loftier sentiments of the soul.
Then woman became not merely the gentle nurse and the prudent housewife
and the disinterested lover, but a _friend_, an angel of consolation,
the equal of man in character, and his superior in the virtues of the
heart and soul. It was not till then that she was seen to have those
qualities which extort veneration, and call out the deepest sympathy,
whenever life is divested of its demoralizing egotisms. The original
beatitudes of the Garden of Eden returned, and man awoke from the deep
sleep of four thousand years, to discover, with Adam, that woman was a
partner for whom he should resign all the other attachments of life; and
she became his star of worship and his guardian angel amid the
entanglements of sin and cares of toil.

I would not assert that there were not noble exceptions to the
frivolities and slaveries to which women were generally doomed in Pagan
Greece and Rome. Paganism records the fascinations of famous women who
could allure the greatest statesmen and the wisest moralists to their
charmed circle of admirers,--of women who united high intellectual
culture with physical beauty. It tells us of Artemisia, who erected to
her husband a mausoleum which was one of the wonders of the world; of
Telesilla, the poetess, who saved Argos by her courage; of Hipparchia,
who married a deformed and ugly cynic, in order that she might make
attainments in learning and philosophy; of Phantasia, who wrote a poem
on the Trojan war, which Homer himself did not disdain to utilize; of
Sappho, who invented a new measure in lyric poetry, and who was so
highly esteemed that her countrymen stamped their money with her image;
of Volumnia, screening Rome from the vengeance of her angry son; of
Servilia, parting with her jewels to secure her father's liberty; of
Sulpicia, who fled from the luxuries of Rome to be a partner of the
exile of her husband; of Hortensia, pleading for justice before the
triumvirs in the market-place; of Octavia, protecting the children of
her rival Cleopatra; of Lucretia, destroying herself rather than survive
the dishonor of her house; of Cornelia, inciting her sons, the Gracchi,
to deeds of patriotism; and many other illustrious women. We read of
courage, fortitude, patriotism, conjugal and parental love; but how
seldom do we read of those who were capable of an exalted friendship for
men, without provoking scandal or exciting rude suspicion? Who among the
poets paint friend