ffred's
nearly-forgotten treasuresFor the world does not alter!—it only swings on, and civilization rises and falls, the utmost corruption existing when the development is highest.
———
What was this thing, self-respect? I demanded of myself. Was it a vice or a virtue? ... Were women better when they had parted with this thing? Was it a fetish, a false god, set up in one's heart so firmly that it survived the faith in all other gods?
———
I recognized now that there is no such thing as virtue, or right, or truth; these things are all merely relative; and to quote a phrase which is more often used than understood, you have to consult the map on the subject.
I was originally introduced to Mabel Collins through Lois Waisbrooker's reference to Morial the Mahatma in My Century Plant, and have since been exploring her other works. Here is another gem, and by far the best of hers I've read yet.
The Confessions of a Woman is quite the opposite of Lois Waisbrooker's masterpiece Helen Harlow's Vow, but in my opinion they complement each other well. An eerie, sardonic, psychological, Gothic style really comes to the fore in this dark, tragic story of an artist and her search for truth and freedom. As the pain and hypocrisy of human convention burn her own myths away, in the end she considers good and evil to be equally delusion, and annihilation the only true escape from sensation. Feminist, frank, philosophical, and highly quotable, it is a memorable depiction of fatalism, cynicism, and pessimism.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that this is one of the best character studies I've ever read, if just for its sheer power. Benjamin Disraeli's Contarini Fleming pales by comparison. The desolation of the main character reminded me of Samuel Beckett's trilogy, which I haven't read in years; I pulled my volume from the shelf and found this interesting passage dog-eared in Malone Dies:
...seeking a way out into the desolation of having nobody and nothing, the wilds of the hunted, the scant bread and the scant shelter and the black joy of the solitary way, in helplessness and will-lessness, through all the beauty, the knowing and the loving. Which he stated by saying, for he was artless, I have had enough, without pausing a moment to reflect on what it was he had enough of or to compare it with what it had been he had had enough of, until he lost it, and would have enough of again, when he got it back again, and without suspecting that the thing so often felt to be excessive, and honored by such a variety of names, was perhaps in reality always one and the same.
The text is taken from this scan of the 1890 edition. Any obvious typographical errors or inconsistencies were corrected or standardized.
So here it is: the master HTML version, the home-brew Kindle version, and the actual Amazon publication.
August 11, 2026