Perhaps It Is Better To Wake Up

There Would Be No One There To Live For Her During Those Coming Years; She Would Live For Herself. There Would Be No Powerful Will Bending Hers In That Blind Persistance With Which Men And Women Believe They Have A Right To Impose A Private Will Upon A Fellow-creature. A Kind Intention Or A Cruel Intention Made The Act Seem No Less A Crime As She Looked Upon It In That Brief Moment Of Illumination.

There Were Days When She Was Unhappy, She Did Not Know Why,--when It Did Not Seem Worthwhile To Be Glad Or Sorry, To Be Alive Or Dead; When Life Appeared To Her Like A Grotesque Pandemonium And Humanity Like Worms Struggling Blindly Toward Inevitable Annihilation.

Some People Are Born With A Vital And Responsive Energy. It Not Only Enables Them To Keep Abreast Of The Times; It Qualifies Them To Furnish In Their Own Personality A Good Bit Of The Motive Power To The Mad Pace.

She Looked Into The Distance, And The Old Terror Flamed Up For An Instant, Then Sank Again. Edna Heard Her Father's Voice And Her Sister Margaret's. She Heard The Barking Of An Old Dog That Was Chained To The Sycamore Tree. The Spurs Of The Cavalry Officer Clanged As He Walked Across The Porch. There Was The Hum Of Bees, And The Musky Odor Of Pinks Filled The Air. (last Lines)

But The Beginning Of Things, Of A World Especially, Is Necessarily Vague, Tangled, Chaotic, And Exceedingly Disturbing. How Few Of Us Ever Emerge From Such Beginning! How Many Souls Perish In Its Tumult!