r half, as being not entire in itself,
but needing a kindred nature to unlock its secret chambers
of emotion, and to act with quickening influence on all its
powers, by full harmony of senses, affections, intellect,
will; the second is purely ideal, beholding in 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 only 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 conventional restriction, as a vestige of that
Oriental barbarity which confined woman to a seraglio. Let
him trust her entirely, and give her every privilege already
acquired for himself,--elective franchise, tenure of property,
liberty to speak in public assemblies, &c.

'Nature has pointed out her ordinary sphere by the
circumstances of her phys