Margaret was now testing her power as a writer. ‘I have finished the pamphlet,’ she writes, ‘though the last day it kept spinning out beneath my hand. After taking a long walk, early one most exhilarating morning, I sat down to work, and did not give it the last stroke till near nine in the evening. Then I felt a delightful glow, as if I had put a good deal of my true life in it, and as if, should I go away now, the measure of my foot-print would be left on the earth.’
A few extracts from her manuscripts upon this subject
may be of interest, as indicating the spirit and aim with
which she wrote: —
‘To those of us who hate emphasis and exaggeration,
who believe that whatever is good of its kind is good,
who shrink from love of excitement and love of sway,
who, while ready for duties of many kinds, dislike
pledges and bonds to any, — this talk about “Woman’s
Sphere,” “Woman’s Mission,” and all such phrases
as mark the present consciousness of an impending
transition from old conventions to greater freedom, are
most repulsive. And it demands some valor to lift one’s
head amidst the shower of public squibs, private sneers,
anger, scorn, derision, called out by the demand that
women should be put on a par with their brethren,
legally and politically; that they should hold property
not by permission but by tight, and that they should
take an active part in all great movements. But
though, with Mignon, we are prompted to characterize
heaven as the place where
‘“Sie fragen nicht nach Mann nie Weib,”
