It's only when we're relaxed that the thing way down deep in all of us - call it the subconscious mind, the spirit, what you will - has a chance to well up and tell us how we shall go.

The accusation that I am a woman is incontrovertible.

Our idea of what constitutes social good has advanced with the procession of the ages, from those desperate times when just to keep body and soul together was an achievement, to the great present when "good" includes an agreeable, stable civilization accessible to all, the opportunity of each to develop his particular genius and the privilege of mutual usefulness.

Out of our first century of national life we evolved the ethical principle that it was not right or just that an honest and industrious man should live and die in misery. He was entitled to some degree of sympathy and security. Our conscience declared against the honest workman's becoming a pauper, but our eyes told us that he very often did.

In America, public opinion is the leader

The door might not be opened to a woman again for a long, long time, and I had a kind of duty to other women to walk in and sit down on the chair that was offered, and so establish the right of others long hence and far distant in geography to sit in the high seats.

It's only when we're relaxed that the thing way down deep in all of us - call it the subconscious mind, the spirit, what you will - has a chance to well up and tell us how we shall go.