Timeless Social Issues

"First, suppress every form of parasite. Three-quarters of the soil is waste land; clear up France. Put an end to useless pastures, divide the communal lands. Let every man have a piece of ground, and every piece of ground have a man. It would multiply the products of society a hundredfold. France, at the present time, only gives her peasants meat four days in the year; if well cultivated, she ought to feed three hundred millions of men,—all Europe. Utilize nature, that great auxiliary so much scorned. Make all the winds, all the waterfalls, all the magnetic effluvia work for you. The globe has a network of subterranean veins; in this network there is a prodigious circulation of water, oil, and fire; pierce the veins of the globe, and let this water gush forth for your fountains, this oil for your lamps, this fire for your hearths. Reflect on the motion of the waves, the flux and reflux, the ebb and flow of the tides. What is the ocean? An enormous force wasted. How stupid the earth is not to make use of the ocean."

"And woman—what use do you make of her?"

"Let her be what she is, the servant of man."

"Yes. On one condition, that man shall be the servant of woman."

"That is to say that you want for man and for woman──"

"Equality."

"Are you dreaming? The two beings are different."

"I said equality. I did not say identity."

"You go too fast."

"Perhaps it is because I am somewhat pressed for time," said Gauvain, with a smile.

—Victor Hugo, Ninety-Three, translated by A. L. Burt Company [Lowell Blair's is better but not online].