with a wholesome pang of humiliation the book is worthless as literature � it is only tl e boom of a season she went on her eyes darkening with the intensity of her feeling you have not your pen with the common to many of the authors of the day i ask you do you think a girl can read the books that are now freely published and that her silly society friends tell her to read � because it is so dreadfully queer r � and yet remain and innocent books that go into the details of the lives of � that explain and the secret vices of men � that advocate almost as a sacred duty free love and universal � that see no shame in the sorrows of satan introducing into the circles of good wives and pure minded girls a heroine who boldly seeks out a man any man in order that she may have a child by him without the degradation of marrying him i have read all those books � and what can you expect of me not innocence surely i despise men � i despise my own sex � i myself for being a woman ij you wonder at my for � it is only because for a time her books give me back my self respect and make me see humanity in a nobler light � because she to me if only for an hour a kind of glimmering belief in god so that my mind feels refreshed and all the same you must not look upon me as an innocent young girl � a girl such as the great poets and sang of � i am a creature trained to perfection in the morals and literature of my day i looked at her in silence pained startled and with a sense of shock as though something pure and precious had into dust at my feet she rose and began pacing the room moving to and fro with a slow yet fierce grace that reminded me against my wish and will of the movement of some imprisoned and savage beast of prey you shall not be deceived in me she said pausing a moment and me if you marry me you must do so with a full of the choice you make for with such wealth as yours you can of course wed any woman you fancy i do not say you could find a girl better than i am i do not think you could in my set because we are all alike � all with the same brush and filled with the same merely and views of life and its as the admired of the society novels we read away in the provinces among the middle classes it is possible you might discover a really good girl of the purest blush rose innocence � but then you might also find her stupid and un entertaining and you would not care for that my chief recommendation is that i am the sorrows of satan beautiful � you can see that everybody can see that � and i am not so affected as to pretend to be unconscious of the fact there is no sham about my external appearance my hair is not a wig � my complexion is natural � my figure is not the result of the maker s art � my eyebrows and are oh yes � you can be sure that the beauty of my body is quite genuine � but it is not the outward expression of an equally beautiful soul and this is what i want you to understand i am passionate impetuous � frequently and inclined to and melancholy and i confess i have or unconsciously that complete contempt of life and in a god which is the chief theme of nearly all the social of the time she ceased � and i gazed at her with an odd sense of mingled worship and even as a might gaze at an idol whom he still loved but whom he could no longer believe in as divine yet what she said was in no way contrary to my own theories � how then could i complain i did not believe in a god � why should i feel regret that she shared my i had involuntarily clung to the old fashioned idea that religious faith was a sacred duty in womanhood i was not able to offer any reason for this notion unless it was the romantic fancy of having a good woman to pray for one if one had no time and less inclination to pray for one s self however it was evident was advanced enough to do without superstitious she would never pray for me � and if we had children she would never teach them to make their first tender appeals to heaven for my sake or hers i smothered a slight sigh and was about to speak when she came up to me and laid her two hands on my shoulders you look unhappy she said in accents be consoled � it is not too late for you to change your mind i met the questioning glance of her eyes � beautiful eyes as clear and pure as light itself the sorrows of satan i shall never change i answered i love you i shall always love you but i wish you would not yourself so � you have such strange ideas you think them strange she said you should not � in these new women days i believe that thanks to newspapers magazines and novels i am in all respects eminently fitted to be a wife and she laughed bitterly there is nothing in the of marriage that i do not know though i am not yet twenty i have been prepared for a long time to be sold to the highest and what few silly notions i had about 