hopes and plans. The one consideration of my child is all that restrains
me from leaving my husband, never to see him again. As it is, I must live
a life of deceit, and feign respect and regard for a man whom I despise
with my whole heart.

"Power--oh, if I had the power to make the fury that consumes me felt!
The curse of our sex is its helplessness. Every day, Julie, the
conviction grows on me that I shall end badly. Who among us knows the
capacity for wickedness that lies dormant in our natures, until the fatal
event comes and calls it forth?

"No! I am letting you see too much of my tortured soul. Let me close my
letter, and play with my child."



_Number IV._ 1812.--"My heartfelt congratulations, dearest, on your
return to Germany, after your pleasant visit to the United States. And
more congratulations yet on the large addition to your income, due to
your husband's intelligence and spirit of enterprise on American ground.
Ah, you have married a Man! Happy woman! I am married to a Machine.

"Why have I left your kind letters from America without reply? My Julie,
I have constantly thought of you; but the life I lead is slowly crushing
my energies. Over and over again, I have taken up my pen; and over and
over again, I have laid it aside, recoiling from the thought of myself
and my existence; too miserable (perhaps too proud) to tell you what a
wretched creature I am, and what thoughts come to me sometimes in the
wakeful hours of the night.