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Men, by reason of their hardness of heart, gravitate towards the material theory, and women, by reason of their softness of heart, lower to the same level. Men defy heaven and earth to compass self-indulgence, and women defy the divine law written in their hearts rather than thwart men. Instead of setting their faces like a flint against this tendency, they accept it, excuse it, try to think it inevitable, a matter of organization, and make the best of it. They will counsel young girls not to reckon upon receiving as much love as they give! Fatal advice! Disastrous generalization! Yet neither unnatural nor unkind, for it is the fruit of a sad and wide experience. They would gladly spare fresh souls the apples of Sodom, whose fair seeming bewrayed themselves; but they should teach them to avoid disappointment, not by counting upon bitterness, but by rejecting apples of Sodom altogether, and receiving only such fruit as cheers the heart of God as well as man. Why shall not women receive as much love as they give? Is man less capable of loving than woman? Where in nature or in revelation is the warrant for such an hypothesis? When He commands, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength,” is he not speaking to men as well as women? and are a man’s heart, soul, mind, and strength less than a woman’s? Are not husbands commanded to love their wives even as Christ loved the Church? and did he love the Church less than the Church loved him? Is not every man commanded in particular to love his wife even as himself,—to love his wife as his own body? and is a man’s love to himself, his love to his own body, a feeble and untrustworthy sentiment? You find in the Bible no letting a man off from his duties of love; no letting him down. Old-fashioned as it is, written for a state of society far different from ours, often brought forward to prop up old wrongs and bluff off newly-found rights, the Bible is still the very storehouse of reforms. It contains the germs not only of spiritual life, but of spiritual living. Glows on its pages the morning-red which has scarcely yet gilded the world.

Women must not expect to receive as much love as they give! It is inviting men to esteem lightly what should be a priceless possession. It is not waiting for them to drag down the banner to the dust; it is making haste to trail it for them with malice aforethought. Men now are not too constant, too devoted to the higher aims of life; but let constancy and devotion not be expected of them, and in what seven-league boots will they stride down the broad road! It is doing them but left-handed service thus to throw the door open to weakness and wavering concerning higher interests, and a blind devotion to the god of this world. To assume that their tone may be low, is to lower their tone. Men are less good than they would be if goodness were demanded of them. The current is turbid and unwholesome, because it is not strictly required to be pure and clear. The way for women to be truly serviceable to men, is to be themselves exacting.

“Exacting”? What word is that? An exacting woman? An exacting wife? “Hail! Horrors, hail!” The unlovely being has existed, and within the memory of men still living, but it has always been looked upon as a monster,

We have fallen on evil times indeed if such a being is to be held up for approval and imitation.

But the character of exaction depends somewhat on the nature of the thing exacted. To exact from a man that to which you have a right, and which it is his own truest interest to bestow, is neither unchristian nor unamiable. One may and should grant large room for the play of tastes; for differences of organization, opinion, habit, education; but a catholicity which admits to its presence anything that defileth is no fruit of that tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. The gardener who is tolerant of weeds and not untender towards misshapen, or dwarfed, or otherwise imperfect flowers will have but a sorry show for the eyes of the master. Such latitude is a source of deterioration. It is the kindness which kills. Each sex should be to the other an incitement to lofty aims. Each should stand on its own mountain-height and call to the other through clear, bright air; but such sufferance only draws both down into the damp, unwholesome valley-lands where lurk fever and pestilence. A woman cannot with impunity open her doors to unworthy guests. There may be bowing and smiling, and never-ending smooth speech, but in the end, and long before the end, they shall draw their swords against the beauty of her wisdom and shall defile her brightness. A man may go all lengths in pursuit of his own selfish comfort, but he does not the less respect those who hold themselves above it, and if women, who should be pure and purifying, mar the spotlessness of a divine sanctity and lessen the claims of an imperial dignity, thinking thereby to be meeter for profane approach, they work a work whose evil strikes its roots into the inmost life of society. From mistaken kindness woman may weave a narrow garland, but there is lost a glory from the hand that bears and the brow that wears it. If the queen is content to spend her life in the kitchen over bread and honey, and if she is satisfied that the king spend his in the parlor counting out his money, neither king nor queen will receive that homage or command that allegiance which is the rightful royal prerogative.

