Miss L monologue (Act 3) — Votes for Women: A Play in Three Acts

The gods saw it was so little effectual, it wasn't worth taking away. (_She stands looking out into the void._) One woman's mishap?--what is that? A thing as trivial to the great world as it's sordid in most eyes. But the time has come when a woman may look about her, and say, "What general significance has my secret pain? Does it 'join on' to anything?" And I find it does. I'm no longer merely a woman who has stumbled on the way. I'm one (_she controls with difficulty the shake in her voice_) who has got up bruised and bleeding, wiped the dust from her hands and the tears from her face, and said to herself not merely, "Here's one luckless woman! but--here is a stone of stumbling to many. Let's see if it can't be moved out of other women's way." And she calls people to come and help. No mortal man, let alone a woman, _by herself_, can move that rock of offence. But (_with a sudden sombre flame of enthusiasm_) if many help, Geoffrey, the thing can be done.