164
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
southern provinces. They looked at me with wide-open eyes, as if 1 spoke some unintelligible language ! In the northern provinces the chains exist too, but of a different sort, lighter, because women have a relative liberty, and easier to bear because more apparent than real, more in form than in substance.
So all reforms pertaining to women in Italy must tend to simultaneous training of mind and heart, the intellectual and moral faculties, bearing in consideration the eminently passionate instincts of the race, which, well developed and controlled, would make splendid characters of our people. Humanitarian feelings are latent in the souls of Italians, and intelligently developed would become the best agent for the development of the people. It is, I fully believe, by kind, affectionate, earnest interest and sympathy in each other that life could be made easier and brighter for all throughout the whole world.
To accomplish this most sacred duty, and see Italy as great and powerful as our fathers wished it to be, we cannot trust in the help of those who are satisfied with everything, when all their personal concerns prosper. We must rely on the efforts of the pure and enthusiastic souls of our young people, principally our sweet girls, whose ideal of life is noble and high, who feel in their hearts the needs of modern times, and wish to live a true life, uncorrupted by the homage to appearances.
The need of elevating life is felt all around the world; we are near a great change. The cry of woman for freedom and her rights appeals to all those God blesses with a right mind and a kind heart; and I cannot help but believe that to us women, the mothers of the race, a great part is reserved in this grand work; and I think we are all willing to undertake it, feeling what a sweet and holy mission is entrusted to us, a mission that will highly bless our lives, even among the difficulties we have to overcome and the sorrows we are called upon to bear and endure. United all around the world in this glorious effort, we must feel sure of winning gloriously at last in the name of the purest and highest ideal of human brotherhood. The dream of the age lies in the enfranchisement of the human race, and when life shall be built on truth, in respect to holy natural laws which govern the great mystery of our existence, and all human beings shall be equally considered, socially and legally, without any privilege for one sex or one class above another, then human kind will be great, and the nations will for them be great, and the world reconquer then its Paradise Lost!