Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/25

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AVERAGE PEOPLE.
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of speech, such self-asserting, executive ability and dominant purpose, that in rebounding from this type of femineity, we would almost rather accept the sentimental heroines of the novels of a past age. The obloquy of being only a woman was ludicrously shown by the misnomer with which a real lady unconsciously spoke of A. S. Hardy's story, "But yet a Woman." "Not yet a lady," she rightly termed it. The tone in which society utters, "She is no lady," indicates so final a settlement of the matter that there is no opportunity for controversy. The fiat has gone forth as that of predestination, and there is no use in struggling against the mandate.

Man and gentleman have not inverted their significance to such an extent as their feminine correlatives. The exceptional gentleman includes the man, but to be a man does not compel one to be a gentleman; — and we say manhood suffrage! If we possess the blessedness of average excellence, the exceptional

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