You are only a pupil in suffering.

What about the professors?
If your wonderful wisdom has left you with any sense at all, look about you and learn." So she was looking, and thinking, and learning.

And as the days went by, perhaps a softer light came into her eyes.
All her life long, her standard of judging people had been an intellectual standard, or an artistic standard: what people had done with outward and visible signs; how far they had contributed to thought; how far they had influenced any great movement, or originated it; how much of a benefit they had been to their century or their country; how much social or political activity, how much educational energy they had devoted to the pressing need of the times.
She was undoubtedly a clever, cultured young woman; the great work of her life had been self-culture.

To know and understand, she had spared neither herself nor any one else.

To know, and to use her acquired knowledge intellectually as teacher and, perhaps, too, as writer, had been the great aim of her life.