Mary Anne Dodd.
You will doubtless be dissatisfied, dearest Kitty, if I seal this
without inserting one word about myself and my own prospects. But what
can I say, save that all is mist-wreathed and shadowy in the dim future
before me? _He_ has said nothing since. I see--it is but too plain to
see--the anguish that is tearing his very heart-strings; but he buries
his sorrow within his soul, and I am not free even to weep beside
the sepulchre! Oh, dearest, when you read what Georges Sand has
written,--when you come to ponder over the misenes the fatal institution
of marriage has wrought in the world,--the fond hearts broken, the noble
natures crushed, and the proud spirits degraded,--you will only wonder
why the tyranny has been borne so long! and exclaim with me, "When--oh,
when shall we be free!"