It is dying, inch by inch, in the midst of old superstitions
which it invokes in vain, and yet it has the elixir of life in its
hands. Let it drink but a draught, and it will bloom once more; it will
be refreshed, radiant; it will find its youth again. The heart, the
heart is cold, and nothing but the touch of woman can warm it, make it
act. We _are_ the Heart of humanity, and let us have the courage to
insist on it! The public life of the world will move in the same barren,
mechanical, vicious circle--the circle of egotism, cruelty, ferocity,
jealousy, greed, of blind striving to do things only for _some_, at the
cost of others, instead of trying to do everything for all. All, all?
Who dares to say 'all' when we are not there? We are an equal, a
splendid, an inestimable part. Try us and you'll see--you will wonder
how, without us, society has ever dragged itself even this distance--so
wretchedly small compared with what it might have been--on its painful
earthly pilgrimage. That is what I should like above all to pour into
the ears of those who still hold out, who stiffen their necks and repeat
hard, empty formulas, which are as dry as a broken gourd that has been
flung away in the desert. I would take them by their selfishness, their
indolence, their interest. I am not here to recriminate, nor to deepen
the gulf that already yawns between the sexes, and I don't accept the
doctrine that they are natural enemies, since my plea is for a union far
more intimate--provided it be equal--than any that the sages and
philosophers of former times have ever dreamed of.
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