Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 24'i
I have never expected any advantage from the publication of it. If it pays its own expenses I shall be
satisfied. It would mortify me to have the publisLers incur debt by it.
It is wonderful how shy even liberal ministers generally are about trusting people with the plain truth
concerning their religion. They want to veil it in a
supernatural haze. They are very reluctant to part
with the old idea that God has given to Jews and
Christians a peculiar monopoly of truth. It is a selfish view of God's government of the world, and it is
time that we knew enough to outgrow it.
TO MISS ANNE WHITNEY.
1878.
You were right in your prediction about your
poems. Many of them are too metaphysical for my
simple, practical mind.
I cannot soar so high, or dive so deep; so I stand
looking and wondering where you have gone, like a
cow watching a bird or a dolphin. A wag said that
when Elnerson was in Egypt, the Sphinx said to him,
" You're another." I imagine the Sphinx would address you in the same way. I find great beauty in
the poems; and of those which I do not understand,
I say, as was said of Madame de Sta[l, "Would that
the Pythoness were less inspired, or I more intelligent." MAy favorites are the " Cyba," the " Yaguey,"
the 6" Prospect," and " Evening;" all of them, you see,
characterized by the plainness of their meaning.
TO THE SAME.
BOSTON, November 25, 1878.
DEAR SAUCEBOX, - I dined with yestelrdaly,
and I expect to do it again next Sunclday; and I do