The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Again, whither? This time whither my own nature leads. I have learned
this by experience, that leadership for me lies not without, but within
myself. So much is gained, and now once more for movement. Gather up the
effects--all that we have brought with us out of the past: it will find
use. For woman has been woman so far as she has been anything, and the
aromas of that high estate have hung and still hang about her. Bear them
along. The finest effluence of her life in the first century of our era,
as in this last, was love. Mary then bore the Christ; other Mary's loved
him. Woman was first in his life, and last in it. When the bearded magi
adored, she loved; she was the illustrator of his teachings, the
repository of his hopes for their future realization. Bring all those
memories, visions, yearnings, trusts, faiths--dreams of the good, never
yet seen but by the inner sight of the woman-soul,--along, and let us
set out for Beulah. Its blooming fields and fair mountains lie dim but
sweet on the distant horizon. We will go over and possess them--a
kingdom of our own. Why have we waited so long in bondage and darkness?
Why submitted to the heaped-up wrongs of the ages? Patience very
excellent: once admit the idea of a scheme, and some parts must
necessarily arrive in the afternoon. Development presupposes the delay
or withholding of things not yet developed. By the law of climax, these
are not the unimportant parts. Woman's sovereignty has been long
deferred, because of the preparation necessary for it. A John the
Baptist must precede the Christ in the wilderness. Fiends robed and
sceptred, once reigned over fiends clothed in skins and armed with
broadsword and battle axe. To-day a _gentle_man, or _gentle_woman can
sit secure on any throne of Christendom. While we congratulate
ourselves, let us not deny that the Tamerlanes, the Alarics, the
Napoleons have had their share in the intermediate work of preparation.
Not always, as it seems to us, do the swiftest and clearest methods find
favor with these hard-pressed worthies, but rather such methods as they
can employ; and in time, as we see, the work gets done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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