The Mire of Degradation

and hold him to her bosom as though he were an angel.

And these men thought woman not fit to be held as pure in the sight of God as man. I never saw a mail that pretended that he didn't love a woman; that pretended that he loved God better than a woman, that he didn't look hateful to me, hateful and unclean. I could read you twenty others, but I haven't time to do it. They are all to the same effect exactly. They hate woman, and say man is as much above her as God is above man. I am a believer in absolute equality. I am a believer in absolute liberty between man and wife. I believe in liberty, and I say, "Oh, liberty, float not for ever in the far horizon—remain not for ever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist, and poet; but come and make thy home among the children of men!"

I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but I do know that, coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a richer gift, a rarer blessing, than liberty for man, for woman, and for child.