Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu/129

Rh were faulty, at some time in their lives; they had a great many temptations. Frederick would be so happy at home; he would not want to do wrong.” She turned to the married women; they, oh tenfold horror! laughed at her supposing “men were like women.” Sometimes, I say, she was not true and either sadly accommodated herself to “woman's lot,” or acquired a taste for satyr-society, like some of the Nymphs, and all the Bacchanals of old. But to these who could not and would not accept a mess of pottage, or a Circe cup, in lieu of their birthright, and to these others who have yet their choice to make, I say, Courage! I have some words of cheer for you. A man, himself of unbroken purity, reported to me the words of a foreign artist, that “the world would never be better till men subjected themselves to the same laws they had imposed on women;” that artist, he added, was true to the thought. The same was true of Canova, the same of Beethoven. “Like each other demi-god, they kept themselves free from stain,” and Michael Angelo, looking over here from the loneliness of his century, might meet some eyes that need not shun his glance.

In private life, I am assured by men who are not so sustained and occupied by the worship of pure beauty, that a similar consecration is possible, is practiced. That many men feel that no temptation can be too strong for the will of man, if he invokes the aid of the Spirit instead of seeking extenuation from the brute alliances of his nature. In short, what the child fancies is really true, though almost the whole world declares it a lie. Man is a child of God; and if he seek His guidance to keep the heart with