For his sake I shall have courage; and hope some good
angel will show us the way out of our external difficulties.
TO W.W.S.
It was like you to receive with such kindness the news of my marriage.
A less generous person would have been displeased, that, when we had
been drawn so together,--when we had talked so freely, and you had
shown towards me such sweet friendship,--I had not told you. Often did
I long to do so, but I had, for reasons that seemed important, made
a law to myself to keep this secret as rigidly as possible, up to a
certain moment. That moment came. Its decisions were not such as I had
hoped; but it left me, at least, without that painful burden, which
I trust never to bear again. Nature keeps so many secrets, that I
had supposed the moral writers exaggerated the dangers and plagues of
keeping them; but they cannot exaggerate. All that can be said about
mine is, that I at least acted out, with, to me, tragic thoroughness,
"The wonder, a woman keeps a secret." As to my not telling _you_, I
can merely say, that I was keeping the information from my family and
dearest friends at home; and, had you remained near me a very little
later, you would have been the very first person to whom I should have
spoken, as you would have been the first, on this side of the water,
to whom I should have written, had I known where to address you.
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