What Can She Do‪?‬

There is one other thought that I wish to suggest. Much of the fiction of our day, otherwise strong and admirable, is discouraging in this respect. In the delineation of character, some are good, some are bad, and some indifferent. We have a lovely heroine, a noble hero, developing seemingly in harmony with the inevitable laws of their natures. Associated with them are those of the commoner or baser sort, also developing in accordance with the innate principles of their natures. The first are presented as if created of finer clay than the others. The first are the flowers in the garden of society, the latter the weeds. According to this theory of character, the heroine must grow as a moss-rose and the weed remain a weed. Credit is not due to one; blame should not be visited on the other. Is this true? Is not the choice between good and evil placed before every human soul, save where ignorance and mental feebleness destroy free agency? In the field of the world which the angels of God are to reap, is it not even possible for the tares to become wheat? And cannot the sweetest and most beautiful natural flowers of character borrow from the skies a fragrance and bloom not of earth? So God’s inspired Word teaches me.