t hand, giving her confidence in herself, strengthening her
ambition, and helping her build a satisfying, constructive philosophy
of life. On the flyleaf of her worn copy, which in later years she
presented to the Library of Congress, she wrote, "This book was
carried in my satchel for years and read and reread. The noble words
of Elizabeth Barrett, as Wendell Phillips always called her, sunk deep
into my heart. I have always cherished it above all other books. I now
present it to the Congressional Library with the hope that women may
more and more be like Aurora Leigh."

The beauty of its poetry enchanted her, and Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's feminism found an echo in her own. She pencil-marked the
passages she wanted to reread. When her "common work" of hiring halls
and engaging speakers seemed unimportant and even futile, she found
comfort in these lines:

"Be sure no earnest work
Of any honest creature, howbeit weak
Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much,
It is not gathered as a grain of sand
To enlarge the sum of human action used
For carrying out God's end....
... let us be content in work,
To do the thing we can, and not presume
To fret because it's little."[106]

Glorying in work, she read with satisfaction:

"The honest earnest man must stand and work:
The woman also, otherwise she drops
At once below the dignity of man,
Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work;
Who ever fears God, fears to sit at ease."

Could she have written poetry, these words, spoken by Aurora, might
well have been her own:

"You misconceive the question like a man,
Who sees a woman as the complement
Of his sex merely. You forget too much
That every creature, female as the male,
Stands single in responsible act and thought,
As also in birth and death. Whoever says
To a loyal woman, 'Love and work with me,'
Will get fair answers, if the work and love
Being good of themselves, are good for her--the best
She was born for."

Inspired by _Aurora Leigh_, Susan planned a new lecture, "The True
Woman," and as she wrote it out word for word, her thoughts and
theories about women, which had been developing through the years,
crystallized. In her opinion, the "true woman" could no more than
Aurora Leigh follow the traditional course and sacrifice all for the
love of one man, adjusting her life to his whims. She must, instead,
develop her own