DREAM NUMBER ONE.

LAST night I had a dream, which may have a meaning.

I stood on a high hill that overlooked a large city. The proud spires of many churches rose high, here and there; and round about the city were beautiful, sloping hills, stretching away, away into the distance; while a broad river wound here and there, extending a kindly arm toward the city.

As I stood there, wondering what manner of city it was, its name, and the character of its inhabitants, all at once I found myself in its very midst. From house to house I flitted; from kitchen to kitchen; and lo! everywhere the respective duties of man and woman were reversed; for in every household I found the men in aprons, superintending the affairs of the kitchen.

Everywhere men, and only men, were the Bridgets and housekeepers. I thought that those gentlemen-housekeepers looked very pale, and somewhat nervous; and, when I looked into their spirits (for it seemed in my dream that I had the power), I saw anxiety and unrest, a constant feeling of unpleasant expectancy, – the result of a long and weary battling with the cares of the household.

As I looked at those men-Bridgets and gentleman-housekeepers, I said to myself, "This is very strange! Why, these men seem unsexed! How stoop-shouldered they are! how weak and complaining their voices."

I found, too, that not only was the kitchen exclusively man's, but also the nursery: in fact, all the housework was directed and done by men. I felt a sad pity for these men, as I flitted from house to house, from kitchen to kitchen, from nursery to nursery.

I saw them in the houses of the poor, where the "man did his own work." I saw him in the morning arise early, light the fire, and begin to prepare the breakfast, his face pale and haggard. "No wonder!" I thought, when I saw how he hurried, hurried, while in his spirit was a constant fear that the baby would awake. Very soon I heard the sharp cry of the baby; and away ran the poor father, soon returning with baby in his arms, carrying it around with him, while he raked the fire, fried the meat, and set the table for breakfast. When all was ready, down came two or three unwashed, unkempt children, who must be attended to: and, when all this was done, I observed that the poor gentleman's appetite was gone; and, pale and nervous, he sat down in the rocking-chair, with the baby in his arms. But what greatly astonished me was to see how quietly and composedly the lady of the house drank her coffee and read the morning paper; apparently oblivious of the trials of her poor husband, and of all he had to endure in connection with his household cares.

It was wash-day, and I watched him through that long and weary day. First at the wash-tub, while baby slept; then rocking the cradle and washing at the same time; then preparing dinner, running and hurrying here and there about the house: while in his poor, disturbed mind revolved the thought of the sewing that ought to be done, and only his own hands to do it.

Evening came, and the lady of the house returned to dinner. The children came to meet her; and as she lifted up one, and then another, and kissed them, I thought! "Why, how beautiful is that woman!" Then in my dream I seemed to behold every woman of that strange city; and ah! the marvellous beauty of those women! Eye hath not seen, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive; for a beauty almost angelic was so charmingly combined with intellect, and health brooded so divinely over all, that, at the tout ensemble, I was profoundly astonished and intensely delighted.

Then I turned myself about, and was again in the home I had left. It was evening: the lamp on the table was lighted, and there sat the poor husband I have described, in his rocking-chair, darning stockings and mending the children's clothes after the hard day's washing. I saw that it had rained; that the clothes-line had broken, and dropped the clothes in the dirty yard; and the poor man had had a terrible time rinsing some and washing others over again; and that he had finally put them down in wash-tubs, and covered them with water he had brought from a square distant.

But the day's work was over; and there he moved to and fro, while his wife, in comfortable slippers, sat by the fire reading.

"Well," I said to myself, "such is the home of the lowly; but how is it where one or more servants can be kept?" Then, as by magic, I saw how it was; for I found myself in a kitchen where a male Bridget was at work, his hair uncombed, his face and hands unwashed, and his clothes torn and soiled. Bridget was cooking breakfast, a knife in his hand, while he was bending over the cooking-stove, moodily talking to himself. The gentleman-housekeeper, pale and unhappy, opened the door, looked at Bridget, but said nothing, and soon went into the dining-room. As soon as his back was turned, Bridget turned around, lifted the arm that held the knife, and, with a fiendish look, whispered to himself, "I would like to strike you with this."

Breakfast on the table, I looked, and beheld bad coffee, burned meat, and heavy biscuits; and I heard the lady of the house, who sat in a morning-robe and spangled slippers, say to the poor gentleman, –

"My dear, this breakfast is bad, very bad: you ought to attend to things better."