There is a foolish subservience, an ostentatious and superficial chivalry, an undignified and slavish deference to whims which silly women demand and sillier men grant. Yet even this is not so much the fault of the weak women as of the strong men, who surround women with the atmosphere which naturally creates such weakness. But women have a right, and it is their duty to expect, to claim, to exact if you please, a constancy, spirituality, devotion, as great as their own. Where God makes no distinction of sex in his demands upon mankind, His creatures should not make distinctions. “Men are different from women,” is the conclusion of the whole matter at female debating-societies, and the all-sufficient excuse for every short-coming or over-coming; but the Apostles and Prophets find therein no warrant for a violation of moral law, no guaranty for immunity from punishment, no escape from the obligations to unselfish and righteous living. Nowhere does the Saviour of the world proclaim to men a liberty in selfishness or sin. His kingdom will never come, nor his will be done on earth as it is done in heaven, so long as men are permitted to take out indulgences. If they do it ignorantly, not knowing the true character and claims of womanhood, nor consequently of manhood, they should be taught. If they think a wife’s chief duty is to economize her husband’s fortunes, or to minister to his physical comforts, they should be speedily freed from the illusion. If they suppose knowledge to be ill-adapted to the female constitution, and harmless only when administered homoeopathically, they should be quietly undeceived. If they have been so trained that marriage is to them but unholy ground whereon is found no place for modesty, chastity, delicacy, reverence, how shall they ever unlearn the bad lesson but through pure womanly teaching?

But women fear to take this attitude. There are many indeed who have become so demoralized that they do not know there is any such attitude to take; but there are others who do see it, and shrink from assuming it. Women whose courage and fortitude are indescribable, who will brave pain and fatigue and all definite physical obstacles in their path, will bow down their heads like a bulrush with fear of that indefinable thing which may be called social disapprobation. Through cowardice, they are traitors to their own sex, and impediments to the other. One cannot find it in his heart to blame them harshly. The weakness has so many palliations, it is so natural a growth of their wickedly arranged circumstances, as to disarm rebuke and move scarcely more than pity; but it is none the less a fact, lamentable and disastrous. Women who know and lament the erroneous notions and the guilty actions of men concerning woman, and the culpable relations of men to women, will endeavor to hold back the opinions of a woman when they go against the current. They will admit the force of all her objections, the justice of every remonstrance, but will assure her that opposition will be of no avail. She will accomplish nothing, but—and here lies the real bugbear—but she will make men almost afraid of her!

I would that men were not only almost, but altogether afraid of every woman! I would that men should hold woman in such knightly fear that they should never dare to approach her, matron or maid, save with clean hands and a pure heart; never dare to lift up their souls to vanity nor swear deceitfully; never dare to insult her presence with words of flattery, insincerity, coarseness, sensuality, mercenary self-seeking, or any other form of dishonor. I would that woman were herself so noble and wise, her approbation so unquestionably the reward of merit, that a man should not dare to think ignobly lest his ignoble thought flower into word or act before her eyes; should not wish to think ignobly, since it removed him to such a distance from her, and wrought in him so sad an unlikeness to her; should not be able to think ignobly, being interpenetrated with the celestial fragrance which is her native air. I would have the heathen cloud-divinity which inwraps her with a factitious light, only to hide her real features from mortal gaze, torn utterly away, that men may see in her the fullest presentation possible to earth of the god-like in humanity. So powerfully does the Most High stand ready to work in her to will and to do of his good pleasure, that she may be to man a living revelation, Emanuel, God with us.

We ought to stand in awe of one another. We do not sufficiently respect personality. Every soul comes fresh from the creative hand and bears its own divine stamp. We should not go thoughtlessly into its presence. We should not wantonly violate its holiness. Even the body is fearfully and wonderfully made, and well may be, for it is the temple of the Holy Ghost; but if the temple is sacred, how much more that holy thing which the temple enshrines,—the unseen, incomprehensible, infinite soul, the essential spirit, the holy ghost. Who that cherishes the divine visitant in his own heart but must be amazed at the reckless irreverence with which we assail each other. It is not the smile, the chance word, the pleasant or even the hostile rencounter in the outer courts; it is that we do not respect each other’s silences. We do not scruple to pry into the arcana. The hermit’s sanctuary may lie in the huntsman’s track, but he will have his pleasure though hermit and sanctuary were in the third heaven. We do not accept what is given with gladness and singleness of heart; we stretch out wanton hands to pull aside the curtain and reveal to the garish day what should be suffered to repose in the twilight of inner chambers.

