Maria McCann

How did men make themselves loved, I wondered. I had passed all my life with men who were loved but I seemed never to have learnt the lesson.

Whatever makes a man a beast also renders him pitiable. But it behoves us to be wary of these bestial men despite our compassion, for they frequently turn on their friends.

I mean that repeated offences, even when they secure forgiveness, drive out love. And from that I came to say that one may compel obedience but never love.

Behold,' said the Voice, 'earthly beauty. It is nothing but seeming, for to the uninstructed eye the world appears fruitful and sweet, yet in it is nothing but a pile of skulls, showing where others were lost as they went before.

I dig and plough at your command,' I replied, 'but you will not tell me how to shit.

God cuts out our path, makes a groove in the clay with His finger, and we poor blind ants slide down into it.

Violent love eats up what it does love, and it is mere appetite. I scribbled on the bottom of this before sending it back: I would sooner cut my own flesh than do you a hurt. You should not have tried to get between us! But only come to see me, and another time I will stand and let me beat to a mummy.