She would be less a woman,
and he less a man, were any other result possible. Deep down in the
very roots of the idea of sex we come on that prime antithesis,--the
male, active and aggressive; the female, sedentary, passive, and
receptive.
And even on the broader question, experience shows one it is always
so in the world we live in. No man or woman can go through life in
consistent obedience to any high principle,--not even the willing
and deliberate martyrs. We must bow to circumstances. Herminia
had made up her mind beforehand for the crown of martyrdom, the one
possible guerdon this planet can bestow upon really noble and
disinterested action. And she never shrank from any necessary
pang, incidental to the prophet's and martyr's existence. Yet even
so, in a society almost wholly composed of mean and petty souls,
incapable of comprehending or appreciating any exalted moral
standpoint, it is practically impossible to live from day to day in
accordance with a higher or purer standard. The martyr who should
try so to walk without deviation of any sort, turning neither to
the right nor to the left in the smallest particular, must
accomplish his martyrdom prematurely on the pettiest side-issues,
and would never live at all to assert at the stake the great truth
which is the lodestar and goal of his existence.
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