LX.

2.—“Each heir of life a wealthier bounty share;”

Poets and physiologists agree in these prognostications. The keen observer, Bastian, in his treatise on archebiosis, willingly calls to his support an equally conscientious ally, in the following passage:—

“We must battle on along the path of knowledge and of duty, trusting in that natural progress towards a far distant future for the human race, such as its past history may warrant us in anticipating. For, as Mr. Wallace points out, those natural influences which have hitherto promoted man’s progress ‘still acting on his mental organisation, must ever lead to the more perfect adaptation of man’s higher faculties to the conditions of surrounding nature and to the exigencies of the social state,’ so that ‘his mental constitution may continue to advance and improve, till the world is again inhabited by a single, nearly homogeneous race, no individual of which will be inferiorto the noblest specimens of existing humanity.’”—Dr. H. Charlton Bastian (“The Beginnings of Life,” Vol. II., p. 633).

3.—“Those lives allied in equal union chaste.”

“The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity.”

—Walt Whitman (“Children of Adam”).

4.—“A sweeter purpose, purer rapture, taste;”

“A wife is no longer the husband’s property; and, according to modern ideas, marriage is, or should be, a contract on the footing of perfect equality between the sexes. The history of human marriage is the history of a relation in which women have been gradually triumphing over the passions, the prejudices, and the selfish interests of men.”—Edward Westermarck (Concluding words of “The History of Human Marriage”).

7.—“The only rivalry...”

“When woman finds her proper place in legislation, it will be found ultimately that it will be not as man’s rival, but his helpmate.”—Mabel Collins (“On Woman’s Relation to the State”).

8.—“How for their lineage fair still larger fate to find.”

“Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, had the idea of making public principle and utility predominate over private interests and affections; and on that idea he ordained that children were not to be the property of their parents, butof the State, which was to direct their education, and determine their modes of life. A better idea with the legislators of the future—the number of whom will be equal with that of all wholesomely-developed men and women upon the earth—will be to take fullest advantage of all natural instincts. The parents, their hearts ever yearning with love for their offspring, and the community, careful of its individual members, co-operating in placing the children under all good influences towards that development, which, being the best for their individual lives, will also coincide with what is best for the general welfare. For this end, the experience of the past, and the higher wisdom of their own times, will far better qualify them to judge of fitting means and methods than we can now either surmise or suggest.”—David Maxwell (“Stepping-stones to Socialism,” p. 15).

1.—“Their task ineffable yields wondrous gain.”

“... I rest not from my great task;To open the eternal worlds! To open the immortal eyesOf man inwards; into the worlds of thought: into eternityEver expanding the human imagination.”—William Blake (“Jerusalem”).

“... I rest not from my great task;

To open the eternal worlds! To open the immortal eyes

Of man inwards; into the worlds of thought: into eternity

Ever expanding the human imagination.”

—William Blake (“Jerusalem”).

2.—“Their energies celestial force attain.”

“Les écrivains du dix-huitième siècle ont sans doute rendu d’immenses services aux Sociétés; mais leur philosophie basée sur le sensualisme, n’est pas allée plus loin quel’épiderme humain. Ils n’ont considéré que l’univers extérieur, et, sous ce rapport seulement, ils ont retardé, pour quelque temps, le développement morale de l’homme.... L’étude des mystères de la pensée, la découverte des organes de l’AME humaine, la géométrie de ses forces, les phénomènes de sa puissance, l’appréciation de la faculté qu’elle nous semble posséder de se mouvoir indépendamment du corps, de se transporter où elle veut et de voir sans le secours des organes corporels, enfin les lois de sa dynamique et celles de son influence physique, constitueront la glorieuse part du siècle suivant dans le trésor des sciences humaines. Et nous ne sommes occupés peut être, en ce moment, qu’à extraire les blocs énormes qui serviront plus tard à quelque puissant génie pour bâtir quelque glorieux édifice.”—Balzac (“Physiologie du Mariage,” Méditation XXVI.).

3, 4.—“Their intermingled souls, with passion dight,In aspiration soar past earthly height.”

3, 4.—“Their intermingled souls, with passion dight,

In aspiration soar past earthly height.”

“As yet we are in the infancy of our knowledge. What we have done is but a speck compared to what remains to be done. For what is there that we really know? We are too apt to speak as if we had penetrated into the sanctuary of truth and raised the veil of the goddess, when, in fact, we are still standing, coward-like, trembling before the vestibule, and not daring, from very fear, to cross the threshold of the temple. The highest of our so-called laws of nature are as yet purely empirical.