When the prudent adviser, the practical man or woman, counsels, “Do not demand so much from your friends,—they won’t stand it,”—am I to infer that friendship is a mercenary matter, a thing of compromise and barter? Shall I fence in my acts, words, thoughts, that I may secure something whose sole value, whose sole existence, indeed, lies in its spontaneity? Shall I haggle for incense? Am I loved for what I do, what I say, what I think, and not for what I am? Why, this is not love. I am myself, first of all, not Launcelot nor another. He who loves me can but wish me to be this in fullest measure. I will live my life. I will go whithersoever the spirit leads. He who loves me will rejoice in this and give me all furtherance. I demand all things—in you. I demand nothing—from you. “Will not stand it”? If you can hate me, hate me. If you can refrain from loving, love not. I can dispense with your regard, but there is something indispensable. You shall love me because you cannot help it, or you shall love me not at all. If I cannot compel affection in the teeth of all conflicting opinion, I renounce it altogether. If the aroma of character is not strong enough to overpower with its sweetness all unfragrant exhalations of opinion, it is a matter of but small account.

If two people should design simply to club together, to take their meals at the same table and dwell under the same roof, it would be a thing to be carefully considered; but when the question is, not of association alone, but of absolute oneness, not of similarity of tastes or habits, but of an inmost and all-prevailing sympathy, it becomes us to be wary. Mere mechanical junction is easy of accomplishment, but a chemical combination demands fine analysis and the most careful adjustment. It needs not that a globe of fire should come raging through the skies to set our world ablaze; a very slight change in the atmosphere which embraces it, a little less of one ingredient, a little more of another, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Yet the delicacy of matter is but a faint type of the delicacy of mind. He who would pass within the veil to commune with the soul between the cherubim must assume holy garments. If the trouble seem to him too great, let him be content to tarry without. Uzzah put forth an incautious hand and touched the ark of God unbidden, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, and there he died by the ark of God. Now, as then, if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Yet the general opinion seems to be that human beings are made by machinery like Waltham watches, and will fit perfectly when brought together at random, as the different parts taken indiscriminately from a heap of similar parts will fit and form a watch. Juxtaposition is the only necessary preliminary to harmony. On the contrary, it is true not only of prodigies, but of every member of the race that nature made him and then broke the mould. Every person is a prodigy. So great, so radical, so out-spreading, are the differences between individuals, that the wonder is, not that they quarrel so much, but that they are ever peaceful when brought together. The wonder is that so many fierce antagonisms can be soothed even into an outward quiet. Looking at it as mechanism, seeing how diverse, aggressive, and impatient are the qualities of man, and how peculiarly are his circumstances adapted to foster his peculiarities, one would say that the only security was in solitude. Indeed, young people are very apt to think so. They combine in an ideal all the charms which attract, and exclude from it all the disagreeable traits which repel them, and see reality fall so far short of their imaginary standard that they fully believe they shall never find the true Prince. And they never would, but for an inward, inexplicable suffusion of the Divine essence, whose source and action lie beyond knowledge or control, which works without instigation, but is all-powerful to create or annihilate. This, however, which is the sole explanation of the phenomenon, which is the sole conciliator between opposing forces, is generally left out of view. People scarcely seem to be conscious that there is any phenomenon. They philosophize sagaciously upon the singular skill which swings unnumbered worlds in space, and spins them on in never-ending cycle, yet marks out their paths so wisely that world sweeps clear of world and never a collision crushes one to ruin. But full as the universe is of stars, the nearest are hundreds of thousands of miles apart; while the intellectual, nervous worlds that are set going on the surface of our earth are close together. Half a dozen of them are placed as it were shoulder to shoulder. Their zigzag orbits intersect each other a hundred times a day. Is it any wonder that there is hard abrasion, that surfaces are seamed and furrowed, and that sometimes a crash startles us? Is not the wonder rather that crashes are not the order of the day, that the seams are seams and not cracks through the whole crust, and that the largest result of abrasion is smoothness and evenness and polish?

Yet, utterly unmindful of the fitness of things, people will wonder why a man and a woman who are thrown occasionally together do not—what? Attack each other in an outburst of impatience at stupidity and cross-purposes? Not at all, but “strike up a match.” That is, put themselves into relations which shall turn an association whose redeeming feature is that it is casual and under control into an association that is constant and irrevocable! Masculine backwardness is not perhaps considered remarkable, as indeed there is very little of it to be remarked, but the utmost surprise is expressed on those rare occasions in which women are supposed to have declined a “desirable offer.” That a woman should not avail herself of an opportunity to become the wife of a man who is well-educated, well-mannered, “well-off,” seems to be an inexplicable fact. He is her equal in fortune, position, character. Commentators “cannot see any reason why she should not marry him.” But is there any reason why she should marry him? The burden of proof lies upon motion, not rest; upon him who changes, not upon him who retains a position. All these things which are called inducements are no more than so many sticks and stones; you might just as well repeat the a b c, and call that inducement. The matters which bear on such conclusions are of an entirely different nature. Your “inducements” may come in by and by, when the main point is settled, to modify outward acts, but till the Divine Spirit moves, they are without form and void.

