Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/241

 "No, father, you have not. You have said to me that I must try to live with civilized men, and that not till I had seen, as you have seen, their falseness and their barbarity, could I enjoy deliverance from their society. I once listened to you, and I believed you. Now I know that I am not strong enough to live alone as you have done. I need the contact with other men, even if they are sinful. I am sinful too; and as I am sorry for them, so will they be for me. As I am glad when they are happy, so will they rejoice with me."

"Alone, saidst thou, alone?" cried the enthusiast, ignoring the rest of the sentence, "O sightless eyes that cannot see! O deaf ears that cannot hear! I have the immaculate maiden Nature for my companion. What woman wilt thou show me with such infinite variety of loveliness? Each day her face wears a new expression; every hour her mood changes; whether she smile or frown, she is always faithful, always tender. If she whispers to me in the soft murmurings of the night, if she sings to me with the voice of the wood-bird, if she soothes me with the wind sighing through the trees, if her voice startles me in the crash of the thunder and calls me in the mighty melody of the river, it is to tell me with each of her myriad voices that she loves me."