the mad galloping 
 of the engines. I had seen the dismay of the terrified 
 occupants of burning buildings suddenly shaken from 
 sound slumber, and rushing almost naked into the 
 streets. None of these things were strange to me, 
 and still I trust I may never know again the sicken- 
 ing, contagious terror I felt when I reached the street 
 
 (57)
 
 58 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 and knew that the fire was located in the buildings 
 which the women had chosen for their retreat. 
 
 No one told me this. I instinctively felt it the 
 moment I joined the throng of hatless, coatless, pale- 
 faced men who were hurrying with frantic, but 
 speechless haste toward the bridge which led to the 
 women's home. All the treasures of the earth were 
 but as dust compared with those that were in 
 jeopardy on that hill-side. 
 
 A groan of relief escaped the lips of those about 
 me as we drew near the noble group of buildings, 
 which the women had chosen for their home, and 
 saw that the one that was on fire stood at such a 
 distance from the others that it did not greatly en- 
 danger them. The building which was on fire was 
 in fact built for a hospital, and was, therefore, pur- 
 posely kept aloof from the rest. But though the 
 anxiety lest there should be a general conflagration 
 among the women's quarters was assuaged, the 
 progress of the flames in the burning buildings was 
 sufficiently terrifying. Flames had begun to dart 
 intermittently from an upper window, and a huge 
 column of black smoke was heavily drifting into the 
 starlit sky. 
 
 It is true that women, as a rule, are not cool and 
 clear-headed in the presence of the peril of sudden
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 59 
 
 fire, though it is also true that many men are not 
 more so. This fact it appeared had been clearly 
 recognized by the women, and only the trained 
 women nurses, who were employed in the hospital, 
 those noiseless, efficient, self-possessed, self-deny- 
 ing creatures, who pass their gentle lives in the dim 
 twilight of sick-rooms, had been allowed by the 
 women to remain near the building after the fire had 
 been discovered. With quiet celerity these trained 
 nurses had got the greater part of the patients safely 
 out of the building before a man arrived. All was calm- 
 ness, action, and self- restraining nerve. It was only 
 when in response to the dire summons of the alarm 
 bell, the impetuous wave of men surged up the hill and . 
 around the building, that there was anything like mad 
 disorder, and fruitless panic. Not a man stopped 
 for a instant after reaching the burning building, but 
 plunged madly into its interior. The halls became 
 choked with them, they stumbled over each other on 
 the staircases, with demoniac strength they forced all 
 oppposing doors from their hinges, wildly groping 
 through the blinding smoke after any woman that 
 might possibly have been left. Every instant brought 
 fresh panting relays of men, who disappeared into 
 the building as swiftly as those who had gone before 
 them. Suddenly, in the midst of the dire and in-
 
 60 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 creasing confusion, a tall and slender woman emerged 
 from the smoke at the broad entrance. Great 
 masses of chestnut hair were held back from her 
 pure, impassioned face by some chance fastening 
 caught up at the moment. There was a lofty serious- 
 ness and a noble self-possession in her stately bear- 
 ing that made the desperate men who were pressing 
 toward the entrance pause and draw back as if 
 suddenly confronted by an angelic apparition. She 
 had raised her hands to press them against the 
 breasts of the men who were tumultuosly advancing, 
 but there was no need. A sudden hush and calm 
 had fallen on them all at sight of her. But the 
 words that she sp^ke sounded as strangely as the 
 words of an incongruous dream 
 
 11 Where are the engines ? " she said quietly. 
 
 Where indeed ? Up to this time there had been a 
 constant arrival of men who were more like madmen 
 than anything else, but there had not appeared the 
 slightest sign of any appliances, either for putting out 
 the fire or for rescuing those in peril. The strong 
 panting men whom this beautiful young woman 
 addressed in such quiet but earnest tones, hung their 
 heads upon their breasts speechless and abashed. 
 The truth was apparent. At the first sound of the 
 alarm of fire in the woman's quarters every man
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 61 
 
 in the town, filled with a sickening fear, and torn 
 with a mad anxiety lest woman should really be lost 
 forever past all recovery, had rushed headlong to the 
 spot, leaving prudence, caution and forethought 
 utterly behind him. The one mad idea which con- 
 trolled them all was to rush into the flames and tear 
 their beloved away from them with their own powerful 
 hands. They had left the means of staying the fire 
 behind them. The woman saw it all in an instant, 
 and in a voice which was both quiet and imperious, 
 she said : 
 
 " Go back at once and get the engines, and be 
 quick." 
 
 The men did not need a second word. Seizing 
 horses which were at hand they disappeared across 
 the bridge in sufficient numbers to bring all the ap- 
 pliances for rescue and for putting out fire that were 
 in the town. 
 
 But in the meantime the flames had not stayed. 
 They had broken out in a lower storey, and all the 
 men who had reached the top storey in their frantic 
 search for any woman who might be there, were 
 imprisoned by the fire which enveloped the stair- 
 cases. To add to the terror of the situation, it was 
 discovered that a lame girl who had been a patient 
 in the ward on the top floor of the building, had not
 
 6 2 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 been seen and could not be found. She must be in 
 the building. This discovery was a signal for a 
 fresh rush of heroic, reckless men into the flames in 
 search for her at any peril. But the same magni- 
 ficent woman who had sent for the engines 
 stopped them with a command that they could not 
 disobey. 
 
 " You will only throw your lives away," she said ; 
 " the men who are already in the building will take 
 care of the lame girl if it is possible to save either." 
 
 As she said this a great sympathetic cry arose 
 from the crowd who were gazing anxiously up at 
 the burning building. 
 
 The men who were imprisoned by the fire, about 
 twenty in number, had gained the roof and were 
 triumphantly holding up in their strong arms the 
 lame girl. The flames had driven them to one end 
 of the building and appeared to be surrounding 
 them, leaving only one corner unexposed. 
 
 Merciful Heavens, would the engines and scaling 
 ladders never arrive ! 
 
 Steadily the flames advanced, but fortunately the 
 night was perfectly still, so that their progress was 
 slow. The men on the roof, falling back foot by 
 foot, had at last placed the lame girl at the least 
 exposed spot and formed a hollow square around her
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 63 
 
 presenting only their own dauntless breasts to the 
 destroyer that threatened her. 
 
 "Call to them," said the woman who had directed 
 the men, "tell them to have courage, courage!" 
 The strong man to whom she spoke essayed to do 
 as she told him. He hoarsely cried out, but his 
 voice weakened and broke into weeping. He was 
 completely unnerved. 
 
 At this terrible moment there came a noise like 
 rolling thunder on the bridge, and in another instant 
 all the appliances for quenching fire and for rescue 
 were in the eager hands of a hundred feverish 
 workers. Deluging streams of water poured on to 
 the flames which surrounded the band on the roof. 
 Ladders were quickly hoisted, and borne in strong 
 arms, arms to whom woman was precious as never 
 before, the lame girl, without the smell of fire upon 
 her garments, was gently placed upon the ground 
 beside the woman. As they embraced each other I 
 heard the lame girl call her " Allegra." The men 
 who had been her companions, and who had been 
 tenderly assisted to the ground, eyed them at a little 
 distance with haggard, pathetic interest. 
 
 It was three o'clock in the morning when Mr. 
 Lister and I, in company with a host of wan and 
 forlorn-looking men, re-crossed the bridge and betook
 
 64 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 ourselves toward our homes. With faces blackened 
 by smoke, their clothing torn and burnt, their beards 
 singed, and without coats, hats or shoes, they looked 
 like the stern and ravaged remnant of some historic 
 Old Guard returning from a desperate assault. 
 Jaded as I was, I remember that the thought of 
 burning Moscow and the desperate, heroic retreat of 
 Marshall Ney and his valiant rear guard, passed 
 vaguely through my mind. But at the homes to- 
 ward which these men were turning, there were no 
 women to meet them with tears of love and pity, and 
 to bind up their wounds with tender hands ! They 
 sternly entered their empty homes in silence. But 
 so utterly exhausted was I with the excitement of 
 the night, that this strange, pathetic spectacle did 
 not greatly move me. Mr. Lister and I, without 
 exchanging a word, staggered up the steps of his 
 house like drunken men. 
 
 But though I was neaily worn out with fatigue, 
 the thought of going to my room and of being alone 
 with my thoughts was utterly intolerable. I knew 
 that I could not sleep. The excitement of the 
 struggle with fire in which we had just been engaged 
 the anticipation of the curious parade which I was 
 to witness on the morrow, to say nothing of the 
 strange revelations which had crowded upon me in
 
 Tl*e Strike of a Sex. 65 
 
 the past two days, made sleep a sheer impossibility. 
 And yet it seemed to me that I must have some 
 diversion or I should go mad. What to do 1 knew not. 
 
