The fact was that, after the first novelty, things seemed pretty much the
same as before. Bessie Osbourne was not so different from Bessie Hall. She
might have appreciated that as significant; but doubtless she had never
heard the edifying jingle of the unfortunate youth who "wandered over all
the earth" without ever finding "the land where he would like to stay," and
all because he was injudicious enough to take "his disposition with him
everywhere he went." It was as if she had been going in a circle from right
to left, and, after a blare of drums and trumpets and a stirring
"About--face!" she had found herself going in the same circle from left to
right. It all came to the same thing, and that was nothing. Guy was
apparently working hard; but, after all, in real life it seemed one did not
plant the adepts' magic seed that sprouted, grew, bloomed, while you looked
on for a moment. For herself, baking and stitching took all her time,
without taking nearly all her interest, or seeming to matter much when all
was said and done. If she neglected things, they went undone, or some one
else did them; in any case Guy never complained. If she did what came up,
each day was filled with meeting each day's demands. All their lives went
into the means and preparation for living. Other people--Or was it really
any different with them? Nine-tenths of the people nine-tenths of the time
seemed to accomplish only a chance to exist. She had heard women complain
that such was the woman's lot in order that men might progress. But it
struck her very few men worked beyond the provision of present necessities,
either. Was it all a myth, then--happiness, experience, romance? Was this
all there was to life and love? What was the sense, the end? Her
dissatisfaction reproached the Cosmos, grew to that _Weltschmerz_ which is
merely low spirits and reduced vitality, not "an infirmity of growth."

She constantly expected perfection, and all that fell below it was its
opposite extreme, and worthless. She began to suspect herself of being an
exceptional and lofty nature deprived of her dues.