In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, with… - Simone de Beauvoir

And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity. Is this attribute something secreted by the ovaries? Or is it Platonic essence, a product of the philosophic imagination? Is a rustling petticoat enough to bring it down to earth?

It must feel wonderfully strange when, like Manette, one stands there, the only witness to a vanished world.

Ready-made phrases and the ritual of etiquette were unknown to him; his thoughtfulness was pure improvisation, and it resembled the little inventions affection inspires.