m the
position that she had taken up, of denying and rejecting; she stood to
that to the end: what she did was to advance to the far higher
perception that denial and rejection are not the aspects best worth
attending to or dwelling upon. She had little patience with those who
fear that the doctrine of protoplasm must dry up the springs of human
effort. Any one who trembles at that catastrophe may profit by a
powerful remonstrance of hers in the pages before us (iii. 245-250, also
228).

The consideration of molecular physics is not the direct ground
of human love and moral action, any more than it is the direct
means of composing a noble picture or of enjoying great music.
One might as well hope to dissect one's own body and be merry in
doing it, as take molecular physics (in which you must banish
from your field of view what is specifically human) to be your
dominant guide, your determiner of motives, in what is solely
human. That every study has its bearing on every other is true;
but pain and relief, love and sorrow, have their peculiar history
which make an experience and knowledge over and above the swing
of atoms.

With regard to the pains and limitations of one's personal lot, I
suppose there is not a single man or woman who has not more or
less need of that stoical resignation which is often a hidden
heroism, or who, in considering his or her past history, is not
aware that it has been cruelly affected by the ignorant or
selfish action of some fellow-being in a more or less close
relation of life. And to my mind there can be no stronger motive
than this perception, to an energetic effort that the lives
nearest to us shall not suffer in a like manner from _us_.

As to duration and the way in which it affects your view of the
human history, what is really the difference to your imagination
between infinitude and billions when you have to consider the
value of human experience? Will you say that since your life has
a term of threescore years and ten, it was really a matter of
indifference whether you were a cripple with a wretched skin
disease, or an active creature with a mind at large for the
enjoyment of knowledge, and with a nature which has attracted
others to you?

For herself, she remained in the position described in one of her
letters in 1860 (ii. 283):--'I