Eliza Margaret Jane Humphreys

“ As it is, the little that has leaked out, in the confessions of recalcitrant novices and refractory nuns, shows plainly that a sisterhood is not quite the little "heaven on earth" its superiors and founders would have the world believe.
The special sisterhood to which Catherine Macpherson belonged was a somewhat mixed and refractory one. It was not ignorant of jealousy and animosity — it held spiteful loves as well as time-serving friendships. ”

“ Such an intolerable affliction did she now become that even the blind doctor could not stand her, and, in a fit of sarcastic petulance, he told her that a heaven peopled by such " saints," as she chose to call herself, would be a place calculated to make most people look with no unfavorable eye on its much abused neighbor. ”

“ Catherine Macpherson's soul soared above the petty scruples of female vanity. She joined the sisterhood, adopted their strange garb, banded her hair severely on either side of her face, used a depilatory, and became a female missionary to the unchristian savages of the East End.
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It may be possible for a community of men to dwell together in brotherly love. It is rarely, if ever, possible for a community of women. ”