CHAPTER IX.
“And then hid the key in a bundle of letters.”
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.
BERLIN, March 18, 1893.
MY DEAR MOTHER: Really I hardly feel equal to a detailed description of our trip over the ocean. Why is it that I remember only the painful things about our journey? Surely there were pleasant people, cultivated men and graceful women, such as one always meets in these days of free interchange between different nations. But I have observed that some temperaments catch first and make most visible the shadows upon the landscape. Much as I love the hues and tints of the changeful waters, I seem to remember only the rolling ship, and between me and the thought of the blue skies and the splendid sunsets which I would have carried away as a treasured memory, comes some trifling but harassing recollection. So narrow and individual is the composing-stone upon which our impressions are made up.
I assume, dear mother, that you remember our serious conversation that last night before my marriage, as, sitting upon my couch and looking into my sleepy eyes, you half chided me for that which you called—for want of a better term—indifference.
Pardon me, ’tis a word with a sex. A woman may love, she may hate, she may dissemble, but, pose as she will, there is no profile in her passion. I do not deny I am going to school to my own heart. I am honestly endeavoring to follow your advice. I am learning to love. Let me say in the beginning it is a mistake to believe that men love deeply. If ever they do, the object of their passion is themselves. Is this a sound foundation to build domestic faith upon? However, as I have said, I shall try very earnestly to do my part.
The baron told me this morning that as Americans were a nation of plebeians, I would naturally suffer many disabilities even as the Baroness Von Eulaw, to which I replied rather hotly that honor and courage required no purple swaddlings to hide their proportions, and that we Americans sprang full created from the brain of regenerate thought, whereupon his manly fist gathered muscle for a moment, then as speedily relaxed, and he only slammed the door of his dressing-room between us. Believe me, my dear mother, I was very sorry for the scene, and I have no excuse to offer save the gaping wound to my patriotism, which I find much more sensitive over here than at home.
We have constant engagements, and I feel a little worn, though otherwise quite well. Can you pardon a letter wholly devoted to myself? and in return will you not tell me all about yourself, dear papa, and everybody you know?
Always faithfully your own, ELLEN.
From Mrs. Perces Thornton to the Baroness Von Eulaw.
ROXBURY, Mass., April 2, 1893.
MY DEAR DAUGHTER: I have your first letter written from Berlin, but how sad! That dreadful sea must have made you bilious. It has always just such an effect on your father; he sees the whole earth through smoked glasses.
But I can only imagine you as in a constant succession of raptures. Such a marriage for an American girl! A baron with such deportment, and such a delightful accent! I have no doubt, too, he is much richer than he represented. I assure you, the young ladies of Boston’s high circles have turned all hues of the rainbow with envy, and you ought to find great pleasure in that recollection alone. Besides, such opportunities as you are having to meet crowned heads, and feel yourself as one among the titled people of Europe! What elevation! What distinction! You must not forget to make the most copious notes, so that you will be able to impress your superiority upon the world of society when you return.
Really, you should be, as I know you are, very happy. Of course “scenes” are unpleasant to one like yourself, not foreign bred. But I am told that such experiences are the real thing with nobility, especially if there is an American wife. And it is reasonable to suppose that high blood should feel intolerant toward all forms of assertiveness on the part of women, especially American women.
Therefore, be a little discreet, my dear, and remember what an English woman said to you, that it is not good form to be either clever or artistic, and above all patriotic.
You speak of shadows in your life. It was only the other day I read from one of your own books on the Newtonian theory of color, that dark objects were such as absorbed the light and reflected only somber tints, and I am sure it is so with your life; it is holding the light within itself.
I will not write more to-day, for your correspondence will be large, and time precious with you. How radiant you must look with your graceful gowns and your classic face; almost equal to a born princess! Believe me, my dear child, I am very proud of your noble marriage and of your dutiful conduct in making such an one largely, let me confess, to please me. And of all things, do not trouble yourself too much about the love business—that will all come about in good time, and if it does not—well, I can only say you will have a majority with you.
Greet your noble husband with the pride and joy that I feel in him, and present your loving father, who so seldom writes. Send fresh photos of your dear self, the baroness, and the baron, and do not permit them to exaggerate his nose, which is quite full enough at best, though a true sign of the blood.
Your devoted mother,
PERCES THORNTON.
