Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/11

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PREFACE.
vii

always to my mind those words of Tocqueville which Sumner loved to quote: ‘Remember life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage, with the spirit of self-sacrifice.' Surely if any life ever exemplified that ideal, it is the one we meet to remember and, as far as we can, to imitate — that of Karl Heinzen."

As a German-American writer has said of him, Heinzen was what Goethe called eine Natur; that is, a character of singularly original development, a man of one mould, who remained true to himself-in all conditions of life, and who valued this fidelity to self higher than all external positions and all the favors of the world. He knew of no loftier ambition than obedience to his own teachings: "Learn to' endure everything, only not slavery; learn to dispense with everything, only not with your self-respect; learn to lose everything, only not yourself. All! else in life is worthless, delusive, and fickle. Man's only sure support is in himself, in his individuality, resting in its own power and sovereignty." Besides he was a writer who knew how to wield his pen as almost none of his contemporaries, certainly not one of

the writers of the German tongue in this coun-