Our Longing Is Our Pledge,

I Arrived At The Conviction That We Should, More Easily And More Thoroughly Than We Now Do Or Ever Have Done, Understand The Nature And The Laws Of The Cosmos If We Would From The Beginning Recognize Its Originator And Upholder As Being Of The Female Sex.

Here And There, In Some Older Houses, Old Faded Daguerreotypes Still Hang On The Walls... They Seem To Us To Be Very Simple... Compared With The Artistic And Skillful Portraits Made In Later Days... Here Was A Photograph That At One Time Had Been The Last Word, A Very Modern Portrait... Today It Is Just A Part Of Cultural History. The Small Yellowed Surface Has Acquired Depth, An Admonishing Perspective. We Hold In Our Hand A Symbol Of The Structure And Ideology Of An Epoch.

Who Tells A Finer Tale Than Any Of Us. Silence Does.

I Beg Of You, You Good People Who Want To Hear Stories Told: Look At This Page And Recognize The Wisdom Of My Grandmother And Of All Old Story-telling Women!

It Is Little Silly To Be A Caricature Of Something Of Which You Know Very Little, And Which Means Very Little To You, But To Be Your Own Caricature — That Is The True Carnival!