Marcus Clarke

“ A young girl, with passionate fancy, with honest and noble aspiration, but with the dark shadow of her early mental sickness brooding upon her childlike nature, Marriage made her a woman, by developing in her a woman's trust and pride in the man to whom she had voluntarily given herself. ”

“ How was it possible, indeed, for him to solve the mental enigma when the woman herself was to him a physical riddle? It was extraordinary that the child he had seen growing up by is side day by day should be a young woman with little secrets, now to be revealed to him for the first time. ”

“ Thus it came about that Sylvia one day discovered that she led two lives—one in the body, and one in the spirit—and that with her spiritual existence her husband had no share. This discovery alarmed her, but then she smiled at it. "As if Maurice could be expected to take interest in all my silly fancies," said she; and, despite a harassing thought that these same fancies were not foolish, but were the best and brightest portion of her, she succeeded in overcoming her uneasiness. "A man's thoughts are different from a woman's," she said ”