Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost. Life would split asunder without them. 'Come to tea, come to dinner, what's the truth of the story? have you heard the news? life in the capital is wonderful; the Russian dancers....' These are our stays and props. These lace our days together and make of life a perfect globe.

But I pine in Solitude. Solitude is my undoing.

I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.

It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.

It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare.

Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

To let oneself be carried on passively is unthinkable.