 As I could think of no other diversion, I deter- 
 mined, as a last resort, to go to my room and spend 
 the night in reading. To do so I had to go by Mr. 
 Lister's room, the door of which, for the first time 
 when I had passed it, stood wide open. As I 
 chanced to raise my eyes to the wall opposite the 
 door, I stopped in sudden awe, as if confronted by 
 the shrine of a Madonna. An exquisite oil portrait 
 of a woman hung there, and I saw at a glance that 
 it was the beautiful, imperious creature who had such 
 a magic influence in controlling the men at the fire. 
 
 There were the same large eyes looking upward 
 from under a drift of gold -flecked chesnut hair. Her 
 expression was that of eager, almost prophetic antici- 
 pation. A ravishing smile of hope and confidence 
 was on her slightly parted lips, and the velvet curve 
 of a resolute but womanly chin showed deep courage 
 and devotion. This, then, was undoubtedly Mr. 
 Lister's prospective bride. If I could but hear the 
 love story of this man and woman what a diversion 
 it would be ! 
 
 I determined to fearlessly ask Mr. Lister to tell 
 me his love story that night.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 My absorption had been so deep in gazing at the 
 beautiful portrait that I had not observed that Mr. 
 Lister had come up the stairs and was standing 
 silently behind me. 
 
 " Is she not beautiful ? " he whispered. " Was 
 she not magnificent at the fire ? " 
 
 " She was magnificent, she is beautiful," I replied, 
 deliberately turning and facing him. He was a man 
 fair to look upon, and one that could not fail to be 
 pleasing to a woman's eye. He was slightly above 
 the medium height. His well-knit and athletic frame 
 was surmounted by a well-shaped, intellectual head, 
 which was crowned with clustering brown hair. 
 A strong, well-shaped nose, rather deep-set, intro- 
 spective eyes, and a refined and sensitive mouth, 
 made a countenance of more than usual interest. 
 Just now it appeared somewhat wan and heavy from 
 watching, but his was evidently one of those gifted 
 (66)
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 natures that are subject to sudden, brilliant kindling, 
 like the cheery flame which sometimes leaps from a 
 smouldering fire. 
 
 II Surely," I thought, " this woman could not but 
 have deeply loved this man. And yet she left him 
 for the sake of woman." As this thought passed 
 through my mind, I unconsciously looked from my 
 friend to the portrait, and back to him again. 
 
 "What are you thinking of?" said Mr. Lister. 
 " That portrait is Allegra Alliston. You saw her at 
 the fire to-night. She was to have been married to 
 me on Monday, if it had not been for the Woman's 
 Strike." 
 
 II 1 am thinking," I said slowly, replying to his 
 question, " that I cannot sleep, and that I would like 
 above all things at this moment to hear the love story 
 of Justin Lister and Allegra Alliston." 
 
 Mr. Lister, without seeming to hear what I said, 
 took me by the arm and drew me into his room. He 
 pressed me into an easy chair, and sinking down into 
 a cosy window-seat opposite, he said, as if continuing 
 what he had said before : 
 
 " Yes, we were to have been married on Monday, 
 the very day when the ballots are to be cast that will 
 decide the fate of the human race. But when the 
 Strike came, she said she could not allow her per-
 
 68 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 sonal pleasure to stand between her and the obtain- 
 ing for woman of rights that were so plainly hers. 
 She is a noble enthusiast in the cause of woman, and 
 though she was in the midst of preparing her bridal 
 outfit when the Strike was proposed, she brushed it 
 aside as if it were cobwebs. She said that she felt 
 that the supreme hour of woman's destiny had come, 
 and to miss it were to be a renegade from everything 
 noble. 
 
 " She is beautiful," continued Mr. Lister, glancing 
 fondly toward the portrait, " but her irresistible 
 charm is in what she says and in her manner of 
 saying it. Although she is simple and pure as a lily, 
 she is continually saying unexpected things, things 
 that give you a start of surprise, upset your conven- 
 tionalism and put you into a stimulating glow in 
 spite of yourself. 
 
 " It was a genuine case of love at first sight, or 
 rather of love at the first meeting, for it was really so 
 dark when I first met her that I could not distinguish 
 her features clearly. She does not belong to the 
 wealthy class, and she gave music lessons in order to 
 support herself and her two little brothers. She 
 called here at this house at twilight one evening with 
 an acquaintance of my mother to see if she could obtain 
 a pupil in my sister. It was dusk when I casually
 
 The Strike of a Bex. 69 
 
 entered the parlour where they sat. The lamps had 
 not been lighted. I was feeling rather dull and list- 
 less from the fatigues of the day, and scarcely 
 noticed Miss Alliston after the formal introduction. 
 I sat down rather indifferently, preoccupied with my 
 own thoughts, while she continued conversation with 
 my mother. Suddenly I remember hearing her say 
 in answer to some inquiry of my mother, that she 
 was a ' Yankee through and through. 1 It was a 
 simple thing to say, but, good Heavens ! what subtle 
 power there was in her ! That speech aroused me 
 as if I had been suddenly shaken from sleep ! Two 
 or three minutes later she said something in her 
 bright, bracing, dashing way, that made me feel as 
 one feels who has had a mirth-provoking tumble. 
 Before I had been in her society ten minutes, I was 
 talking to her, and was like a man who was reck- 
 lessly swallowing wine, glass after glass ! When, at 
 last, I followed her to the carriage in which her 
 friend had brought her, I loved her as madly as a 
 man ever loved a woman. I could have kissed her 
 from head to foot. The touch of my hand on her 
 waist as I helped her into the carriage that evening ! 
 it thrills me now. I can never forget that, if the 
 Strike should be continued and I should never see 
 her again.
 
 70 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 " After that evening I can truly say that I never 
 went out of my way to seek her. I know not what 
 the instinct was that restrained me. It is one of those 
 things about the human heart that is past finding 
 out. It is true that I thought of .her every day, and 
 oftentimes I cast a wistful glance toward the street 
 in which I knew she lived, but as I had nothing but 
 my love for me to call there, I could not go. 
 
 11 And that period when I loved her unknown to 
 herself or to any human being is treasured up in my 
 soul as one of the purest and sweetest in existence. 
 I really discovered, past any doubt, that there is a 
 depth of exquisite joy in simply loving, whether the 
 person you love knows of your love or not, or whether 
 she return it or not, It was like the secret discovery 
 of a clear bubbling spring beside which my world- 
 wearied spirit could linger in purest contentment 
 and serenest joy. Love can distil its exquisite per- 
 fume in your own soul, whether it is wafted to others 
 or not. It was when I was feeding upon the sweet 
 bliss of this discovery that this verse formed itself 
 almost unconsciously in my mind : 
 
 "Hast thou found Love in all the sphere ? 
 Then know it by this perfect token, 
 Thy love was never known or spoken, 
 And still thy joy was all unbroken : 
 Such love the stars revere I
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 71 
 
 " Sometimes I fancied that she could hear my soul 
 calling to her in the voiceless night, and that her 
 soul made sweet responses. 
 
 "But though I refrained almost conscientiously 
 from seeking Allegra Alliston, fate seem to continually 
 throw us together without the slightest design on our 
 par t. Do you want to know the surest sign of love 
 in the world ? It is when you can tell every time at 
 which you have seen her whom you love, without 
 missing a single instance. It may have been nothing 
 more than a passing glimpse of her face in a prosaic 
 street car but it is as firmly photographed in your 
 memory as if you had held her tightly in your arms. 
 I could not only remember every glimpse I had ever 
 had of Allegra Alliston during the next six months, 
 but I could repeat, with the accuracy of a phono- 
 graph, every word she had said in my hearing. 
 
 "Once daring this time I was passing a house in 
 which she gave music lessons, although I did not 
 know it until I heard her rapturous voice singing. I 
 had never heard the song before, but being sung by her 
 it was indelibly fixed in my memory. See, I can 
 repeat it now : 
 
 "COME BACK. 
 
 * * Come back 1 ' from many a broken home 
 There comes a voice of sad endeavour
 
 72 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 To bring the loved ones back who roam 
 To bring them back to dwell forever. 
 " ' Come back, dear ones, Love calls you home, 
 No more to doubt, no more to roam 
 Come back come back. 
 
 " 'Tis bourne across the ocean's main 
 And blown along the desert's tract 
 In words which tell earth's deepest pain. 
 Come back ! ye loved ones, O come back. 
 " Come back, dear ones, Love calls you home, 
 From her warm arms no more to roam, 
 Come back come back. 
 
