"That I am vain, reserved, unsociable, wanting always to keep people at a distance - that I am wrapped up in the study of ancient stories, conceited, living all the time in a poetical world of my own and scarcely realizing the existence of other people, save occasionally to make spiteful and depreciatory comments upon them - such is the opinion of me that strangers hold, that they are prepared to dislike me accordingly. But when they get to know me, they find to their extreme surprise that I am kind and gentle - in fact, quite a different person from the monster they had imagined."
~ Lady Murasaki, The Tale of Genji
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