I wished critics would judge me as an author, not as a woman.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.

I shall be thirty-one next birthday. My youth is gone like a dream; and very little use have I ever made of it. What have I done these last thirty years? Precious little.

I stood lonely enough, but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed: it did not oppress me much.

Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night at least, I would be her guest-as I was her child; my mother would lodge me without money and without price.

as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many.