 " ' Dear ones come back to that sweet home 
 
 Where loves strong ties are parted never, 
 No more to weep, no more to roam, 
 Come back and dwell in peace forever 
 41 ' Come back dear ones, Love calls you home, 
 From her fond breast no more to roam, 
 Come back come back. ' " 
 
 " As I said, although Miss Alliston did not enter 
 our house again for a long time after that first 
 evening, fate threw us together in the most unex- 
 pected ways. At last when I had not seen her for 
 some weeks, I started to drive to a village a few 
 miles distant on a business errand. As I drove 
 along the lonely country road, I was in an exceedingly 
 happy frame of mind. The solitude and a radiant 
 fragrant autumn day were favourable to my deep 
 enjoyment of the incense that burned upon the secret
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 73 
 
 altar of my soul. I remember feeling a special glow 
 of satisfaction that morning that I was content simply 
 to have Love as a noble guest in the chambers of my 
 heart. I asked no other gifts from her hands. 
 
 "As I made a turn in the road, which was lined 
 with woods on one side, I noticed to my surprise a 
 woman dressed in black picking her way somewhat 
 daintily along the muddy roadside at some distance 
 ahead of me. By the way, don't you like to see 
 women dressed in black ? It is my favourite dress. 
 There is a rich grace and dignity about women 
 dressed in black that seems wanting in any other 
 colour. Their throats are so white, and their forms 
 so sweetly and seriously graceful ; it makes them 
 doubly mysterious and captivating to me. 
 
 "Of course when I saw this lady walking by the 
 roadside, I decided at once to offer her a seat in my 
 carriage. But I had not the slightest idea who she 
 might be, nor indeed did I spend a moment's thought 
 upon it. Judge then of my electrifiying surprise when 
 I had stopped the carriage, and she had for the 
 first time turned her face toward me, to see that it 
 was Allegra Alliston ! I felt as if I were in a dream 
 as I helped her into the carriage, and she was 
 apparently as much surprised as I was. But the 
 explanation of her being there was very simple.
 
 74 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 She had obtained a new pupil in the sleepy village 
 toward which we were going, and as she had no 
 other means of getting there, she was heroically 
 walking, although the distance was five miles. 
 
 " Do you believe in the sharpness of woman's in- 
 tuition ? If there is such a thing, I told Allegra 
 Alliston that I loved her a thousand times during 
 that short ride. Not in words, or by any intent, 
 but I made a desperate effort to appear natural 
 and unconcerned. There was a rich glow upon her 
 face from walking. I drew the carriage robes 
 around her and asked her if she was dressed warmly 
 enough to ride. I tried to hide my secret, but 
 every motion I made, every word I uttered seemed 
 to give it hopelessly away. I became positively 
 frightened, for it seemed as if at every turn of the 
 carriage wheels I was saying, * I love you, 1 love 
 you, I love you ! ' 
 
 " As we cfrew near the little village, Miss Alliston 
 said something about its dulness, and I replied that 
 possibly it might become a populous city some day ; 
 that sometimes such places, after long lying in 
 lethargy, were found to possess unsuspected 
 advantages, and sprang into sudden life and 
 importance. 
 
 " * But it will be after our time,' she said, * some
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 hundreds of years from now. Where shall we be 
 then ? ' " 
 
 " I did not premeditate at all what I said in reply 
 to this. A man who is deeply in love has a tongue 
 that is set on a hair trigger. I talked without 
 knowing what I was saying. 
 
 " * If we meet in another sphere, Miss Alliston, 
 and I confess I indulge myself in the perhaps foolish 
 hope that congenial souls will meet and recognize 
 each other hereafter, I shall have something to tell 
 you about this strange and far-distant earth-life. I 
 assume that there will be no such artificial trammels 
 there as to prevent me from speaking to you without 
 fear.' 
 
 " { Oh,' said she, with the charming audacity that 
 s so characteristic of her, ' tell me now. A woman, 
 you know, can neither keep a secret, nor rest till she 
 finds one out.' 
 
 " ' Tell you!' I cried, with a sudden burst of 
 vehemence that was almost like anger. 'I have 
 told you a thousand times. Oh, God ! I have tried 
 to hide it, and yet you know as well as if I had 
 shouted it to the hills, that I love you unutterably, 
 that I have never ceased loving you since I first saw 
 you.' 
 
 " The reins had fallen from my hands and the 

 
 76 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 horse had stopped in uncertainty. She caught the 
 reins, but strange as it may seem, this burst of 
 vehemence produced something very much like it in 
 her. Her great eyes turned upon me with a blazing 
 light which I had never seen in them before. 
 
 "'And you, too!' she cried, 'do you blame me 
 for my skill at concealing my heart ? Since when 
 has woman been permitted to manifest her feelings 
 toward man in the slightest degree ? You could not 
 hide your love because man has always had the 
 liberty to express it. But woman, compelled for 
 ages to stifle every heart-beat, has learned her 
 unnatural lesson too well. Like the stoical Indian 
 she can bear her torture without flinching. But, 
 but, 1 and her splendid voice began to falter, I have 
 loved you none the less.' And we were both 
 crying. 
 
 " Had a traveller been concealed on that country 
 road he would have been puzzled to see a young 
 man and woman sitting in a carriage, and apparently 
 quarrelling at one moment, but at the next locked in 
 each other's arms and smothering each other with 
 kisses."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Mr. Lister paused a moment in the narration of a 
 story to which I had listened with absorbing interest, 
 and then said : 
 
 " Ah me, that was eight years ago." 
 
 " Eight years ago ? " I exclaimed, " what a long 
 courtship ! " 
 
 " It did not seem long to us. We had both dis- 
 covered from much observation of our married friends 
 that courtship was the true elysium in every one's 
 life, and a far happier state than marriage. Noting 
 this we asked each other why we should not prolong 
 this happy season. In it we realised that each was 
 to the other a delightful and never-ending mystery. 
 We saw that in courtship we had a feeling of deep 
 reverence for each other which was almost wholly 
 wanting among married people. In courtship we 
 each felt that love was generous condescension in 
 the other. I did not feel that I was at all worthy of 
 (77)
 
 78 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 her, and she did not feel that she was worthy of me. 
 We were inexpressibly sacred objects in each other's 
 eyes, and above all things we desired to remain 
 so. 
 
 " Besides, to tell the truth, we saw some terribly 
 dark spots in marriage from which we shrank as 
 from the contemplation of the slimy things in a 
 pool. It seemed ' filled with the habitations of 
 cruelty ! ' She confided to me that she had a school- 
 mate, a dear friend, who had been married a few 
 years before. She was a radiant, fragrant being, 
 fitted by every gift of Nature to shed light and per- 
 fume, joy and laughter wherever she went. But 
 alas, she was not physically adapted to the fearful 
 treadmill of enforced maternity. After twice be- 
 coming a mother and barely escaping the ordeal 
 with her life, she was warned that another risk of 
 that kind would undoubtedly have a fatal termi- 
 nation. And this innocent, helpless being, with a 
 sword hanging over her bright young life, went on 
 her way scattering gentle words and loving deeds 
 along her blackly shadowed path. But O, the pity 
 of it ! the sword fell. Within a year she was a 
 martyr to the fearful Moloch which yawns continu- 
 ally over woman's life. She escaped by death from 
 a life so fraught with cruel suffering, so filled with
 
 The Stnke of a Sex. 79 
 
 unutterable indignities, that the wonder is that 
 woman did not strike long ago ! 
 
 " In the ecstasy of our love Allegra Alliston and I 
 vowed that we would never take part in a system 
 that permitted such unspeakable cruelty. We chose 
 rather to enjoy the quiet pleasures of courtship and 
 be satisfied with them." 
 
 "And yet," said I, "you had decided to get 
 married. You said that Miss Alliston was preparing 
 her wedding-dress at the time of the commencement 
 of the Strike." 
 
 " Oh," said Mr. Lister, " the great discovery of 
 Zugassent opened up a manner of life by which 
 married people could preserve their sacred reverence 
 for each other, and make the state of courtship a 
 perpetual one. When we saw that we could enter 
 into the joys of marriage without ravaging each 
 other like wild beasts, we had no longer any reason 
 for not doing so. We decided to get married at 
 once." 
 
 "But," said I, as soon as I could speak, "you 
 talk as though I knew all about Zugassent and his 
 discovery, when in fact I never heard of either." 
 
 " Why," said Mr. Lister, " it was the wonderful 
 discovery of Zugassent that emboldened the women 
 to strike, and gave a logical basis for their movement.
 
 8o The, Strike of a Sex. 
 
