To Mrs. S. B. Shaw.
I have a longing to get to you, but I have many misgivings about going to New York. I was wonderfully calm at the time,1 and for twenty-four hours [230] afterward, but since then I seem to get more and more sensitive and distressed. I try hard to overcome it, for I do not want to cast a shadow over others. Moreover, I feel that such states of mind are wrong. There are so many reasons for thankfulness to the Heavenly Father And I do feel very thankful that he did not suffer for a very long time; that the powers of his mind were undimmed to the last; that my strength and faculties were preserved to take care of him to the last; and that the heavy burden of loneliness has fallen upon me, rather than upon him.
But at times it seems as if I could no longer bear the load. I keep breaking down. They told me I should feel better after I got away from Wayland, where memories haunted me at every step. But I do not feel better. On the contrary, I am more deeply sad. The coming and going of people talking about subjects of common interest makes life seem like a foreign land, where I do not understand the language. And I go back to my darling old mate with a more desperate and clinging tenderness. And when there comes no response but the memory of that narrow little spot where I planted flowers the day before I left our quiet little nest, it seems to me as if all were gone, and as if I stood utterly alone on a solitary rock in mid-ocean; alone, in midnight darkness, hearing nothing but the surging of the cold waves.
How unfit I am for the company of others! It would be so painful to me to be a mar-plot to the pleasures of others! Thinking thus, I have great misgivings about going to New York. I long to get back to Wayland, to creep into a very private corner, and read stories to keep me from thinking. All this is morbid. But how to get over it is the question. [231]
Dear Rosa thinks I may like to live near New York. But ah! how my heart would yearn for old Massachusetts, where I lived with dear David so many years! Years of struggle they have been, for the most part, but perhaps all .the dearer for the trials we passed through together. I ought not to bring a shadow over your happy household. God bless you all!
