James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

I would not make the path I have trod
More pleasant or even, more straight or wide
Nor change my course the breadth of a hair,
This way or that way, to either side.

My past is mine, and I take it all;
Its weakness — its folly, if you please;
Nay, even my sins, if you come to that,
May have been my helps, not hindrances

If I saved my body from the flames
Because that once I had burned my hand;
Or kept myself from a greater sin
By doing a less — you will understand;

It was better I suffered a little pain,
Better I sinned for a little time,
If the smarting warned me back from death,
And the sting of sin withheld from crime.

Who knows its strength by trial, will know
What strength must be set against a sin;
And how temptation is overcome
He has learned, who has felt its power within!

And who knows how a life at the last may show?
Why, look at the moon from where we stand
Opaque, uneven, you say; yet it shines,
A luminous sphere, complete and grand

So let my past stand, just as it stands,
And let me now, as I may, grow old;
I am what I am, and my life for me
Is the best — or it had not been, I hold.