 Before that discovery was made, much as they 
 desired the Magna Charta which they are now 
 asking, they were reasonable, and scarcely saw how 
 man could give it. The problem seemed too deep 
 and intricate for any possible solution. But when 
 Zugassent's discovery was made, they saw that it 
 took away from man all excuse for withholding this 
 right. They demanded it at once." 
 
 At this fresh promise of an utterly unlooked-for 
 revelation, 1 felt a despairing kind of anger. Could 
 this be the same world in which I had for thirty-five 
 years lived a sober and commonplace life? Mr. 
 Lister had already, in the few days which I had 
 spent with him, dazed me and amazed me with the 
 stunning character of the intelligence which he had 
 conveyed to me. Did he wish to craze me also ? 
 Unconsciously I put my hand to my head and stared 
 at him in helpless, pathetic reproach. But he did 
 not appear to be conscious of my feelings. At last 
 when I had mastered myself enough to speak calmly, 
 I said : 
 
 " I wish that you would tell me all about Zugas- 
 sent and his discovery. I have been trying to find 
 out the causes of this singular Strike, and now I 
 hear for the first time that it was assisted by a great 
 discovery about which I am entirely ignorant. I
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 8 1 
 
 entreat you to tell me who Zugassent was and what 
 was his discovery ? " 
 
 " Zugassent," said Mr. Lister, and his lip quivered, 
 and a sudden moisture sprang into his eyes as he 
 spoke, " was a pure and noble soul who believed that 
 everything that was of human interest was worthy 
 of conscientious, painstaking study, and that every- 
 thing which involved human happiness or misery 
 was a legitimate field for honest effort for improve- 
 ment. The appalling sum of misery resulting to 
 woman from the present system of marriage, and 
 indirectly to men and children as well through the 
 too great division of the means of subsistence, filled 
 his heart with a divine compassion. It is said that 
 his attention was first called to this subject by 
 observing the suffering of his own wife. That he 
 should be the cause of producing such unavailing 
 suffering became a source of deep disquietude to 
 him. He resolved rather than to pursue a course so 
 fraught with evil to woman, to return to the simple 
 relations of courtship. He fondly loved his wifej 
 but he had firmly decided to content himself with 
 the purely Platonic and spiritual pleasures of her 
 society. Being, however, a natural thinker and a 
 man of studious tastes and habits, he could not help 
 revolving the problem in his thoughts, much wonder-
 
 82 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 ing at its mind-baffling character. The more he 
 pondered the matter the more was he struck with the 
 astounding anomaly presented by this scientific age. 
 He saw that the explorer, the discoverer and the 
 pioneer were pushing their caravans and wagon- 
 trains into every unmapped land on the globe, and 
 steering their barks into every unknown sea. Ap- 
 plauded by the world, they were daring the burning 
 fevers of Central Africa, and leaving their bones for 
 other as determined discoverers to find in the frozen 
 regions of the North Pole. He saw that in the 
 domain of Science, and Art, and Invention an innu- 
 merable host of patient, earnest workers and thinkers, 
 lured on by the highest rewards which Earth could 
 offer, were burning midnight oil in an agonizing 
 search after improvement. Consuming brain and 
 nerve with unremitting and profligate energy, these 
 toilers after newer and better ways were fast robbing 
 the earth of all its material secrets. Even in Reli- 
 gion the rock-bound creeds of hoary churches were 
 being diligently revised and unscrupulously altered 
 to adapt them to the new light of a refulgent present. 
 Everywhere there was light, change, improvement, 
 discarding the old and adopting the newer and 
 better, except in the social relation of man and 
 woman. This alone remained, not, indeed, unques-
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 83 
 
 tioned, but unexplored and unimproved, the one 
 stationary fixture of an obsolete and decrepit past. 
 Zugassent saw with absolute and increasing wonder 
 that none of the new light which was flooding the 
 world was allowed to penetrate this dark Continent. 
 A superstition as black, as unreasoning, as utterly 
 inconsistent as that which compelled Galileo to 
 retract his affirmation about the earth's motion, 
 shrouded this dark Continent and forbade any stu- 
 dent to set foot therein. No matter how pure the 
 motive, no matter what misery it was sought to 
 alleviate, the leperous cry, * Unclean ! Unclean I ' 
 was ready to be raised at any one who should seek 
 to direct some of the unstinted light of a marvellous 
 age into this dark domain of ignorance and injustice. 
 To be sure, every one freely acknowledged that 
 black and mephitic vapours were continually arising 
 from this great uncleared land. Every one marvelled 
 that it could be so enveloped in darkness, when 
 there was life and light, change and improvement 
 continually going on about it. The wailing which 
 came from this dark Continent was a source of con- 
 tinual commiseration on the part of every one, and 
 the recitals of the heartrending cruelties, the pesti- 
 lential scandals, and the shameful deeds that were 
 enacted in this dark country, and which far exceeded
 
 84 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 those of Siberia, constituted a large and staple part 
 of the intelligence of the newspapers. An age which 
 boasted that it could foretell its weather, and 
 measure the stars, and girdle the earth, was supinely 
 and superstitiously content to let the relation 
 between man and woman remain an unstudied and 
 unimproved part and parcel of a benighted and 
 slave-driving past ! As if beyond anything else that 
 concerned mankind, his relations to woman, next to 
 his relation to his Creator, were not the most im- 
 portant, the most deserving of free scientific and 
 conscientious research, and the one supreme im- 
 provement for which the world's highest premiums 
 should be offered. " 
 
 There was a choking sound in Mr. Lister's throat. 
 He seemed like one about to weep. But he con- 
 tinued, 
 
 "Zugassent saw all this. He fully realized that 
 the man who conscientiously gave his mind to the 
 study of these problems, who honestly sought to 
 illumine this great department of human life with 
 some of the light which was being prodigally shed 
 elsewhere, would be reviled and misunderstood. 
 He knew that the impure would call him impure, 
 and that the thoughtless would jeer at him. He 
 knew that many good people, still somewhat bound
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 85 
 
 by the fast-failing chains of superstition, would sus- 
 pect his motives, and would deem any investigation 
 of this subject unlawful. Nevertheless, Zugassent 
 determined that in no other field of human interest 
 was discovery and improvement so wofully and piti- 
 fully lacking, and that though for the present, his 
 name might be covered with obloquy, future genera- 
 tions would respect his effort if this did not. He 
 therefore resolved, with all the desperate earnestness 
 of a man who is preparing to take leave of his home 
 and friends forever, to light his humble torch and go 
 alone into the murky caverns of this dark Continent. 
 He would, if possible, open some part of it to the 
 light of day. He did so, and his beneficent dis- 
 covery, but just beginning to be made known, has 
 placed him at the very head of those who have 
 honestly and successfully toiled for the betterment 
 of the human race." 
 
 " And Zugassent's discovery ? " said I, eagerly. 
 But the rays of the morning sun were bursting in at 
 the window. It was broad daylight. 
 
 Mr. Lister arose. His face was wet with tears. 
 " My dear Mr. Carford," said he, " have you for- 
 gotten that to-day is Sunday, and that we are to 
 witness the woman's parade this afternoon ? It is 
 
 absolutely necessary that we should take some rest 
 x, 
 
 X 'X
 
 86 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 before that. I will give you Zugassent's book and 
 let him speak for himself." 
 
 I went to my room and lay down upon the rug. 
 As I passed along the hall I heard Mr. Lister sing- 
 ing the snatches of a song as he prepared himself to 
 rest ; and as I drifted into sleep, it was with the 
 words of his song running in my mind : 
 
 Love lingers not where sorrow dwells, 
 She caiinot bide the downcast face ; 
 
 Where laughter rings like golden bells 
 Is Love's abiding place. 
 
 Love follows those, though seeming vain, 
 Who gild life's path with faith and hope ; 
 
 She smiles on those who smile again, 
 Not on the misanthrope. 
 
 Love smiles on those who smile again, 
 Not on the misanthrope.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 It was noon when I awoke from the deep stupor 
 rather than sleep into which I had plunged. How 
 swiftly, when one is waked out of sleep, comes back 
 the engrossing joy or grief which lay upon his heart 
 when sleep stole it away ! But at this awakening I 
 was conscious only of a strange, dull sense of grief. 
 I was for some time too much dazed to analyze my 
 sensations or to fully realize what had occured in 
 the past few days, and on attempting to rise I 
 found that I was stiff and sore, as after unusual 
 exertion. 
 
 The copy of the Bitter Cry which I had left in my 
 room the day before lay on the floor. It served to 
 recall to me the reality of the strange circumstances 
 into which I had fallen. I remember that a humorous 
 account of the Button Manufacturers' plea before the 
 Woman's Executive Committee to allow mankind tq 
 (8?)
 