I observed how sad he felt at these words; and I did pity the poor fellow. It seemed to me that I stayed a whole day with this poor gentleman. His health was very feeble: he was suffering from dyspepsia. I saw him attending the children, saw him sewing, saw him go nervously into the kitchen, and sadly and wearily attend to things there, while the dark glances of the male Bridget followed him viciously everywhere. I saw the waste and thieving of that man-Bridget, and saw how completely that poor gentleman felt crushed and held by his help. My heart yearned toward that poor, feeble housekeeper, unable to do his own work, and so much at the mercy of that terrible Bridget; and I ceased to wonder at the pale faces of the men everywhere.

The homes of the wealthy I visited; and almost everywhere I found those gentleman-housekeepers anxious and worried, no matter how many servants were kept. There was trouble about washing, trouble about ironing, trouble about children: there was waste, there was thieving; and, oh! the number of poor, sickly gentlemen I found made me very sad.

And while, in my dream, my heart was going out in pity and commiseration toward those gentlemen-housekeepers, I found myself in the midst of a large assembly, composed exclusively of these men. Here almost every man in the city had congregated to hold an indignation-meeting, – a housekeeper's indignation-meeting. Every man wore a white kitchen-apron, and some I noticed whose sleeves were white with flour, while others had pieces of dough here and there stuck on their clothes: others, again, had hanging on their arms dish-cloths and towels. Very many, too, had babies in their arms, and one or more children at their side.

Then I listened to some of their speeches. One gentleman said, –

"I have kept house sixteen years; and I know what it is to be poor and do my own work; and I know what it is to have servants: and I tell you, gentlemen, the whole system of housekeeping, as now conducted, is a bad one. It is, in the first place, wasteful and extravagant; and, in the next place, it wears out our bodies and souls. See how pale and feeble we are! It is time there was a

change."

"We don't each of us make our own shoes," said another speaker; "we don't each of us spin our own yarn, or weave our own cloth: the hand-loom has departed, and it is now done by machinery, which has so far come to our rescue. It is not so bad for us as for our grandfathers, who had to weave on a hand-loom all the muslin and cloth for the family; but it is bad enough. Here we are kept every day of our lives over the cook-stove, wash-tub, or ironing-table, or thinking about them. Can nothing be done to remedy this? Can not all the domestic work be done by machinery? Can not it be done on wholesale principles? I say it can: there is no more need for a kitchen to any house than for a spindle or a loom."

Then followed many more speeches about the extravagance of the present system, whereby one or two persons, and often more, were employed in doing the work of a small family, when it might be done at much less expense for one-fourth the labor, were the wholesale principle applied to that as it is to other things.

One man remarked that the kitchen was a small retail shop to every house: another called it a dirt-producing establishment for every family, sending its fumes and filth to every room. Another gentleman said that the fine pictures painted about the domestic hearth, happy homes, &c., were all moonshine, and would continue so just as long as the present state of things continued.

"I protest against the present state of things," said a tall, delicate man, with a large, active brain.

"We have this matter in our own hands; and let us here and now begin something practical.

Instead of forty little extravagant cooking-stoves, with each a Bridget, and so many gentlemen employed as housekeepers, let us have one large stove, and do our cooking, washing, and ironing on a large scale."

Well, I thought in my dream that I listened to hundreds of speeches and protests and denunciations.

Then the scene changed; and forthwith there sprang up large cooking-establishments in different parts of the city, that could, as if by magic, supply hundreds of families with their regular meals. I looked, and lo! what machinery had done in the weaving of cloth, above and beyond what had been affected by the hand-loom, was accomplished here. The inventive genius of the age had been at work; and the result was a wondrous machine that could cook, wash, and iron for hundreds of people at once.

"I must see the workings of that establishment," I said in my dream; and forthwith a polite gentleman, who said that he had been a housekeeper twenty-five years, and knew all the petty annoyances of the old system, kindly proposed to show me the various doings of the machinery.

"We are going to cook dinner now," he said, as he walked toward a monster machine. He touched a handle, and then about fifty bushels of potatoes were quietly let down into a large cistern, where they were washed, and then moved forward into a machine for peeling; which operation was accomplished in a minute or two by its hundreds of knives, and the potatoes came out all ready to be cooked. Turnips went through the same process, and other vegetables were prepared and made ready for the huge cooking apparatus. All was done by machinery: there was no lifting, no hauling, no confusion; but the machines, like things of life, lifted, prepared, and transferred as desired.

I saw what was called a "self-feeding pie-maker," that reminded me of a steam printing-press, where the paper goes in blank at one end and comes out printed at the other. So the flour, shortening, and fruit were taken in all at once at three separate receptacles, and came out at the other end pies ready for the oven, to which they were at once, over a small tramway, transferred by machinery. Another machine made cakes and pies.

