Besides, there were secretaries all around the court taking
down her words. That was meant for no good to _her_. But the end
does not always correspond to the meaning. And Joanna might say to
herself, "These words that will be used against me to-morrow and the
next day, perhaps, in some nobler generation, may rise again for my
justification." Yes, Joanna, they _are_ rising even now in Paris,
and for more than justification!
Woman, sister, there are some things which you do not execute as well
as your brother, man; no, nor ever will. Pardon me if I doubt whether
you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a
Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great
scholar. By which last is meant--not one who depends simply on an
infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of
combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of
the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the
unity of breathing life. If you _can_ create yourselves into any of
these great creators, why have you not?
Yet, sister woman, though I cannot consent to find a Mozart or a
Michael Angelo in your sex, cheerfully, and with the love that burns in
depths of admiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well
as the best of us men--a greater thing than even Milton is known to
have done, or Michael Angelo; you can die grandly, and as goddesses
would die, were goddesses mortal.
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