Here she recounts story
after story
of natural horror —
of parasitism,
of insects devouring their own eggs and
of young devouring their
parents — until she catches her breath and says, «
Just think: in all the clean beautiful reaches
of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has
death.»
Wealthy almost beyond equal by the time she was twenty, due to the early
death of both her
parents, she began to collect books
just after World War I.