Meal-time came: the dinner was to be served. Two large wooden doors opened by means of a spring which the gentleman touched with his foot. Through them came filing past us, one after another, small, curiously constructed steam-wagons, the motion of which caused but little noise, as the wheels were tired with vulcanized India-rubber: those wagons were so arranged as to travel on common roads, and much resembled caravans. They moved past machines which were called "servers," where meals were dished and transferred to the steam caravans, which latter were termed "waiters." All this was done systematically, quietly, yet rapidly, by a few persons in charge of the machines by which meals were prepared for and distributed to hundreds of families. I saw that there were hundreds of these "servers," as well as hundreds of waiters; so that the dinner was dished and served almost simultaneously, in double-tin cases, containing all requisites for the table.

Then away went the steam "waiters," delivering the meals almost simultaneously at the houses, which, by the by, were rapidly being "reconstructed" to meet the new state of things, with dining-rooms to accommodate hundreds at once, in blocks, or hollow squares, with cook-houses, laundries, &c., at the center, or in circles similarly arranged, combining, in a most inconceivable degree, economy with beauty.

To return to the steam waiters: At a time understood, they called for the tin cases containing dishes and débris, and then wended their way back to headquarters, where all the dishes were washed and transferred to their places by steam-power.

The washing and ironing, I discovered, was done in the same expeditious manner, by machinery; several hundred pieces going in at one part of the machine dirty, and coming out at the other end a few minutes afterward, rinsed and ready to dry. The ironing was as rapid as it was perfect, – smooth, glossy, uncreased, unspecked; all done by machinery.

Then I looked once more into this strange city, and, behold! an emancipated class! The pale, sickly faces of the men were giving place to ruddy health. Anxiety, once so marked in their features, was departing. No Bridget to dread now; no washing-day any more; no sad faces nor neglected children: for now the poor gentlemen-housekeepers had time to attend to the children, and to the cultivation of their own minds; and I saw that the dream of the poet and of the seer was realized: for husband and wife sat side by side, each sharing the joys of the other. Science and philosophy, home and children, were cemented together; for peace, sweet peace, had descended like a dove on every household.

I awoke: it was all a dream. My husband stood at my bedside. "Annie, Annie!" he said: "awake, Annie! that new girl of yours is good for nothing. You will have to rise and attend to her, else I shall have no breakfast. I have been late at the office for several days past, and I fear I shall be late again."

I arose: and, as my husband ate his breakfast, I pondered over my strange dream. As soon as he was gone, I transferred it to paper, feeling that it really did mean something, and is intended as a prophecy of the "good time coming," when women will be rid of the kitchen and cook-stove, and the possibilities of the age actualize for woman that which I have dreamed for man.

DREAM NUMBER TWO

ONCE again I have visited that strange city in dream-land, where men, and only men, were the housekeepers and Bridgets.

It is midnight: I have just awakened from my dream, and risen to pen it down, lest in the morning I should find my memory treacherous. My good husband has protested against writing by gas-light, and very gravely given his opinion on midnight writing; and – ah, well! he is sound asleep now, I see; and so at once to my dream.

I thought my husband and I were walking along some beautiful streets, when all at once I exclaimed, "Why, husband! here we are together in that very city I told you about, where the men are the housekeepers and kitchen-girls. Oh, I'm glad! Let us find out everything about these inhabitants, both men and women."

While we were talking together, several gentlemen, pale and delicate in appearance, passed us. Some were dressed in calico suits, trimmed with little ruffles – ruffles round the bottom of the pants, ruffles down the front and round the tails of the coats; and on both sides of the button-holes of their vests were rows of small ruffles. From some of their little flat hats flowed ribbon-streamers; while on others were placed, jauntily and conspicuously, feathers and flowers.

More and more gentlemen passed us. What a variety of costume! I was almost bewildered; gentlemen in red, green, yellow, drab, and black suits, trimmed in such elaborate and fanciful styles! Some suits were parti-colored; that is to say, the pants perhaps yellow or red, the vest blue, the coat green, crimson, or drab. Some of these suits were trimmed with lace: lace down the sides of the pants and round the bottoms; lace round the edges of the coat, and beautifully curving hither and thither as a vine, over the backs and down the fronts of the coats; and also over the fronts of the vests. Some suits were almost covered with elaborate embroidery, or satin folds, or piping, or ribbon, while bows and streamers of the same or contrasting colors, according to taste, were placed on the backs of the coats, shoulders, and, here and there, on the vest and pants. It really makes me laugh at this moment to think of that comical sight. Their head-dresses, too, were most fantastic; flowers, bits of lace, tulle or blonde, feathers, and even birds, were mixed in endless profusion with ribbon, tinsel, glitter, and (ad libitum) grease. Many of these gentlemen carried little portemonnaies, which hung on their jewelled fingers by tiny chains. Others carried fans, some edged with feathers, or covered with pictures, or inlaid with pearl, &c., varying, I supposed, according to the purse.

