It is more difficult to be great before the extended tentacles of the self-indulgence octopus than in the face of oppression and danger.  When the laws of the land and the sentiment of the people permit a man to be selfish, licentious, tyrannical, and yet call him great if he accomplishes heroic deeds, it proves what intrinsic worth must lie in the nature of those who attain the heights of unselfishness and benevolence, and martyrdom, asking no reward and often receiving none until posterity bestows it.

Those who can take the broad road of selfishness unmolested, and choose the narrow path of high endeavour instead, seem to me greater than those who overcome mere externals.

Many such men have existed, and the steady, slow, but certain progress of the world from barbarism to civilization, from accepted cannibalism and slavery to ideals of brotherhood, we owe to them.  All new discoveries, all greatest achievements are due to men.  Woman, I know, has been handicapped and oppressed for centuries by superstitions, and traditions, and unjust laws; but it is unfair to ignore the bright, and see only the dark side of the picture, which the centuries have painted for us, on the background of time.

This letter is only a resume of many conversations between you and me, and it leads up to the explanation of why I am somewhat dazed and stunned by your announcement that marriage is a possible event in your near future.

My self-conceit in regard to my knowledge of human nature every now and then receives a blow.  So soon as I have arrived at a positive conviction that I understand any human being thoroughly, and feel that I can safely predict what that person will or will not do, I usually meet some such bewildering experience as this.

I would have laughed at any one who suggested the possibility of your considering a proposition of marriage.

You tell me you are thirty-five years old, and say you have never before met the man to whom your thoughts reverted, no matter how you endeavoured to occupy yourself with other subjects.  You also tell me “he is not like other men.”  These two statements are wonderfully familiar to me, indeed they have been confided to me in precisely the same words by at least a score of women, young and not so young, who met the compelling man. Maria, I believe you are in love.  Your heart is awakened from its stupor, caused by an overdose of intellect.  For too much intellect is often a drug which deadens the consciousness of a woman’s heart.  But you have been drugged so long that you are still under a hazy spell, to judge from that portion of your letter which took the form of an inquiry.