Page:I, Mary MacLane (1917).pdf/43

 To-morrow

Y Two Dresses tell me the scope of my present Mary-Mac-Lane-ness.

Every day they tell me things about myself.

They tell me I'm living in a prison of self, invisible and ascetic and somberly just.

They tell me I'm living an outer life narrow and broodingly companionless and that if I were not self-reliant by long habit a leprous morbidness would rot me in body and spirit.

They tell me because of outer solitude an inner fever of emotion and egotism and a fervid analytic light are on all my phases of self: mental, physical, psychical and sexual.

They tell me my way of thought is at once meditative and cave-womanish.

They tell me I'm all ways the Unmarried Woman and profoundly loverless.

They tell me I'm like a child and like a sequestered savage.

They tell me I am having no restful unrealities of social life with chattering women and no monotonous casually bloodthirsty flirtations with men.

They tell me I walk daily to the edges of myself and stare into horrible-sweet egotistic abysses.

They tell me I'm grave-eyed and coldly melancholy.