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.
BERLIN, April 20, 1893.
MY DEAR MOTHER: So far from the monopolizing effect of minor matters of which I complained in my last, I seem to be losing my individuality altogether. Have you ever possessed your mind of one subject or object to the absolute exclusion of even yourself? What an unpleasant condition of mind it is! The baron I find to be a man most peculiarly constituted. The somewhat dominant manner which you suppose to be foreign breeding, as you expressed it, seems to have developed into an engrossing self-consequence, which appears to draw its vitality, if I may be pardoned for saying so, largely from his new marital connection.
For instance, at the opening of the season we attended the Emperor’s Easter ball. According to our customs, after concluding the first dance with the baron, I accepted a waltz with an English nobleman, whom I had met on some previous occasion. We were resting for a moment after a round of the spacious ballroom when I felt my arm seized from behind, and with a muttered oath the baron commanded my instant release and return home.
What should I have done? Disregard him and precipitate a scandal? Impossible. I made excuse in some hypothetical disarrangement of my dress and retired. I am only able to write because it is my left arm which suffered the accident. The subsequent explanations of the baron were, of course, frivolous, but I was too relieved by any form of apology to add words, which, without reference to their significance, always irritate him. I mention this little incident in order to show you how it is that my visible life is subordinated, albeit my spirit is in no way depressed though severely harassed.
As I write I am doubtful if I ought to speak of these things at all. I do not ask myself what is due to my rank here, for that was conferred by him, but is it womanly to stand before the world an intelligent and willing indorser of his character and conduct, having given my public vows for better or worse, and then, cowering behind his faults, denounce such acts as only, at worst, affect me? Indeed, I must exercise more courage and less candor. One thing is certain, I am constantly looking for the better traits in his nature, and am making every effort to call them forth. Thus I escape self-reproach at least. But I am self-abashed at my attitude, for I abhor dissembling. The baron loves to taunt me with this trait, which he calls rudeness, and declares it to be the result of my “Yankee training.” I only smile at this, for, as I have said, he cannot brook discussion.
But, my dear mamma, enough of this, for you will think my marriage a failure, and contribute my experiences to the building up of Mona Caird’s theories. By the way, how shocked I felt at reading them, although I now divine some meanings that I had overlooked! But never can I tolerate the thought that there are not people—ideal, if you please—whose marriages might be too sublimated for earthly contract, and are, therefore—according to the proverb—made in heaven. Dear mother, pardon me, there is something wanting in your letters. You promised me to mention everybody we ever knew, or something to that effect. I am absolutely famishing for news of our old friends. By the way, how peculiar it is, I seem to remember with singular pertinacity the people we knew before we came to Boston, and dear, beautiful Denver is ever before my eyes. Please remember everything, and above all your affectionate
ELLEN.
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Miss Fanny Fielding, Denver, Colorado.
BERLIN, May 1, 1893.
MY DEAR OLD SCHOOLMATE: Your kind letter makes me homesick. Can you imagine a homesick bride? Even before fruitage appears from the orange bloom, dismated for the decking of my nuptial robes, or even the fragrance departed from the yellowing buds on the garniture laid away to rest and rust, I am sitting with an unwilling face to the open door of the future, and groping with a blind but eager hand among the rustling leaves of a near past, for some familiar touch or sound to summon back the half-tasted joys which I so ruthlessly flung away.
You ask me for some advice concerning marriage, illumined, as you tersely put it, by experience. My sweet friend, what a useless task you impose upon me. Whenever was woman directed by the experiences of others, however wise or however bitter such experiences may have been? Always some suggestion or exception to change the verdict. “Mine has black eyes, yours has blue, which makes all the difference.” Or, “one is fat, the other lean.” Or, “this one walks, the other rides”—so infinite the variety of excuses, so single the faith of woman.
What else, then, shall we call marriage but destiny? The heart knows its wants and we know its plaintive cry, as a mother knows the wail of her famishing babe; yet for some frivolous fancy or conceit, some wound to our vanity, some plethoric ambition, or some glittering paste or bauble, we stifle the natural cry of the human heart, and wait for the mystic note upon which is to be constructed the music of our future. Alas! in the metaphor you understand so well, we too often touch only the diminished seventh, and the sure, complete, resolving chord is never sounded.
