People who deal in dry, hard facts are not interesting. They may make themselves names in the financial world, may become railway magnates and coal kings, may control the money market; but they are not interesting. They are the prose of life. They who see the clouds forming into fantastic shapes, the glories of a sunset, the shadows in pools, the colour on a bird's wing, the rose tint on the cheek of a child,—they and such as they are the poetry of life.
Man's inhumanity to man is proverbial, woman's inhumanity to woman is diabolical.
"Society, as it exists at present moment in Colonial towns and cities, possesses neither birth, brains or breeding."
"We hear men speak so frequently of womanly women, ending their praises with, 'she is essentially womanly.' I knew one of these womanly women, whose voice was like liquid music, whose ways were gentle, whose eyes filled with tears at the recital of some tale of woe, and always about her was an air of gentle, womanly sweetness and dainty femininity. She had a friend who loved her, one whose voice was not so soft, whose manner was brusque, who was considered, "not quite good form, you know." My womanly woman allowed this friend to take upon herself the burden of a sin which she herself had committed, allowed her to bear the brunt of scorn and contumely of her world, allowed her to die without righting the great wrong. A lonely grave and a plain marble slab mark the spot where she who was "not quite good form," lies: while she, to whom she had given more than life, gathers the rose leaves with dainty grace, for she is so essentially 'womanly.'"
Life: a little joy, great sorrow, some tragedy, and the curtain falls.
Nothing can hurt so cruelly as the hand of love. The hand of hate is velvet in comparison.