tate to the sex, and French and English journals dilated with the theme, while in Sweden serious minds were turned toward the old abuses, and Frederika Bremer was preparing for that visit to the West, which was to strike the first blow for the effective emancipation of the daughters of Sweden. In the midst of a very general agitation in that western world, not yet culminating in conventions, not yet expressed through the desk, not yet justified in the medical profession by any distinguished name, Margaret Fuller grew up. Taught from the first to regard herself as the equal of men, totally incapable of considering the question of sex, so far as it concerned the fitness of thought, speech, or deed, it would have been strange if the world had not read her some hard lessons. Powers which would have challenged the homage of the world, directed by a manly energy, seemed at first only to arm that world against the loving, aspiring woman. Thrown by remote kinship, or personal proximity, into the society of some of the most distinguished men of her native State, she could not but recognize her own superiority to the best of them, in certain aspects. As a woman, it seemed impossible to accomplish anything; as a man, what might not have been achieved? But of this consciousness, such as it was, no bitter, unwomanly traces remain ; only, on account of it, it was easy for her to interest herself in the "Great Lawsuit," and to round her statement later into the full proportions of the "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." Her personal feeling was fully met, when she laid her head upon the heart of her husband; and through him sweet mother Nature finally appeased the hunger which no classic lore, no æsthetic culture, no contact with the wide world of social welcome, or resounding fame, had power to sate. Nor let any woman blush to make this confession for her. What was true of her, has been as true of the best cultured manhood. Gibbon seized his pen, overshadowed by the majestic sweep of those historic periods which were to ring in the ears of untold generations, and wrote to his friend: "It is finished but I am alone." And Göthe, who had mastered human experience, and glorified it in the eyes of a passing and rising generation-Göthe, who permitted himself to feel only so far as it would serve him to know, wrote in the same mood: "My life has had no fitting aim-I am aweary of it all.” From Margaret Fuller flowed forth the first clear, uncompromising, scholarly demand for civil rights for her sex. What she wrote was the offspring of deliberate reflection, and took its place at once in the world of letters. The fearlessness of her suggestions, the mobility of her style, and the affluence of her illustrations, won her wide audience; and the effect of her paper was seen, not only in the inspiration communicated to minds of smaller grasp, now by her thoroughly aroused to the work of emancipation, — but in that general demand for freedom of vocation, made evident to the public mind by names like those of Mrs. Griffith, Caroline Chisholm, Florence Nightingale, Janet Taylor, Mary Carpenter, Dorothea Dix, Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Patton, and Harriet Hosmer. Since Margaret wrote, the work has gone steadily on, and more and more all the labor of the world opens to woman's touch. The question of woman's work is at this moment in the ascendancy; and whatever relates to it, meets immediate welcome and response. "Let them be sea-captains, if they will!" has given the practical bias to all recent consideration of this subject. The women of whom we have spoken in this relation have been exponents of their age; the spirit of the time, the thought of the masses, crystalized itself in them. "They builded better than they knew." Since 1848, when a small convention was held at Seneca Falls, in the State of New York, the demand for civil equality has been steadily pressed in the United States. It has been made with much eloquence, with varied ability, by women whose names are now familiar as household words; and without formal organization, there has come to be in these United States a wide-spread and generally acknowledged "Woman's Rights Party." This party demand First, Absolute freedom in education; absolute, unquestioned access to all public institutions, to all libraries and museums, to all means of culture-artistic, æsthetic, scientific, or professional. Second, Absolute freedom of vocation; and this freedom involves such a change in public thinking as shall make it honorable for all women to work, not merely for bread, for the support of husband or child, but for famefor money - for work's own sake, as men work. Third, Absolute equality before the law, which, of course, involves the right of suffrage. Education and vocation have found their exponents in the past, ences. but there is still required a woman, capable of stating, from a woman's point of view, the present position of woman before the Law. When