One should aim, seriously, at disregarding ups and downs; a compliment here, silence there ... the central fact remains stable, which is the fact of my own pleasure in the art.
Wherever I am, I see the yoke on women in some form or another. On some it sits easy for they are but beasts of burden. On others pride hushes them to silence; no complaint is made for they scorn pity or sympathy. On some it galls and chafes; they feel assured by every instinct of their nature that they were designed for a higher, nobler calling than to 'drag life's lengthening chain along.
There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness. When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence.
Each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves.