Among the myriad triumphs of
advancing civilization, there seems but one formidable danger, and that
is here.
It cannot be doubted, however, that the peril will pass by, with
advancing knowledge. In proportion to our national recklessness of
danger is the promptness with which remedial measures are adopted, when
they at last become indispensable. In the mean time, we must look for
proofs of the physical resources of woman into foreign and even
into savage lands. When an American mother tells me with pride, as
occasionally happens, that her daughter can walk two miles and back
without great fatigue, the very boast seems a tragedy; but when one
reads that Oberea, queen of the Sandwich Islands, lifted Captain Wallis
over a marsh as easily as if he had been a little child, there is a
slight sense of consolation. Brunhilde, in the "Nibelungen," binds her
offending lover with her girdle and slings him up to the wall. Cymburga,
wife of Duke Ernest of Lithuania, could crack nuts between her fingers,
and drive nails into a wall with her thumb;--whether she ever got her
husband under it is not recorded.
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