Nor are well-wishers always so careful as to take the man himself into the account. If surroundings are favorable, if to a by-stander there seems to be a sort of house-and-barn adaptation, it is enough. House and barn should at once join roof and become one edifice. It is of no importance that this holds stalls for horned oxen, and that entertainment for angels; that the one is informed with spiritual life and the other filled with hay: hay and heaven are all one to many eyes. “Why does she not marry him?” Why? Simply because there is not enough of him, or what there is is not of the right stuff. If he were twenty instead of one, she might dare promise to honor him, might dare hope to respect him. If he had just twenty times as much of being, or if his amplitude could be converted into fineness, he might meet her on equal ground; but being only one and such a one, she is in an overwhelming majority, and it is not republican that majorities should yield to minorities. He may be, as you say, “just as good as she,” but not good for her.

These views appear in the (perhaps apocryphal) stories occasionally told of renowned personages. A poor man or an obscure man proposes to a young woman whose father is rich, and he is refused. The poor and obscure man becomes presently a great banker, a governor, president of a college, or recovers lost counties, or dukedoms in Europe. I have even heard the story repeated of the Emperor of the French and a New York young woman. Moral: Is not the woman sorry now that she did not marry the poor man? Probably not. Certainly not if she belongs to the true type. What have all these changes to do with the matter? Is he any more comfortable to live with because he is a governor? Is he any more adapted to her because he is a duke? It is barely possible that she was mistaken; but if she were, she is probably ignorant of it herself. His present state does not indicate a mistake. Only a close companionship would be likely to discover it. The qualities which make domestic content are not usually revealed by ever so brilliant public success. If they originally existed, they are little likely to have been developed. As business affairs are usually conducted, they are more likely to drown out home happiness than to create it. But all this is irrelevant. Nothing is really meant to which this is an answer. It is only the manifestation of a blindness to what constitutes attraction. The man has discovered outside advantages, and it is assumed that that is enough. She of course refused him because she had not sagacity enough to discern the shadow of his coming greatness. It does not seem to be suspected that she could have refused him because he did not suit her! What difference does it make whether a man is a clown or a king, if you do not like him? Is a great judge necessarily an agreeable person to think of? Is a world-renowned financier necessarily the person who will have most power to draw out what is good and gracious in a woman? Girls naturally give their loyalty to men, not to crowns, or ermine. The lovely Florina was as fond of King Charming, when he came to her in the shape of a Bluebird, as when he appeared at court in royal majesty. Wicked outside opinion, it is true, warps their judgment in a very great degree, and destroys their freedom; but of their own nature, in their inmost hearts, they are true; and when they have independence enough to manifest their truth in these palpable acts, they may be safely set down as true. They acted from sincerity and dignity, not from mercenary short-sightedness. They acted from the most simple and natural causes, and what have they to regret? It is much better to be the wife of an honest and respectable American citizen than to be Empress of the French,—even looking at it in a solely worldly point of view. When we add to this that one loves the American citizen, and does not love the French Emperor, the case may as well be ruled out of court at once. There is no ground for any further proceedings.

Men and women act upon these views too much, as well in regulating as in establishing a home. They recognize and make liberal allowance for palpable, outspoken wants, yet are unmindful or contemptuous of others equally important, but less on the surface, and less sharply defined. A man who would incur self-reproach and the contempt of his neighbors by allowing his wife to suffer from lack of bread in his house, will not suspect so much as a slight dereliction of duty in allowing her to suffer from lack of beauty there. A woman who is never weary of meeting the demands upon her husband’s palate, who will have the joint cooked exactly to his liking, and the dinner prompt to his convenience, would scout the thought of leaving her morning’s occupation to give him her company in a two hours’ drive. People will devote their lives uncomplainingly to meeting each other’s wants, but will neutralize all their efforts and sacrifice happiness hand over hand by neglecting or disregarding each other’s tastes. They will spend all their money in thatching the roof, but will do just nothing at all to keep the fire alive on the hearth. There are very few indeed who are not able to do both. Of course if people lavish their whole strength on gross matters, they have none left for the finer; but it is not often that gross matters need the whole strength. A careful observation and just views would be able, as a general thing without detriment, to wrest many an hour from vain, vulgar, useless, or harmful pursuits, to bestow it upon adornments and amenities that do not perish with the using. And if a man or a woman is so deteriorated as to prefer the indulgence of a coarse or frivolous appetite, or the inordinate indulgence of a merely natural appetite, to the gratification and cultivation of refined and elevated tastes,—the more’s the pity!