“Emma: You can demand that Pettibone retain my services, but you cannot make similar demands of the parents of the students. They will not entrust the education of their daughters to a woman who has removed her clothing for an artist, no matter how exalted that artist may be. Pettibone would become a school without students. No that avenue is closed to me now.Nicholas: Women disrobe for men other than their husbands every day.Emma: But they are not on exhibition in the Royal Academy.Nicholas: what of extenuating circumstances?Emma: You make no sense”
“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”
“Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”
“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.”
“They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical, sociological and artistic matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women.”
“You take control, Emma," he whispered. The words tickled her ear, he spoke them so close. Shivers raced down her neck, down her chest and her belly. "Take control of me. Come to me." Her neck arched, wanting his mouth to bite her. "If you do Emma, I may give you what you want. Or I may offer more than you can handle. Risk. That's what you like, isn't it? So play with fire. Play with me.”