Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/280

 When I hurry over my sand and barrenness my vivid passions come to me—or when I sit and look at the horizon. When I walk slowly I consider calmly the question of how much evil I should need to kill off my finer feelings, to poison thoroughly this soul of unrest and this wooden heart so that they would never more be conscious of too-brilliant lights, and to make myself over into a quite different creature.

A little evil would do—a little of a fine, good quality.

I should like a man to come (it is always a man, have you ever noticed?—whatever one contemplates when one is of womankind and young). I should like a man to come, I said calmly to myself to-day as I walked slowly over my barrenness—a perfect villain to come and fascinate me and lead me with strong, gentle allurements to what would be technically termed my ruin. And as the world views such things it would be my ruin. But as I view such