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COMPARING MEN AND WOMEN. 
WITTY SPEECHES BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CLUB.
The subject of the relative usefulness of men and women was the excuse for a series of witty discourses at the Nineteenth Century Club last evening. The Art Association rooms at No. 6 East Twenty-third-st., were crowded with a more than usually brilliant company when Courtlandt Palmer introduced General Horace Porter. There was a popular impression that General Porter was going to uphold the cause of his fellow-men, but he went over to the enemy before the first gun was fired. He traced the history of woman from her manufacture out of the rib- the crookedest part of man - down to the present, in a somewhat anecdotal and discursive manner that kept his audience on the verge of convulsions with laughter. Then taking up woman's life as a history of the affections he spoke of the many examples of womanly devotion in the wars of this country and Europe. 
Then Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi took up the thread of the discussion. She said that any proposition as to the relative usefulness of men and women was unthinkable. There could be discussion about the relative usefulness of the masculine and feminine elements, but these were mingled in every man and in every woman. This fact was recognized by Fourier in the little Utopia that he thought out. The feminine elements might be enumerated as discursiveness, superficiality, immediate practicalness or short-range practicalness and personality. These were the result of ages of barbarous existence in which woman had to do her work and take care of her child at the same time. Three things were always on her mind, the baby, the dinner pot and the man who was coming back to growl about both. Hence in her habits of mind she became discursive and superficial. Her short-sighted practicalness came from the application of immediate and simple remedies. The baby cried: he must be soothed. The pot boiled over; it must be taken from the fire. The man growled; he must be cajoled into good nature. She never went beyond the second link in the chain. Her personal tendency came from thinking always of the child and its comfort. The husband dealt with material things and subdued them for her and the child. In the adjustment of nature the woman and child were one and equal to the man. The qualities were not so bad, however. Discursiveness led to the association of ideas and that lay at the root of knowledge. Out of the short-sighted and personal tendencies arose constancy, the sublimest of virtues. Dr. Jacobi's clean-cut ideas nearly turned phrases, and gentle delivery were th sources of great delight to her hearers. 
Moncure D. Conway then joined his forces to the opposition and hammered away at the doctrine of the inferiority of women as taught in the "fairy tale" of the Garden of Eden and the "spuricus?" epistle to Timothy. These were gotten up for want of a better explanation of the inferiority which actually existed. The real cause of the general inferiority was physical inferiority and physical inferiority was because size was transmitted in the direct male line, while intellectual peculiarities went criss-cross. Man, being the passionate animal, fought for woman and the biggest man won her. This perpetuated size in man and beauty in woman.  
Miss Kate Field believed in the interdependence of men and women. The club of the future would admit both to its membership. Then she made an eloquent plea for the right of woman to speak in public on the stage. They ought to be the more successful because they were the more graceful, and had greater freedom of dress and the average audience "heard with their eyes."
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Wednesday March 24" 1886. Sara came down today and she, Marion and I went over to the Grand Opera House to see "Over the Garden Wall" which amused me considerably a year or so ago. But the theatre is so big it is difficult to hear and it was hot and close so that we did not enjoy it as much as I hoped to. 

Thursday 25. Do not feel like painting. I have worked a little each day on this little portrait of dear Gertrude belonging to her Mother and I hope I have made it more like her but am not sure. Sara and I called at Miss Nixons but she was not at home so we went on up to Eastman Johnsons where Sara had never been and spent the evening very pleasantly. Eastman took us up to his studio and showed us the portrait of Bishop Potter he is painting and which he says does not go on as successfully as he could wish. They invited us to dine with them tomorrow evening.
 
Friday 26th 
I received a charming letter from Mrs Steele from San Luis Obispo, Cal. this morning in answer to one I wrote her some months ago. She tells me Mrs. Angell her sister has a mortal illness and they cannot hope that she will live more than a few weeks. She seemed to have been greatly pleased with my letter as I certainly was with hers. They were two lovely women who stand out clearly and distinctly in the memory of my early life, entirely detached from all other women I remember for there indefinable charms which are the fortunate heritage of only a few women. I went over to Calverts office and began the painting his model for the Grant Monument. Sara and I dined at Eastmans. Mary Johnson arrived from Syracuse before we had finished dinner. We had a very pleasant evening which Sara greatly enjoyed.

Saturday 27" Went over to Calverts and finished the model, but am to go again on Monday to make some changes. Began to rain gently about noon. Went home with Sara by 4' o clock train. Mary Goetchins had gone back to Kaatskill. Mary (Vaux) said my father had not been down stairs since we went away and that he did not seem so well, but seemed to have taken a slight cold. 

Sunday 28" My father sat up and I read a letter of Israel White to him and also Mrs. Steeles letter, but he did not come down stairs. I answered Israel Whites letter to my father and wrote to Mrs. Steele and selected one of dear Gertrudes photographs to send to her. Mary, Sara and I went down and called on John + Nannie in the evening. 

Transcription Notes:
Friday 26 has missing words.