Abolitionists were men of sharp angles. Organizing them was like binding crooked sticks in a bundle.

Abolitionists were men of sharp angles. Organizing them was like binding crooked sticks in a bundle.

If I wrote at all, I must throw myself headlong into the great political maelstrom, and would of course be swallowed up like a fishing-boat in the great Norway horror which decorated our school geographies; for no woman had ever done such a thing, and I could never again hold up my head under the burden of shame and disgrace which would be heaped upon me. But what matter? I had no children to dishonor; all save one who had ever loved me were dead, and she no longer needed me, and if the Lord wanted some one to throw into that gulf, no one could be better spared than I.

When a woman starts out in the world on a mission, secular or religious, she should leave her feminine charms at home.

It is an old adage, "All is fair in love as in war," but I thought not of general laws, and only felt a private grievance.

I must be the mate of the man I had chosen; and if he would not come to my level, I must go to his.

I had gone into the hospital with the stupid notion that its primary object was the care and comfort of the sick and wounded. It was long after that I learned that a vast majority of all benevolent institutions are gotten up to gratify the aesthetic tastes of the public; exhibit the wealth and generosity of the founders, and furnish places for officers. The beneficiaries of the institutions are simply an apology for their existence, and having furnished that apology, the less said about them the better.