---- wrote me that ---- was a little hurt, at first, that I did not
tell him, even in the trying days of Rome, but left him to hear it, as
he unluckily did, at the _table d'hote_ in Venice; but his second
and prevailing thought was regret that he had not known it, so as to
soothe and aid me,--to visit Ossoli at his post,--to go to the child
in the country. Wholly in that spirit was the fine letter he wrote
me, one of my treasures. The little American society have been most
cordial and attentive; one lady, who has been most intimate with me,
dropped a tear over the difficulties before me, but she said, "Since
you have seen fit to take the step, all your friends have to do, now,
is to make it as easy for you as they can."
TO MRS. E.S.
I am glad to have people favorably impressed, because I feel lazy and
weak, unequal to the trouble of friction, or the pain of conquest.
Still, I feel a good deal of contempt for those so easily disconcerted
or reaessured. I was not a child; I had lived in the midst of that New
England society, in a way that entitled me to esteem, and a favorable
interpretation, where there was doubt about my motives or actions.
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