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 CHAPTER XX

IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS

This night of terrors proved my last adventure in Turkey. Soon afterwards events began to force me to feel that in order to live my own life, as seemed right to me, I must flee from all I knew and loved to an unknown, alien land. It is a hard fate: it involves sacrifices and brings heartaches. After all, what gives to life sweetness and charm is the orderliness with which one develops. To grow on the home soil, and quietly to reach full bloom there, gives poise to one's life. It may be argued that this orderly growth rarely produces great and dazzling results; still it is more worth while. People with restless dispositions, people to whom constant transplanting seems necessary, even if they attain great development, are rather to be pitied than to be envied; and, when the transplanting produces only mediocre results, there is nothing to mitigate the pity.

By nature I was a social revolutionist, and I liked neither the attitude of the men towards the women nor of the women towards life, among the people of my race. I have learned better