Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/192

184 ume, humbly confess their errors, and throw themselves upon the mercy of the sex. This is a wise, grand, charming book...

But the great charm of the book is its truthfulness; the irresistible feeling of conviction that it carries with it. However our prejudices may be disturbed at times, or our enthusiasm dampened, we are constrained to confess that we are reading facts of history, told by one who has studied them carefully, and weighed them impartially, and who, impelled alike by a sense of justice and a consciousness of her fitness for the task, proceeds to set them forth for the benefit of us all, without fear or favor, malice or exaggeration, in a forcible, clear, and graphic style, without any attempt at brilliant antithesis, or vain parade of uncalled-for embroidery; inflexibly stern and severe at times, and at others charmingly tender and compassionate, but ever in strictest subjection to truth, As we wander delighted from picture to picture, the wonder keeps growing upon us how a woman tried