Power and Glory
This tremendous surge of free energy at twenty-one had no result in misbehaviour. It found expression mainly in locking my door, actually and metaphorically. Once I sat up all night, just to see how it felt after having been sent to bed so inexorably from infancy; no revelry, just reading and working. Once I slept on the floor; once with a friend, on her roof - an unforgettable experience to me, to look up at the stars - to wake in the night with a soft breath of pure air on one’s face and look straight up into that deep, glittering sky - if I ever build a house of my own (which becomes increasingly doubtful), it shall have a habitable roof.
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935)
