to him; and no less strange that woman herself should join in this crusade against the recovery of her long-lost birthright.

It seems almost absurd to say so, but it appears to us to be the truth (and confirmed by the experience of others) that there is great jealousy shown by men of all classes to women of great intellect.

This may, perhaps, account for the unpopularity of female writers, more especially if they happen to tread upon forbidden subjects, such as the equality of the sexes. In many men there is a great appearance of deference to the gentler part of creation, but we take it this proceeds from a lower feeling than that of respect. It is seldom that man shows a deference to anything except wealth or beauty: his instinct is against woman's intellect.

It is not, however, our intention to discuss this question; we merely give it as the opinion of many of the wisest men we have conversed with, and we content ourselves with merely making the assertion.

We have been led chiefly to this statement by the tone which many have adopted towards the eminent authoress at the head of this article.

We have carefully read, and at first with a prejudiced eye, all her writings, and we see no ground for the objections which have been made against her doctrines.

We hope to show that she is not alone one of the first of the daughters of America, but that she is one of the wisest of women.

We shall consider her prose writings first, and then "illumi

nate our pages
female pen of the New World has produced.

" with some of the most genuine poetry the

We commence with the volume which first roused our attention and excited our admiration.

In 1843 she published her "Summer on the Lakes,” and seldom has so small a volume contained so much fine thought and been so full of suggestiveness.

There is a total absence of the old notions. We here find one who has a freshness of nature which can think and feel for herself. How unlike the stale common-place rhapsodies on Niagara is the following:

"We have been here eight days, and I am quite willing to go away. So great a sight soon satisfies, making us content with itself, and with what is less than itself. Our desires once realized, haunt us again less readily: having 'lived one day' we would depart, and become worthy to live another.

"We have not been fortunate in weather, for there cannot be too much or too warm sunlight for this scene, and the skies have been lowering with cold, unkind winds. My nerves, too much braced up by such an atmosphere, do not well bear the continual stress of sight and sound. For here there is no escape from the weight of a perpetual creation; all other forms and motions come and go, the tide rises and recedes, the wind at its mightiest, moves in gales and gusts, but here is really an incessant, an indefatigable motion.

"Awake or asleep there is no escape; still this rushing round you and through you. It is in this way I have most felt the grandeur,--somewhat eternal, if not infinite.

"At times a secondary music rises; the cataract seems to seize

its own rhythm, and sing it over again, so that the ear and soul are roused by a double vibration. This is some effect of the wind, causing echoes to the thundering anthem. It is very sublime, giving the effect of a spiritual repetition through all the spheres."

Although we have never seen Niagara, nor listened to its deafening anthem, we feel the truth of this description; and that is the gift of genius, to enable us to feel the presence of a great man, a stirring heroic event, or sublimity of nature, by means of the poet's soul.

How vigorously she portrays the sentiment which all have felt in the presence of beautiful or sublime scenery!

“But all great expression, which, on a superficial survey, seems so easy as well as so simple, fnrnishes, after a while, to the faithful observer its own standard by which to appreciate it. Daily these proportions widened and towered more and more upon my sight, and I got at last a proper foreground for these sublime distances. Before coming away, I think I really saw the full wonder of the scene. After awhile it so drew me into itself as to inspire an undefined dread, such as I never knew before, such as may be felt when death is about to usher us into a new existence."

Miss Fuller, in her desire to dip the plummet down to the very depths of human nature, has, with her usual boldness, seized upon a presentiment which, no doubt, at particular seasons, has impressed every mind. We pause over her remark in italics, as it affords us an opportunity of noticing that love of psychological illustration which seems to be so natural to her.

This is hardly a place to discuss the mysteries of life and death, but we may perhaps be allowed to remark that this allusion to the vague intimation of a future state is a favorite illustration with our fair writer.

How far these presentiments are based on truth, it is not permitted for the intellect, in its present state, to ascertain. It may be that every birth is a death, and every death a birth; and that, as year succeeds to year, carrying the human race forward in its progress towards its ultimate destiny, so may what we call birth and death be only a process of each individual mind in its journey to perfection. One would think that curiosity alone would enable us to welcome death, seeing that it is the portal to a greater sphere of existence.

While Miss Fuller has a spirit capable of feeling the vastness of her subject, she has also an eye ready to detect the minuter traits of character. After her speculations on the metaphysical parts of our nature, the following, coming immediately after it, reads somewhat outré :

"Once, just as I had seated myself there, a man came to take his first look. He walked close up to the fall, and after looking at it a moment, with an air as if thinking how he could best appropriate it to his own use, he spat into it."

This spitting into a cataract is no mean illustration of the insults occasionally offered to men of genius by the low-minded. The latter act is more frequently indulged in, but it is quite as contemptible an act in one case as the other, and covers the spitter, and not the cataract, with contempt.

This insensibility to grandeur is a common defect, or perhaps we ought to say that the susceptibility to beauty and sublimity is the gift of only the superior nature.

It is related that an English merchant travelling to Mount Vesuvius was so indignant at its not vomiting forth torrents of flame, as he had seen it in pictures, that he snapped his fingers at it, crying, "Vesuvius, you're a humbug!" We prefer the Utilitarian who declared that Etna was a famous place to light a cigar at. It was a similar want of the power of appreciation that induced a Londoner to pronounce that Humboldt was an overrated man, and when asked for evidence to support this novel opinion, he said, with the self-satisfied air of a man who fancies he is settling a disputed point—"Why, you must know, that I dined with him at a friend's the other day, and so long as he was allowed to talk about the Andes, the Himalaya, and places nobody had ever heard of, and in whose existence I don't believe, of course Humboldt had it all his own way; but I settled him. I asked him if he knew where Turnham Green was, and, would you believe it-he didn't know he was dumbfoundered. I never saw a man look like such a fool before. He is a pretty traveller, to be sure !"

We fear this is the way with the world. They select their own confined local knowledge, or rather ignorance, to test the intellect of a man whose mind grasps a world.

This confounding the squabbling gossip of their own parish with the enlarged politics of the world is a common case with too many.

We need hardly say that to the men who recognise Niagara as only a great water power for turning mills, or as the tailor