Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child
John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall, Ed.

[1]

To Rev. Convers Francis.

My dear brother,--¹ I have been busily engaged in reading “Paradise lost.” Homer hurried me along with rapid impetuosity; every passion that he portrayed I felt: I loved, hated, and resented, just as he inspired me! But when I read Milton, I felt elevated “above this visible diurnal sphere.” I could not but admire such astonishing grandeur of description, such heavenly sublimity of style. I never read a poem that displayed a more prolific fancy, or a more vigorous genius. But don't you think that Milton asserts the superiority of his own sex in rather too lordly a manner? Thus, when Eve is conversing with Adam, she is made to say,--

My author and disposer, what thou bid'st
Unargu'd I obey; so God ordained.
God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.

Perhaps you will smile at the freedom with which I express my opinion concerning the books which I have been reading. I acknowledge it might have the appearance of pedantry, if I were writing to any one but a brother; when I write to you, I feel perfectly