Teaching was mentioned, I think; was it not, Harrington?"
Rhoda Gale sighed deeply.
"I am not surprised," said she. "Most women of the world think with you.
But oh, Miss Vizard, please take into account all that I have done and
suffered for medicine! Is all that to go for _nothing?_ Think what a
bitter thing it must be to do, and then to undo; to labor and study, and
then knock it all down--to cut a slice out of one's life, out of the very
heart of it--and throw it clean away. I know it is hard for you to enter
into the feelings of any one who loves science, and is told to desert it.
But suppose you had loved a _man_ you were proud of--loved him for five
years--and then they came to you and said, 'There are difficulties in the
way; he is as worthy as ever, and he will never desert _you;_ but you
must give _him_ up, and try and get a taste for human rubbish: it will
only be five years of wasted life, wasted youth, wasted seed-time, wasted
affection, and then a long vegetable life of unavailing regrets.' I love
science as other women love men. If I am to give up science, why not die?
Then I shall not feel my loss; and I know how to die without pain.
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