Each of these gentlemen seemed particularly interested in every other gentleman's costume; for they turned and looked at each other, while several exclamations reached my ear; such as, "What a superb suit!" "What a splendid coat!" "What a darling vest!" "What a love of a hat!"

These gentlemen had a swinging gate, something like that of a sailor, that made their coat-tails move to and fro as they walked. I noticed, too, that they were very careful of their pants, which were decidedly wide; for on passing over a gutter or soiled part of the pavement, they carefully and daintily raised the legs of the pants with the finger and thumb. This impressed me favorably as to their love of cleanliness; for otherwise the laces, ribbons, embroidery, or ruffles which graced the bottoms of their pants, would have come in contact with the mud of the streets.

As we stood looking at those strange gentlemen, my husband suggested the idea of a masquerade. Then suddenly I found myself alone, and flitting from dwelling to dwelling, from home to home; and everywhere the gentlemen were dressed in flimsy materials, and all more or less decked with trimmings.

I found the majority of gentlemen busy with needlework, some doing the sewing of the family; but many, very many, with their sons, dressed in delicate morning suits, doing fancy-work. Some were working little cats and dogs on footstools; others were busy with embroidery, fancy knitting, and all the delicate nothings that interest only ladies in this waking world of ours.

As I listened to their conversation, which was generally composed of gossip, fashion, or love-matters, – for the male sex took the fashion-books, and not ladies, and these I found in the majority of homes, headed "Gentlemen's Magazine of Fashions," – as I listened to their conversation, I repeat, and observed all this, my soul was filled with unutterable sadness. "Alas! alas!" I said: "what means this degradation? Why have the lords of creation become mere puppets or dolls? Where is the loftiness and intellectuality of man – noble man!"

Just then I was aroused from my reverie by an aspiring young gentleman who was sewing some ruffles on the legs of his pants, saying to his father, "I don't see, papa, why men can not earn money as well as women: I want to learn a business."

"That is all nonsense," replied his father: "your business is to get married. There is no necessity for a boy to learn a business; what you have to do is to learn to be a good housekeeper; for you will be married some day, and will have to attend to your children and your wife; and that is enough business for any man."

"But I may not marry," said the boy; "and I know I will not, unless I can get a woman with money, that can give me a good home."

Then they talked about Mr. Some-one – I could not catch the name – that had married well: his wife was worth over fifty thousand dollars, and was very kind to him, taking him to theaters and concerts, and wherever he wanted to go: she let him, too, have all the dress he wanted. She had only one fault: she would not allow him to go anywhere unless she accompanied him.

Oh! my soul was sick with sympathy and pity for that race of poor degraded men! "What does it mean?" I asked myself: "why are they in this pitiable condition?"

Then, for the first time, I realized that this city was the capital of a great nation; that women, and only women, were the lawmakers, judges, executive officers, &c., of the nation; that every office of honor and emolument was filled by women; that all colleges and literary institutions, with very few exceptions, were all built for women, and only open to women, and that men were all excluded. I went from school to school, from college to college; and, ah! the beauty, the dignity, of those women! Science and art had truly crowned them with their own best gifts: their faces seemed to me almost divine; and, ah! what a contrast to the vain, silly, half-educated men who staid at home, or paraded the streets, thinking principally of fashion and dress! for these women were everywhere dressed in plain, substantial clothing, which lent them such a charm that I realized instinctively there was something about them far more beautiful than beauty.

As I looked upon these women in the colleges, as students and professors, as lawyers, judges, and jurors, as I looked upon them in the lecture-room and the pulpit, the house of representatives and the senate-chamber, – yea, everywhere, – I observed their quiet dignity, clothed in their plain flowing robes; and I was almost tempted to believe that Nature had intended – in this part of the world at least – that woman, and only woman, should legislate and govern; and that here, if nowhere else, woman should be superior to man.

In the galleries of the legislative bodies were hundreds of gentlemen, young and old, looking on, and listening to the speeches made by the lady members. How they fluttered and fanned and whispered and smiled!

"Alas, for fallen man!" I said. Then, in an instant, I had, as by one glance, looked into the pockets of every lady and gentleman present, and also into the acquisitive pockets of the brain of each; and the result proved to me, that, as man held the purse with us, so woman held the purse in that wonderful dream-land. To obtain money from their wives, those weak, silly men would often resort to cajolery and deceit. Only from their wives could they obtain money for dress or any thing else; and so, as by common consent, nearly all the husbands had seemingly decided that they had a right to get all they could out of their wives, without any reference to the question whether the wife could afford it or not. Thus I found, that the woman being the purse-holder, she the giver and he the receiver, worked most disastrously; for it made the interests of wife and husband separate: the interest of the wife was not the interest of the husband, his greatest care being to get all he could, and spend all he could get.

