For some time she observed a ...

For some time she observed a great yellow butterfly, which was opening and closing its wings very slowly on a little flat stone. \
For some time she observed a great yellow butterfly, which was opening and closing its wings very slowly on a little flat stone. "What is it to be in love?" she demanded, after a long silence; each word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown sea. Hypnotized by the wings of the butterfly, and awed by the discovery of a terrible possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When the butterfly flew away, she rose, and within, her two books beneath her arm returned again, much as a soldier prepares for battle.

Quotes from the same author

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.
Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man; some think even greater.
King old ladies assure us that cats are often the best judges of character. A cat will always to to a good man, they say.