Somewhat, too, our institutions of marriage are at fault, or at least the laws and customs which control them. With a nation of men, free, rational, and liberal, we have a nation of women enslaved, dishonest, and miserable, and it is among her noblest and most common phases of fate that she goes mutely to her grave, a victim of such weak social prejudices as have grown to be even a subject of satire among Europeans.
Conscientiousness is a boasted virtue among Boston people of certain high cult, yet how many of her beautiful women go to the altar with a lie upon their maidenly lips? Why?—For the reason that there is some man whom she loves and dares not declare it. For the reason that society sets a seal upon her lips and turns her life into a drain-channel for misbegotten vows. For the reason that she cannot break the frost-bound usages of cowardly error with one stroke of her puny fist, and openly propose to join fortunes with the man after her own heart and her own high convictions. And so she rakes over the cold, unfruitful soil in her own soul, and plants the germ of a falsehood or a folly, and waits for the accident of some quickening power, in slavish and unheroic patience.
Witness the result: Some masculine hand, more or less clumsy or more or less cunning, little matter if it bring a wedding ring, sheds ephemeral warmth upon the unsanctified ground, and the victim starts upon her lonely, loveless journey toward race building and sacrifice.
As I indicated, dear Fanny, I have not drawn for my picture largely upon individual experiences, neither are my opinions stimulated by any observations taken from this side the water. Indeed, I even prefer, of kindred evils, the insipid method which leaves the marriage question in the hands of the parents. But let me leave this for subsequent discussion, for my letter is already too long, and I have not gossiped at all, and I remember, dear girl, how you do love innocent gossip.
Write to me often and I will fill my letters with the sweetest of nothings if you will. Love and adieu and think of me as your devoted friend,
ELLEN.
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.
BERLIN, May 10, 1893.
DEAREST MOTHER: “Let fate do her worst, there are moments of joy,” and such moments I owe to my fondness for music. What would have been all these dreary weeks and months of shallow acting, if the depths of my soul had not been stirred by the genius of that creative force which, mocking at our own crude disguises, rehabilitates pain with the fair seeming of pleasure, which relegates near sorrows to the realms of tradition, and illusionises common care?
Art, in any form, I conceive to be the benefactor of the human race. If truth, shorn of its infinitude of possibilities, constitutes the religion of the civilized world, if the deus et machina, as Æschylus somewhere has it, unlyrical and unleavened by beauty of device, by rhetoric or action and climax, be persuasive and instructive and inspiring, then how ineffably shall truth have gained by the development of its powers through visible forms of dramatic conceit, through association with the elements of art, through characterization, through skillful adaptation, through harmonized mediæ of appeal to the sense or the sentiment, the sympathies or the imagination?
I am reminded here of an incident which occurred in our box at the Grand Opera House, during a late performance of Die Meistersinger, which resulted—as is not unusual in these days—unpleasantly. My husband, as you may remember, affects music solely for the paraphernalia of the stage, for the glitter and show of boxes and stalls, for the exposed shoulders of the diamonded dames of fashion, for the numbers of men with eyeglasses and uniforms—anything, in fact, but the music, which rather bores him.
Therefore it is I apprehend that he discusses music so incomprehensibly—to say the least—I would not say irrationally. Somewhere during the development of the plot I was struck with the similarity of the dramatic motive with that of the Greek tragedies, especially the choral odes, where occurs the element of transition which some scholars call the evolutionary or perhaps the re-incarnating period of the ancient drama. This similarity—in some ways identical—I inadvertently alluded to in a more or less critical review of the opera and its construction, which I ventured between acts, in the presence of a party of Americans who were our guests for the occasion.
Suddenly as thought, the baron’s face was aflame. But “what it were unwise to do ’twere weaker to regret,” and I prepared to defend my position as best became me. “You call my divine countryman a plagiarist,” he hissed between his teeth. Our male guest glowered, and the ladies with heightened color looked at the orchestra.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said I, with an assumed smile, “I did not say so, though I admit that my suggestion was unfortunate in its inference.”
The baron sprang to his feet and stood over me, his arms akimbo and the well-known look of suppressed rage upon his face.
