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  ...to a woman.
"I shall be old and ugly, too, one day, and I shall look for men's chivalrous help, but I shall not find it.
"The bees are very attentive to the flowers till their honey is done, and then they fly over them. I don't know if the flowers feel grateful to the bees; they are great fools if they do."
"But some women," said Waldo, speaking as though the words forced themselves from him at that moment, "some women have power."
She lifted her beautiful eyes to his face.
Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in them. You may dam up the fountain of water, and make it a stagnant marsh, or you may let it run free and do its work; but you cannot say whether it shall be there; it is there. And it will act, if not openly for good, then covertly for evil; but it will act.   If Goethe had been stolen away a child, and reared in a robber horde in the depths of a German forest, do you think the world would have had "Faust" and "Iphegenie?" But he would have been Goethe still--stronger, wiser than his fellows. At night, round their watch-fire, he would have chanted wild songs of rapine and murder, till the dark faces about him were moved and trembled. His songs would have echoed on from father to son, and nerved the heart and arm--for evil. Do you think if...   Schreiner, Olive

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Excerpt from The Story of an African Farm, a novel · This quote is tagged Power · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation · Help your friends discover QB

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