BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
103 
politics in its wider sense. But in all discussions, though she 
always took a foremost part, she was a courteous and gentle 
opponent if ever she felt called upon to combat any theory 
or challenge any fact. She demanded freedom of thought and 
utterance for herself; she was ready to grant every one else 
the same privilege. A fragment dated July 16, 1900, and con¬ 
sisting of only three or four paragraphs, gives, in brief, ex¬ 
pression to much of her philosophy of life. She here says: — 
“To live is only worth while in order to build character. 
“In the East, character is called Karma. It is built from 
blocks of truth. It is only that which lasts through eons. This 
is the tower for each to build. 
“Only the strong are tried and they alone can reach ever¬ 
lasting life; for in strength rests peace, solidarity, unity, in¬ 
finity.” 
Still another phase is found in the form of a bit of rhythmi¬ 
cal prose:— 
“The epilogue of Love is death. 
“For he who has truly loved only finds fulfillment in death. 
“The quest of life is love, its finding the signal for death. 
“Love knows neither consciousness nor volition. It is, 
in its fullest expression, oblivion; in its fullest activity, qui¬ 
escence.” 
But what perhaps strikes one most powerfully in studying 
her life is her passionate desire for independence, for com¬ 
plete liberty of thought and action. She was an individualist 
of the most pronounced type. She so insistently felt the 
need of unhampered fields of activity for women that she may 
sometimes have shocked the ultra-conservative in her pleas. 
She could never see the reason why men should have all the 
prerogatives and women all the restrictions. Instructive in this 
connection is her prose hymn to Liberty, which was printed 
in emphatic italics in the “ Conservator” for April, 1897: — 
“Freedom is the end which revolution and revolt through truth have in 
view. It is a liberation from all the chains which are holding back the hu¬ 
man being from greater expansions of mind and soul. By Freedom is meant a 
state wherein all the shackles from preconceived ideas of the rights and wrongs 
0} a question are cast aside; where the being stands unhampered to view 
