When I give out broad-minded opinions about Ninon de l’Enclos, I demonstrate her relative position to Mary MacLane!
When I discourse liberally on the subject of the married relation, I talk of it only as it will affect Mary MacLane.
An interesting creature, Mary MacLane.
As a matter of fact, it is so with every one, only every one is far from realizing and acknowledging it. And I have not lacked listeners, though these people do not appreciate me. They do not realize that I am a genius.
I am of womankind and of nineteen years. I am able to stand off and gaze critically and dispassionately at myself and my relation to my environment, to the world, to everything the world contains. I am able to judge whether I am good and whether I am bad. I am able, indeed, to tell what I am and where I stand. I can see far, far inward. I am a genius.
Charlotte Bronté did this in some degree, and she was a genius; and also Marie Bashkirtseff, and Olive Schreiner, and George Eliot. They are all geniuses.
And so, then, I am a genius—a genius in my own right.
I am fundamentally, organically egotistic. My vanity and self-conceit have attained truly remarkable development as I’ve walked and walked in the loneliness of the sand and barrenness. Not the least remarkable part of it is that I know my egotism and vanity thoroughly—thoroughly, and plume myself thereon.
These are the ear-marks of a genius—and of a fool. There is a finely-drawn line between a genius and a fool. Often this line is overstepped and your fool becomes a genius, or your genius becomes a fool.