“The women have leaped from ‘their spheres,’
And instead of fixed stars, shoot as comets along,
And are setting the world by the ears!
They’ve taken the notion to speak for themselves,
And are wielding the tongue and the pen;
They’ve mounted the rostrum, the termagent elves!
And – oh, horrid! – are talking to men!”
Abolitionist Maria Chapman (who, in Heaven, can perhaps explain to me what a “termagent elf” is)