him, good or bad. I am sorry to have to be ungallant enough to say
that I do not think they always use their influence for the best. Too
often the female world is bounded hard and fast within the limits of
the commonplace. Their ideal hero is a prince of littleness, and to
become that many a powerful mind, enchanted by love, is "lost to life
and use and name and fame."

And yet, women, you could make us so much better if you only would.
It rests with you, more than with all the preachers, to roll this
world a little nearer heaven. Chivalry is not dead: it only sleeps
for want of work to do. It is you who must wake it to noble deeds.
You must be worthy of knightly worship.

You must be higher than ourselves. It was for Una that the Red Cross
Knight did war. For no painted, mincing court dame could the dragon
have been slain. Oh, ladies fair, be fair in mind and soul as well as
face, so that brave knights may win glory in your service! Oh, woman,
throw off your disguising cloaks of selfishness, effrontery, and
affectation! Stand forth once more a queen in your royal robe of
simple purity. A thousand swords, now rusting in ignoble sloth, shall
leap from their scabbards to do battle for your honor against wrong.
A thousand Sir Rolands shall lay lance in rest, and Fear, Avarice,
Pleasure, and Ambition shall go down in the dust before your colors.

What noble deeds were we not ripe for in the days when we loved? What
noble lives could we not have lived for her sake? Our love was a
religion we could have died for. It was no mere human creature like
ourselves that we adored. It was a queen that we paid homage to, a
goddess that we worshiped.