Quote: From Dream of the Red Chamber


“Bao-yu had from early youth grown up among girls. . .As a result of this upbringing, he had come to the conclusion that the pure essence of humanity was all concentrated in the female of the species and that males were its mere dregs and off-scourings. To him, therefore, all members of his own sex without distinction were brutes who might just as well have not existed.”

 

    --Dream of the Red Chamber/Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin (1710-1765), translation by David Hawkes (Volume 1 of the Penguin Classic Edition)

 

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