The thoughts and opinions of one human being, if they are sincere, must always have an interest for some other human beings. The world is there to think about; and if we have lived, or are living, with any sort of energy, we must have thought about it, and about ourselves in relation to it - thought 'furiously' often. And it is out of the many 'thinkings' of many folk, strong or weak, dull or far-ranging, that thought itself grows.
Mary Augusta WardBut a girl of seventeen is not always thinking of books, especially in the Oxford summer term.
Mary Augusta WardA modern girls' school, equipped as scores are now equipped throughout the country, was of course not to be found in 1858, when I first became a school boarder, or in 1867, when I ceased to be one.
Mary Augusta WardEnglish girls' schools today providing the higher education are, so far as my knowledge goes, worthily representative of that astonishing rise in the intellectual standards of women which has taken place in the last half-century.
Mary Augusta Ward