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'Poor boy,' she said, 'can he not read

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Which men delight in, martial exercises?

To nurse a blind ideal, like a girl,

Methinks he seems no better than a girl;

As girls were once, as we ourselves have been :
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them:
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it,
Being other
since we learnt our meaning here,

To uplift the woman's fall'n divinity

Upon an even pedestal with man.'

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile:
And as to precontracts, we move, my friend,
At no man's beck, but know ourselves and thee,
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summon'd out

She kept her state, and left the drunken king
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.'

'Alas your Highness breathes full East,' I said,

'On that which leans to you. I know the Prince,

I prize his truth: and then how vast a work

To assail this gray preeminence of man!
You grant me license; might I use it? think,
Ere half be done, perchance your life may fail;
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan,
And takes and ruins all; and thus your pains
May only make that footprint upon sand
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice
Resmooth to nothing might I dread that you,

With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss,

Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due,

Love, children, happiness?'

And she exclaim'd,

'Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild! What! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, Have we not made ourselves the sacrifice ?

You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to thus:

Yet will we say for children, would they grew

Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well:
But children die; and let me tell you, girl,

Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die :
They with the sun and moon renew their light
For ever, blessing those that look on them:

Children

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that men may pluck them from our hearts,

Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves

O children

there is nothing upon earth

More miserable than she that has a son

And sees him err: nor would we work for fame;

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, Who learns the one POU STO whence after-hands

May move the world, though she herself effect

But little wherefore up and act, nor shrink

For fear our solid aim be dissipated

Of frail successors.

Would, indeed, we had been,

In lieu of many mortal flies, a race

Of giants, living, each, a thousand years,

That we might see our own work out, and watch

The sandy footprint harden into stone.'

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself If that strange maiden could at all be won. And she broke out interpreting my thoughts:

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No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you:

We are used to that; for women, up till this
Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo,
Dwarfs of the gynecæum, fail so far

In high desire, they know not, cannot guess
How much their welfare is a passion to us.
If we could give them surer, quicker proof —
Oh if our end were less achievable

By slow approaches, than by single act

Of immolation, any phase of death,

We were as prompt to spring against the pikes,

Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it,

To compass our dear sister's liberties.'

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear;

And up we came to where the river sloped

To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks
A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods,

And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out

The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said,
'As these rude bones to us, are we to her

That will be.' 'Dare we dream of that,' I ask'd,
'Which wrought us, as the workman and his work,
That practice betters?' 'How,' she cried, 'you love

The metaphysics! read and earn our prize,

A golden broach: beneath an emerald plane
Sits Diotima, teaching him that died

Of hemlock; our device; wrought to the life;
She rapt upon her subject, he on her :

For there are schools for all.' 'And yet,' I said,
'Methinks I have not found among them all
One anatomic.' 'Nay, we thought of that,'

She answer'd, 'but it pleased us not: in truth
We shudder but to dream our maids should ape

Those monstrous males that carve the living hound,

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