AP Success - AP English Literature: The Solitude of Self

The point I wish plainly to bring before you on this occasion is the individuality of each human soul; the right of individual conscience and judgment; our republican idea, the individual citizenship. In discussing the right of woman we are to consider, first, what belongs to her as an individual in a world of her own, the arbiter of her own destiny, an imaginary Robinson Crusoe, with her woman Friday, on a solitary island. Her rights under such circumstances are to use all her faculties for her own safety and happiness. Secondly, if we consider her as a citizen, as a member of a great nation, she must have the same rights as all members, according to the fundamental principles of our government.

The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, her forces of mind and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom, dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of fear—is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life. The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; a quality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her birth right to self- reliance; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself. No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency, they must know something of the laws of navigation. To guide our own craft, we must be capitan, pilot, engineer, with chart and compass, to stand at the wheel; to watch the winds and waves, and know when to take in the sail, and to read the signs in the firmament over all. It matters not whether the solitary voyager is a man or woman; nature, having endowed them equally, leaves them to their own skill and judgment in the hour of danger, and, if not equal to the occasion, alike they perish.

We come into the world alone, unlike all who have gone before us, we leave it alone, under circumstances peculiar to ourselves. No mortal ever has been, no mortal ever will be just like the soul just launched on the sea of life. No one has ever found two blades of ribbon grass alike, and no one will ever find two human beings alike. Seeing, then, that what must be the infinite diversity of human character, we can appreciate the loss to a nation when any class of the people is uneducated and unrepresented in the government.

We ask for the complete development of every individual, first, for his own benefit and happiness. In fitting out an army, we give each soldier his own knapsack, arms, powder, blanket, and utensils. We provide alike for all their individual necessities; then each man bears his own burden. We ask complete individual development for the general good. The great lesson that nature seems to teach us is self-dependence, self-protection, self-support. Amid the greatest triumphs and darkest tragedies of life, we walk alone. On the divine heights of human attainment, we stand alone. Alone we starve or steal . . . Seeing, then, that life must ever be a march and a battle, that each soldier must be equipped for his own protection, it is the height of cruelty to rob the individual of a single natural right.

Whatever may be said of man’s protecting power in ordinary conditions, amid all the terrible disasters by land and sea, in the supreme moments of danger, alone woman must ever meet the horrors of the situation. In that solemn solitude of self that links us with the immeasurable and the eternal, each soul lives alone forever . . .

And yet, there is a solitude which each and every one of us has always carried with him, more inaccessible than the ice cold mountains, more profound than the midnight sea; our inner being which we call ourself.

Such is individual life. Who, I ask you, can take, dare take on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?