Lady Corinthia says
I don’t want you to talk. I want you to listen. You do not yet understand my views on the question of the Suffrage. I must preface my remarks reminding you that the Suffraget movement is essentially a dowdy movement. The suffragets are not all dowdies; but they are mainly supported dowdies. Now I am not a dowdy. Oh, no compliments -It is easy to read your thoughts. I am one of those women who are accustomed to rule the world through men. Man is ruled beauty, charm. The men who are not have no influence. The Salic Law, which forbade women to occupy a throne, is founded on the fact that when a woman is on the throne the country is ruled men, and therefore ruled badly; whereas when a man is on the throne, the country is ruled women, and therefore ruled well. The suffragets would degrade women from being rulers to being voters, mere politicians, the drudges of the caucus and the polling booth. We should lose our influence completely under such a state of affairs. The New Zealand women have the vote. What is the result? No poet ever makes a New Zealand woman his heroine. One might as well be romantic about New Zealand mutton. Look at the suffragets themselves. The only ones who are popular are the pretty ones, who flirt with mobs as ordinary women flirt with officers.