"I was no sooner mistress of my actions and my property than I devoted my life to the relief of the unfortunate. As a woman I was debarred from taking an interest in politics, the social sciences or philosophy. And indeed what man can possibly do it under the yoke that is crushing us? But what I could do was to assist the victims of tyranny, to whatever class they might belong. I soon found that their number was so great that my income would not suffice, even if I deprived myself of the necessaries of life. Thereupon my mind was soon made up. I had determined not to marry. I was ignorant of your existence, and I looked upon myself as alone in the world. I caused an exact statement of my fortune to be prepared--a precaution which the wealthy patricians of our province very rarely take; their indifference keeps them from visiting their estates when they are in the interior of the island, and many have never set foot upon them. I investigated my property and made myself familiar with it; first of all, I sold a part in small lots, intending to supply the poor people of these regions with a little land at a very low price, in a majority of cases for nothing. That was unsuccessful. A people that has fallen into the lowest stage of poverty and slavery cannot be saved with a stroke of the pen. I tried other methods which I will describe to you in detail at another time. They failed. Everything is bound to fail when the laws of a country have decreed its ruin. I had no sooner made a family happy, than the taxes, increasing with its prosperity, made a poverty-stricken family of it. How can order and stability be secured when the state seizes sixty per cent of the income of the humble workingman as well as of the idle rich man? "Thus I learned, with profound sorrow, that in conquered and downtrodden countries there is no resource but almsgiving, and I devoted my life to that. It required much more activity and perseverance than gifts outright and sacrifices of capital. This life of small benefactions and constant sacrifices is a task without respite, without limits and without recompense; for almsgiving affords only a momentary remedy; it creates the necessity of being repeated and extended ad infinitum, and one never sees the result of the toil one imposes upon oneself. Oh! how cruel it is to live and love when one dresses every hour a wound that cannot be healed, when one unceasingly casts one's heart and strength into a pit which can no more be filled than the crater of Ætna!