'
In the month of May, she writes:--
'When all things are blossoming, it seems so strange not to
blossom too; that the quick thought within cannot remould its
tenement. Man is the slowest aloes, and I am such a shabby
plant, of such coarse tissue. I hate not to be beautiful, when
all around is so.'
Again, after recording a visit to a family, whose taste and culture,
united to the most liberal use of wealth, made the most agreeable of
homes, she writes:
'Looking out on the wide view, I felt the blessings of my
comparative freedom. I stand in no false relations. Who else
is so happy? Here are these fair, unknowing children envying
the depth of my mental life. They feel withdrawn by sweet
duties from reality. Spirit! I accept; teach me to prize and
use whatsoever is given me.'
'At present,' she writes elsewhere, 'it skills not. I am able
to take the superior view of life, and my place in it. But I
know the deep yearnings of the heart and the bafflings of time
will be felt again, and then I shall long for some dear hand
to hold. But I shall never forget that my curse is nothing,
compared with that of those who have entered into those
relations, but not made them real; who only _seem_ husbands,
wives, and friends.
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