I only know one prayer — "Give me the truth, Give me that colored whiteness, ancient youth, Complex and simple, seen in joy and ruth. Let me not by v… - Margaret Fuller

A many-colored light flows from our sun; Art, 'neath its beams a motley thread has spun; The prison modifies the perfect day; But thou hast known such mediums to shun, And cast once more on life a pure white ray. Absorbed in the creations of thy mind, Forgetting daily self, my truest friend I find.

I do not think we are deceived to grow, But that the crudest fancy, slightest show, Covers some separate truth that we may know. In the one Truth, each separate fact is true; Eternally in one I many view, And destinies through destiny pursue.

Were the destiny of woman thus exactly marked out, did she invariably retain the shelter of a parent’s or guardian’s roof till she married, did marriage give her a sure home and a protector, were she never liable to be made a widow, or, if so, sure of finding immediate protection from a brother or new husband, so that she might never be forced to stand alone one moment, and were her mind given for this world only, with no faculties capable of eternal growth and infinite improvement, we would still demand of her a far wider and more generous culture than is proposed by those who so anxiously define her sphere.