Recall the ever-welcome defiers (the mothers precede them);
Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth;
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of slaves, felons,
idiots, and of insane and diseased persons.
4.
Think of the time when you was not yet born;
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.
Think of spiritual results: Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.
Think of manhood, and you to be a man;
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?
Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;
The creation is womanhood;
Have I not said that womanhood involves all?
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best
womanhood?
THE WATERS.
The world below the brine. Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom: The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray. Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths— breathing that thick breathing air, as so many do. The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who walk this sphere: The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.