ing of Horace Mann, she says:--

"He will not help the cause of woman greatly, but his efforts to
educate her will do a greater work than he anticipates. Prepare woman
for duty and usefulness, and she will laugh at any boundaries man may
set for her. She will as naturally fall into her right position as the
feather floats in the air, or the pebble sinks in the water."

And at another time she writes: "I feel more and more that woman's
work is inside, that the great battle must first be fought within, and
the conquest obtained over her love of admiration, her vanity, her
want of moral courage, her littleness, ere she is prepared to use her
rights without abusing them. Women must come into the arena with men,
not to increase the number of potsherds, but to elevate the standard
of right."

Her ideal of womanhood was very high, and comprehended an education so
different from the usual one, that she seldom ventured to unfold it.
But she longed to do something towards it, and there is no doubt that
but for home duties, which she felt were paramount, she would have
undertaken a true missionary work of regeneration among women,
especially of the lower classes. Many sleepless nights were passed
pondering upon the subject. At one time she thought of editing a
paper, then of studying law, that she might sometimes be able to
advise and protect the weak and defenceless of her sex. She went so
far in this as to consult an eminent lawyer in Philadelphia, but was
discouraged by him. Then she considered the medical profession as
opening to her a door of influence and usefulness among poor women.
Sarah Douglass, who was a successful medical lecturer among the
colored women of Philadelphia and New York, encouraged her friend in
this idea, and urged her to take a course of lectures.

"I would dearly like to do as you say," Sarah Grimke answered, "but it
must not be in Philadelphia. I cannot draw a long breath there,
intellectual or moral. Freedom to live as my conscience dictates, to
give free utterance to my thoughts, to have contact with those who are
pressing after progress and whose watchword is onward, is needful to
me. In Philadelphia there is an atmosphere of repression that would
destroy me. Ground to powder as I was, in the mill of bigotry and
superstition, I shudder at the thought of encountering again the same
suffering I went through there. Indeed, I wonder I was not altogether
stultified and dried up beyond the power of re