American author (1831-1884)
Always man needs woman for his friend. He needs her clearer vision, her subtler insight, her softer thought, her winged soul, her pure and tender heart. Always woman needs man to be her friend. She needs the vigor of his purpose, the ardor of his will, his calmer judgment, his braver force of action, his reverence and his devotion.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
Only a newspaper! Quick read, quick lost, Who sums the treasure that it carries hence? Torn, trampled under feet, who counts thy cost, Star-eyed intelligence?
MARY CLEMMER AMES
The Journalist
The way is short, O friend,
That reaches out before us;
God's tender heavens above us bend,
His love is smiling o'er us;
A little while is ours
For sorrow or for laughter;
I'll lay the hand you love in yours
On the shore of the Hereafter.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"Words for Parting"
The deepest insult which can be shown to a human being is to associate it solely with material functions, with no cognizance and no consideration of its intellectual and spiritual power.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
It mocked us, the beautiful Yesterday;
It left us poorer. Oh, never mind!
In the fair Tomorrow, far away,
It waits the joy that we failed to find.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"Tomorrow"
Today the manliest man would be ashamed to look into the eyes of the woman by his side and tell her that he is the master because he could knock her down with perfect ease, and break her bones with much greater facility than she could his. And yet, out of man's brute nature, out of that most ignoble in himself, has come his loudest assumption of superiority, his longest and lowest tyranny.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
All the earth is made anew--
Far the false, and fair the true--
Where a little life begins,
Free of sorrow, free of sins,
And Baby comes.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"When Baby Comes"
Upon the lonely shore I lie,
And gaze along its level sands.
Still from the sea steals out the cry
I left afar in crowded lands.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"By the Sea"
The woman born to physical subjection and degradation can never seek or use knowledge as her birthright. Never till she holds her sex in honor, as man holds his, can she be his equal, even in her own realm.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
What is love at first sight but a proof of the powerful but silent language of physiognomy?
MARY CLEMMER AMES
attributed, Edge-tools of Speech
I stand upon the downs of life,
And watch two barks of Fate sail in;
The waves and winds are all at strife,
I sadly wonder who will win.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"The Yachts"
The man born and bred a slave, even if freed, never loses wholly the feeling or manner of a slave.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
What more degrades woman today than that she so often seeks marriage as a support? Why is the holy sacrament of love, the sanctity of the family state, so often prostituted and destroyed, but because marriage is entered upon as a necessity or a convenience? And what can so place marriage on its only true basis of mutual love, mutual fitness, mutual esteem, as for woman to make herself independent of it as a mere means of subsistence?
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
A shining isle in a stormy sea,
We seek it ever with smiles and sighs;
To-day is sad. In the bland To-be,
Serene and lovely To-morrow lies.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"Tomorrow"
After the disastrous result of Eve's first nibble at the apple of the tree of knowledge, and the awful penalty which it entailed upon her daughters, it is not wonderful that for many centuries they were too frightened to follow her example. Nor should we fail in charity to the sons of Adam (no one of whom is over fond of work) to say that together they have done their best to shut away the forbidden fruit of wisdom from their sisters, in bitter remembrance of that first taste which cost Adam his spiritual supremacy and fore-doomed every son of his to the curse of labor. At any rate, ever since that unlucky beginning man has done his best to keep woman in ignorance; and, after having met with a very tolerable success in so doing, with a charming and characteristic inconsistency, he now declares that her lack of acquired knowledge is the sign and seal of her mental inferiority to himself. In this arrogant declaration he does not take cognizance of the fact that through all the earlier ages of human existence it was physical force which held in abeyance the brain and soul of the human race. The creature the physically weaker was the subject creature. In its abject condition intellect, spirituality, aspiration went for naught. Out of man's primal brutality, out of his instinctive, unrestrained appetite, muscle, and will, every form of human servitude, every shade of human ignorance has grown.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
The Indian Summer, the dead Summer's soul,
Comes back with more than the first loveliness--
The all I've lost, the more I never found
Haunting her beauty, while for me she weaves
Of color, odor, sound, her perfect days.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"Presence"
What woman would not gladly perform a painful pilgrimage, if so she could but find her Jove, and then fall down and worship him! Alas! the actual Jupiters are very scarce.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
Who, caught by Fortune's favoring gales,
Will sail in sooner, proud and fast,
And who, with conquered, silent sails,
Must gain the blessed harbor last.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"The Yachts"
Lo! lifted from the earth's turmoil,
From every curse of care or fate,
In yon rare region of the soul
Our hearts redeemed must meet and mate.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"Knowledge"
Most people carry an ideal man and woman in their head, and when the practical relations of the men and women of every day are discussed with reference only to these impossible ideals, we need not marvel at any ridiculous conclusions.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things