shall at least have made an honourable retreat. What we desire--I
know it is just this that puzzles you, dear friend; I don't think
you ever really comprehended my motives in taking this formidable
step, though you were good enough, and your magnanimous husband was
good enough, to press my hand at parting in a way that seemed to say
that you would still be with me, even if I was wrong. To be very
brief, I wished to put an end to the reclamations of my daughter.
Many Americans had assured her that she was wasting her youth in
those historic lands which it was her privilege to see so
intimately, and this unfortunate conviction had taken possession of
her. "Let me at least see for myself," she used to say; "if I
should dislike it over there as much as you promise me, so much the
better for you. In that case we will come back and make a new
arrangement at Stuttgart." The experiment is a terribly expensive
one; but you know that my devotion never has shrunk from an ordeal.
There is another point, moreover, which, from a mother to a mother,
it would be affectation not to touch upon. I remember the just
satisfaction with which you announced to me the betrothal of your
charming Cecile. You know with what earnest care my Aurora has been
educated,--how thoroughly she is acquainted with the principal
results of modern research. We have always studied together; we
have always enjoyed together. It will perhaps surprise you to hear
that she makes these very advantages a reproach to me,--represents
them as an injury to herself. "In this country," she says, "the
gentlemen have not those accomplishments; they care nothing for the
results of modern research; and it will not help a young person to
be sought in marriage that she can give an account of the last
German theory of Pessimism." That is possible; and I have never
concealed from her that it was not for this country that I had
educated her. If she marries in the United States it is, of course,