It's Hard To Be Happy,

Whether Deliberately, Unconsciously Or Accidentally, She Seems To Have Composed Her Own Life So That Its Fitful, Rudderless, And Self-doubting First Half Was Alchemized Into Gold When The Austere Bluestocking Became The Fallen Woman.

Once You Are Thought Selfish, Not Only Are You Forgiven A Life Designed Mainly To Suit Yourself, Which In Anyone Else Would Appear Monstrous, But If An Impulse To Generosity Should By Chance Overpower You, You Will Get Five Times The Credit Of Some Poor Selfless Soul Who Has Been Oozing Kindness For Years.

Ardent, Intelligent, Sweet, Sensitive, Cultivated, Erudite. These Are The Adjectives Of Praise In An Androgynous World. Those Who Consider Them Epithets Of Shame Or Folly Ought Not To Be Trusted With Leadership, For They Will Be Men Hot For Power And Revenge, Certain Of Right And Wrong.

Women, I Believe, Search For Fellow Beings Who Have Faced Similar Struggles, Conveyed Them In Ways A Reader Can Transform Into Her Own Life, Confirmed Desires The Reader Had Hardly Acknowledge-desires That Now Seem Possible. Women Catch Courage From The Women Whose Lives And Writings They Read, And Women Call The Bearer Of That Courage Friend. [p. 138]

Maturity ... Is Letting Things Happen.