 83 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 continue the use of buttons, first caught my attention, 
 and that afterward I read the following : 
 
 "LOVE WORKETH NO ILL TO HIS 
 NEIGHBOUR." 
 
 It was with more than his usual unction that the 
 Rev. Jonathan Holworthy announced his text one 
 bright Sunday May morning, to the distinctly rural 
 congregation of Middle-brook. 
 
 Smoothing out with one soft, plump hand the 
 pages of the large Bible which lay on the pulpit 
 cushion in front of him, he raised the other impres- 
 sively, and shot a comprehensive and penetrating 
 glance toward his humble and unpretending auditors. 
 This glance, proceeding from under a pair of shaggy 
 eyebrows, and passing over the gold-rimmed spec- 
 tacles set low on his nose, was intended as a kind of 
 preliminary shot to awaken in the congregation any 
 who were sleepily disposed, and to draw the attention 
 of each one of his parishioners to the unusually 
 " great effort " which he was about to make. And 
 it must be confessed that this impressive manner 
 and sharp glance had the effect of uncomfortably 
 arousing several rather torpid individuals who had 
 settled themselves comfortably into their pews, and 
 on whom the ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Hoi-
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 89 
 
 worthy had usually the effect of the droning of a 
 bumble bee in August. 
 
 "Wonder if we're going to have another 'Great 
 Awakenin' ' such as I remember forty years ago,' 
 said Deacon Weatherby to himself. "The minister 
 'pears to have something powerful on his mind.' 
 
 And Deacon Weatherby, like several others in the 
 congregation, shook off the sleepy fit which usually 
 came on with great regularity as soon as he had 
 settled himself in his pew. He now sat bolt up- 
 right, with an air of alertness that he did not manifest 
 even in the numerous keen horse trades in which 
 he participated, and in which he was always credited 
 with coming off " first best." 
 
 The Rev. Jonathan Holworthy, who had stood in 
 silence with his hand on the page of the open Bible, 
 critically surveying the assembled farmers and village 
 folks of Middlebrook, appeared to be well satisfied 
 with the effect of his unusual impressiveness. He 
 therefore proceeded to deliberately announce his 
 text, repeating it twice, slowly, as if each word were 
 heavy, and he had to lift it with an effort : " Love- 
 worketh-no-ill-to-his-neighbour Love-worketh-no- 
 ill-to-his-neighbour." 
 
 Having thus delivered his text with much solem- 
 nity, and having apparently divided it in his mind
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 under several heads, the Rev. Mr. Holworthy first 
 addressed himself to the subject of Love. But Love 
 cannot be said to have been the particular game 
 which he was hunting in the great oratorical effort 
 which he had planned for himself that morning. 
 Beyond a few general platitudes interspersed with 
 Scriptural quotations, he did not, therefore, expatiate 
 upon this branch of his discourse. It was only when 
 he came to consider the subject of " his neighbour" 
 that he may be said to have really struck the trail, 
 and to have warmed up in the pursuit of his argu- 
 ment. "Who is my neighbour? " he suddenly de- 
 manded, with so much imperative force, that a 
 half-witted young man, who sat in the front row, 
 promptly replied, " Ike Hunniwell, the infidel." 
 
 This reply to the minister's inquiry produced a 
 half-frightened smile on the faces of some of the con- 
 gregation. It must, however, be admitted, that in 
 general to the simple-minded farmers of Middlebrook, 
 unaccustomed as they were to much allegory or 
 metaphor, their "neighbours" were simply the plain, 
 hard-featured, but kindly, men and women who lived 
 on the farms adjoining their own, and the but little 
 more stylish men and women whose humble homes 
 lined the streets of Middlebrook. 
 
 But the Rev. Mr. Holworthy was looking for i
 
 The Strike of a Sex. gi 
 
 very different neighbour from any of these, and he 
 therefore only frowned at the reply of half-witted Ira 
 Aliter. 
 
 And in pursuit of this anomalous, hypothetical 
 neighbour, the Rev. Mr. Holworthy may then be 
 said to have proceeded to compass sea and land. 
 He sought him in the far-off jungles of India, on the 
 trackless wastes of Africa, among the nomadic hordes 
 of Tartary, and in the rigorous confines of Siberia; 
 No land known to be inhabited by the human race 
 was too distant or too inaccessible for the broad 
 sweep of his resistless benevolence to reach. In- 
 deed, if man had been amphibious, there is but little 
 doubt that he would have dragged the sea in the 
 ardour of his all-pervading search for this neighbour 
 to whom " love " was to "work no ill." But as man 
 did not occupy the depths of the sea, the Rev. Mr. 
 Holworthy contented himself with traversing, in his 
 astonishing mental flight, all the most distant and 
 uncivilized countries known to the geographer. 
 
 And in all these far-away places, some of which 
 the bewildered farmers of Middlebrook had never 
 heard of before, the Rev. Mr. Holworthy had no 
 difficulty in triumphantly finding "his neighbour' 1 ; 
 and having thus found "his neighbour" at the utter- 
 most ends of the earth, the Rev. Mr. Holworthy un-
 
 92 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 ceremoniously haled him as it were, taking him by 
 the nape of the neck, metaphorically speaking, and 
 holding him up for the dumbfounded farmers of 
 Middlebrook to gaze upon. 
 
 Having thus shown to the undiscriminating in- 
 habitants of Middlebrook who their real " neigh- 
 bours" were, the Rev. Mr. Holworthy proceeded 
 to invest these " neighbours " with the garments 
 made by the local branch of the Missionary 
 Society, putting these garments on to these imag- 
 inary " neighbours " somewhat as a constable 
 would clap handcuffs on to a miserable wretch who 
 had long eluded justice. Thus, the Rev. Mr. Hoi- 
 worthy, to his own satisfaction, showed to his con- 
 gregation that through the efforts of their local 
 branch of the Missionary Society they were working 
 no ill but positive good to their " neighbours'* in the 
 antipodes. He then indulged in much self-gratula- 
 tory and flowery complacence, assuring his congre- 
 gation that they were sublimely proving the Apostle 
 Paul's great sentence that " Love worketh no ill to 
 his neighbour." 
 
 In the minister's pew, a little way to the left of the 
 front of the pulpit, sat a pale and faded ghost of a 
 woman. She sat in the middle of the pew, and on 
 her right, looking very uneasy in tight jackets and
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 93 
 
 broad white collars, sat five stout boys. On her left, 
 in stiffly starched sun-bonnets and white aprons, 
 were four prim and meek-faced girls. Mrs. Hoi- 
 worthy was looking more than commonly pale and 
 fragile on this particular May morning. The delicate 
 blue veins in her white throat and in her slender 
 wrists showed plainly. Two or three times that 
 morning Mr. Holworthy had sent peremptory word 
 out from his study that the children must be kept 
 more quiet, as he was putting the finishing touches 
 on his great sermon, " Love worketh no ill to his 
 neighbour." Two or three times that morning, 
 while undergoing the fatigues of preparing the 
 children for church, Mrs. Holworthy had stopped 
 with a sudden fainting and fluttering at her heart. 
 And now, while she turned her white, patient face 
 toward the pulpit, strange fancies began to crowd 
 her mind, interrupted only when Mr. Holworthy, in 
 rounding off one of his turgid periods, brought out 
 with extra force the beautiful words of St. Paul, 
 " Love worketh no ill to his neighbour." 
 
 In Mrs. Holworthy's fancy, she seemed to see her- 
 self as she was at eighteen, a joyous care-free girl, 
 with many tastes for art and books, and high com- 
 panionships and charity, and great and noble deeds. 
 Life, then, had stretched before her like a flower-
 
 94 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 strewn pathway, not devoid of suffering and sacrifice, 
 to be sure, but the suffering and the sacrifice were to 
 have had the sweetness and recompense of being her 
 chosen own, freely accepted and joyfully submitted to 
 with the sublime consciousness of her own soul's 
 development thereby. 
 
 Then Mrs. Hohvorthy remembered with a sudden 
 shudder in the retrospect, of her meeting with Mr. 
 Holworthy. Did she love the heavy, phlegmatic 
 young minister who visited at her father's house so 
 long ago? No, she could see, oh, so clearly now, 
 that she did not, that she had never known love, 
 that she was too young and inexperienced to divine 
 the depths of meaning in that word. She saw she had 
 .been somewhat flattered by the attentions of the 
 young minister, that she had been drawn into mar- 
 riage with him by the assiduous teaching that 
 marriage was woman's sole sphere, and that marriage 
 with a clergyman was eminently pure and respectable. 
 As she looked back over her married life, she saw 
 that at its very threshold she had been compelled to 
 lay aside all her tastes for art, her aspirations for 
 doing something good and noble in her own way, even 
 her simple enjoyment of her own poor little life, all 
 had been ruthlessly sacrificed. From the day that 
 her first child was born, she had never known an un-
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 95 
 
 broken night's rest, she had scarcely looked into 
 a book, she had lost the use of her pen and pencil, 
 the cares of breeding had absorbed her whole life, and 
 what had she to show for them ? Her children, to 
 be sure ; but even these could never compensate her 
 for her ruthless dispossession of all the golden 
 opportunities and innocent cravings of her own 
 nature. 
 
