Epes Sargent

“ Percival eyed me with a puzzled look,
Then said: 'The time is on its way, I hope,
When from her thraldom woman will come forth,
And in her own hands take her own redress;
When laws disabling her shall not be made
Under the cowardly, untested plea
That man is better qualified than woman
To estimate her needs and do her justice.
Justice to her shall be to man advancement;
And woman's wit can best heal woman's wrongs. ”

“ A thought ignoble, and which no true woman
Should harbor for a moment. Give her freedom,
Freedom to seek, and she'll not harbor it!
Because if woman, equally with man,
Were privileged thus, she would discriminate
Much more than now, and fewer sordid unions
Would be the sure result. For what if man
Were chained to singleness until some woman
Might seek his hand in marriage, would he be
Likely as now to make a wise election? ”

“ And through the village, even to Eastern Point,—
The maidens went, and had a happy day.
And, when the setting sun blazed clear and mild,
And every little cloud was steeped in crimson,
To a small wharf upon the harbor side,
Along the beach they strolled, and looked across
The stretch of wave to Norman's Woe;—and Linda
Wistfully said: "Heigho! I own I'm tired;
And you, too, Rachel, you look travel-worn,
And hardly good for four miles more of road. ”

“ The plasterers, the plumbers, and the slaters,
Should do their work; and when they slighted it,
And when the wood-work was too near the flue,
The flue too narrow, or the draught defective:
So that, as you yourself have often said,
I'm better qualified than half the builders
To plan and build a house, and guard myself
From being cheated in the operation.
Fear not for me, my parents; spend your income
Without a thought of saving. And besides,
Had you not trained me aptly as you have,
Am I not better—I—than many sparrows?
There is a heavenly Father over all! ”

“ In giving opportunity for thought,
Sickness has been a brisk iconoclast. [72]
Behold the world's ideal of a wife! [4]
'Tis something like to this:
"'She marries young,
Perhaps in meek submission to the will
Parental, or in hope of a support;
In a few years,—as heart and brain mature,
And knowledge widens,—finds her lord and master
Is a wrong-headed churl, a selfish tyrant,
A miser, or a blockhead, or a brute;
Her love for him, if love there ever was,
Is turned to hatred or indifference:
What shall she do? The world has one reply:
You made your bed, and you must lie in it ”

“ Rachel, obey Miss Percival. Be quick
To shun all evil. Fly from heedless playmates.
Close your young eyes on all impurity.
Cast out all naughty thoughts by holy prayer.
Love only what is good. Ah! darling child,
I hoped to shield you up to womanhood,
But God ordains it otherwise. May He
Amid the world's thick perils be your Guide!
There! Do not cry, my darling. All is well.
Sing us some pious hymn, Miss Percival."
And Linda, with wet eyelids, sang these words. [147]
I.
Be of good cheer, O Soul! ”

“ So count your obligation very slight."
"An obligation not the first!" said Linda.
"So much the better!" said Charles Lothian:
"Come, take my arm, and let me hold your basket.
What noble blackberries! I'll taste of one."
"Why not of two? As many as you will?" [185]
"Thank you. You've been adventurous, it seems."
"Yes, Fortune favors the adventurous:
See the old proverb verified to-day!"
"Praise a good day when ended. Here's my father:
Father, Miss Percival!" ”

“ For women of high position to work for their livelihood, in most cases custom decrees as disgraceful. And then, if cast down by poverty, they have been trained to nothing that would earn a support, or, if by chance they have some resource, all avenues for its employment are thronged with needy applicants."
This is but a very mild statement of the social fictions under which woman is now suffering in mind, body, and estate; but it is valuable as coming from a witness who hopes that some less radical remedy than female suffrage will be found for existing evils. ”

“ I would be married; and the competence
Is now secure—but where is my resolve?
Shall I conclude 'tis all fatality?
Leave it to chance, and take no active step
Myself to seek what I so hope to find?
Accepting it as heaven's fixed ordinance, [224]
That man should change his single lot at will,
But woman be the sport of circumstance,
A purposeless and passive accident,
Inert as oysters waiting for a tide,
But not like oysters, sure of what they wait for?
"Ah! woman's strength is in passivity,"
Fastidio says, shaking his wise, wise head,
And withering me with a disdainful stare. ”

