Heaven probably meant to make a noble woman of me by encrusting me in disabilities, but it left out the necessary nobility at the last moment; it left out, in fact, all the compensations.

But luckily I have found the compensations for myself; I just had to find something.

Men and women have given me everything that such as I could expect.

I have never met with reasonless enmity, never met with meanness, never met with anything more unbearable than natural indifference, from any man or woman.

I have been, I may say, a burden and a bore all over the world; I have been an ill and fretful stranger within all men's gates; I have asked much and given nothing; I have never been a friend.