“I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind, and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women [...]: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.”

“I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.”

“I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.”

“For I too liked reading, thought of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.”

“I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to visit you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty. . . . You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back . . . into the red-room. . . . And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions this exact tale. ’Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty. . . .”

“At heart, he could not abide sense in women: he liked to see them as silly, as light-headed, as vain, as open to ridicule as possible; because they were then in reality what he held them to be, and wished them to be,--inferior: toys to play with, to amuse a vacant hour and to be thrown away.”

“My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary Over the path of the poor orphan child.Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Up where the moors spread and gray rocks are piled?Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.Ye, distant and soft, the night-breeze is blowing, Clouds there are none, and clear starts beam mild;God, in His mercy, protection is showing, Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing, Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,Still will my Father, with promise and blessing, Take to his bosom the poor orphan child.There is a thought that for strength should avail me; Thought both of shelter and kindred despoiled;Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me; God is a friend to the poor orphan child.”