The first six years of our life make us; all that is added later is veneer; and yet some say, if a woman can cook a dinner or dress herself well she has culture enough.
"The mightiest and noblest of human work is given to us, and we do it ill.

Send a navvie to work into an artist's studio, and see what you will find there! And yet, thank God, we have this work," she added, quickly--"it is the one window through which we see into the great world of earnest labour.

The meanest girl who dances and dresses becomes something higher when her children look up into her face and ask her questions.

It is the only education we have and which they cannot take from us." She smiled slightly.

"They say that we complain of woman's being compelled to look upon marriage as a profession; but that she is free to enter upon it or leave it, as she pleases.
"Yes--and a cat set afloat in a pond is free to sit in the tub till it dies there, it is under no obligation to wet its feet; and a drowning man may catch at a straw or not, just as he likes--it is a glorious liberty! Let any man think for five minutes of what old maidenhood means to a woman--and then let him be silent.