Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/212

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204
FRANCES WRIGHT D'ARUSMONT

various pretexts, from the estates of the wealthy proprietors of the soil among whom she moved: ‘Has man, then, no home upon the earth, and are age and infirmity entitled to no care or consideration?’ Upon one occasion, peculiarly distressing to her feelings, her soliloquy was to the effect that some strange secret, some extraordinary vice, lay at the foundation of the whole of human practice. What! should she devote her whole energies to its discovery? At the close she pronounced to herself a solemn oath to wear ever in her heart the cause of the poor and the helpless, and to aid all that she could in redressing the grievous wrongs which seemed to prevail in society. She not unfrequently recalls the engagement then taken, and feels that she has done her best to fulfil it.”

“Tt was while engrossed, perplexed, and often depressed with silent and unsuccessful efforts to arrive at a satisfactory view of truth in anything, that she first accidentally opened the page of America’s national his-