Bein’ so proud of the Republic as I have always been, and so sot on wantin’ her to do jest right and soar up above all the other nations of the earth in nobility and goodness—­havin’ such feelin’s for her, and such deep and heartfelt love and pride for my own sect—­what wuz my emotions, as I see that statute riz up to the Republic in the form of a woman, when I went up clost and paid particular attention to her!

A female, most sixty-five feet tall!  Why, as I looked on her, my emotions riz me up so, and seemed to expand my own size so, that I felt as if I, too, towered up so high that I could lock arms with her, and walk off with her arm in arm, and look around and enjoy what wuz bein’ done there in the great To-Day for her sect, and mine; and what that sect wuz a-branchin’ out and doin’ for herself.

But, good land! it wuz only my emotions that riz me up; my common sense told me that I couldn’t walk locked arms with her, for she wuz built out in the water, on a stagin’ that lifted her up thirty or forty feet higher.

And her hands wuz stretched out as if to welcome Columbia, who wuz a-sailin’ right towards her.  On the right hand a globe was held; the left arm extended above her head, holdin’ a pole.

I didn’t know what that pole wuz for, and I didn’t ask; but she held it some as if she wuz liable to bring it down onto the globe and gin it a whack.  And I didn’t wonder.

It is enough to make a stun woman, or a wooden female, mad, to see how the nation always depicters wimmen in statutes, and pictures, and things, as if they wuz a-holdin’ the hull world in the palm of their hand, when they hain’t, in reality, willin’ to gin ’em the right that a banty hen has to take care of their own young ones, and protect ’em from the hoverin’ hawks of intemperance and every evil.

But mebby she didn’t have no idee of givin’ a whack at the globe; she wuz a-holdin’ it stiddy when I seen her, and she looked calm, and middlin’ serene, and as beautiful, and lofty, and inspirin’ as they make.

She wuz dressed well, and a eagle had come to rest on her bosom, symbolical, mebby, of how wimmen’s heart has, all through the ages, been the broodin’ place and the rest of eagle man, and her heart warmed by its soft, flutterin’ feathers, and pierced by its cruel beak.

The crown wore on top of her noble forehead wuz dretful appropriate to show what wuz inside of a woman’s head; for it wuz made of electric lights—­flashin’ lights, and strange, wrought of that mysterious substance that we don’t understand yet.

But we know that it is luminous, fur-reachin’ in its rays, and possesses almost divine intelligence.

It sheds its pure white light a good ways now, and no knowin’ how much further it is a-goin’ to flash ’em out—­no knowin’ what sublime and divine power of intelligence it will yet grow to be, when it is fully understood, and when it has the full, free power to branch out, and do all that is in it to do.