You have been
bred aristocrats and aristocrats you will remain. It is not liberty that
vulgarizes. Don't hate men. They have charming phases and moods; but
avoid entangling alliances until you are thirty. After that you will
know them well enough to avoid that fatal initial submergence. The whole
point is to begin with your eyes open and your campaign clearly thought
out.
"I, too, purpose to get a great deal out of life now that my fate is in
my own hands. By the summer we shall even be able to travel a little.
Third-class, yet that will be far more amusing than stuffed into one of
those plush carriages with the windows closed and forbidden to speak
with any one in the corridor. And forced to carry all the hand-luggage
off the train (when your father had an economical spasm and would not
take a footman) while he stalked out first as if we did not exist. I
shall never marry again--Gott in Himmel, no!--but I shall gather about
me all the interesting men I never have been able to have ten minutes'
conversation with alone; and, so far as is humanly possible, do exactly
as I please. My ego has been starved. I shall always be your best
friend--but think for yourselves."
Gisela had no gift that she was aware of, but she was intellectual and
had longed to finish her education at one of the great universities.
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