* * * * *

'I have talent and knowledge enough to furnish a dwelling for
friendship, but not enough to deck with golden gifts a Delphi
for the world.'

* * * * *

'Then a woman of tact and brilliancy, like me, has an undue
advantage in conversation with men. They are astonished at our
instincts. They do not see where we got our knowledge; and,
while they tramp on in their clumsy way, we wheel, and fly,
and dart hither and thither, and seize with ready eye all the
weak points, like Saladin in the desert. It is quite another
thing when we come to write, and, without suggestion from
another mind, to declare the positive amount of thought that
is in us. Because we seemed to know all, they think we can
tell all; and, finding we can tell so little, lose faith in
their first opinion of us, _which, nathless, was true_.'

And again:

'These gentlemen are surprised that I write no better, because
I talk so well. But I have served a long apprenticeship to
the one, none to the other. I shall write better, but never, I
think, so well as I talk; for then I feel inspired. The means
are pleasant; my voice excites me, my pen never. I shall not
be discouraged, nor take for final what they say, but sift
from it the truth, and use it. I feel the strength to dispense
with all illusions. I will stand steady, and rejoice in the