Get my desk, Agnes, and send these
things away: I will answer the letter directly. But first, as I
may be depriving you both of a legacy, it is just that I should
tell you what I mean to say. I shall say that he is mistaken in
supposing that I can regret the birth of my daughters (who have
been the pride of my life, and are likely to be the comfort of my
old age), or the thirty years I have passed in the company of my
best and dearest friend;--that, had our misfortunes been three
times as great as they were (unless they had been of my bringing
on), I should still the more rejoice to have shared them with your
father, and administered what consolation I was able; and, had his
sufferings in illness been ten times what they wore, I could not
regret having watched over and laboured to relieve them;--that, if
he had married a richer wife, misfortunes and trials would no doubt
have come upon him still; while I am egotist enough to imagine that
no other woman could have cheered him through them so well: not
that I am superior to the rest, but I was made for him, and he for
me; and I can no more repent the hours, days, years of happiness we
have spent together, and which neither could have had without the
other, than I can the privilege of having been his nurse in
sickness, and his comfort in affliction.
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