the author of this book. She has given nothing less than her life to
the work. And, as if for the greater trial of her constancy, her
theory was divulged, some time ago, in so partial and unsatisfactory a
manner--with so exceedingly imperfect a statement of its claims--as to
put her at great disadvantage before the world. A single article from
her pen, purporting to be the first of a series, appeared in an
American Magazine; but unexpected obstacles prevented the further
publication in that form, after enough had been done to assail the
prejudices of the public, but far too little to gain its sympathy.
Another evil followed. An English writer (in a 'Letter to the Earl of
Ellesmere,' published within a few months past) has thought it not
inconsistent with the fair-play, on which his country prides itself,
to take to himself this lady's theory, and favour the public with it
as his own original conception, without allusion to the author's prior
claim. In reference to this pamphlet, she generously says:--

'This has not been a selfish enterprise. It is not a personal concern.
It is a discovery which belongs not to an individual, and not to a
people. Its fields are wide enough and rich enough for us all; and he
that has no work, and whoso will, let him come and labour in them. The
field is the world's; and the world's work henceforth is in it. So
that it be known in its real comprehension, in its true relations to
the weal of the world, what matters it? So that the truth, which is
dearer than all the rest--which abides with us when all others leave
us, dearest then--so that the truth, which is neither yours nor mine,
but yours _and_ mine, be known, loved, honoured, emancipated, mitred,
crowned, adored--_who_ loses anything, that does not find it.' 'And
what matters it,' says the philosophic wisdom, speaking in the
abstract, 'what name it is proclaimed in, and what letters of the
alphabet we know it by?--what matter is it, so that they _spell_ the