She Was Moved By A Kind Of

It Was Not Despair, But It Seemed To Her As If Life Were Passing By, Leaving Its Promises Broken And Unfulfilled. Yet There Were Other Days When She Listened, Was Led On And Deceived By Fresh Promises Which Her Youth Had Held Out To Her.

I Dance With People I Despise; Amuse Myself With Men Whose Only Talent Lies In Their Feet, Gain The Disapprobation Of People I Honor And Respect; Return Home At Day Break With My Brain In A State Which Was Never Intended For It; And Arise In The Middle Of The Next Day Feeling Infinitely More, In Spirit And Flesh Like A Liliputian, Than A Woman With Body And Soul. Entry (when She Was Eighteen) In Her Commonplace Book, 1868-1869.

In The Procession I Should Feel The Crushing Feet, The Clashing Discords, The Ruthless Hands And Stifling Breath. I Could Not Hear The Rhythm Of The March.

Well, For Instance, When I Left Her Today, She Put Her Arms Around Me And Felt My Shoulder Blades, To See If My Wings Were Strong, She Said.

She Was Moved By A Kind Of Commiseration... A Pity For That Colorless Existence Which Never Uplifted Its Possessor Beyond The Region Of Blind Contentment, In Which No Moment Of Anguish Ever Visited Her Soul, In Which She Would Never Have The Taste Of Life's Delirium.