of the reform political parties ever will amount to much standing
alone, and that it would be a good thing for all of them to come
together in one body. I might say, however, that least of all could
I join yours, which makes "God the author of civil government." If
such civil government as we have was made by God, what reason is
there to expect any improvement in the future?

From a letter to Isabella Beecher Hooker:

Fortune indeed does not smile any too favorably upon us who feel so
longingly the need to use money. I am crippled all the time and
prevented from doing what I might by lack of funds. The old faith
would say, I suppose, that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth
financially, but seems to me I could better do His work and my own
for the regeneration of the world, if I had the money to do it
with.... What a fuss the men are making nowadays over "good
government"--the idiots! Can't they see it is impossible to
improve things until they get a new and better balance of power
that will outweigh the one which now pulls down the political
scales and makes decency kick the beam every time? It does try my
soul that we can not make them see they are simply trying to lift
themselves by their bootstraps. Well, they are born of
disfranchised mothers, a subject class, and one can not expect
different results.

If I could spare the time and money I would love to accept your
invitation to sit with you and your dear John in your summer
retreat, and chat over the world of work for our good cause. Of the
before and the after I know absolutely nothing, and have very
little desire and less time to question or to study. I know this
seems very material to you, and yet to me it is wholly spiritual,
for it is giving time and study rather to making things better in
the _between_, which is really all that we can influence; but
perhaps when I can no longer enter into active, practical work, I
may lapse into speculations.

To a debating society asking her opinion on the question of "educated
and property suffrage:"

I always have taken the negative; that is, have believed in
universal suffrage without either property or educational
qualification. I hold that every citizen has a right to a voice in
the government under which he lives. While an education is high