I left those buildings, and took the street-cars. Here those noble-looking, stately women escorted the gentlemen to the cars, stood while the gentlemen walked in first, then demurely stepped on board, and paid the car-fare for both. What impressed me as much as any thing I saw was, with what matter-of-course style the gentlemen, in their dainty, flimsy, flying garments, occupied the seats of the cars, while the ladies stood; or, if a lady had a seat, with what noble demeanor she rose and gave it up if a gentlemen stepped on board. I saw that those ladies took gentlemen to theaters and places of amusement; ladies took those gentlemen to church, and very kindly saw them safely home; ladies told those gentlemen how beautiful they looked, how prettily they were dressed, &c.; and I saw that it gave these poor, weak-minded men much pleasure.

In ice-cream saloons and other places of refreshment, these gentlemen were as kindly and as gallantly taken by the ladies, who, in all cases, paid for the refreshments.

I looked into the churches, which were principally filled with elegantly-dressed gentlemen. "Ah!" I said to myself, "in religion these down-trodden men find some consolation;" but, in an instant, I was shocked by realizing that more than half went from custom, or to show their dress and see the fashions.

I looked into the prayer-meetings, and (being, of course, all the time invisible) was also present at the confessionals; and in both, the excess of men who attended was a remarkable fact.

Men got up sewing-societies and mite-societies; and, in these, many sad, sorrowful men found a few moments, sometimes, of happy, useful existence.

Occasionally, in those public places I found a man who had risen above his fellows, who had become famous in literature. I met with some male poets, and several conversant with science in a degree equal to the best of women. And I said to myself," If these few men have proved themselves equal to the best of women, then is it not strong presumptive evidence that all these men would be equal to women, were they equally educated?"

Then I seemed in my dream to grasp the cause of all this difference between the sexes; and that these beautiful, noble women might have been in the same deplorable condition had they been trained and educated as these degraded men, – without a motive in life, limited in education and culture, shut out of every path to honor or emolument, and reduced to the condition of paupers on the bounty of the opposite sex. I saw that the disadvantages under which one sex thus labored constituted a curse that extended to both; and that, though the drudgery of the kitchen had been removed, it was not the millennium, by any means, as I had supposed in my last dream, but only the beginning of the millennium. Man was not the only sufferer, but the wrong due to man acted and reacted on woman; for men, being defrauded in their education, and nearly all avenues to pecuniary independence closed to them, marriage, with those half-educated, dependent creatures called men, was necessarily their highest ambition. There was no other way for them to obtain wealth or a home; hence they devoted all their powers to the one grand object of catching a woman with money; hence woman became also the sufferer, being often trapped into marriage by one of these silly, worthless men, who had learned well the arts and schemes of wife-catching.

I looked into the thought-cells of these ladies' brains, and found stored therein, in almost every instance, a decided belief that men constituted the inferior, and women the superior sex.

There is a bright side, however, to every picture; and even my dream had its bright side. For instance: I had dreamed that I looked in on the gentlemen with pale face and haggard countenance, of whom I spoke in my first dream as a man that "did his own work;" and now, instead of toil and anxiety about meals, washing, ironing, &c., he was in the garden with his children, planting vegetable-seeds and flower-seeds; and as I with pleasure noted his returning health and strength, I listened to his talk with the children, whom he was interesting with a story.

How I lingered with that gentleman! I accompanied him to the house, and saw him reading; I looked over his book, and was delighted to find that he was studying physiology. By and by he began to talk with the children about the nerves, which he called electric wires carrying messages to the brain; which delighted the children: and I said in deep reverence, "Thank God, that man has been emancipated from the kitchen! he will work out his own salvation: the golden key of the universe has he grasped with his own right hand, and it will open to him every door in the arcana of Nature. Not for ever will man be considered woman's inferior."

Then, like a flash, came to me the mental and moral status of every man in that great country; and I realized that with emancipation from the kitchen had come a hungering and thirsting for education, for mental aliment.

Then I turned; and, lo! I stood in the street, where great posters caught my eye: –

"MAN'S RIGHTS!

A LECTURE ON MAN'S RIGHTS,"

I read.

Fain would I have attended a lecture on man's rights; but, in my eagerness to do so, I awoke.

