This foundation of the story in palpable realities, which every Yankee
recognizes as true the moment they are presented to his eye, enables
the writer to develop the ideal character of Mara Lincoln, the heroine
of the book, without giving any sensible shock to the prosaic mind. In
the type of womanhood she embodies, she is almost identical with
Agnes, in the beautiful romance which Mrs. Stowe has lately contributed
to this magazine: the difference is in time and circumstance, and not
in essential nature. The Puritan maiden, with all her homely culture
and rough surroundings, is really as poetic a personage as any of
Spenser's exquisite individualizations of abstract feminine
excellence; perhaps more so, as the most austere and exalted
spiritualities of Christianity enter into the constitution of her
nature, and her soul moves in a sphere of religious experience compared
with which "fairy-land" is essentially low and earthy. She is an angel
as well as a woman; yet the height of her meditations does not
interfere with, but rather aids her performance of the homeliest human
duties; and the moral beauty of her nature lends a peculiar grace to
her humblest ministries to human affections and needs.
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