It was love that gave those
tender hearts the iron strength and heroic persistence at which
the world must forever wonder. And do we appreciate those women?
Let the Old World boast its crowned kings, its mailed knights, its
ladies of the court and castle; but we of the New World, we of the
powerful West, let us brim our cups with the wine of undying
devotion, and drink to the memory of the Women of the Revolution,
--to the humble but good and marvelously brave and faithful women
like those of old Vincennes.
But if Alice was being radically influenced by Beverley, he in
turn found a new light suffusing his nature, and he was not
unaware that it came out of her eyes, her face, her smiles, her
voice, her soul. It was the old, well-known, inexplicable, mutual
magnetism, which from the first has been the same on the highest
mountain-top and in the lowest valley. The queen and the milkmaid,
the king and the hind may come together only to find the king
walking off with the lowly beauty and her fragrant pail, while
away stalks the lusty rustic, to be lord and master of the queen.
Love is love, and it thrives in all climes, under all conditions.
There is an inevitable and curious protest that comes up unbidden
between lovers; it takes many forms in accordance with particular
circumstances. It is the demand for equality and perfection.
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