Excuseless was he for such a choice in a land and amid a race
celebrated for female loveliness and moral worth, a land and a race of
which self-denying Abigail, and heroic Deborah, and dazzling Miriam,
and pious Esther, and glorious Ruth, and Mary, who hugged to her heart
the blessed Lord, were only magnificent specimens. The midnight folded
in their hair, the lakes of liquid beauty in their eye, the
gracefulness of spring morning in their posture and gait, were only
typical of the greater brilliance and glory of their soul. Likewise
excuseless is any man in our time who makes lifelong alliance with any
one who, because of her disposition, or heredity, or habits, or
intellectual vanity, or _moral twistification_, may be said to be of
the Philistines.