“I’m not a good woman. I don’t mean I’m not a good woman—I mean that I’m not a GOOD woman. My poor brain is so mixed, dear, I hardly know what I am saying. I mean I’m not a good specimen of a woman. I’ve got a streak of male. Things happen to women—proper women—and all they have to do is to take them well. They’ve just got to keep white. But I’m always trying to make things happen. And I get myself dirty...
“It’s all dirt that washes off, dear, but it’s dirt.
“The white unaggressive woman who corrects and nurses and serves, and is worshipped and betrayed—the martyr-queen of men, the white mother.... You can’t do that sort of thing unless you do it over religion, and there’s no religion in me—of that sort—worth a rap.
“I’m not gentle. Certainly not a gentlewoman.
“I’m not coarse—no! But I’ve got no purity of mind—no real purity of mind. A good woman’s mind has angels with flaming swords at the portals to keep out fallen thoughts....
“I wonder if there are any good women really.
“I wish I didn’t swear. I do swear. It began as a joke.... It developed into a sort of secret and private bad manners. It’s got to be at last like tobacco-ash over all my sayings and doings....
“‘Go it, missie,’ they said; “kick aht!’
“I swore at that policeman—and disgusted him. Disgusted him!
“For men policemen never blush;
A man in all things scores so much...