"I could bear not to be charming," said she sometimes to her Philadelphia looking-glass, "but I could _not_ bear not to be clever." She said "clever," but she meant more than that.

Elfrida Bell believed that something other than cleverness entered into her personal equation.

She looked sometimes into her very soul to see what, but the writing there was in strange characters that faded under her eyes, leaving her uncomprehending but tranced.

Meanwhile art spoke to her from all sides, finding her responsive and more responsive.

Some books, some pictures, some music brought her a curious exalted sense of double life.