How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
For that visit to Oxbridge and the luncheon and the dinner had started a swarm of questions. Why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What effect has poverty on fiction? (2.1)
Okay, first, Woolf is continuing her pattern of insisting on the very material basis of art. But we feel like we should point out that not every man is rich. Does Woolf consider that?
Quote #5
The news of my legacy reached me one night about the same time that the act was passed that gave votes to women. A solicitor's letter fell into the post-box and when I opened it I found that she had left me five hundred pounds a year for ever. Of the two—the vote and the money—the money, I own, seemed infinitely more important. (2.14)
This is a pretty big statement: financial independence is more valuable than being able to vote for one's own interests. In other words, Mary would rather have 500 pounds than the right to vote. Do you agree?
Quote #6
No force in the world can take from me my five hundred pounds. Food, house, and clothing are mine for ever. Therefore not merely do effort and labor cease, but also hatred and bitterness. I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me. (2.14)
Mary's inheritance does way more than just make it so she doesn't have to work. She can think in a completely new way, too. So much for living for your art.