Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/224

208 of sympathy with the few who agree with you, that induces you to continue your activity among this rabble, I could not understand your perseverance, and would call it "casting pearls before swine." Sounds which could cause the innermost fibres of sensitive hearts to vibrate, here die away unheard, like the cry of a bird in the primeval forest; the clearest and most impressive truths only serve to win adherants for the advocates of their opposites. I see every noble zeal rebound in vain from this insensibility and dullness, to say nothing of the scorn and persecution, with which the vulgarity and resentment of the rabble are wont to reward it. It has been an entirely unexpected phenomenon to me that in liberty the higher natures work in vain, and only the meaner natures are successful, and I cannot account for it yet. To see how intellect and sentiment is entirely thrown away upon this population, which, nevertheless, contains some cultured elements, is to me so hopeless that I almost despair, not merely of the majorities, but even of the minorities. It makes me think of the Catholic processions, which I used to see in Germany, and at which the only use that flowers could be put to was to strew them on the way, to be trampled upon by the vulgar feet of a stupid crowd. I cannot at all imagine how the people here can make their lives endurable if they reject everything that can make them beautiful. I ask myself what has become of their intellect, what has become of their heart, can they no longer