shall be better if not happier. There is no use in allowing our
doubts and fears to control us; by fostering them we increase them,
and we want all our time for something better and higher."

Two days later he writes more fully, and this letter we shall give
almost entire:

"Chelsea, December 26, 1842.--BROTHERS: I want to write to you, but
what is the use of scrawling on paper if I write what I do not
feel--intend? It is worse than not writing. And yet why I should be
backward I don't know. The change that I have undergone has been so
rapid and of such a kind; that may be the reason. I feel that as I
now am perhaps you cannot understand me. I am afraid lest your
conduct would be such that under present circumstances I could not
stand under it. Do not misunderstand me. If I have ever appreciated
anything in my life, it is the favor and indulgent treatment you have
shown me in our business. I know that I have never done an equal
share in the work which was for us all to do. I have always been
conscious of this. I hope you will receive this as it is written, for
I am open. Daily am I losing that disposition which was attributed to
me of self-approval. . . . There is no reason why I should distrust
your dispositions toward me but my own feelings, and it is these that
have kept me back, that and the change my mind is undergoing. This is
so continuous, and at the same time so firmly fixed, that I am unable
to keep back any longer. I had hopes that my former life would
return, so that I would be able to go on as usual, although this
tendency has always been growing in me. But I find more and more that
it is not possible. I would go back if I could, but the impossibility
of that I cannot express. To continue as I am now would keep me
constantly in an unsettled state of health, especially as my future