A Gentleman from Mississippi

Perhaps I ought to have been a man of the Langdon family, she exclaimed. Father, oh, can’t you understand that I couldn’t doze my life away down on those plantations? You don’t know what ambition is. I had to have the world. I had to have money. If I had been a man I would have tried big financial enterprises. I should have liked to fight for a fortune. You wouldn’t have condemned me then. You might have said my methods were bold, but if I succeeded I would have been a great man. But just because I am a woman you think I must sit home with my knitting. No, father, the world does move. Women must have an equal chance with men, but I wish I had been a man.