It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana should have found reason to write thus.  To a man of equal power, equal sincerity, no more!—­many resources would have presented themselves.  He would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only.  But such women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of sufficiently great soul to prize them.

Van Artevelde’s Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman.  But, when she met Van Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without regard to the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to receive her entirely and make a new life for her; man enough to be a lover!  But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence should not be absolutely needed to sustain life.

At Chicago I read again Philip Van Artevelde, and certain passages in it will always be in my mind associated with the deep sound of the lake, as heard in the night.  I used to read a short time at night, and then open the blind to look out.  The moon would be full upon the lake, and the calm breath, pure light, and the deep voice harmonized well with the thought of the Flemish hero.  When will this country have such a man?  It is what she needs; no thin Idealist, no coarse Realist, but a man whose eye reads the heavens while his feet step firmly on the ground, and his hands are strong and dexterous for the use of human implements.  A man religious, virtuous and—­sagacious; a man of universal sympathies, but self-possessed; a man who knows the region of emotion, though he is not its slave; a man to whom this world is no mere spectacle, or fleeting shadow, but a great solemn game to be played with good heed, for its stakes are of eternal value, yet who, if his own play be true, heeds not what he loses by the falsehood of others.  A man who hives from the past, yet knows that its honey can but moderately avail him; whose comprehensive eye scans the present, neither infatuated by its golden lures, nor chilled by its many ventures; who possesses prescience, as the wise man must, but not so far as to be driven mad to-day by the gift which discerns to-morrow.  When there is such a man for America, the thought which urges her on will be expressed.

Now that I am about to leave Illinois, feelings of regret and admiration come over me, as in parting with a friend whom we have not had the good sense to prize and study, while hours of association, never perhaps to return, were granted.  I have fixed my attention almost exclusively on the picturesque beauty of this region; it was so new, so inspiring.  But I ought to have been more interested in the housekeeping of this magnificent state, in the education she is giving her children, in their prospects.