“And he said, ‘Oh my wife, have I not waited and watched and hoped that they who are nobler and stronger than I, all over this land, would lift up their voices and speak—and there is only a deadly silence? Here and there one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind the hand; one says, ‘My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud’; and another says, ‘I have a promise of land’; and another, ‘I am socially intimate with these men, and should lose my social standing if I let my voice be heard.’ Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, which we had hoped would be free and strong among the peoples of earth, is rotten and honeycombed with the tyranny of gold! We who had hoped to stand first in the Anglo-Saxon sisterhood for justice and freedom, are not even fit to stand last. Do I not know only too bitterly how weak is my voice; and that that which I can do is as nothing: but shall I remain silent? Shall the glow-worm refuse to give its light, because it is not a star set up on high; shall the broken stick refuse to burn and warm one frozen man’s hands, because it is not a beacon-light flaming across the earth? Ever a voice is behind my shoulder, that whispers to me—‘Why break your head against a stone wall? Leave this work to the greater and larger men of your people; they who will do it better than you can do it! Why break your heart when life could be so fair to you?’ But, oh my wife, the strong men are silent! and shall I not speak, though I know my power is as nothing?’

“He laid his head upon his hands.

“And she said, ‘I cannot understand you. When I come home and tell you that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, you always answer me, ‘Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that we cannot help them?’ A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go to visit people and treat them as your friends, into whose house I would not go. Yet when the richest and strongest men in the land, who could crush you with their money, as a boy crushes a fly between his finger and thumb, take a certain course, you stand and oppose them.’