" And so the
letter proceeds with two more sheets, adding near the end: "I send
you to-day a 'Chimney-Corner' on 'Our Martyrs,' which I have written
out of the fullness of my heart.... It is an account of the martyrdom
of a Christian boy of our own town of Andover, who died of starvation
and want in a Southern prison on last Christmas Day."
Just one month before the marriage she writes again: "The wedding is
indeed an absorbing whirlpool, but amid it all I have the next
'Chimney-Corner' in good train and shall send it on to-morrow or next
day."
How small a portion of the world outside can understand the lives of
writers, actors, and those whose professions compel them to depend
directly upon the public! No private joy, no private sorrow, no rest,
no change, is recognized by this taskmaster. It is well: on the whole
we would not have it otherwise; because those who can minister to the
great Public embrace their profession in a spirit of conscious or
unconscious self-denial. In either case the result is the same:
development, advancement, and sometimes attainment.
The wedding is not two days over when another letter arrives full of
her literary work, yet adding that she longs for rest and if we will
only tell her where Campton is, whither we had gone, she would gladly
join us. "I was a weary idiot," she continues, "by the time the
wedding was over, and said 'yes ma'am' to the men and 'no sir' to the
women in sheer imbecility.
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