Margaret Fuller Slack

    I would have been as great as George Eliot
    But for an untoward fate.
    For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit,
    Chin resting on hand, and deep - set eyes -
    Gray, too, and far-searching.
    But there was the old, old problem:
    Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?
    Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me,
    Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel,
    And I married him, giving birth to eight children,
    And had no time to write.
    It was all over with me, anyway,
    When I ran the needle in my hand
    While washing the baby's things,
    And died from lock - jaw, an ironical death.
    Hear me, ambitious souls,
    Sex is the curse of life.