t; soul yearns for soul. It is the genius of woman to be
electrical in movement, intuitive in penetration, and spiritual in
tendency. She excels not so easily in classification or recreation as
in an instinctive seizure of causes, and a simple breathing out of
what she receives, that has the singleness of life, rather than the
selecting and energizing of art. More native is it to her to be the
living model of the artist, than to set apart from herself any one
form in objective reality. More native to inspire and receive the poem
than to create it. In so far as soul is in her completely developed,
all soul is the same; but in so far as it is modified in her as
woman, it flows, it breathes, it sings, rather than deposits soil,
or furnishes work; and that which is especially feminine, flushes in
blossom the face of the earth, and pervades, like air and water, all
this seeming solid globe, daily renewing and purifying its life. Such
is the especial feminine element which man desires as a helper, and
which is suited to him, and which compels him to exclaim, "O, my God,
give it to me _for mine_!"

It is said, "A woman will sometimes idealize a very inferior man,
until her love for him exalts him into something better than he
originally was, and her into little short of an angel; but a man
almost invariably drops to the level of the woman he is in love with.
He cannot raise her; but she can almost unlimitedly deteriorate him."
This was true of Adam. Eve, sinning, brought him to her level. Why
this should be, Heaven knows; but so it constantly is. We have but
to look around us, with ordinary observation, in order to see that a
man's destiny, more than even a woman's, depends far less upon the
good or ill fortune of his wooing than upon the sort of woman with
whom he falls in love.

Before a man loves, he is under obligations to himself, to his future,
and to the world, to ask himself, Is this woman suited to me? Will she
help me to fulfil my mission? Does she supply my want? Can I recognize
her as God's gift to me? If Yes, then he is right in loving; for

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
And win or lose it all."

A woman, writing of woman, has truly said, "There are but two ways
open to any woman. If she loves a man, and he does not love her, to
give him up may be a horrible pang and loss; but it cannot be termed
a sacrifice: she resigns what she