“... They who discourse to you of the laws of nature as if those laws were binding upon nature, or as if theyformed a part of nature, deceive both you and themselves. The (so-called) laws of nature have their sole seat, origin, and function in the human mind. They are simply the conditions under which the regularity of nature is recognised. They explain the external world, but they reside in the internal. As yet we know scarcely anything of the laws of mind, and, therefore, we scarcely know anything of the laws of nature. We talk of the law of gravitation, and yet we know not what gravitation is; we talk of the conservation of force and distribution of forces, and we know not what forces are; we talk with complacent ignorance of the atomic arrangements of matter, and we neither know what atoms are nor what matter is; we do not even know if matter, in the ordinary sense of the word, can be said to exist; we have as yet only broken the first ground, we have but touched the crust and surface of things. Before us and around us there is an immense and untrodden field, whose limits the eye vainly strives to define; so completely are they lost in the dim and shadowy outline of the future. In that field, which we and our posterity have yet to traverse, I firmly believe that the imagination will effect quite as much as the understanding. Our poetry will have to reinforce our logic, and we must feel as much as we argue. Let us then hope, that the imaginative and emotional minds of one sex will continue to accelerate the great progress, by acting upon and improving the colder and harder minds of the other sex.”—Buckle (“Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge”).

6.—“...the vision to retain,”

As with Wordsworth’s nature-nurtured maiden:—

“... beauty born of murmuring soundShall pass into her face ...And vital feelings of delightShall rear her form to stately height ...The floating clouds their state shall lendTo her; for her the willow bend,Nor shall she fail to seeEven in the motions of the stormGrace that shall mould the maiden’s formBy silent sympathy.”—(“Poems of the Imagination”).

“... beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face ...

And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height ...

The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend,

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form

By silent sympathy.”

—(“Poems of the Imagination”).

Id.... “My hope becomes as broad as the horizon afar, reiterated by every leaf, sung on every bough, reflected in the gleam of every flower. There is so much for us yet to come, so much to be gathered, and enjoyed. Not for you or me, now, but for our race, who will ultimately use this magical secret for their happiness. Earth holds secrets enough to give them the life of the fabled Immortals. My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man’s existence. He shall take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory.... He is indeed despicable who cannot look onwards to the ideal life of man. Not to do so is to deny our birthright of mind.”—R. Jefferies (“The Pageant of Summer”).

7, 8.—“...mould their dreams of love, with conscious skillTo human living types...”

7, 8.—“...mould their dreams of love, with conscious skill

To human living types...”

“Her Brain enlabyrinths the whole heaven of her bosom and loinsTo put in act what her Heart wills.”—William Blake (“Jerusalem”).

“Her Brain enlabyrinths the whole heaven of her bosom and loins

To put in act what her Heart wills.”

—William Blake (“Jerusalem”).

“These states belong so purely to the inner nature; are so deeply hidden beneath the strata of what we call the inner life, even, that only women, and of these, only such as have become self-acquainted, through seeing the depths within the depths of their own consciousness, can fully comprehend all that is meant in the words a ‘Purposed Maternity.’ I use them in their highest sense, meaning not the mere purpose of satisfying the maternal instincts, which the quadruped feels and acts from, as well as the human being, but the intelligent, artistic purpose (to which the maternal instinct is a fundamental motive), to act in harmony with Nature in producing the most perfect being which the powers and resources employed, can bring forth.... It is probable that we shall, ere long, arrive at truer views of maternity everywhere; and when we do, I think it will be seen that the office has a sacredness in Nature’s eyes above all other offices, and that she reserves for it the finest of her vital forces, powers, susceptibilities, and means of every sort.”—Eliza W. Farnham (“Woman and Her Era,” Vol. II., p. 385; Vol. I., p. 93).

[It has been an intense delight to come upon these and the other words and thoughts of Eliza W. Farnham;“blazes” or axe-marks of this previous pioneer in the same exploration. It is only since completing the whole of the verses that the writer has found the passages quoted from Mrs. Farnham’s work, and deduces a not unnatural confirmation of the mutually shared views, from the singular concord and unanimity of their expression.]

8.—“...supreme of form and will.”

“The changes that have come over us in our social life during the past two decades are, in many respects, remarkable, but in no particular are they so remarkable as in the physical training and education of women....