“ Hung limp and white, their very shadows white.
The lighthouse windows drank the kindling red,
And flashed and gleamed as if the lamps were lit.
"A heavenly eve!" sighed Linda, rapt in praise,
As with poised oars the two looked oceanward.
Then, keeping time, they pulled out from the shore.
"But you row well!" cried Charles. "I might return
The compliment," said Linda. "See that duck!
How near, how still he floats! He seems to know
The holy time will keep him safe from harm."
"Had I a gun," said Charles—"You would not use it," [187]
Cried Linda, flushing. "And why not?" quoth he. ”

“ Then Nature's pointing is not always heeded.
Marriage should be a partnership of equals:
But now the theory would seem to be,
Man's laws must keep the weaker sex in order!
Man must do all the thinking, even for woman! ”

“ It is admitted on all hands that marriage is intended to confer happiness on those who wed. Now, if it be found that marriage does not confer happiness on them, it is an undoubted proof that they ought not to have been united, and that the sooner they separate the better; but from accepting this doctrine some persons are deterred by misrepresentations of scripture, others by views of policy, and others again by an entire indifference to human happiness. ”

“ Ah! if it could, our love is not the love
I hold it now to be—immortal love!"
With speechless joy and a new pride they gazed
Into her fair and youthful countenance,
Bright with ethereal bloom and tenderness.
Then smoothing back her hair, the father said:
"An anxious thought comes to us now and then,—
Comes like a cloud: the thought that we as yet
Have no provision from our income saved
For Linda. My few little ventures, made
In commerce, in a profitable hope, [95]
So adversely resulted that I saw
My best advance would be in standing still. ”

“ It is useless to reply that women have not political knowledge. Hitherto they have had little motive to acquire it. But how much of such knowledge have those male voters had, whom, for two hundred years past, candidates for the place of M. P. have made drunk in the tippling-houses? The arguments used against female suffrage simply show that there is nothing valid to be said. Women have, prima facie, the same right as men. ”

“ To feel, to be uplifted, was to act;
Her sorest trials being when she found
How far the wish to do outran the power. [13]
Often would Percival observe his child,
And study to divine if in the future
Of that organization, when mature,
There should prevail the elements that lead
Woman to find the crowning charm of life
In the affections of a happy marriage,
Or if with satisfactions of the mind
And the æsthetic faculty, the aims
Of art and letters, the pursuits of trade,
Linda might find the fresh activities
He craved for her, and which forecasting care
Might possibly provide. ”

“ For the first time the Spring's unkindness ever
Held me aloof from her companionship,
However roughly from the east her breath
Came as if all the icebergs of Grand Bank
Were giving up their forms in that one gust, [3] —
Now while on orchard-trees the struggling blossoms
Break from the varnished cerements, and in clouds
Of pink and white float round the boughs that hold
Their verdure yet in check,—and while the lawn
Lures from yon hemlock hedge the robin, plump
And copper-breasted, and the west wind brings
Mildness and balm,—let me attempt the task
That also is a pastime. ”

“ Had been awakened by the ravishment.
"Look at the child!" cried Linda; "mark that smile!
All heaven reflected in a dew-drop! See!"
"And all the world grasped in that little fist, [254] —
At least as we esteem the world!" cried Charles.
"And yet," said Linda, "'tis a glorious world:
See how those families enjoy themselves!" ”

“ Said Linda then: "Tell Harriet, her scheme
For others' welfare shall not wholly fail;
That in your hands I'll place a sum sufficient
To plant the germ at least of what she planned."
X.
I've taken my last look of Harriet:
She died in Linda's arms, and comforted
With all the Church could give of heavenly hope.
Slowly and imperceptibly does Time
Work out the dreadful problem of our sins!
Not often do we see it solved as here [248]
In plain results which he who runs may read.
Not always is the sinner's punishment
Shown in this world. ”

