my husband took care that i should not see or enjoy any of the pleasures in the many societies to which he belonged. and with curiosity i wondered why others who were not sisters of the order were going here and there. i was out of everything. then i began to have anonymous letters, which i would not take any notice of for a long time. but when i saw things for myself all was at an end. one discovery led to another. about three years ago i let him go where his heart is. he was nice to me once. i am[pg 119] not the sort of woman to be satisfied with half-measures. we parted. i get my own living the best way i can. in all those trying years of my life i only once appealed to anyone to help me. i asked him if he could help, as i thought he was a good man. some plan was hit upon, and he must have had a share in the scheme whereby i have been left to struggle in bitterness all alone. when people have come to me and told me to say nothing about what has been done to me, and that it is golden to be silent, how little they have known the pain that is in memory when all we prize has gone. some have tried to console me by telling me that "they are glad they are not me."

i need not say that all this sort of sympathy is madness. i am happy to say that i have the best balm for sorrow. i have a busy life. there is something sad in the kind of friendships that have to be watched by the inquisitive who sit down and write about their suspicions to destroy other people's lives. i could not bend to all without some resistance. i was baffled at every turn. this "sisterly and brotherly" may be very innocent, and if i had been allowed to go to some of the public gatherings i would not have been so jealous.

we make environment and get blocked. do not reproach me with ingratitude, but i am at war sometimes with my long life of toil now i am by myself alone. "words, words, words." some things are too hard either to write about or to speak of.