"Seraphic intellect and force
To seize and throw the doubts of man";
that their grown-up sons will have the same confidence in their intelligence as they now have in their hearts. Then only will mothers be properly equipped for developing the character of their children; for inspiring them with a love of the true, the beautiful and the good; for stimulating their talents and aiding them to attain to all the sublimities of knowledge; for assisting them in doubt and despondency and firing them with an ambition to strive for supreme excellence in all that makes for the nobility of manhood and the glory of womanhood; for making them, as Beatrice made Dante after he was renewed and purified in the waters of Eunoe, "fit to mount up to the stars."
"Puro e disposto a salire alle stelle."
The romantic idea of treating woman as a clinging vine, and thus eliminating half the energies of humanity, is rapidly disappearing and giving place to the idea that the strong are for the strong—the intellectually strong; that the evolution of the race will be complete only when men and women shall be associated in perfect unity of purpose, and shall, in fullest sympathy, collaborate for the attainment of the highest and the best. Then, indeed, will man's helpmate become to him and to his children
"More rich than pearls of Ind or gold of Ophir,
And in her sex more wonderful and rare."
Then will men and women for the first time fully supplement each other in their aspirations and endeavors and realize somewhat of that oneness of heart and mind which was so beautifully adumbrated in Plato's androgyn. Then will the world witness the return of another Golden Age—the Golden Age of Science—the Golden Age of cultured, noble, perfect womanhood. Then to all who really think and love will be manifest the clearness and power of vision of England's great poet laureate when in matchless numbers he sings:
"The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free.
...*...*...*...*
For woman is not undevelopt man
But diverse: could we make her as the man,
Sweet Love were slain; his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind;
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And as these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-rev'rent each, and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other ev'n as those who love,
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;
Then reign the world's great bridals chaste and calm;
Then springs the crowning race of human-kind.
May these things be!"