“The results of this social change have been on the whole beneficial beyond expectation. The health of women generally is improving under the change; there is amongst women generally less bloodlessness, less of what the old fiction-writers called swooning; less of lassitude, less of nervousness, less of hysteria, and much less of that general debility to which, for want of a better term, the words ‘malaise’ and ‘languor’ have been applied. Woman, in a word, is stronger than she was in olden time. With this increase of strength woman has gained in development of body and of limb. She has become less distortioned. The curved back, the pigeon-shaped chest, the disproportioned limb, the narrow feeble trunk, the small and often distorted eyeball, the myopic eye, and puny ill-shaped external ear—all these parts are becoming of better and more naturalcontour. The muscles are also becoming more equally and more fully developed, and with these improvements, there are growing up amongst womenmodels who may, in due time, vie with the best models that old Greek culture has left for us to study in its undying art.”—Dr. Richardson (“The Young Woman,” Oct., 1892).

Id.—“... prophetic scenes,Spiritual projections ...In one, the sacred parturition scene,A happy, painless mother births a perfect child.”—Walt Whitman (“Autumn Rivulets”).

Id.—“... prophetic scenes,

Spiritual projections ...

In one, the sacred parturition scene,

A happy, painless mother births a perfect child.”

—Walt Whitman (“Autumn Rivulets”).

Id.... “I am so rapt in the beauty of the human form, and so earnestly, so inexpressibly prayerful to see that form perfect, that my full thought is not to be written.... It is absolutely incontrovertible that the ideal shape of the human being is attainable to the exclusion of deformities.... When the ambition of the multitude is fixed on the ideal form and beauty, then that ideal will become immediately possible, and a marked advance towards it could be made in three generations.”—Richard Jefferies (“The Story of My Heart,” pp. 32, 151, 131).

Id....

“‘The Gods?’ In yourselves will ye see them, when Venus shall favour your love,And man, fitly mated with woman, believes that his love is divine:When passion shall elevate woman to something so holy and grandThat she—the ideal enraptured—shall ne’er be a check upon Man,Then the children they bear will be holy, and beauty shall make them her own,And man in the eyes of his neighbour will gaze on the reflex divineOf the God he inclines to in spirit—or trace in each feature and limbThe lines which the body inherits from souls which are noble and true.Would thou couldst feel in deep earnest, how beautiful God will be then,When we see Him as Jove or Apollo in men who inspire us with love,As Juno and Venus the holy, in women who know not the mean,And feel not the influence cruel of hardness and self-love and scorn.Would thou couldst once know how real the presence of God will become,How earnest and ever more earnest thy faith when thyself shall be great,And from the true worship of others thoult learn what is holy in them,And rise to the infinite fountain of glory which flows in us all.”—C. G. Leland (“The Return of the Gods”).

“‘The Gods?’ In yourselves will ye see them, when Venus shall favour your love,

And man, fitly mated with woman, believes that his love is divine:

When passion shall elevate woman to something so holy and grand

That she—the ideal enraptured—shall ne’er be a check upon Man,

Then the children they bear will be holy, and beauty shall make them her own,

And man in the eyes of his neighbour will gaze on the reflex divine

Of the God he inclines to in spirit—or trace in each feature and limb

The lines which the body inherits from souls which are noble and true.

Would thou couldst feel in deep earnest, how beautiful God will be then,When we see Him as Jove or Apollo in men who inspire us with love,As Juno and Venus the holy, in women who know not the mean,And feel not the influence cruel of hardness and self-love and scorn.Would thou couldst once know how real the presence of God will become,How earnest and ever more earnest thy faith when thyself shall be great,And from the true worship of others thoult learn what is holy in them,And rise to the infinite fountain of glory which flows in us all.”—C. G. Leland (“The Return of the Gods”).

Would thou couldst feel in deep earnest, how beautiful God will be then,

When we see Him as Jove or Apollo in men who inspire us with love,

As Juno and Venus the holy, in women who know not the mean,

And feel not the influence cruel of hardness and self-love and scorn.

Would thou couldst once know how real the presence of God will become,

How earnest and ever more earnest thy faith when thyself shall be great,

And from the true worship of others thoult learn what is holy in them,

And rise to the infinite fountain of glory which flows in us all.”

—C. G. Leland (“The Return of the Gods”).

3.—“Their science...”

“Science thenShall be a precious visitant; and thenAnd only then, be worthy of her name:For then her heart shall kindle; her dull eye,Dull and inanimate, no more shall hangChained to its object in brute slavery;But taught with patient industry to watchThe processes of things, and serve the causeOf order and distinctness, not for thisShall it forget that its most noble use,Its most illustrious province, must be foundIn furnishing clear guidance, a supportNot treacherous, to the mind’sexcursivepower.”—Wordsworth (“The Excursion,” Book IV.).

“Science then

Shall be a precious visitant; and then

And only then, be worthy of her name:

For then her heart shall kindle; her dull eye,

Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang

Chained to its object in brute slavery;

But taught with patient industry to watch

The processes of things, and serve the cause

Of order and distinctness, not for this

Shall it forget that its most noble use,

Its most illustrious province, must be found

In furnishing clear guidance, a support

Not treacherous, to the mind’sexcursivepower.”