“ Was from your father's partner—was from Judd?"
"Of course it was,—from Judd, and no one else!
Who could have sent the money, if not Judd?
No doubt it came from Judd! My father said,
'Twas conscience-money, and restored by Judd,
Who had become a deacon in the Church.
Why did you ask me whether I was sure
The hundred thousand dollars came from Judd?
What are you smiling at, provoking Linda?" [259]
"O, you're so quick, so clever, all you men!
And women are so dull and credulous,
So easily duped, when left to go alone! ”

“ My matchless little girl, my precious Linda!"
"Ah! how Love magnifies the thing it loves!"
Smiling she said: "when I look in the glass,
I see a comely Miss; nay, perhaps pretty;
That epithet is her superlative,
So far as person is concerned, I fear.
Grant her a cheerful temper; that she gets
From both her parents. She is dutiful,—
No wonder, for she never is opposed!
Strangely coincident her way is yours;
Industrious, but that's her mother's training. ”

“ The cowardice that is looked upon as disgraceful in a man is regarded by many as rather honorable than otherwise in a woman. False notions, inherited from chivalrous times, and growing out of the state of subjection in which woman has been bred, have generated this inconsistency. The truth is that courage is honorable to both sexes; to a Grace Darling and an Ida Lewis, a Madame Roland and a Florence Nightingale, as well as to a Bayard and a Shaw, a Napoleon and a Farragut. ”

“ John, editor of the Prose Works of Milton, remarks in reference to the marriage law as it now stands in England:—
"Having been invented and established by men, it is calculated to bear with extreme severity on women, who are daily subjected to wrongs and hardships which they would not endure, were the relief of divorce open to them. Those who take a different view descant upon the encouragement which would, they say, be given to immorality were divorce made easy. ”

“ If so disposed!
"Indeed, why not?" cried Linda.
"Indeed, you almost take my breath away
With your Why not, Miss Percival! Why not?" [196]
"Yes, I repeat,—if so disposed, why not?
For why should woman any more than man
Play the dissembler, with so much at stake?
I know the ready taunt that here will rise:
'Already none too backward are our girls
In husband-seeking.' Seeking in what way?
Seeking by stratagem and management,—
Not by frank, honest means! ”

“ The impediments often raised by our courts in the way of divorce are gross relics of barbarism, and will be abolished by a higher legislative morality.
"Whoso," says Milton, "prefers either matrimony or other ordinance before the good of man and the plain exigence of charity, let him profess Papist or Protestant or what he will, he is no better than a pharisee, and understands not the gospel; whom, as a misinterpreter of Christ, I openly protest against." ”

“ Other examples in abundance, in confutation of his assumption, could no doubt be furnished. But even were that assumption true, we might sometimes be led to rather awkward results if we were to take the habits of the lower animals as authoritative. Certain animals have not infrequently an eccentric habit of destroying their offspring. Some of our Chinese brethren, borrowing a hint perhaps from the brute creation, are said to think it no sin to kill such female children as they have no use for. We hope that no enterprising critic will recommend such a solution as this of the woman problem. ”

“ Why should not woman seek her happiness
With brow as unabashed as man may wear [200]
In seeking his? Ah! lack of candor here
Works more regrets, for woman and for man,
Than we can reckon. Let but woman feel
That in the social scheme she's not a cipher,
The remedy, be sure, is not far off."
"To me it seems," said Lothian, "that you war
Against our natural instincts: have they not
Settled the point, even as the world has done?"
Said Linda: "Instincts differ; they may be
Results of shallow prejudice or custom.
The Turk will tell you that polygamy
Is instinct ”

“ Whenever it clearly appears that man and wife can no longer live together in peace and harmony, their separation would be far more beneficial to themselves and favorable to morals, than their compulsory union. Milton's notions of married life are highly flattering to women, whom he evidently contemplates as the equal companions of men. ”

“ Nothing can be more deceptive and unsatisfactory than the statistics offered on both sides of the question. It is generally admitted, we believe, that in those countries where divorce is most difficult, the number of illegitimate births is largest, and the reputation of married women is most questionable. In the nature of things, much of the prevalent immorality being furtive and clandestine, it is impossible to estimate the extent of the evils growing out of illiberal laws in relation to matrimony. In any legislation on the subject women should have a voice. [266] ”