great storm overtook an ancient navigator of the AEgean. He called on
his gods, he importuned them, but the waves rolled and raged the more
angrily the more he prayed. 'Neptune, wilt thou not save me?' 'Go
below,' was the uncourteous answer, and, as with a great blow struck by
the hand of the busy deity, the vessel was suddenly suspended midway
between the surface and the depths of the waters. What a peaceful spot
she had reached! The astonished mariner looked around him in wonder more
than gratitude. 'Good deity,' said he, taking breath, 'I prayed not to
be saved thus _from_ the storm, but _in_ it. Return me to the upper
world, I beseech thee, and let me do my stroke in its battle.'

Storms have swept over the ages as winds over the blue AEgean, and woman,
shrinking from their blasts and the agitations that have followed them,
has prayed to her gods, and been suspended between the depths of man's
depravity and the heights of his achievements, around whose wintry peaks
winds of ambition have roared, storms of vaulting self-love have
gathered, tempests of passion have contended in angry and fierce strife.
To brighten the heights they assailed each one, to clear the lofty airs
embracing them. They shine now where clouds were wont to hover;
sunshine steeps the rugged declivities where mists of ages hung their
impenetrable folds, paths invite where unknown, forbidding fastnesses
repelled even daring feet, and thus the stormy career of conflict is
vindicated in its results. The dove testifies a certain divinity in the
Doing which has produced it.

But that still region where the more timid life has nestled undaring,
unadventured, shrinking from the struggle and the strife above,
recoiling from the seething foulness below--what have we in this
dreamland inhabited by woman? And wherefore the earnest turning
thitherward, in our day, of so many brave, so many earnest, so many sad,
so many yearning, aspiring eyes? Wherefore the restlessness, wherefore
the groans of imprisonment here, wherefore the passionate longings, the
resolute, deep, inextinguishable purpose of escape? Make way, O
propitious gods; I can no longer be saved _from_ this struggle of life,
but _through_ it. This mariner must be brought to the surface, or the
waters will be parted before her by the conquering power in her own
soul, and she will present herself there unaided. But not in the fierce
spirit of a combatant, not as a conqueror--only as one moved by divi