“Her Brain enlabyrinths the whole heaven of her bosom and loins
To put in act what her Heart wills.”
—William Blake (“Jerusalem”).
“These states belong so purely to the inner nature; are so deeply hidden beneath the strata of what we call the inner life, even, that only women, and of these, only such as have become self-acquainted, through seeing the depths within the depths of their own consciousness, can fully comprehend all that is meant in the words a ‘Purposed Maternity.’ I use them in their highest sense, meaning not the mere purpose of satisfying the maternal instincts, which the quadruped feels and acts from, as well as the human being, but the intelligent, artistic purpose (to which the maternal instinct is a fundamental motive), to act in harmony with Nature in producing the most perfect being which the powers and resources employed, can bring forth.... It is probable that we shall, ere long, arrive at truer views of maternity everywhere; and when we do, I think it will be seen that the office has a sacredness in Nature’s eyes above all other offices, and that she reserves for it the finest of her vital forces, powers, susceptibilities, and means of every sort.”—Eliza W. Farnham (“Woman and Her Era,” Vol. II., p. 385; Vol. I., p. 93).
[It has been an intense delight to come upon these and the other words and thoughts of Eliza W. Farnham; “blazes” or axe-marks of this previous pioneer in the same exploration. It is only since completing the whole of the verses that the writer has found the passages quoted from Mrs. Farnham’s work, and deduces a not unnatural confirmation of the mutually shared views, from the singular concord and unanimity of their expression.]
8.—“... supreme of form and will.”
“The changes that have come over us in our social life during the past two decades are, in many respects, remarkable, but in no particular are they so remarkable as in the physical training and education of women....
“The results of this social change have been on the whole beneficial beyond expectation. The health of women generally is improving under the change; there is amongst women generally less bloodlessness, less of what the old fiction-writers called swooning; less of lassitude, less of nervousness, less of hysteria, and much less of that general debility to which, for want of a better term, the words ‘malaise’ and ‘languor’ have been applied. Woman, in a word, is stronger than she was in olden time. With this increase of strength woman has gained in development of body and of limb. She has become less distortioned. The curved back, the pigeon-shaped chest, the disproportioned limb, the narrow feeble trunk, the small and often distorted eyeball, the myopic eye, and puny ill-shaped external ear—all these parts are becoming of better and more natural contour. The muscles are also becoming more equally and more fully developed, and with these improvements, there are growing up amongst women models who may, in due time, vie with the best models that old Greek culture has left for us to study in its undying art.”—Dr. Richardson (“The Young Woman,” Oct., 1892).
Id.—“... prophetic scenes,
Spiritual projections ...