 . As Mrs. Hoi worthy mused thus over her mutilated 
 past, the beautiful text of Mr. Holworthy's sermon 
 began to mingle with her thoughts, and to arouse 
 strange questionings in her mind. Could these 
 heathen " neighbours, 1 ' whom Mr. Hoi worthy was 
 seeking so strenuously in the far-off Isles of the Sea, 
 have a more unmitigated slavery than hers had been ? 
 However unenlightened they might be, were they not 
 quite as free and happy as she, bound as she had 
 been to bear children for this great man, whether she 
 wanted to or not, whether she was able to or not ? 
 Surely, if any one deserved pity and needed succour, 
 it was one whose lot had been like hers. Her head 
 began to feel strangely confused. She repeated Mr. 
 Holworthy's text to herself, " Love worketh no ill to 
 his neighbour." Beautiful words ! What could they 
 mean ? It was plain that something had worked ill to 
 her unreconciled life, and therefore it could not belove.
 
 96 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 No, it was a blinding mistake, a fearful travesty, a 
 hideous misnomer to call it love. " Love worketh 
 no ill to his neighbour," she repeated till her brain 
 was dizzy. 
 
 Just as the Rev. Mr. Holworthy had completed his 
 great effort and driven the last nail home, as it were, 
 by reciting for the last time the noble words of 
 St. Paul which had formed the theme of his dis- 
 course, there was a sudden stir in the congregation. 
 Mrs. Holworthy had fallen forward in her seat, and 
 her children were peering at her face with the unsus- 
 pecting curiosity of those who have experienced 
 neither care or sorrow. When the kind-hearted 
 women who came to her relief had laid her on the 
 cushioned seat, her lips moved as if she were repeat- 
 ing something, but the only word they could catch 
 was " Love." She had gone to a place where love 
 truly " worketh no ill to his ii^ighbour." 
 
 "This is indeed a mysterious dispensation of 
 Providence," said the Rev. Mr. Holworthy to his 
 awe-stricken parishioners. 
 
 But the village doctor, who was a man of few 
 words, confided to his wife that evening that he 
 thought that Mrs. Holworthy had died of a " dispen- 
 sation of children." 
 
 I had just finished reading this article in the Bitter
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 97 
 
 Cry, when there was a knock at my door, and Mr. 
 Lister entered. 
 
 "Come Mr. Carford," he said, "it is past two 
 o'clock and as the women's parade will not pass 
 through this street, we must take our luncheon at 
 once and go down to the public square." 
 
 I sprang up. " Let us go," I said. " I would not 
 miss such a spectacle for worlds. The sun never 
 looked down on its like before, and it probably never 
 will again." 
 
 And taking a hasty luncheon, we left the house.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The street through which the women were to pass, 
 was, we found when we reached it, already thickly 
 lined with men, many of whom bore marks of their 
 fearful struggle with fire of the night before. Arms 
 and hands bound up in slings, and foreheads bandaged 
 with cloths, told of the scathing wounds that had 
 been received in the fiery conflict. Blanched and 
 haggard faces and heavy eyes also told of sleepless 
 anxiety before and after the fire. Some of those who 
 had been so injured as to be unable to appear on the 
 streets, were propped in easy chairs at the open win- 
 dows. Not to see womankind after such an unpre- 
 cedented absence, was a deprivation not to be en- 
 dured. It would have been like missing the sight of 
 the sun after a dreary, Arctic winter. 
 
 But though all the men in the town, excepting 
 those who were disabled by wounds, were on the 
 streets and squares through which the women were 
 (98)
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 99 
 
 to pass, there was a silence like a spell upon the 
 vast multitude. It was a perfectly noiseless congrega- 
 tion that had gathered there. Anything like gossip 
 or badinage were as utterly absent as they would 
 have been from before the altar of a cathedral. 
 Truly there was no place for speech in that strange 
 concourse, and Mr. Lister and I took our places in 
 it without uttering a word. A feeling of solemnity 
 akin to awe had taken possession of me. I recalled 
 Mr. Lister's words when he first told me of the 
 parade: " The women wish man to see in a simple 
 panorama exactly what woman has been up to this 
 day." 
 
 What could the panorama be ? 
 
 But I did not have long to wait. And the tense 
 excitement of the moment when the women appeared 
 on the bridge, toward which all eyes were strained, 
 how can I describe it ! It seemed for a moment to 
 make me dizzy. When the mist which swam before 
 my eyes had cleared away, the head of a majestic 
 host had crossed the bridge, and was slowly advanc- 
 ing, without noise or gesture, toward the spot where 
 I stood. 
 
 Seen from a little distance, I remember a first vague 
 impression that the women had taken great liberties 
 with the fashions that had existed when I last saw
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 them. I called to mind that Mr. Lister had told me 
 that among the other relics of what had become to 
 them an obsolete and withered past, the women had 
 cast off many of the unreasoning fetters of fashion 
 that they had spent much earnest study and practical 
 experiment in their retirement in finding the most 
 natural and comely dress for women. I will not say 
 that the sight of women in any garb would not have 
 been thrilling under such strange circumstances as 
 those under which I was now about to behold her, but 
 certainly the women who were approaching me were 
 dressed with a simplicity and taste such as 1 had 
 never before seen. Their comely outlines seemed in- 
 vested with a new sense of freedom of motion such as 
 one might have who had been suddenly released from 
 a weary, dragging ball and chain. 
 
 But all thought of the vesture of these self- banished 
 daughters of the Universe vanished like a breath the 
 instant they drew near enough for me to note the rise 
 and fall of their tremulous bosoms, to search their 
 serious faces, and to study the arrangement of their 
 noiseless and modest pageant. Their speechless pro- 
 cession was divided in a way that I did not at first 
 comprehend, but there was a sense of plain, critical 
 sincerity about it, a perception that it was intended 
 to be a bare exposition of simple, unvarnished truth,
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 101 
 
 that sharpened my intellect so that I was not long 
 in perceiving its vivid meaning. 
 
 First in this strange procession came the unmarried 
 women, or "old maids" as they had always been 
 called, and although there were no upbraidings in 
 their serious, modest eyes, the intolerable injustice 
 and cruelty which had been meted out by man to 
 these patient, helpless souls, was made as clear as 
 the blackly vivid painting of a guilty conscience. 
 
 "These are they," a voice seemed to say, " whom 
 man has for ages taunted with a derision as con- 
 temptible and unchivalrous as the striking of a 
 cripple. These gentle sisters of men, who have been 
 by their nature ever ready to perform the kindest 
 and most sisterly acts for their recreant brothers, 
 have been laughed to scorn if they manifested the 
 slightest desire for marriage, and bitterly mocked if 
 they failed. Spurred by contumely toward the only 
 goal which man had allowed them, they had been 
 heartlessly derided for missing it, and relegated to a 
 life of coldness and contempt as cruel as the grave. 
 Instead of reaching a strong, brotherly arm toward 
 these sisters, man had added to her natural weakness 
 the abuse of a coarse ridicule and the unutterably 
 grievous burden of a cruel disrespect. To this had 
 been added in innumerable instances, the single-
 
 102 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 handed struggle with dire poverty." Before these 
 unreproaching creatures, who had suffered such un- 
 numerable cruelties at the hands of their natural 
 protectors, I felt a self-abasement that was akin to 
 remorse. I longed to throw myself in the dust before 
 them, to kiss their hands and to crave their forgive- 
 ness. Surely the woes of the " old maids " called 
 for the just vengeance of Heaven. And how many 
 there were of them ! Who would have dreamed, 
 without seeing such a panorama as this, that so 
 large a proportion of women were old maids, living 
 in a state of contemptuous abasement or humiliating 
 sufferance ? As I gazed at them, strange and con- 
 fusing questions, never before thought of, began to 
 thrust themselves into my mind. Had not this 
 great mass of women social and maternal instincts as 
 deep and inexpugnable as any of their kind ? What 
 sort of social system was this, then, that remorse- 
 lessly crushed and cruelly starved the strongest and 
 most innocent desires of a great majority of its 
 subjects ? Could it be possible that sane men and 
 women believed that a just Heaven looked with any 
 complaisance upon such a system ? 
 
