"What God knows, I dare avow to
man," seems to be her motto. It is impossible not to see in her, not
only the distress and doubts of the intellect, but the temptations of
a sensual nature; but we see too the courage of a hero and a deep
capacity for religion. This mixed nature, too, fits her peculiarly to
speak to men so diseased as men are at present. They feel she knows
their ailment, and if she find a cure, it will really be by a specific
remedy.
An upward tendency and growing light are observable in all her works
for several years past, till now, in the present, she has expressed
such conclusions as forty years of the most varied experience have
brought to one who had shrunk from no kind of discipline, yet still
cried to God amid it all; one who, whatever you may say against her,
you must feel has never accepted a word for a thing, or worn one
moment the veil of hypocrisy; and this person one of the most powerful
nature, both as to passion and action, and of an ardent, glowing
genius. These conclusions are sadly incomplete. There is an amazing
alloy in the last product of her crucible, but there is also so much
of pure gold that the book is truly a cordial, as its name of Consuelo
(consolation) promises.
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