But I had then
been casting over in my mind for some years thoughts to which I never
was able to give a final form, thoughts about the position of women in
society, which would not let me rest.
A woman whose thought fired mine even further just about this time, a
large-minded woman, who studied society with an uncompromising
directness that was scarcely to be met with in any man of the time in
Denmark, was the wife of the poet Carsten Hauch. When she spoke of
Danish women, the stage of their development and their position in law,
their apathy and the contemptibleness of the men, whether these latter
were despots, pedants, or self-sufficient Christians, she made me a
sharer of her point of view; our hearts glowed with the same flame.
Rinna Hauch was not, like certain old ladies of her circle, a "woman's
movement" woman before the name was invented. She taught no doctrine,
but she glowed with ardour for the cause of freedom and justice. She saw
through the weak, petty men and women of her acquaintance and despised
them. She too passionately desired a thorough revolution in modern
society to be able to feel satisfied merely by an amelioration of the
circumstances of women of the middle classes; and yet it was the
condition of women, especially in the classes she knew well, that she
thought most about.
Pages:
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318