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

74 LETTERS.
TO ELLIS GRAY LORING.
WAYLAND, February 24, 1856.
David has signed my will and I have sealed it up
and put it away. It excited my towering indignation to think it was necessary for him to sign it, and
if you had been by, you would have made the matter
worse by repeating your old manly "fling and twit"
about married women being dead in the law. I was
not indignant on my own account, for David respects
the freedom of all women upon principle, and mine in
particular by reason of affection superadded. But I
was indignant for womankind made chattels personal
from the beginning of time, perpetually insulted by
literature, law, and custom. The very phrases used
with regard to us are abominable. "Dead in the
law," "Femme couverte." How I detest such language! I must come out with a broadside on that
subject before I die. If I don't, I shall walk and rap
afterward.
TO PROF. CONVERS FRANCIS.
VWAYLAND, February 27, 1856.
Concerning theology, I still have a difficulty in
seeing eye to eye with you. If there is such a science, I should define it as treating of man's relations
with God; while ethics treat of his relations with
fellow-men. Is there any basis for a science concerning the nature of the Divine Being, and the relations of human souls with him? What have we
for guides into the infinite, except faith and aspiration? And must not faith and aspiration necessarily
differ in individuals, according to temperament, education, and other external influences?
I am passing through strange spiritual exporiences