land from foreign interference, from meddling Pope, morose Spaniard, and proud Frenchman, and all by a policy of peace mightier than war. Ferdinand of Spain was a poor craven sort of coward, but his wife, his gentle religious wife, so far beyond her age, she was a Woman and a Queen; she pawned her own jewels to fit out a fleet for Columbus, and ever threw her arms round the brave old navigator, to shelter him from his foes. What boy's head has not been turned with the genius and taste, the wit, the eloquence, and power of Christina of Sweden, the wonderful daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, who, perhaps, needed only to be on such a throne as that of England to do greater things, and to leave a far lovelier name than Elizabeth. What did Austria owe to its Maria Theresa, and ungrateful France to its Joan of Arc? What breast has not thrilled beneath the gorgeous and mournful tragedy of Zenobia of Palmyra? And, powerful in crime as in genius, who has not read with horror the careers of Lucretia Borgia and Catherine de Medicis. The ancients embodied their vices and their virtues in the form of woman. Powerless Woman? Yet we have received from her some of our richest intellectualities and instructions. Have we not -borne away by an irresistible impulse, admired, nay, and venerated Madame Roland, and, let it be said, the noble, the magnanimous, if mistaken, Charlotte Corday, so much greater than Brutus, "the angel of assassination,"* and De Stael, and De Genlis. Power

*Lamartine.

less woman!-Who that ever dared to say so could exceed Mrs. Somerville in profound and varied philosophical learning, or Miss Martineau in the graceful ministration of even difficult knowledge, or Miss Barrett in æsthetic speculation ?-or Mary Howitt in the power of giving to us beautiful household words? -or Clara Balfour in charming the listening hundreds with the grace and pathos of her melodious eloquence?—or Elizabeth Fry in inspiring a whole nation, perhaps a continent, with love to the outcast? -or sister Ursula* in heroic fortitude? Powerless woman! Why, our fireside conversation flags without her; she renews our youth, animates us, bids us to hope on, work on; every person reading this book is an illustration of her power. She is the only portion of many a man's existence that is not a dream and a fable, coming perpetually between us and the grosser things of life. With warm affections, instinctive piety, she weans and warns us to the noble, the holy, the heavenly. The husband has lived to little purpose who has not found that the life of the lover begins after marriage; and every day and every hour is but a compliment paid unconsciously to woman's power. She rules us with her soul.

This chapter on woman was intended to have gone far beyond its present length, and the remarks were prepared upon the psychological character of woman as compared with man, and on some of the distinguishing characteristics of the education she would confer, especially her power to educate the sense of *A recent instance.

But

the infinite, and the moral sense or conscience. returning to the point from whence we started; what is needed in all walks of life is, practical women. There is much said about woman in her sphere and woman out of it. A lady occasionally delivers a lecture, and some good folks are frightened-she is out of her sphere; yet few women are really educated for their sphere, spite of all this fastidiousness. The accomplishments of the boarding-school have little to do with the future of life. Mothers must reform the education of their daughters, and fit them for happiness. Music is a delightful accomplishment, nay, it is almost as necessary as any indispensable of life, and it is a famous tie to keep husbands at home. This is what education indeed should do; for woman should give attractions rather than accomplishments. The last is a heavy material, seldom in request; the former is the secret and source of much sympathy; and, as a loving woman is ever better than a learned one, so must an attractive nature be more useful than one crowded, like a bazaar, with showy accomplishments.*

* But as some of my friends may prosecute an inquiry into ideal woman further, let me suggest the reading of AIME MARTIN'S work on the Education of Mothers-the style is peculiarly French and St. Pierreish, but it is very instructive-and Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century; it is, however, a purely aesthetic essay. The Life of Mrs. Sherman, by her Husband, is a fine Madonna-like painting of Woman the Reformer.

CHAPTER IX.

WESTWARD HO!

PROLOGUE OF QUOTATIONS.

"Even those who are forced to remain behind feel a melancholy restlessness, like a bird whose wing is crippled at the season of migration, and look forward to America as to the land of the departed, where every one has some near relation, or dear friend, gone before him. A voice like that heard before the final ruin of Jerusalem, seems to whisper to those who have ears to hear, "Let us depart hence."

JAMES DOUGLAS.-Advancement of Society.

"Wide as our own free race increase,

Wide shall extend the elastic chain,

And bind in everlasting peace,

State after State a mighty train."

BRYANT.

"Too crowded indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous globe have ye actually tilled and delved till it will grow no more? How thickly stands your population in the Pampas and the Savannah of America; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes of the Altaic chain in the central platform of Asia; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man in one year, as I have understood it, will feed himself and nine others! Alas, where now are the Hengists and Alarics of our still glowing, still expanding Europe; who, when their home is grown too narrow, will enlist, and like Fire Pillars, guide onwards those superfluous masses of indomitable living valour; equipped, not now with the battle-axe and the war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and the ploughshare? Where are they? Preserving their game?"

SARTOR RESARTUS.