its object divine perfection, and delighting in it only in degree as it symbolizes the essential good. But why is not this love steadily directed to the Central Spirit, since in no form, however suggestive in beauty, can God be fully revealed? Love’s delusion is owing to one of man’s most godlike qualities, — the earnestness with which he would concentrate his whole being, and thus experience the Now of the I Am. Yet the noblest are not long deluded; they love really the Infinite Beauty, though they may still keep before them a human form, as the Isis, who promises hereafter a seat at the golden tables. How high is Michel Angelo’s love, for instance, compared with Petrarch’s! Petrarch longs, languishes; and it is ouly after the death of Laura that his muse puts on celestial plumage. But Michel always soars; his love is a stairway to the heavens.’
‘Might not we women do something in regard to this
Texas Annexation project? I have never felt that I
had any call to take part in public affairs before; but
this is a great moral question, and we have an obvious
right to express our convictions. I should like to
convene meetings of the women everywhere, and take our
stand.’
‘Had Christendom but been true to its standard, while
accommodating its modes of operation to the calls of
successive times, woman would now have not only
equal power with man, — for of that omnipotent nature
will never permit her to be defrauded, — but a chartered
power, too fully recognized to be abused. Indeed, all
that is wanting is, that man should prove his own
freedom by making her free. Let him abandon con-