P.S. – It is morning; and, to my great joy, I have had another dream. As I retired to my bed after writing the above, instantly Dreamland was present, and the thread taken up where it was dropped. I have attended lectures on Man's Rights, and Man's Rights Conventions; all of which I must write down at once, even if my husband has to go without his breakfast; for dreams so often take to themselves wings and fly away!

DREAM NUMBER THREE.

WHO can divine the philosophy of dreams? Who can account for the fact that persons visit again and again places they have never beheld by physical eyes, and talk with people they have only known in Dreamland? How real become to us the places and the people we have repeatedly visited in our dreams! Who have not experienced something of this reality in their own dreaming?

But it does seem especially remarkable to me, that, after having penned down at midnight one dream, I should, on returning to my pillow, have found myself in the very spot where my late dream ended; again in that strange city, again looking at the large posters headed, –

"MAN'S RIGHTS!!

MR. SAMMIE SMILEY, MR. JOHNNIE SMITH, AND OTHERS,

Will address the meeting on the

RIGHTS OF MAN!"

I was pleased on coming to these words: "Discussion is invited." "I will go," I said, and turned to follow the crowd; but, as by magic, was transferred to one of the large cooking-establishments which I saw in my first dream, and soon recognized it to be the same.

There were the huge machines at work cooking dinner, while in a comfortable rocking-chair sat the same gentleman who had in that same dream showed me over the establishment. He was reading a newspaper. "Ah!" he said, as he looked up from his paper, "glad to see you, madam. You see I have time to read while the dinner is cooking. All goes on well. We supply one-eighth of the city with meals, and everybody is satisfied, nay, more than satisfied: they are delighted with the arrangement; for every poor man is relieved of washing, ironing, and cooking. And yet all this is done at less cost than when every house had its little selfish, dirty kitchen."

"And what is this about 'man's rights'?" I asked. "I see posters all over your city, headed, 'Man's Rights!'"

He smiled as he replied, "Well, madam, emancipating man from the drudgery of the kitchen has given him leisure for thought; and, in his thinking, he had discovered that he labors under many wrongs, and is deprived of quite as many rights. The idea of men lecturing, men voting, men holding office, &c., excites considerable ridicule; but ridicule proves nothing."

"Are you going to the lecture?" I asked.

"I will go if I have company," he replied; "but it would not look well for me to go alone: besides, I would be afraid to go home so late."

I made no answer; but I thought musingly, "Afraid! afraid of what? of what can these men be afraid? I wonder if there are any wild beasts prowling around this strange city at night. Perhaps there are wolves or mad dogs; but then he is a man, and could carry a revolver and protect himself." But, as by a flash, the truth came to me, and I wondered I had not thought of it before. In this land, woman is the natural protector; and so, of course, he was afraid to go without a lady to take care of him.

I had scarcely arrived at this conclusion, when I found myself en rapport with every husband in that city. "I would like to go to the lecture on 'men's rights,'" I heard one man say to his wife very timidly.

"I shall go to no such place," replied his wife loftily; "neither will you. 'Man's rights,' indeed!"

"Let us go to the lecture," said another husband to his wife, with a pleasant smile on his face.

"No, no, my dear," replied the lady: "I like you just as you are; and I don't admire womanish men. Nothing is more disgusting than feminine men. We don't want men running to the polls, and electioneering: what would become of the babies at such times?"

Then I looked in on a bevy of young boys ranging in age from sixteen to twenty. How they did laugh at the very mention of "man's rights," as they put on their pretty coats and hats, looking in the mirror, and turning half round to see how their coat-tails looked!

"Man's rights!" said one. "I have all the rights I want."

"So have I," said a young boy of nineteen. "I don't want any more rights."

"We'll have rights enough, I presume, when we get married," said a tall boy of seventeen, as he touched up the flowers in his pretty hat, and perched it carefully on his head.

"Are you all ready?" said a lady, looking into the room. "Come, I want you all to learn your rights to-night. I warrant that after to-night you will want to carry the purse, don the long robes, and send us ladies into the nursery to take care of the babies!"

Hundreds of ladies and gentlemen were on their way to the meeting; and it rejoiced me greatly to find in the hearts of many of the ladies a profound respect for the rights of man, and a sincere desire that man should enjoy every right equally with themselves.

Then I found myself in the lecture-room, which was well filled with ladies and gentlemen, many of whom seemed greatly amused as they whispered and smiled to each other. Very soon three little gentlemen and one rather tall, thin, pale-faced gentlemen walked to the platform, and were received with great demonstrations of applause and suppressed laughter. The audience were evidently not accustomed to hear gentlemen lecture.