“You called my divine countryman a plagiarist,” he repeated, gazing out over the audience, and feeling for my slippered foot with his heel, which he settled firmly upon my silken-clad instep. The hurt made me wince, but I could not remove my foot from the vise. Then, in order to mollify his temper, which I had grown to know too well how to deal with, I added laughingly, though half wild with pain as he deadened his weight upon my poor instep:—
“If your countryman were amenable to the charge of plagiarism, so also is our Shakespeare, for in the comedy of Trinummus, Megaronides says, ‘The evil that we know is best. To venture on an untried ill,’ etc., and Shakespeare, two thousand years later, said, ‘Rather bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.’”
“You call my divine countryman a plagiarist,” half-childishly, half-insanely repeated my noble lord, grinding my foot beneath his heel. A cry of pain escaped me, which a timely crash of cymbals in the orchestra had the effect to drown.
“Well, what of it” blurted the American, throwing his full weight, as if by accident, against the baron’s shoulder, and then turning to me with an apology resumed his place. Now while I never take refuge in my sex for at least a verbal retaliation of the wrongs I receive from my husband, it goes without saying that the man who visits brutality in any form upon a woman is a coward. But I had never seen the baron insulted, and was therefore wholly unprepared for the profuseness with which he apologized to our guests, and the blandness with which he offered his hand as he bade them good-night. But the most humiliating part of this humiliating affair was the fact that I was forced to repeat an apology fashioned by himself, the entire length of our journey home, even until the carriage stopped at the door.
It is not clear to me, my dear mother, that I am justified in rehearsing to you, or to anyone, details of my life, which may seem trivial, but for which I am able to offer no other excuse than your own solicitous insistence. I am always promising myself that every next letter shall be dictated in more cheerful spirit. Till then adieu. Present me with kindest love and beg papa to write me. I do so long for a sight of his letters. Love to those who love me.
As ever, devotedly yours, ELLEN.
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.
BERLIN, June 21, 1893.
MY DEAREST MOTHER: How shall we account for our various moods? Yesterday I was miserable; to-day I am joyful; to-morrow I may be hopeful or heartbroken, according as—oh! I forgot to say I am all alone; the baron has gone to St. Petersburg. I am supposed to have accompanied him, and so nobody comes. But I am not lonely; now that I am left to myself I see how beautiful is the world about me.
This morning I looked from my windows upon the river. The sharp lights I had watched so often swiftly changing to shadows, the warring glances suggestive only of inner strife, with all its complexity of passion, were lost in the soft peaceful flow of the waters as they hurried on to the ultimate sea. And I thought how much of this mood is due to fancy, that untenable, mercurial, and sublimated quality of the mind, half trickery, half truth, and altogether elusive as vapor. But how profligate of that precious sense of pleasure so steadily withheld from my heart these later months! Too precious, indeed, for the operations and experiments of the mental laboratory to which I seemingly so recklessly submitted it, and so I dismissed analysis and clung to my fancies, which at least made me happy in the present.
After my breakfast I prepared myself for a walk, with only my little fox-terrier for a companion. Poor little Boston, how grateful he seemed! I could see him laugh with joy as his little brown lips quivered with flexible feeling. Notwithstanding his many years, he could scarcely find footing for his bounding steps for looking back at me to search my laughing eyes. You remember who gave me my terrier, away out in Denver? how he was brought to me in two strong, guardful arms, a little loose-skinned, wise-eyed puppy, so quiet and serenely happy in the warm embrace—where was I? oh, yes! talking about Boston—so we pulled some roses, Boston and I. But never looked roses so red, or green so tender or so vivid, and I longed to find the secret of their voluptuous bloom and half-suffocating fragrance, but that I guessed all was again fancy; only an easy, translatable pinch of dust and a resolvable stain; a simple stroke of creative power and a dash of ether—only a rose.
How easy seem the processes of nature with harmonized material for working out the thought! Nature never experiments; gravitation is her law, deflection is anarchy, and defiance a destroyer. Love, I deem, is only obedience to this law. Obscure as are its operations and subtle as its teachings are, any smallest portion of scholarship, leveled at the finding out, divested of preconceived ideas and personal bearings, but persistently and conscientiously agitated by scientific and organized effort, might revolutionize a world of error, and establish a sure basis for sentiment and social reform.
