First of all, I charge you realize your responsibility in having taken
her from the custody and care and homestead in which she was once
sheltered. What courage you must have had, and what confidence in
yourself, to say to her practically: "I will be to you more than your
father and mother, more than all the friends you ever had or ever can
have! Give up everything and take me. I feel competent to see you
through life in safety. You are an immortal being, but I am competent
to defend you and make you happy. However bright and comfortable a
home you have now, and though in one of the rooms is the arm-chair in
which you rocked, and in the garret is the cradle in which you were
hushed and the trundle-bed in which you slept, and in the sitting-room
are the father and mother who have got wrinkle-faced, and
stoop-shouldered, and dim-eyesighted in taking care of you, yet you
will do better to come with me." I am amazed that any of us ever had
the sublimity of impudence to ask such a transfer from a home assured
to a home conjectured and unbuilt.