believed he saw of what soul she was, and that the impulses she had
struggled to act out were noble, though the opinions to which they had
led might not be thoroughly weighed. He loved her, and he defended her
for the meaning and tendency of her inner life. It was a good fact.

Mary Wolstonecraft, like Madame Dudevant (commonly known as George
Sand) in our day, was a woman whose existence better proved the need
of some new interpretation of Woman's Rights than anything she wrote.
Such beings as these, rich in genius, of most tender sympathies,
capable of high virtue and a chastened harmony, ought not to find
themselves, by birth, in a place so narrow, that, in breaking bonds,
they become outlaws. Were there as much room in the world for such, as
in Spenser's poem for Britomart, they would not run their heads so
wildly against the walls, but prize their shelter rather. They find
their way, at last, to light and air, but the world will not take off
the brand it has set upon them. The champion of the Rights of Woman
found, in Godwin, one who would plead that cause like a brother. He
who delineated with such purity of traits the form of Woman in the
Marguerite, of whom the weak St. Leon could never learn to be
worthy,--a pearl indeed whose price was above rubies,--was not false
in life to the faith by which he had hallowed his romance. He acted,
as he wrote, like a brother. This form of appeal rarely fails to touch
the basest man:--"Are you acting toward other women in the way you
would have men act towards your sister?" George Sand smokes, wears
male attire, wishes to be addressed as "Mon frere;"--perhaps, if she
found those who were as brothers indeed, she would not care whether
she were brother or sister. [Footnote: A note appended by my sister in
this place, in the first edition, is here omitted, because it is
incorporated in another article in this volume, treating of George
Sand more at length.--[ED.]] We rejoice to see that she, who expresses