18.
Social opinion is like a sharp knife. There are foolish people who regard it only with terror, and dare not touch or meddle with it. There are more foolish people, who, in rashness or defiance, seize it by the blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains. And there are wise people, who grasp it discreetly and boldly by the handle, and use it to carve out their own purposes.
19.
While we were discussing Balzac’s celebrity as a romance writer, she (O. G.) said, with a shudder: “His laurels are steeped in the tears of women,—every truth he tells has been wrung in tortures from some woman’s heart.”
