Aurora discusses her further attempts to write. She tells how she is determined not to be constricted by her woman's role but is doubtful that the modern age presents opportunities for epic poetry, writing, "Ay, but every age / Appears to souls who live in't (ask Carlyle) / Most unheroic". As the book continues, she grows more and more desperate, crying out to her muses and gods for inspiration. She confides that she has not seen Romney Leigh for almost two years, but she has heard that he has turned Leigh Hall into a refuge for the poor. At a stifling, insipid evening party at one of her well-born friend's houses, she learns that Romney is engaged to marry Lady Waldemar, and bitterly reflects that "He loved not Marian, more than once he loved/Aurora." She decides that to find inspiration, she must travel to Italy, her mother's land, and in order to get the money sells some of her father's old books, as well as her own unfinished manuscript.
