““Even more distasteful to him was the way he saw Margaret and other women conversing with each other as they gathered in his parlor: no sooner had the “stricken soul” confessed her woes than her companion “in return . . . disburdens into her ear the story of her misery, as deep & hopeless as her own.” Such an exchange was about as far from the ideal of friendship Waldo espoused as could be imagined, yet it was what Margaret sought from him—a connection through mutual understanding and sympathy—and that, at times, unwilling as he was to admit it, Waldo coveted for himself. For Margaret knew Waldo suffered too, though he presented a “cold pedantic self” to his parlor guests or argued for a Dial “measuring no hours but those of sunshine.” After age thirty, “a man wakes up sad every morning,” he had written in his journal, for no one else to read; but Margaret sensed his melancholy.””
![“Margaret could not help her looks; but the short curled upper lip, the round, massive up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her head, her movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave strangers the impression of haughtiness. […] She sat facing him and facing the light; her full beauty…” quote by Elizabeth Gaskell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/54f/elizabeth-gaskell-894_quote_margaret-could-not-help-her-looks-but-th_332320.jpg)
![“But she worried about how the older students, who were required to leave the school at age twelve, would find work. Many of these “show[ed] by their unformed features and mechanical movements” the ill effects of having been “treated by wholesale”; they were not accorded the respect that engenders…” quote by Megan Marshall](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/362/megan-marshall-19595_respect_but-she-worried-about-how-the-older-stud_971998.jpg)
![“To keep my head healthy, [I'm] trying to meditate every morning, which is something I'm sort of getting into more, realizing that it's really positive to do every day.” quote by Erin Richards](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/cec/erin-richards-53325_every-day_to-keep-my-head-healthy-i-m-trying-to-me_10455.jpg)
