Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

230 LETTERS.
afterward, but since then I seem to get more and
more sensitive and distressed. I try hard to overcome it, for I do not want to cast a shadow over
others. Moreover, I feel that such states of mind are
wrong. There are so many reasons for thankfulness
to the Heavenly Father! And I do feel very thankful that he did not suffer for a very long time; that
the powers of his mind were undimmed to the last;
that my strength and faculties were preserved to take
care of him to the last; and that the heavy burden of
loneliness has fallen upon me, rather than upon him.
But at times it seems as if I could no longer bear
the load. I keep breaking down. They told me I
should feel better after I got away from Wayland,
where memories haunted me at every step. But I do
not feel better. On the contrary, I am more deeply
sad. The coming and going of people talking about
subjects of common interest makes life seem like a
foreign land, where I do not understand the language.
And I go back to my darling old mate with a more
desperate and clinging tenderness. And when there
comes no response but the memory of that narrow
little spot where I planted flowers the day before I
left our quiet little nest, it seems to me as if all were
gone, and as if I stood utterly alone on a solitary rock
in mid-ocean; alone, in midnight darkness, hearing
nothing but the surging of the cold waves.
How unfit I am for the company of others! It
would be so painful to me to be a mar-plot to the
pleasures of others! Thinking thus, I ha-e great
misgivings about going to New York. I long to get
back to Wayland, to creep into a very private corner,
and read stories to keep me from thinking. All this
is morbid. But how to get over it is the question.