Taken as a whole, the change is labored and painful.
So our new notions worked on women.

There were groups which resented and refused them, became reactionary at the stating of them.

There were those which grew grave and troubled under them, shrinking from the portentous upheaval they felt in their touch, yet sensing that they must be accepted.

There were still others where the notion frothed and foamed, turning up unexpected ideas, revealing depths of dissatisfaction, of desire, of unsuspected powers in woman that startled the staid old world.

It was in these quarters that there was produced the uneasy woman typical of the day.
Her ferment went to the bottom of things this time.