To Examine The Causes Of

Our Feelings Probably Are Not Less Strong At Fifty Than They Were Ten Or Fifteen Years Before; But They Have Changed Their Objects, And Dwell On Far Different Prospects. At Five-and-thirty A Man Thinks Of What His Own Existence Is; When The Maturity Of Age Has Grown Into Its Autumn, He Is Wrapt Up In That Of Others. The Loss Of Wife Or Child Then Becomes More Deplorable, As Being Impossible To Repair; For No Fresh Connection Can Give Us Back The Companion Of Our Earlier Years, Nor A "new-sprung Race" Compensate For That, Whose Career We Hoped To See Run.

When Falsehood Can Look So Like The Truth, Who Can Assure Themselves Of Certain Happiness?

It Would Be An Endless Task To Trace The Variety Of Meannesses, Cares, And Sorrows Into Which Women Are Plunged By The Prevailing Opinion That They Were Created Rather To Feel Than Reason.

I Am Not A Person Of Opinions Because I Feel The Counter Arguments Too Strongly.

I Saw And Heard Of None Like Me. Was I Then A Monster, A Blot Upon The Earth, From Which All Men Fled, And Whom All Men Disowned?