“The first evening of our voyage Ellen joined me for a promenade on the deck, and as she confidingly put her arm within mine, I shall never forget the renewed sense of manhood I experienced at that moment, nor the exquisite delight arising from a consciousness that a creature of such grace and tenderness relied on me, and me only, for protection. Believe me, too, a woman can realize but once, I mean only in the one individual who engrosses her whole heart, that sweet sense of dependence, that delight in appealing to the manliness of a being, to whom alone she is not ashamed to confess her weakness. “You smile, but we bachelors know more of your woman hearts than you do yourselves. For instance, you admire strength, because you are physically inferior. You admire intellect, because however intellectual you may be, you delight still more in the affections. Beauty is nothing to you, but self-sustaining manliness is every thing. You admire nobleness and generosity of sentiment, because they are not your own characteristics—courage because you are cowards—” “Oh! Mr. Hunter, Mr. Hunter, I _do_ protest—” “Yet hear me through. Love with a woman must be commingled with reverence. She cannot love deeply, fervently; she cannot feel that the whole of her own exhaustless and beautiful sympathies are welling up to the light, like a pure fountain gushing up to the sunshine, only as love has become an idolatry, a holiness, a religion; and wo unto her when such is its nature! Earth has set its seal against it; the very stars look down sadly upon it; everywhere an altar arises to the living God, on which the incense that may not, cannot find a worthy censor here, is transferred to that of the Eternal. Thus it is that women are more religious than men—and thus it is that one of the most gifted of their number has said, “‘Oh, hope not, ask thou not too much Of sympathy below— Few are the hearts, whence one same touch Bids the sweet waters flow— Few, and by still conflicting powers Forbidden here to meet— Such ties would make this world of ours Too fair for aught so fleet.’