appears to be opening before me with clearness. I say sincerely that
I have lost all but this one thing, and how shall I speak it? My mind
has lost all disposition to business; my hopes, life, existence, are
all in another direction. No one knows how I tried to exert myself to
work, or the cause of my inability. I was conscious of the cause, but
as it was supposed to be a physical one, the reason of it was sought
for, but to no purpose. In the same circumstances now I should be
worse. When I say my mind cannot be occupied as formerly, do not
attribute it to my wishes. This is what I fear; it makes me almost
despair, makes me feel that I would rather die than live under such
thoughts. I never could be happy if you thought so. My future will be
my only evidence. _My experience, which is now my own evidence, I
cannot give you._ To keep company with females--you know what I
mean--I have no desire. I have no thought of marrying, and I feel an
aversion to company for such an end. In my whole life I have never
felt less inclined to it. If my disposition ran that way, marrying
might lead me back to my old life, but oh! that is impossible. To
give up, as I have to do, a life which has often been my highest aim
and hope, is done with a sense of responsibility I never imagined
before. This, I am conscious, is no light thought. It lies deeper
than myself, and I have not the power to control it. I do not write
this with ease; it is done in tears, and I have opened my mind as I
have not done before. How all this will end I know not, but cannot
but trust God. It is not my will but my destiny, which will not be
one of ease and pleasure, but one which I contemplate as a perpetual
sacrifice of my past hopes, though of a communion I had never felt.
Can I adopt a course of life to increase and fulfil my present life?
I am unable to give this decision singly. You will, I hope, accept
this letter in the spirit I have written it. I speak to you in a
sense I never have spoken to you before. In this letter I have opened