her womanhood--she gained Knowledge; and the Knowledge she gained was
this: that the world is a world of hungry hearts.

I do not know just what the circumstances were under which the woman
learned this. I do not know what her Occupation was nor who her
friends were; nor can I tell in detail of the peculiar incidents that
led to this Knowledge. Such things are not of my story. This, only,
belongs to my story: the woman learned that the world is a world of
hungry hearts. Cold and cruel and calculating and bold, fighting
desperately, merciless, and menacing, the world is but a hungry
hearted world with it all. This, when a woman knows it, is, for her, a
saving Knowledge. Just to the degree that a woman knows this, she is
wise above all men--wise with a wisdom that men cannot attain. Just to
the degree that a woman is ignorant of this, she is unlearned in the
world's best wisdom.

Long before she knocked at the door of the world into which she had
been admitted, upon condition that she left her womanhood without, the
woman had thought herself wise in knowledge of mankind. In her school
days, text books and lessons had meant little to her beside the
friendship of her schoolmates. At her graduation she had considered
her life education complete. She thought, modestly, that she was
fitted for a woman's place in life. And that which she learned first
from the world into which she had gone was this: that her knowledge of
life was very, very, meager; that there were many, many, things about
men and women that she did not know.

School could fit her only for the fancy work of Life: plain sewing she
must learn of Life itself. School had made her highly ornamental: Life
must make her useful. School had developed her capacity for pleasure