"Miss Dudley ... gives one the idea of a lightly-sparred yacht in mid- ocean; unexpected; you ask yourself what the devil she is d...oing there. She sails gaily along, though there is no land in sight and plenty of rough weather coming. She never read a book, I believe, in her life. She tries to paint, but she is only a second-rate amateur and will never be any thing more, though she has done one or two things which I give you my word I would like to have done myself. She picks up all she knows without an effort and knows nothing well, yet she seems to understand whatever is said. Her mind is as irregular as her face, and both have the same peculiarity. I notice that the lines of her eyebrows, nose and mouth all end with a slight upward curve like a yacht's sails, which gives a kind of hopefulness and self-confidence to her expression. Mind and face have the same curves."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in th...e memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a woman's adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This is just a footnote, though a microcosmic one perhaps, to the greater curve Of the elaboration; it asks no place in it, o...nly insertion hors-texte as the invisible notion of how that day grew From planisphere to heaven, and what part in it all the "I" had, the insatiable researcher of learned trivia, bookworm ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me whe...n I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor--they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In philosophical inquiry, the human spirit, imitating the movement of the stars, must follow a curve which brings it back to its p...oint of departure. To conclude is to close a circle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have often wondered how they manage to get return envelopes which miss, by one-quarter of an inch, fitting the blank you are sup...posed to return. They say, "Please fill out and return the enclosed envelope," and the enclosed envelope is always one-quarter of an inch too small.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody's image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded ho...pe, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Women know The way to rear up children (to be just),... They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, And stringing pretty words that make no sense, And kissing full sense into empty words.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children's view of the world and their capacity to understand keep expanding as they mature, and they need to ask the same questio...ns over and over, fitting the information into their new level of understanding.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »