I have never cared for literary fame; have avoided, rather than sought it; have enjoyed the abuse of the press more than its praise; have held my pen with a feeling of contempt for its feebleness, and never could be so occupied with it as to forget a domestic duty, while I have never visited a picture gallery, but I have bowed in deep repentance for the betrayal of a trust.
Where are the pictures I should have given to the world?
Where my record of the wrongs and outrages of my age; of the sorrows and joys; the trials and triumphs, that should have been written amid autumn and sunset glories in the eloquent faces and speaking forms which have everywhere presented themselves, begging to be interpreted?
Why have I never put on canvas one pair of those pleading eyes, in which are garnered the woes of centuries?
Is that Christianity which has so long said to one-half of the race, "Thou shalt not use any gift of the Creator, if it be not approved by thy brother; and unto man, not God, thou shalt ever turn and ask, 'What wilt thou have me to do ?'" It was not only my art-love which must be sacrificed to my duty as a wife, but my literary tastes must go with it.

"The husband is the head of the wife." To be head, he must be superior.

An uncultivated husband could not be the superior of a cultivated wife.

I knew from the first that his education had been limited, but thought the defect would be easily remedied as he had good abilities, but I discovered he had no love for books.

His spiritual guides derided human learning and depended on inspiration.