nstead of blowing a blast through the newspapers,
sounding the onset, and summoning the ministers and churches to
surrender, you had without any introductory flourish just gone right
among them and lectured, _when_ and _where_ and _as_ you could find
opportunity, and paid no attention to criticism, but pushed right on,
without making any ado about 'attacks,' and 'invasions,' and
'opposition,' and have let the barkers bark their bark out,--within
one year you might have practically brought over five hundred thousand
persons, of the very moral _elite_ of New England. You may rely upon
it.... No moral enterprise, when prosecuted with ability and any sort
of energy, _ever_ failed under heaven so long as its conductors pushed
the _main_ principle, and did not strike off until they reached the
summit level. On the other hand, every reform that ever foundered in
mid-sea, was capsized by one of these gusty side-winds. Nothing more
utterly amazes me than the fact that the _conduct_ of a great, a
_pre-eminently_ great moral enterprise, should exhibit so little of a
wise, far-sighted, comprehensive _plan_. Surely it is about plain
enough to be called _self-evident_, that the only common-sense method
of conducting a great moral enterprise is to _start_ with a
_fundamental, plain principle, so_ fundamental as not to involve
side-relations, and _so_ plain, that it cannot be denied."

The main obvious principle he urges is to be pushed until the
community surrenders to it. He adds:--

"Then, when you have drawn them up to the top of the general
principle, you can slide them down upon all the derivative principles
_all at once_. But if you attempt to start off on a derivative
principle, from any other point than the summit level of the main
principle, you must beat up stream--yes, up a cataract. It reverses
the order of nature, and the laws of mind....

"You put the cart before the horse; you drag the tree by the top, in
attempting to push your woman's rights until human rights have gone
ahead and broken _the path_.

* * * * *

"You are both liable, it seems to me, from your structure of mind, to
form your opinions upon _too slight_ data, and too narrow a range of
induction, and to lay your plans and adopt your measures, rather
_dazzled_ by the glare of false _analogies_ than _led on_ by the
relations of cause and effect. Both of you, but especially Angelina,
unless I greatly mistake, are constitutionally