You see, like so many women -- and men as well -- I did not know an awful lot of things in my life, and I did not experience many important ones. I never got married, never had children, never knew those special gifts of the supposedly "normal" life. I missed some stories and failed to understand others until too late. Because of the possibilities of American journalism and its great professional family, however, I was privileged to have nearly unlimited access to the centers of human talent and of the human spirit. I knew the best men in the world, and many of them even loved me as much as I loved them. My family blessed me with a real capacity to take a tremendous joy in living; and I had a small gift of writing that, combined with an insane curiosity and a Teutonic stubbornness, allowed me to do exactly what I wanted to do, and with very little wasted time.

 Above all, I knew what I loved most and I followed it, and so, in the end, I had that special blessing of the wise St. Augustine, who told us poor mortals that we would only begin to know happiness through "knowing the order of the loves."

 I knew what I had to do first -- and that, I did.

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