this soil that the seeds of affection were sown; here they took root, and here they grew. I could not help loving you; but I loved you not, at first, all for yourself. There was something beyond. You had the means by which I could attain to a desired end—but I never thought of attaining it as a consummation to be enjoyed alone; it was to be shared with you. In this blindness I sought your hand; in this blindness we were married, at a time when my income was scarcely sufficient to meet my own light expenses. I had, with a feeling that was little less than an insanity, depended for the future on the property you were said to possess. But, after marriage, how like the leaf of a sensitive plant from the approach of an intruder, did my whole nature shrink at the thought of touching your money, particularly as I had no means of my own. I saw my error when it was too late to retrace my steps. I felt that I had been mercenary, and that you would perceive it and despise me. Anxiously did I struggle in my profession for the means of independence; but I struggled in vain. Ah, Clara! words can give you no idea of the humiliation I experienced when necessity drove me to a confession of my poverty. If I could only erase that impression from my memory! When your brother so cruelly taunted me, I felt mad with a wild desire to show him, and every one else, that I had power to make your property the stepping-stone to great wealth. How sadly I failed in my purposes I will not repeat. You know all too well. “Clara! Since our marriage, love for you has been a daily increasing passion. The more deeply I looked into your heart, the more I saw to inspire that respect upon which affection lays its broadest foundations. And now the parting with you seems as if it would rend me asunder. But it is necessary for our future happiness. You have enough left for the support of yourself and our sweet child. I will return when I am, as I should have been before our marriage, fully entitled to the blessing of a loving wife, because able to support her. Farewell, my dear, dear Clara! Do not grieve over my absence. Think of me hopefully—pray for me. I will return. Hide from other eyes the pain this step must occasion you. Conceal the apparent desertion for your own sake. Say that I have gone abroad to perfect myself in my art. I will come back, for without the light of your presence, I feel that all around me will lie in shadow. How soon, Heaven only knows! Farewell! farewell! I write the words tearfully. Farewell! YOUR HUSBAND.”