In his view, it was an appeal from the
injustice of those who did such wrong in the name of virtue. Were this
little book interesting for no other cause, it would be so for the
generous affection evinced under the peculiar circumstances. This man
had courage to love and honor this woman in the face of the world's
sentence, and of all that was repulsive in her own past history. He
believed he saw of what soul she was, and that the impulses she had
struggled to act out were noble, though the opinions to which they had
led might not be thoroughly weighed. He loved her, and he defended her
for the meaning and tendency of her inner life. It was a good fact.
Mary Wolstonecraft, like Madame Dudevant (commonly known as George
Sand) in our day, was a woman whose existence better proved the need
of some new interpretation of Woman's Rights than anything she wrote.
Such beings as these, rich in genius, of most tender sympathies,
capable of high virtue and a chastened harmony, ought not to find
themselves, by birth, in a place so narrow, that, in breaking bonds,
they become outlaws. Were there as much room in the world for such, as
in Spenser's poem for Britomart, they would not run their heads so
wildly against the walls, but prize their shelter rather.
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