—Wordsworth (“The Excursion,” Book IV.).

4.—“...crude dimensions...”

“In these material things, too, I think that we require another circle of ideas, and I believe that such ideas are possible, and, in a manner of speaking, exist. Let me exhort everyone to do their utmost to think outside and beyond our present circle of ideas. For every idea gained is a hundred years of slavery remitted. Even with the idea of organisation, which promises most, I am not satisfied, but endeavour to get beyond and outside it, so that the time now necessary may be shortened.”—Richard Jefferies (“Story of My Heart,” p. 180).

8.—“The love that lifts the life from rank of earth to heaven.”

“... utter knowledge is but utter love—Æonian Evolution, swift and slow,Thro’ all the spheres—an ever opening height,An ever lessening earth.”—Tennyson (“The Ring”).

“... utter knowledge is but utter love—

Æonian Evolution, swift and slow,

Thro’ all the spheres—an ever opening height,

An ever lessening earth.”

—Tennyson (“The Ring”).

Id....

“The light of loveNot failing, perseverance from their stepsDeparting not, they shall at length obtainThe glorious habit by which sense is madeSubservient still to moral purposes,Auxiliar to divine. That change shall clotheThe naked spirit, ceasing to deploreThe burthen of existence....——So build we up the Being that we are;Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of things,We shall be wise perforce; and, while inspiredBy choice, and conscious that the Will is free,Unswerving shall we move as if impelledBy strict necessity, along the pathOf order and of good. Whate’er we see,Whate’er we feel, by agency directOr indirect, shall tend to feed and nurseOur faculties, shall fix in calmer seatsOf moral strength, and raise to loftier heightsOf love divine, our intellectual soul.”—Wordsworth (“The Excursion,” Book IV.).

“The light of love

Not failing, perseverance from their steps

Departing not, they shall at length obtain

The glorious habit by which sense is made

Subservient still to moral purposes,

Auxiliar to divine. That change shall clothe

The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore

The burthen of existence....

——So build we up the Being that we are;

Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of things,

We shall be wise perforce; and, while inspired

By choice, and conscious that the Will is free,

Unswerving shall we move as if impelled

By strict necessity, along the path

Of order and of good. Whate’er we see,

Whate’er we feel, by agency direct

Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse

Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats

Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights

Of love divine, our intellectual soul.”

—Wordsworth (“The Excursion,” Book IV.).

1, 2.—“...winged words on which the soul would pierceInto the height of love’s rare Universe.”

1, 2.—“...winged words on which the soul would pierce

Into the height of love’s rare Universe.”

The two lines are Shelley’s, in his “Epipsychidion.”

7.—“Man’s destiny with woman’s blended be.”

“... in the long years liker must they grow;The man be more of woman, she of man.”—Tennyson (“The Princess,” Part VII.).

“... in the long years liker must they grow;

The man be more of woman, she of man.”

—Tennyson (“The Princess,” Part VII.).

Id.—“Dans ma manière de sentir, je suis femme aux trois quarts.”—Ernest Renan (“Souvenirs d’Enfance”).

Id.—“Dans ma manière de sentir, je suis femme aux trois quarts.”

—Ernest Renan (“Souvenirs d’Enfance”).

Id....

“Das EwigweiblicheZieht uns hinan.”—Goethe (concluding two lines of “Faust”).

“Das Ewigweibliche

Zieht uns hinan.”

—Goethe (concluding two lines of “Faust”).

8.—“...progression, ...”

“Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded;Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest man of the earth;Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the friendliest man;Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a man be form’d of perfect body;Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman, can come the poems of man ...Unfolded out of the folds of the woman’s brain come all the folds of the man’s brain, duly obedient;Unfolded out of the justice of the woman all justice is unfolded;Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity—but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman,First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.”—Walt Whitman (“Leaves of Grass”).

“Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded;

Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest man of the earth;

Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the friendliest man;

Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a man be form’d of perfect body;

Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman, can come the poems of man ...

Unfolded out of the folds of the woman’s brain come all the folds of the man’s brain, duly obedient;

Unfolded out of the justice of the woman all justice is unfolded;

Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;

A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity—but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman,

First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.”

—Walt Whitman (“Leaves of Grass”).

2.—“...the dream men named Divine,—”

“Divine” was the title of honour conferred on the “Commedia,” by the repentant citizens of Florence, after the death of Dante.

8.—“The love that moves the sun and every circling star.”

The last line of the “Divina Commedia” is—

“Lo amor che move il sole e le altre stelle.”

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