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WOMAN'S SECRET
3

away with age-old misunderstanding. My second object is to set forth what seems to be the chief reason for the too long continuance of the situation in which we find ourselves, and to suggest that the cause of it is woman's inarticulateness in the past.

To speak of her as inarticulate is not to forget that she has long been called the voluble sex. Her supposed inability to keep a secret is with many an unchallenged article of faith. Yet no secret has ever been better kept than the woman's, as those may dimly have divined who speak of the sex as enigmatic.

In every tongue, at various stages of the world's progress, we have had the man's views upon every subject within sight—including woman. What the woman thought of it all, no deepest delver in dusty archives, or among ruins of dead cities, has ever brought to light. The sagas, the histories, song, epitaph, and story—the world's garnered treasure of record, whether it be of the life of action or the life of the spirit—they are all but so many reflections of the mind of man.

From India to Egypt, from Greece to Yucatan, the learned are labouring to bring the Past to light. All over the civilised world are those who wait with eagerness to hear of the recovery of some lost master-piece—thrilling when the cable tells of a Menander speaking for himself at last, instead of through the mouths of others. All the learned world waits to hear what men of the Minoan civilisa-