"How ridiculous those men look!" I heard one elderly lady say. "What does it look like to see a parcel of men pretending to make speeches, in their tawdry pants and fly-away coat-tails, covered with finery and furbelows?"

"They sadly lack the dignity," said another female, "that belongs to ladies and long robes."

"They are decidedly out of their sphere," I heard another remark.

The meeting was opened by the tall gentleman being nominated as president, who at once introduced Mr. Sammie Smiley to the audience, remarking that Mr. Sammie Smiley, with whom they were probably all acquainted by reputation, would address the audience on the all-important subject of Man's Rights.

"Sammie Smiley!" said a young lady contemptuously. "Suppose we should call ourselves Lizzie instead of Elizabeth, or Maggie instead of Margaret. Their very names lack dignity."

Mr. Sammie Smiley stepped to the front of the platform with remarkable self-possession for one of the gentlemen of that Dreamland. He wore a suit of black silk, – coat, vest, and pants all alike, bordered with broad black lace. He wore no ornaments, except ear-rings, a plain breastpin, and one or two rings on the fingers. Very good taste, I thought.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "our subject this evening is the Rights of Man; but to properly understand this question, it would be well, before considering man's rights, to define his wrongs."

"Hear, hear!" applauded the audience.

"Education," he continued, "commences with childhood; and men's wrongs also commence with childhood, inasmuch as they are restricted from healthful physical exercise. The merry, active boy, that would romp and play like his sister, is told that it would be improper for a boy. How often your little son has to be reminded that a boy must not do so and so: he must be a dear little gentleman, and not rough and boisterous like a girl.

"He is kept in over-heated rooms; seldom breathes the pure air of heaven; and when he is taken out, how different his dress from that of the girl! Look at his flimsy pants of white muslin; look at his flimsy jacket and paper shoes: and contrast them with the warm cloth dress, the substantial over-garments, and thick shoes of the girl! Think how seldom the boy is permitted to inhale the life-giving, open atmosphere! The girl may romp and play in the snow, climb fences and trees, and thus strengthen every muscle; while the little pale-faced boy presses his nose against the window-pane, and wishes – alas! vainly – that he, too, had been a girl.

"The course of training for our boys causes weakness and disease in after-life, and more than a natural degree of muscular inferiority. The pale faces of boys are a sad contrast to the rosy-cheeked girls in the same family. In our boys is laid, not by Nature, but by ignorance and custom, the foundation for bodily weakness, consequently dependence and mental imbecility: in our girls, muscular strength and their accompaniments, independence and vivacity, both of body and mind. Were boys subject to the same physical training as girls (and no valid reason can be given why they should not be), the result would prove that no natural inferiority exists.

"True education I conceive to be the harmonious development of the whole being, both physical and mental. The natural or physical is before the intellectual. First the stalk, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. Through ignorance of these primary truths, many well-intentioned fathers hurry their children to premature graves.

"Why is it that, of all the children born, one-fifth die annually? Can not this large mortality be traced to the present ignorance of males? Can it not be traced to their flimsy and imperfect educational training? If men had their rights, were all literary institutions as free to one sex as to the other, our young men would be taught what is of the utmost importance for them to know, but what is kept sedulously from them; viz., a knowledge of mental and physical science.

"Let man be educated as liberally as woman; let him be made to feel the value of a sound mind, and that the brightest ornament to man, as well as woman, is intellect: then, and not until then, will he stand forth in all his beauty.

"We frequently hear that woman's mind is superior to man's; and therefore he ought not to have equal educational facilities. If, as is stated by the opponents of man's rights, men are naturally and necessarily inferior to women, it must follow that they should have superior opportunities for mental culture. If, on the other hand, men are by nature mentally equal to women, no reason can be given why they should not have equal educational facilities."

In the midst of the audience, a beautiful, stately woman rose, and said, that, if it was not out of order, she would like to ask a question: Did not the literature written expressly for men – gentlemen's magazines, gentlemen's fashion-books, &c., – prove their inferiority? This question caused a laugh, and round after round of applause; but the little gentleman-speaker smilingly replied, that many gentlemen never read the trash prepared for them just as simple reading is prepared for children: but the works written for women to read, they study and digest, feeling that they were as much for them as for women. The lecturer then continued by stating the appreciative estimates of the truth of science and philosophy evinced by men as well as women, which would be the case to a still greater extent as the opportunities for culture were increased, when gentlemen's books and their flimsy trash would disappear; that even were man weaker in judgment than woman, it did not follow that he should never use it; and, if women did all the reasoning for man, it would not be surprising if he had lost the power to reason.

"Pretty good, Mr. Sammie Smiley," said a lady near me.

