I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the
gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played
with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed
the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having
reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and
along dim sky-line--that then I longed for a power of vision which might
overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions
full of life I had heard of but never seen--that then I desired more of
practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind,
of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.
I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I
believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and
what I believed in I wished to behold.

Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I
could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to
pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of
the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and
solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright
visions rose before it--and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to
let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled
it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward
ear to a tale that was never ended--a tale my imagination created, and
narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire,
feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot
find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and
millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many
rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life
which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but
women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and
a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from
too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would
suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures
to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and
knitting stock