this is once fitly done, it will level the last defence of the feudal Past. Woman's past condition, in all civilized countries, has been the outgrowth of early oriental and later classic influThe present attempt to emancipate her is a popular effort to overthrow them, and enthrone at their expense the Common Sense of the nineteenth century, the religious instincts of Jesus, and the intellectual aspirations which persist in the demand. With the first moment of victory will be inaugurated a new freedom for man also. Looking back through the ages, in the light of Christian love, he will criticise the spirit which has so far tyrannized over him. He will forget the coarse insults of the Greek comedy, and the Latin satirist, as he sees in his wife his fellowcitizen and fellow-laborer, as well as his friend. Reaching forward to the future, he will claim for her, and not only for her, but far more for his daughters, that absolute inheritance of God's world, that absolute field for thought and action which no woman has yet known. And woman? Emancipated by Love and Faith, free to accept or reject the ministries about her, she will perceive more clearly than ever the relation of man's life to her own. Recognizing, as opportunity evolves them, her duty to society and the State, marriage will gain a still diviner significance, and the security of public virtue be found in the assurance of private happiness. Margaret Fuller told the whole story when she said: "Let principles be once firmly established, and particulars will adjust themselves." C. H. D. THE VOICE THAT SINGS. [From Constant.] THE prayer of persevering faith is a hymn of sacrifice; the sigh of the sorrow that hopes is a chant of resignation, "the desire of the night for the morning," and the outgoing of charity is one prolonged canticle of love! Glory to God in the heavens, and on Earth peace to the men of good will! The Voice that Sings is the prayer of the world—it is the morning hymn, announcing the awakening of the ages, as the song of birds heralds the opening of the day! The martyrs sang amid their punishments, for the faith in their souls felt itself immortal, like the Phoenix, and resumed a new youth amid the flames of the stake. The poetry of the soul awakens harmonies in the last dying sighs of the just, and sings, like the swan of our fable, its passage to other realms of life. All that smiles in Nature, all that blooms in the solar year, all that shines in the firmament, speaks and answers to the Voice that Sings. Beauty all robed in light, and crowned with flowers, warbles the overture to the opera of Love; the Earth adorns herself like a bride in her May, and sings by the voice of her forests; the Sea also lifts to the sky the stern bass tones of its billowy organ; the Sun has seen all the woe of our world, and his brow is radiant still; he listens to the music of the spheres, and sheds a soul of harmony and love in every beam of light and heat. Leave, then, in tears those children of the earth who feel but present pain, nor dream of good to come. But you, children of heaven, poets of charity, of hope and faith-you, who could see the world broken to pieces without ceasing to bless God in the midst of its ruins, prophet consolers, sing, sing ever! The Voice that Sings hushes to sleep the little babe's cry; sing, poets, sing for the isolated hearts whom none understand nor console. The Voice that Sings cheers up the laborer, and aids him to bear the burdens of the day; sing, consolers of the people; sing for those whose arms grow weary, while nothing smiles within their hearts. The Voice that Sings perpetuates worship here on earth; sing, little birds, for you have wings; sing, little children, for you have a mother; sing, poor captives and poor orphans, for you have a God who watches over you, and who counts your tears! Ye who are happy, sing to bless the Father Eternal; ye who suffer, sing to conquer pain, for it can not last forever! That religions be confounded, and perish of decrepitude; that philosophers grope amid the shadows of doubt; that selfishness petrify the victims of its chill embrace - what matters it, while in your hearts we hear the Voice that Sings! Let us love, and the life of our hearts shall be a song-burst of goodness towards all; for love is all harmony and if you ask me what is this Voice that Sings, I will answer-It is the Voice of Love, the Believer. LIGHT AND NIGHT. OUT through the loom of light, Up the dawn's rays so slant, Back, like the shuttle's flight, Swallows at night return Home to their roof. Thus we but tarry here Grosser things spurning, Back to the home of God Soul after soul departs, And the enfranchised hearts Burst through the sod; Death does but loose the girth Then from the heavy sod, Swift to the home of God, The Soul, like the Shuttle and Swallow, flies back. The Swallow, Shuttle, Soul, and Light, All things that move or have a breath, Return again to thee at night — To thy dark roof, O ancient Death! W. W. F. |