WOMAN IN THE FUTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1325, 21 April 1877, Page 19

WOMAN IN THE FUTURE.

It ia said that, among female authors and artists, we have never had a Shakespeare, a Raphael, a Beethoven, or a Michael Angelo. But; gentlemen, you will never have them again. The colossal flora of the carboniferous period is not likely to retura . The Baurians, the mastodon -and the mammoth are extinct. Giant thoughts and conceptions of ancient da^s have followed the footsteps of these monsters: These are the days for scrutinising a drop of water, for observing the nervous system of a plant, for studying the circulation of protoplasm in the atiing of the nettle, for ascertaining thd'limitß of human nature/ for fecognising.or ignoring our poor relations in all

forms of life below us. Woman has only come into self-consciousness and selfeffort in these microscopic days. She will, not think hugely, awkwardly, terribly—she will think finely, delicately, exquisitely. Her words, like Mrs Browning's, will be electric, holding both the lightning and the thunder ; or, like Miss Ingelow's, white with the light of the moon and stars ; or, like Alice Carey's, filled with the freshness and sweetness of the June mornings and the apple blooms. For the material genius of nature, and the mental genius of humanity, are brethren that fall not out by tho way. — Augusta Cooper Bristol.