hes,)
with such sorry specimens of lordliness; such brainless, nerveless
bundles of selfishness, is something too monstrous for my comprehension!

"Are these girls really Americans at heart? Do they represent the women
of our land? Can they understand or appreciate the privilege as a
birthright, of proudly taking an honored part in the coming motherhood
of this great and progressive land of republican liberty; a republic
which to day stands as the hope of the world? Is it possible that they
can knowingly wish to become mothers of a feeble race of puny
children--children who are cruelly bereft of moral, physical and
intellectual vigor by the tainted heritage which, like some avenging
nemesis, through the action of an inexorable law, surely follows the
unfortunate offspring of lordling fathers, who are born as the very
dregs from twenty generations of the vice and depravity of kingly
courts?

"My dear Fillmore, to these interrogatories I answer, No! A thousand
times No! Ignorance! A shameful ignorance of the true object and purpose
of human life, on the part of these misguided girls, is their only sin.
They are well-nigh hopelessly ignorant of the significance, or even the
existence, of the great basic truths of evolutionary life. They know not
that each age in the series of evolution grows out of the preceding one;
that each in its order is the parent of the next; that the same is true
of each generation of people. In the midnight darkness of their
ignorance, they are incapable of knowing that virtue inherently
possesses the germ of perpetuity. They can neither understand nor heed
the warning cry of history, which proves that crime and depravity have
in themselves the seeds of natural death. They have never read
history's tragic story of the total extinction of the royal houses of
Capet, Valois, Tudor, Stuart and Bourbon;--a story which demonstrates so
conclusively the avenging results that follow the crimes of royal
fathers.

"To redeem these girls from such dense ignorance; to rescue them from
the thralldom of such a fashionable sin, which threatens to become a
fad; to open their eyes to the horrible consequences which follow such
misalliances, is a work so important as to demand the immediate
attention and united effort of a host of America's patriot mothers.

"Pardon me, dear Fillmore, for devoting so much space in my letter to
this particular topic. I feel sure you will kindly excuse any excess of
fervor which