But it seems to me that
the women have not advanced as far as the men have done.
They have
acquired a sufficient perception of the privileges which chivalry
gives them, but no perception of that return which chivalry demands
from them. Women of the class to which I allude are always talking
of their rights, but seem to have a most indifferent idea of their
duties. They have no scruple at demanding from men everything that
a man can be called on to relinquish in a woman's behalf, but they
do so without any of that grace which turns the demand made into a
favor conferred.
I have seen much of this in various cities of America, but much
more of it in New York than elsewhere. I have heard young
Americans complain of it, swearing that they must change the whole
tenor of their habits toward women. I have heard American ladies
speak of it with loathing and disgust. For myself, I have
entertained on sundry occasions that sort of feeling for an
American woman which the close vicinity of an unclean animal
produces. I have spoken of this with reference to street cars,
because in no position of life does an unfortunate man become more
liable to these anti-feminine atrocities than in the center of one
of these vehicles. The woman, as she enters, drags after her a
misshapen, dirty mass of battered wirework, which she calls her
crinoline, and which adds as much to her grace and comfort as a log
of wood does to a donkey when tied to the animal's leg in a
paddock.
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