bury myself abroad. He has my letters. They are such as I can own to
you; and ask you to kiss me--and kiss me when you have heard all the
evidence, all that I can add to it, kiss me. You know me too well to
think I would ask you to kiss criminal lips. But I cannot face the
world. In the dock, yes. Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle,
on pain of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression. I cannot
do that. I see myself wearing a false grin--your Tony! No, I do well to
go. This is my resolution; and in consequence,--my beloved! my only
truly loved on earth! I do not come to you, to grieve you, as I surely
should. Nor would it soothe me, dearest. This will be to you the best
of reasons. It could not soothe me to see myself giving pain to Emma.
I am like a pestilence, and let me swing away to the desert, for there
I do no harm. I know I am right. I have questioned myself--it is not
cowardice. I do not quail. I abhor the part of actress. I should do it
well--too well; destroy my soul in the performance. Is a good name
before such a world as this worth that sacrifice? A convent and self-
quenching;--cloisters would seem to me like holy dew. But that would be
sleep, and I feel the powers of life. Never have I felt them so
mightily. If it were not for being called on to act and mew, I would
stay, fight, meet a bayonet-hedge of charges and rebut them. I have my
natural weapons and my cause. It must be confessed that I have also more
knowledge of men and the secret contempt--it must be--the best of them
entertain for us. Oh! and we confirm it if we trust them. But they have
been at a wicked school.

'I will write. From whatever place, you shall have letters, and
constant. I write no more now. In my present mood I find no alternative
between rageing and drivelling. I am henceforth dead to the world.
Never dead to Emma till my breath is gone--poor flame! I blow at a bed-
room candle, by which I write in a brown fog, and behold what I am--