For I believe that unhappy marriages are a direct result of ignorance. Passions called by various names go to make up the system. Sordidness, vanity, interdependence, weak abeyance to custom, contribute to the sum of human misery. But ignorance is the basis of the organized error. For what manner of men or women would deliberately entail upon themselves the shackled conditions of a loveless marriage, which has no alternative but subordination or rebellion? For only in love—another name for harmony—may be found that unity which leaves no room for sacrifice or misconceit.
But, dearest mother, what can you think of my letters? I began to tell you of my one happy day and have spread my speculations over the whole human race. I started to take you for a promenade along Unter den Linden, and to rest by the cool fountain in the Lustgarten, and have ended with a few feeble remarks upon the possible sources of sentiment and sorrow.
But Boston is waiting for his dinner, for he dines with me to-night. What a jolly day we’ve had, eh, Boston? and we will sleep and dream of you, dear mamma, and many more, for none but bidden guests must fill my room to-night. By the way, I do wonder if the poor, weak brain of my little terrier is in any degree susceptible of being stirred by memories of his old friends? In any event, I envy him, for he is not amenable to the necessities of a false life, “a liar of unspoken lies.”
Dear mamma, a sweet good-night. I am sending you a few pictures picked up at Lepkes. The group I am sure you will enjoy, though I like better the portrait by Van Dyck. There is a haunting sort of look about it, reminding me of someone I have known somewhere. I wonder if you will discern it? Probably it was only a passing fancy, one of such as have filled my brain all day long.
Again love and good-by. ELLEN.
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.
MENTONE, Italy, August 10, 1893.
DEAREST MOTHER: How rebellious my heart and impatient my pen as I take it up to write words which only your mother’s ear should catch from my lips!
Where shall I begin to tell you the history of the past month? Really, my memory seems too surcharged with a sense of bitterness and wrong to do me service. But I must lead you step by step, reluctant as I know you are to follow me behind the gilded arras.
After his return from St. Petersburg, the baron developed more pronounced signs of jealousy than had ever appeared hitherto. Perhaps this feeling was stimulated by my last letter to you, which I inadvertently left unmailed, and which he opened and read. Suspicious husbands you know are as jealous of moods as of men, and not to be miserable “when the Sultan goes to Ispahan” is indeed a crime. I believe there are few jealous husbands who are themselves guiltless. I do not think, however, that this test applies to my own sex, albeit I do not take refuge in the exception—Heaven save the mark!
But the baron came home, as I said, quite confirmed in many unpleasant ways I had remarked before. Without any apparent cause he stole about my room in unslippered feet, and listened furtively at the keyholes. He locked the doors whenever he passed through, and spoke to the servants through a crevice. Instead of his usual violence he whined his complaints of my demeanor toward him in the weakest and most supine fashion. But that which exasperated me most was, and is still, his unaccountable pertinacity. He would place his chair close by me and hold his knee against mine, or his elbow, or his foot, while, with purpling face and hanging mouth, he entreated me not to leave him, until, in half insane protest, I would break clear of him and throw open a window, or bathe my hands and face in utter exhaustion, or—I had almost said—sense of contamination. In his fits of rage there is something genuine from an animal, if not from a manly, point of view. But how shall I deal with this new phase? Ah, well! let me get on with my letter, for I have much to say, and that is why I am dallying.
I consented to come to Mentone on account of my health. Finding myself growing weak and failing, the physicians ordered an immediate change, and recommended the old cure virtually—to take myself out of their hands. The baron loves to play, and I suspect is a little too well known in gaming circles in Berlin.
Therefore when he proposed Mentone so early in the season, or, indeed, altogether out of season, I—quite knowing that it meant Monte Carlo—accepted, and with valet and maid and dear old Boston we came.
Result, financial ruin! The baron played recklessly. Each time when I saw him he was feverish and abstracted. I did not ask the cause, whether he were winner or loser, for, like most women, I believe that everybody finally loses, but I was not prepared for the dénouement, for he has absolutely lost not only all his ready money, but is heavily in debt, and will need to resort to further mortgage of his landed estates.
Weak and foolhardy as he was, I pity him, for what must have been his feelings as, driving down the Corniche road overhanging the old sea, he reflected how many men had sought forgetfulness for just such acts of folly in the tideless waters. Only that the baron has other ideas about reparation, for he came home and first proposed that I write my father for money to make good his losses. Taking courage from my silence, he suggested that I cable my message at once.
