Not only that, I should be met with incredulity and ridicule--'a woman! a WOMAN dares to assume knowledge superior to ours!' and so forth.

No, no! Let the wise men try their steam air-ships and spoil the skies by smoke and vapour, so that agriculture becomes more and more difficult, and sunshine an almost forgotten benediction!--let them go their own foolish way till they learn wisdom of themselves--no one could ever teach them what they refuse to learn, till they tumble into a bog or quicksand of dilemma and have to be forcibly dragged out." "By a woman ?" hinted Don Aloysius, with a smile.
She shrugged her shoulders carelessly.
"Very often! Marja Sklodowska Curie, for example, has pulled many scientists out of the mud, but they are not grateful enough to acknowledge it.

One of the greatest women of the age, she is allowed to remain in comparative obscurity,--even Anatole France, though he called her a 'genius,' had not the generosity or largeness of mind to praise her as she deserves.

Though, of course, like all really great souls she is indifferent to praise or blame--the notice of the decadent press, noisy and vulgar like the beating of the cheap-jack's drum at a country fair, has no attraction for her.

Nothing is known of her private life,--not a photograph of her is obtainable--she has the lovely dignity of complete reserve.