F. and her friends.
'The practical optimism is much the same as ours, except that
there is more hope for the masses--soon.
'This work is written with great vigor, scarce any faltering
on the wing. The horrors are disgusting, as are those of every
writer except Dante. Even genius should content itself in
dipping the pencil in cloud and mist. The apparitions of
Spiridion are managed with great beauty. As in Helene, as in
Novalis, I recognized, with delight, the eye that gazed, the
ear that listened, till the spectres came, as they do to the
Highlander on his rocky couch, to the German peasant on his
mountain. How different from the vulgar eye which looks, but
never sees! Here the beautiful apparition advances from the
solar ray, or returns to the fountain of light and truth, as
it should, when eagle eyes are gazing.
'I am astonished at her insight into the life of thought. She
must know it through some man. Women, under any circumstances,
can scarce do more than dip the foot in this broad and deep
river; they have not strength to contend with the current.
Brave, if they do not delicately shrink from the cold water.
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