This latter I proposed not to do, as I informed him in very few words. He has left the hotel in a terrible fit of rage, vowing revenge with his last accents. And I am writing this letter while I wait, meanwhile wondering how much I ought to blame myself for my unhappy life, or if I ought not to lock the secret in my own breast, even from you, my mother. But a secret is a dumb devil, and so long as there is another hand to glance the dart, it rarely wounds to death. I will mail this at once in order that it shall not fall into his hands.
Dearest mamma, are these letters never to cease? I think I notice that your replies are more reserved, and I have thought full of pain and discouragement. But do not feel discouraged. I realize the resources within me, and I have a fund of reserved power which I may summon in an exigency. I have not fairly contemplated anything in the future; to deal with the present has been my purpose. Each joy and each sorrow in its turn, so shall no preconceived action operate to the ends of injustice or unfairness. I close this in haste but lasting love.
As always your daughter, ELLEN.
From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.
MENTONE, Italy, September 1, 1893.
O MY BELOVED MOTHER: While I feel always sure of your earnest sympathies, how shall I expect you to appreciate the sentiment of horror which this new and fiendish device for torturing my feelings visits upon me! How can I write it?—my poor little Boston is dead.
That fact, with a few silent tears, and a day or two of depression, I could have borne as the end of all things mortal. But he was as foully murdered as ever was the victim of the most infernal plot, for he was given no poorest or most unequal chance to fight for his life, which was as dear to him as mine to me—and that is the least possible to be said. I am in no condition of mind to discuss ethics, or to philosophize upon the events which led to this tragical termination of differences, of which poor little Boston’s life paid the forfeit.
It may be that I was wrong, certainly I would have made any terms to have saved my poor terrier from his terrible fate, few as were the years he would have lived at most.
I am not unaware that there are certain concessions, and certain acts of graciousness, which, in a limited sense, may properly be expected of every wife toward a reasonable husband. Not his boasted superiority by any means, but the fact that she is measurably relieved from financial stress or responsibility, constitutes an unwritten law among well-thinking wives everywhere, I believe, and makes the demand upon her. But I considered nothing but the enormity of my husband’s exactions, and erred in my estimate of the possibility of my husband’s brutality. I wish there were a stronger word which I might politely use.
Shall I give you briefly the harrowing details of this ruffianly act of cowardice? I think I told you in my last how the baron had left the house, filled with vindictive rage at my refusal to demand of my father large sums of money for his gambling losses. In about an hour he returned and renewed his proposition with increased violence, at the same time seizing a pen and writing a cablegram, which he commanded me to sign.
Remembering that I had given him considerable sums of money from time to time, amounting to many thousands of dollars, I entreated him to wait for a day, while he should make me understand the condition of his financial affairs. This proposition he received with the most frightful oaths. He declared that he would take my life, and would begin by killing my pet dog. No sooner said than done. He rushed to the veranda, where poor little Boston lay stretched upon his cushion asleep in the sun, and, seizing him by the neck, he dashed him violently to the ground below. A few minutes later my little friend was brought to me still feebly conscious, but mangled, bleeding, dying.
How can I ever forget, who ever did who has ever witnessed it forget that last questioning, beseeching look of affection and dumb fright which a dying animal turns upon the face of someone he has loved? Is it less than human or more? Not till the mists gathered across his pretty brown eyes was that last eloquent appeal swept away. “What have I done?” “What have I done?” was the question he was asking of me. Who shall say whether he received his answer in some later and easier translatable speech than mine, in some new and disenthralled state of being? Who shall say that he did not carry away with him a love which was all love, with no taint of selfishness or ulterior thought, quickened by no new speculation, or tradition, or sanction, or human edict? Who shall say that the attributes of faith, and self-surrender, and charity, and forgiveness, and loyalty are lost because in one incarnation they were tongue-tied? For myself I want to see my dogs again. They were my loved companions, as are my books or my works of art. And if the fire destroy them, are their contents naught or worthless because an unlettered man could not read them? At best an after life is a problem, but let us put the problems together and one may help to solve the other, for half a truth is oftenest a lie.
I have sought distraction in these comments, but my sorrow returns to me, dear mother, and my eyes are too full of tears to be able to see the lines. Vale, poor Boston, and a grateful throb of gladness that I have a dear mother to whom I can tell my grief.
Your loving but unhappy ELLEN.