 A space divided the old maids from the part of the 
 procession that came next, and I turned with curio- 
 sity to look at the faces of the men by whom I was
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 103 
 
 surrounded. To my satisfaction, I saw plainly 
 written there the poignant workings of a deeply 
 troubled conscience ; I saw there the unutterable 
 shame of having done an unchivalrous act, and the 
 still heavier reproach of having done a cruel one. 
 There was no need of upbraiding words. 
 
 The part of the procession which next drew near 
 seemed to be nearly as numerous as the " old maids." 
 With a sudden shock, I saw that it was the " courte- 
 sans," or rather those who had been courtesans, for 
 I remembered that Woman had, by an irrevocable 
 edict, forever banished the name and calling of the 
 courtesan from the earth. 
 
 But if the contemplation of the soul-wearying 
 burdens borne by the uncomplaining "old maids" 
 produced in the men who gazed upon them the com- 
 punctions of pity and remorse, the scarred and 
 wasted wrecks of man's passion which now passed 
 in long review before him, reproached him with a 
 piognancy ten-fold greater. These women, bearing 
 the ineffaceable marks of man's ravages, had differed, 
 it appeared, only by an accident from those whom 
 he esteemed pure. Dragged from the garden of 
 purity by man's own perfidy, they had been doomed 
 without hope of forgiveness, to forever minister ,to 
 is lust. Disregarding for ages the example and
 
 104 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 spirit of the Great Teacher, man had thrust the 
 victims he had thus made, deeper and deeper into 
 the blackness of a bottomless pit. I turned away 
 my head with a shudder from a spectacle before 
 which all men stood in awful condemnation ! 
 
 Fully two-thirds of the procession had passed by, 
 and the woman's panorama had shown nothing but 
 unmerited contumely or ruthless devastation. What 
 could there be left ? 
 
 It was a band of exceedingly frail and wasted 
 women, that I next looked upon. Feeble invalids 
 they appeared with but a remnant of days before 
 them. Borne down by disease they dragged out 
 lives of continual pain. The ashes of hope were in 
 their eyes, the ashes of beauty were in their faces, 
 and the ashes of strength were in their feeble frames. 
 These, it appeared, were women who had married 
 young profligates, " to save them." They looked like 
 flowers which had been hopelessly blasted by a 
 deadly, blighting wind. The fearful scars and moral 
 pollution which had been in the souls of their hus- 
 bands, had been wrecked upon them to the utter- 
 most, and there had been no voice to protest, no 
 sheltering arm to interpose. 
 
 These were followed by a very small band of women 
 who were said to have been happily married. But
 
 The Strike of a Sex, 105 
 
 the chains of these seemed in many respects as heavy, 
 though a little more gilded, than those of the women 
 who had preceded them. They appeared to have 
 paid their all for the narrow happiness which they 
 enjoyed, and it had been fraught with deadly perils, 
 against which they had had no adequate protection. 
 Even some of these, it seemed, had been bartered 
 for gold or titles, and only a filmy legal fiction stood 
 between them and the name and stain of the concu- 
 bine. Following them closely was the army of 
 married women, who, unfortunately mismated or 
 overborne by the evils of undesired maternity and 
 its dire accompaniment, poverty, formed the strong 
 rank and file of the Great Woman's Strike. 
 
 As I gazed upon them, a strange hallucination 
 possessed me. It seemed to me that I was looking, 
 not merely at the passing procession, but at the 
 tender mothers of all mankind, and that, with them, 
 I saw the mountain of anguish, the unremembered 
 toil, the care and undying self-sacrifice which they 
 had borne since the race began. What did not man 
 owe to woman ! 
 
 In the close of the procession came the young 
 women who were just verging upon marriageable 
 age, the tender and blooming maidens who were still 
 dallying in the primrose path of free and beautiful
 
 106 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 girlhood. The sight of these innocent and care-free 
 creatures would seem to have lightened and dissi- 
 pated the effect of the sight of the unabated misery 
 that had preceded them, but on the contrary, it im- 
 measurably heightened the awful effect. For these, 
 it appeared, were the perfumed and garlanded 
 victims who were soon to be offered up to the fearful 
 Moloch who presided over woman's destiny. "A 
 few short years," it seemed to say, " and the rosy 
 hours of youth's unfettered dance will be over. 
 Then, 1 claim you for the three great classes into 
 which women are divided, despised old maids, 
 feeding on the social crusts thrown from a profli- 
 gate's table; equally despised courtesans, sitting at 
 that table with man in wanton revelry ; and married 
 menials, propagative drudges, meekly waiting upon 
 that table, having no voice in the allotment of their 
 own destiny, and no power over their own persons." 
 This voice ringing in my ears, together with the 
 woeful procession which had passed before my eyes, 
 had completely daunted me. I could bear it no 
 longer. It was as if my conscience had been pre- 
 ternaturally aroused, and had brought before my 
 mind's eye, in long defile, a black array of unsus- 
 pected sins. Rapt as I had been in the contempla- 
 tion of this strange procession, I felt that I must
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 107 
 
 flee from it as I would flee from a spot where I had 
 committed a dastardly crime. I turned in anguish 
 to break my way through the crowd of men, any- 
 where to get away from the awful evidence of misery 
 in the producing of which I had been an accomplice 
 with all men. Judge, then, of my speechless amaze- 
 ment, my absolute horror, on turning, to find that 
 there was not a man in sight. Pierced as I had 
 been with an agonising contrition, it still appeared 
 that I was more callous than the men by whom I 
 had been surrounded. Unable to bear the heavy 
 reproach of their consciences, they had slunk away 
 one after another, till I, without knowing it, had 
 been left entirely alone. This discovery was too 
 great for my nerves, weakened as they had been by 
 the ceaseless shocks of the past few days. My brain 
 whirled. I was conscious of a sudden movement 
 toward me by some of the women in the procession 
 and then all was a blank. 
 I had fainted.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I did not remain unconscious long. When I 
 revived, I was lying on some wraps which were 
 spread upon the ground near where I had stood, and 
 gentle hands were bathing my forehead. I opened 
 my eyes, and saw that two women were kneeling 
 over me with solicitous faces, while a third, a com- 
 manding brunette, stood a little way off watching us. 
 The rest of the procession were returning across the 
 bridge toward the women's home. 
 
 The first thought that came into my mind as I 
 opened my eyes and saw the gentle faces hovering 
 over me, was that henceforth I should love all 
 women, that as a sex they were forever entitled to 
 the deep and admiring admiration and affection of 
 all men. Until a new and more humane social order 
 should be safely established, I would patiently bide 
 my time without license or anarchy, but no power 
 on earth should prevent me from loyally regarding 
 (108*
 
 The Stnke of a Sex. log 
 
 every woman as my sister from that time forth. I 
 murmured confused thanks for their kindness, and 
 arose in deep embarrassment. 
 
 " Are you well enough to go to your home ? " said 
 the young woman who had been watching us. Her 
 manner was that of sincere solicitude, unmixed with 
 either embarrassment or affectation. 
 
 "Yes, thank you," I said, and turned briskly on 
 my heel ; but I had gone but a few steps when my 
 feet began to falter ; my knees were strangely weak. 
 
 " I think you had better see him safely home," 
 said the brunette to the two women under whose 
 ministrations I had revived. Weak as I was I could 
 not refuse, ^and the two women, gently taking each 
 an arm, began to slowly walk with me toward Mr. 
 Lister's house. 
 
 Many times during the past few days, as the reader 
 knows, it had seemed to me that I must be dreaming, 
 such was the astounding strangeness of my surround- 
 ings. Let him then imagine what a wildly pre- 
 posterous vision it must have seemed to me, Rodney 
 Carford, to be escorted by two women toward a 
 home in a town in which woman had utterly forsaken 
 man. To be thus escorted, too, on the eve of the 
 casting of a ballot which was to decide the perpetuity 
 of the human race 1
 
 HO The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 To add to the overpowering strangeness of my situa- 
 tion, I suddenly realized that the two women who 
 were accompanying me toward Mr. Lister's home 
 belonged to the two most injured classes in the 
 women's panorama. One was an old maid, and the 
 other had been a courtesan. This discovery revived 
 in my mind the deep remorse which I had felt in 
 beholding their pathetic pageant. I remember weakly 
 trying to decide in my mind which of the two had 
 been most cruelly injured by man. I longed to throw 
 my arms around them both, but I scarcely dared to 
 look into their faces as we walked slowly along. At 
 last, as I stood at the door of Mr. Lister's house, I 
 raised my eyes to theirs. " Forgive me," I said to 
 the old maid. " Forgive me," I said to the courtesan. 
 They made no reply, but a serene light, unmixed with 
 any bitterness, shone in their eyes and gave me com- 
 fort. As they turned away after leaving me at the 
 door of Mr. Lister's house, I followed them wistfully 
 with my eyes. They had wound their arms about 
 each other like sisters, and without a single backward 
 glance, were walking toward the bridge. 
 