"Smiley can reason pretty well: that is pretty good logic," remarked another. Then applause after applause rose, accompanied by stamping and clapping of hands, while some young folks in the back of the hall crowed like roosters.

It was really very funny; but Mr. Sammie Smiley took no notice of the proceeding. He referred to the exclusion of men from nearly all occupations, from governing States to measuring tape; also that men were paid only one-third of the wages of women, even for the same work, their occupations being mainly restricted to sewing and teaching; while women could do both these, and whatever else they chose. He urged the gentlemen to push their way into the employment and professions of women, and be equal sharers in the rights of humanity.

Mr. Johnnie Smith then made an excellent speech on man's civil and political rights; but the discussion that followed so interested me that I can not at this moment recall it. When he sat down, a lady arose, and said, that, as discussions were allowed, she desired to make a few remarks.

"Take the platform! take the platform!" said several voices, which she accordingly did.

"What ease! what dignity!" said I mentally, as she stood there in her long, flowing robes. "Ah, woman! thou art verily transfigured."

Then I looked around on that audience, and am compelled to say that the comparison between the sexes was any thing but flattery to the gentlemen. Woman as I am, I love above all things to behold the beautiful face of a woman; but here was womanly beauty exceeding our highest conceptions; and in profound reverence I said, "Our Father in heaven, I thank thee for human beauty. Teach us the laws of beauty, that we, thy children, may people this earth with beautiful beings. Homeliness is akin to ignorance and sin; while beauty of form and beauty of intellect constitute God's best gifts to mortals.

"Those two gentlemen," said the lady, "have given us many good things to-night. There are very few persons who do not know that our sons and husbands ought to be better educated and better paid for their labor; but shall we, for this reason, make them presidents and senators? How would they look in the senate-chamber in their style of dress, so lacking in dignity? Why, we should have them quarreling and pulling hair very soon!"

"Ha, ha!" laughed the audience.

"No, no, gentlemen! you can discuss fashion and money-spending far better than national affairs. Besides, what would become of the babies? Do you propose that we, the women, shall take these your duties upon us? Depend upon it you are wrong, gentlemen: the sphere of man is home; and I am decidedly opposed to taking man out of his sphere. Let us for a moment see what Nature teaches on this subject; let us look at man divested of his embroidery and trimming; look at his angular, long form; look at his hairy face. Is he not in his outward structure and appearance more allied to the lower animals? Look at him, and do you not at once think of the monkey? [Hear, hear!] Now turn to woman. Look at her! Does not Nature delight in curves as in lines of beauty?

"See how the planets as they revolve in their orbits delight in curves? It is Nature's perfect method of form and motion. Now look at woman's beautifully curved face and bust, and compare her form in its curved outlines with the angular outlines of man's form, and tell me if Nature herself has not put the stamp of inferiority on man! Ah, woman's face is enough! No mask of hair does she wear; but clear as the sun and fair as the moon shines clearly every feature, thus conclusively attesting her superiority. Again: how well Nature knows the superiority of woman and the inferiority of man, inasmuch as she has chosen women for maternity. Ah! Nature knew where to find the perfect mould for her handiwork; Nature knew which is the superior sex: –

"Let us look at this matter from another stand-point. Nature is harmonious in all her parts. If, as I have proved, woman is physically superior, then she is mentally superior; and as man is physically inferior, so, as he must be harmonious in all his parts, he is necessarily and unmistakably inferior in all other respects."

I thought in my dream that I was greatly dissatisfied with the lady's speech, and I did pity the little gentlemen on the platform who were forced to hear so much about their inferiority.

"One more argument," said the lady, "and I am done; and this argument is also drawn from Nature. Woman has phrenologically a larger organ of language than man. Now, what does this teach us? It teaches us this (and it ought to teach every man the same truth): that woman is the natural orator; that it is she who should be the lecturer, the speech-maker, the orator, and not man. It teaches us that women as senators and representatives, as lecturers and orators, are where they belong, where Nature intended they should be. It teaches us more than this: that, as man has smaller language than woman, his sphere is the domestic; is the quiet, the silent, the unobtrusive; is one of silent influences, not public and demonstrative like that of woman."

She sat down, and I was really glad. "Woman superior to man!" I exclaimed to myself. "Well, some people can prove any thing. I do hope that little gentleman will demolish their sophistry." But, just as Mr. Sammie Smiley arose to reply, I awoke; and, behold! it was all a dream; and I gladly realized, that, in this waking world of ours, man is not considered the inferior of woman, neither is he deprived of his just rights; and I wish sincerely that I could transfer our men to their Dreamland, and that there, at least, in God's universe, there might be one spot where men and women could stand side by side as equals.