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Beauty and The Beast-Part39_Bayard Taylor(1825-1878)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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be done, than she furthered it with all her might. After several

attempts to introduce a bill, which were always cut off by some



"point of order," she unhappily lost her usual patience.

I don't know that I can exactly explain how it happened, for what



the men call "parliamentary tactics" always made me fidgetty. But

the "previous question" turned up (as it always seemed to me to do,



at the wrong time), and cut her off before she had spoken ten

words.



"Mr. Speaker!" she protested; "there is no question, previous to

this, which needs the consideration of the house! This is first in



importance, and demands your immediate--"

"Order! order!" came from all parts of the house.



"I am in order--the right is always in order!" she exclaimed,

getting more and more excited. "We women are not going to be



contented with the mere show of our rights on this floor; we demand

the substance--"



And so she was going on, when there arose the most fearful tumult.

The upshot of it was, that the speaker ordered the sergeant-at-arms



to remove Mrs. Whiston; one of the members, more considerate,

walked across the floor to her, and tried to explain in what manner



she was violating the rules; and in another minute she sat down, so

white, rigid and silent that it made me shake in my shoes to look



at her.

"I have made a great blunder," she said to me, that evening; "and



it may set us back a little; but I shall recover my ground." Which

she did, I assure you. She cultivated the acquaintance of the



leaders of both parties, studied their tactics, and quietly waited

for a good opportunity to bring in her bill. At first, we thought



it would pass; but one of the male members presently came out with

a speech, which dashed our hopes to nothing. He simply took the



ground that there must be absoluteequality in citizenship; that

every privilege was balanced by a duty, every trust accompanied



with its responsibility. He had no objection to women possessing

equal rights with men--but to give them all civil rights and exempt



them from the most important obligation of service, would be, he

said, to create a privileged class--a femalearistocracy. It was



contrary to the spirit of our institutions. The women had

complained of taxation without representation; did they now claim



the latter without the former?

The people never look more than half-way into a subject, and so



this speech was immensely" target="_blank" title="ad.极大地，无限地">immensely popular. I will not give Mrs. Whiston's

admirable reply; for Mr. Spelter informs me that you will not



accept an article, if it should make more than seventy or eighty

printed pages. It is enough that our bill was "killed," as the men



say (a brutal word); and the women of the State laid the blame of

the failure upon us. You may imagine that we suffered under this



injustice; but worse was to come.

As I said before, a great many things came up in the Legislature



which I did not understand--and, to be candid, did not care

to understand. But I was obliged to vote, nevertheless, and in



this extremity I depended pretty much on Mrs. Whiston's counsel.

We could not well go to the private nightly confabs of the



members--indeed, they did not invite us; and when it came to the

issue of State bonds, bank charters, and such like, I felt as if I



were blundering along in the dark.

One day, I received, to my immenseastonishment, a hundred and more



letters, all from the northern part of our county. I opened them,

one after the other, and--well, it is beyond my power to tell you



what varieties of indignation and abuse fell upon me. It seems

that I had voted against the bill to charter the Mendip Extension



Railroad Co. I had been obliged to vote for or against so many

things, that it was impossible to recollect them all. However, I



procured the printed journal, and, sure enough! there, among the

nays, was "Strongitharm." It was not a week after that--and I was






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