and neither maternal nor conjugal relation can supersede the human responsibility, but must become its means and instrument.”  And it is good to read the manly speech, on this subject, of John Quincy Adams, quoted at length in Quincy’s life of him, in which, after fully defending the political petitions of the women of Plymouth, he declares that “the correct principle is that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their God.”

There are duties devolving on every human being,—­duties not small nor few, but vast and varied,—­which spring from home and private life, and all their sweet relations.  The support or care of the humblest household is a function worthy of men, women, and angels, so far as it goes.  From these duties none must shrink, neither man nor woman; the loftiest genius cannot ignore them; the sublimest charity must begin with them.  They are their own exceeding great reward; their self-sacrifice is infinite joy; and the selfishness which discards them is repaid by loneliness and a desolate old age.  Yet these, though the most tender and intimate portion of human life, do not form its whole.  It is given to noble souls to crave other interests also, added spheres, not necessarily alien from these; larger knowledge, larger action also; duties, responsibilities, anxieties, dangers, all the aliment that history has given to its heroes.  Not home less, but humanity more.  When the high-born English lady in the Crimean hospital, ordered to a post of almost certain death, only raised her hands to heaven, and said, “Thank God!” she did not renounce her true position as woman:  she claimed it.  When the queen of James I. of Scotland, already immortalized by him in stately verse, won a higher immortality by welcoming to her fair bosom the dagger aimed at his; when the Countess of Buchan hung confined in her iron cage, outside Berwick Castle, in penalty for crowning Robert the Bruce; when the stainless soul of Joan of Arc met God, like Moses, in a burning flame,—­these things were as they should be.  Man must not monopolize these privileges of peril, the birthright of great souls.  Serenades and compliments must not replace the nobler hospitality which shares with woman the opportunity of martyrdom.  Great administrative duties also, cares of state, for which one should be born gray-headed, how nobly do these sit upon a woman’s brow!  Each year adds to the storied renown of Elizabeth of England, greatest sovereign of the greatest of historic nations.  Christina of Sweden, alone among the crowned heads of Europe (so says Voltaire), sustained the dignity of the throne against Richelieu and Mazarin.  And these queens most assuredly did not sacrifice their womanhood in the process; for her Britannic Majesty’s wardrobe included four thousand gowns; and Mile, de Montpensier declares that when Christina had put on a wig of the latest fashion, “she really looked extremely pretty.”