In conversation, she spoke of the world with a knowledge and a heart that would have persuaded you she constantly moved with the busiest portion of it. She was fully aware of the condition and employments of her friends, enjoying their sports and amusements as much, apparently, as though she was participating in them; and often, with her own delicate hands, she had prepared some trifling and expressive thing, which told how much she wished their happiness. There was no complaint in her, nor could you force repining regrets upon her. Her answers to your queries were always the same in sweetness and resignation, and such as might almost have led you to think she preferred her condition to one of health, and its attendant pleasures. It is true, she did not conceal that, at first, her situation seemed indeed terrible to herself, yet principally from one cause, which never ceased more or less to trouble her. She had a young and devoted husband, and she regretted more for his sake than her own, her incapacity to mingle in the social spheres of life, and thus afford him enjoyments which were denied him in her condition. Her selfishness, if she ever had any, was changed from herself and directed towards him, upon whom she would have conferred every merit or good quality she possessed, had she had the power, and many more, if possible, and regarded the task the most delightful she had ever performed. His very desires and aims of life had become her’s, and I believe she would have suffered any personal inconvenience or sacrifice to have gratified him in them all; his troubles and vexations, by some strange and inexplicable influence of sympathy, she had invariably succeeded in removing from his mind, and placing in their stead a new and more exalted vigor: in truth, he had never felt a regret, a pang, a trial, however trifling, in which she had not participated, and which, by some mysterious balm distilled by her own sympathetic heart, she had not contributed to remove or obliterate. If, however, she shared so much in his sorrows, she partook none the less of his joys. His happiness was her own; his successes and his triumphs were her’s; and the just rewards of his ceaseless labors, deservedly elevating him in public esteem, were even more gratifying to her than to himself. In his honorable elevation, she beheld her personal advancement, and in the brightness of his reputation, she felt additions to her own. When his aspirations had been realized, she had experienced a gratification superior to his, and when he had attained a point through assiduous effort, the acquisition afforded mutual pleasure. Thus entering into his very existence, she deplored her affliction more from a desire to promote his happiness than from any wish or anxiety for personal gratification and enjoyment.