 I have no recollection how I passed the night that 
 ensued, but I suppose I must have slept. I remember 
 that Mr. Lister had retired when I entered the 
 house, and as I felt no inclination for conversation,
 
 The Strike of a Sex. Ill 
 
 it was a relief to me to seek the solitude of my 
 room. 
 
 The day on which the ballots were to be cast 
 dawned as all other days of great import to the human 
 days have dawned. Although it was a day that was 
 to decide a question never before conceived of, and 
 one that involved the possible extinction of the human 
 race, it was not marked by any demonstration of 
 any kind. On the contrary, the conspicuous thing 
 about the day, making it totally unlike any previous 
 balloting in the world's history, was the noiselessness 
 with which everything was conducted. There were 
 no harangues upon the street corners, no attempt at 
 persuasion anywhere, not even any inquiry among 
 men as to how individuals were going to vote. Each 
 man seemed wholly wrapped in his own thoughts, 
 but there was a stern directness of manner, a total 
 absence of any appearance of vacillation, that showed 
 that the time for the decision was ripe. 
 
 The system of voting was the Australian, and how 
 each man was to vote was a secret known only to 
 his own soul. After spending some time with Mr. 
 Lister in visiting the polling-places, I returned to 
 the house to pass the day as best I could in his 
 library. 
 
 At noon Mr. Lister returned with an interesting
 
 H2 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 piece of news. The polls were to close at four o'clock, 
 and at that hour the women were to assemble in the 
 great Auditorium which formed one of the group of 
 buildings which they occupied. There they were to 
 await the report of the decision of the ballots, and 
 any one was free to go there to hear it. To pass the 
 time till then I reminded Mr. Lister of his promise 
 to give me " Zugassent's Discovery." He placed 
 the book in my hands, and, having arranged with me 
 to meet him at the Woman's Auditorium at four 
 o'clock, he left the house to attend to business per- 
 taining to the balloting. 
 
 It was with a feeling of rare curiosity, not unmixed 
 with profound awe, that I opened a book which 
 promised to have made a discovery of value in a field 
 in which no other discoverer had ever had the 
 temerity to set foot. That this discovery was as 
 innocent of evil as the white light of day, and pro- 
 foundly scientific as well, that it was in keeping with 
 the noble advancement of man in all other depart- 
 ments of wisdom, I was assured both from what I 
 had been told of the character of Zugassent, and 
 because it commended itself to such pure-minded 
 lovers as Justin Lister and Allegra Alliston. But I 
 had not the slightest idea of what this discovery 
 might be. I accordingly plunged into the book as
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 113 
 
 one plunges on a summer's day in a stream of whose 
 depth he has no conception. 
 
 As I got deeper and deeper into "Zugassent's 
 Discovery," my interest became absorbingly, wonder- 
 fully, and overpoweringly intense. 1 forgot all about 
 the Great Woman's Strike. I forgot where I was. 
 I forgot everything which had happened in the 
 exciting days through which I had just passed. 
 Hour after hour flew by, and as I turned page after 
 page there was gradually unfolded to my wondering 
 perceptions a discovery that appeared to be the 
 perfection of chivalry, the essense of unselfishness, 
 the culminating and consummate flower of the true 
 refinement of all ages. Civilizing and ennobling 
 man beyond all precedent, it seemed to lift the 
 primeval curse from woman not less really than if it 
 had been done by an Omnipotent fiat. With breath- 
 less interest I read on. Once only I paused, as the 
 question rose in my mind, " Was it feasible ?" At 
 that critical moment a clock struck, and I counted 
 the strokes. Five o'clock ! Like a flash the recol- 
 lection of everything came back to me. It was an 
 hour after the time at which I had promised to meet 
 Mr. Lister at the Woman's Auditorium ! Thrusting 
 " Zaugassent's Discovery" into my pocket, I seized 
 my hat, and leaving the house, hurried toward the 
 bridge which led to the women's home.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 As I entered the Auditorium, and hastened to a 
 seat beside Mr. Lister, I saw that the vast floor was 
 filled with men and women, but that they were 
 separated by a wide space. A woman whom I 
 quickly recognized as Allegra Alliston was speaking 
 from the platform. As I entered she was saying ; 
 
 " Remove but this monstrous shadow which con- 
 tinually yawns over woman's life, and she promises 
 to become the true glory of man, and to cheer and 
 lighten his pathway with a radiance more dazzling 
 than his wildest dreams ever conceived of." 
 
 As the speaker proceeded I became conscious that 
 I was surrounded by a growing tumult of weeping. 
 The deep conviction of having cruelly oppressed and 
 wronged and ravaged woman for unnumbered ages, 
 which I had seen on the strained and anxious faces of 
 the men when I first entered the hall, had given way 
 to sobs and groans. The speaker paused for a moment 
 (114)
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 115 
 
 with emotion. Suddenly as if it had been traced by 
 a hand on the wall, the conviction burst upon that 
 weeping multitude that immeasurably above all ties 
 of consanguity,' and even higher than any more senti- 
 mental tie, clear and serene stood the great, practical 
 truth that all men and women were brothers and 
 sisters, the children of one common Father, and as 
 such were forever entitled to each other's deepest 
 love and compassion. Filled with this sublime 
 thought, they gazed at each other with the glistening, 
 eager eyes that welcome a long absent brother or 
 sister. 
 
 The speaker seemed inspired with this thought. 
 With a radiant smile, she continued : 
 
 " You weep at the contemplation of the bitter woes 
 of the past. Let me, I beseech you, lift up your eyes 
 to the near glories of a possible future, when the new 
 man and woman, neither oppressing nor oppressed, 
 shall pass down the centuries hand in hand minister- 
 ing to each other from the sweet fountains of eternal 
 affection. Who shall say that in that union a power 
 may not be evolved from which Death himself shall 
 draw back dismayed ?" 
 
 As the speaker concluded, she did not perceive 
 that a dainty little girl had entered the building 
 unnoticed, and come upon the stage. In one hand
 
 Ii6 The Strike of a Sex. 
 
 she bore a white rose, and in the other a paper to 
 which she sought to draw the speaker's attention by 
 tugging at her garments. There was a murmur 
 among the audience that it was the news of the 
 decision of the ballots, the guarantee on which the 
 the fate of not only a single race but all races 
 hung. 
 
 Miss Alliston caught the deep significance of the 
 murmur. She took the paper in her trembling hands, 
 and pressing it against her tumultuous bosom, ad- 
 vanced to the front of the platform. Instantly every 
 man in the great building arose, and with eyes 
 rivetted intently on the paper, waited as if for a 
 sentence of doom or a joyful pardon. 
 
 The fearful suspense of that crucial moment ! How 
 can I describe it ? It seemed as if the very atmosphere 
 of the room throbbed with so high a magnetic ten- 
 sion that it must burst. A deathly stillness had 
 succeeded the storm of weeping. Pale as marble 
 and with one pleading glance at the foremost row 
 of stern, but wan-faced men, Allegra Alliston opened 
 the paper. For a time, which seemed agonizing 
 ages, her eyes rested on the contents. Then her 
 hand containing the paper slowly dropped to her 
 side. A seraphic smile beamed upon her counte- 
 nance, as she said, in a voice broken with emotion :
 
 The Strike of a Sex. 117 
 
 " The shadow is removed from woman. The 
 guarantee is granted forev ." 
 
 But the reaction of the pent-up emotion of that 
 awful alienation could be stayed no longer. It 
 seemed as though nothing in Heaven above or on 
 the earth beneath could restrain what followed. 
 With a cry which must have been heard at the 
 throne of God, and before Allegra Alliston could 
 finish her sentence, the men and women in that vast 
 hall had rushed into each other's arms as the uncon- 
 trollable sea rushes back to its pristine bed. There 
 were tears, but they were tears of such illimitable 
 joy as earth had never seen before, and might never 
 see again. Homely or handsome, it mattered not. 
 In that souls' jubilee there was a brother's and a 
 sister's joyful caress for every one. 
 
 It seemed as though my heart must burst a\ 
 beholding the mighty spectacle of man and woman 
 thus forever reconciled and united as they never l:ad 
 been since they were driven from the Garden pv 
 Eden. In the vehemence of my emotions, I essayed 
 to rise, to speak, to cry out I know not what ; but, 
 instead, I awoke from what had been b'lC * dream. 
 I was sobbing with convulsive joy.
 
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