"Ah! where was wisdom's tardy voice that it did not whisper: 'God made
men thus: there are no perfect men!'....

"How true it is that ideals are simply mental will-o'-the-wisps!....

"I married for ideals, not for love. I was in love with the ideal, and
the man I married led me to believe he was that ideal; picture my
heart-aching disappointment when I found that his art was his real
bride, and that I was a sort of understudy; hardly that, after the
first few months. I awoke to the fact that I had exchanged my youth
and freedom for a domestic mill that sank all my ideals into
commonplace. I said I would make my own mistakes and I did. Then came
the long battle with my pride, and I suffered in silence. For seven
long years I faced neglect and humiliation; and then one day after a
visit to my old home, I returned to find my husband and one of his
models occupying my very home.... my very bed. I turned and left the
place without a word.

"For the first time in my life I grew bitter; I wondered if it were
true, that realization kills all the joys we anticipate; if all our
rosy dreams turn gray in the face of cold reality.

"I was sick at heart and alone, too proud to go to anyone with my
troubles; it seemed to me that day by day the color was fading out of
my life. I had for years given all my love gifts only to answer duty's
call and one by one the leaves of my romance began to fall, until
jealousy, like a cancer, had eaten into my aching heart, and left me
stripped of everything, even hope....