The age of domestic industry is really past; but a lone woman with no rent to pay ought to make good, unless too ill to work at all.
If there is any ground with the cottage she could raise some food perhaps.
Third possibility: take another woman to board: or a child, if competent to care for children.
As to the second question: Yes, one can; one often does. If by "loving" one means "wanting." Love, pure love, strong giving love, does not exhaust nor injure. One can love a lifetime, without return—if it's that kind. But to hopelessly wish for what one cannot have is an illness. If that is the case it is time for a decided change of heart.
The world is full of people to love and serve; and a brave rational attitude of living ought to cure and strengthen.
Sister—sit quiet in the door of the little cottage: say "I am here to serve; to work for the world. I am willing. My own life is desolate—well? So are the lives of many. That I must bear. There are many years before me to be lived through—bravely and lovingly. If I die—that's no hardship; if I live I will do the work I'm here for."
Then study out your case with dispassionate interest; as if it were some one else's; and do what is wise. When you are strong enough, if you are willing to do housework (a job always waiting) for six months, it should give you a clear $150.00, to live another six months without care, and to practice the art you like best. Plan ahead; bear what you have now in the determined hope of what you like better in five years—ten years—for the rest of life.
And so enlarge your range of consciousness, thinking, talking, reading about big human interests, that your own trouble shrinks in proportion.
Problem 2d. "Several of my professors in the University have such a condescending attitude toward women that most of us girls find it very hard to do our best. In some classes, we are actually, as a sex, marked lower than the men of the class. We have found in every instance that the wives of these professors are of the lowest tabby-cat variety, gossipy, infantile, at times malicious.
Q. (a) Can you believe that these trained men would be as illogical as to judge us all by their wives?