truth dawned upon me--I was ugly! That truth has embittered my
whole existence. It gives me days and nights of agony. It is a sensitive
sore that will never heal, a grim hobgoblin that nought can scare away.
In conjunction with this brand of hell I developed a reputation of
cleverness. Worse and worse! Girls! girls! Those of you who have hearts,
and therefore a wish for happiness, homes, and husbands by and by, never
develop a reputation of being clever. It will put you out of the
matrimonial running as effectually as though it had been circulated that
you had leprosy. So, if you feel that you are afflicted with more than
ordinary intelligence, and especially if you are plain with it, hide your
brains, cramp your mind, study to appear unintellectual--it is your only
chance. Provided a woman is beautiful allowance will be made for all her
shortcomings. She can be unchaste, vapid, untruthful, flippant,
heartless, and even clever; so long as she is fair to see men will stand
by her, and as men, in this world, are "the dog on top", they are the
power to truckle to. A plain woman will have nothing forgiven her. Her
fate is such that the parents of uncomely female infants should be
compelled to put them to death at their birth.

The next unpleasant discovery I made in regard to myself was that I was
woefully out of my sphere. I studied the girls of my age around me, and
compared myself with them. We had been reared side by side. They had had
equal advantages; some, indeed, had had greater. We all moved in the one
little, dull world, but they were not only in their world, they were of
it; I was not. Their daily tasks and their little pleasures provided
sufficient oil for the lamp of their existence--mine demanded more than
Possum Gully could supply. They were totally ignorant of the outside
world. Patti, Melba, Irving, Terry, Kipling, Caine, Corelli, and even the
name of Gladstone, were only names to them. Whether they were islands or
racehorses they knew not and cared not. With me it was different. Where I
obtained my information, unless it was born in me, I do not know. We took
none but the local paper regularly, I saw few books, had the pleasure of
conversing with an educated person from the higher walks of life about
once in a twelvemonth, yet I knew of every celebrity in literature, art,
music, and drama; their world was my world, and in fancy I lived with
them. My parents discouraged me in that species of foolishness. The