I reply that, from the very constitution of society, and the tone of
manners in the city which we inhabited, there seemed to be a moral
impossibility that any dangers of consequence should meet her in the
course of those brief absences from my protection, which only were
possible; that even to herself any dangers, of a nature to be
anticipated under the known circumstances of the case, seemed almost
imaginary; that even _she_ acknowledged a propriety in being
trained, by slight and brief separations from my guardianship, to face
more boldly those cases of longer separation and of more absolute
consignment to her own resources which circumstances might arise to
create necessarily, and perhaps abruptly. And it is evident that, had
she been the wife of any man engaged in the duties of a profession, she
might have been summoned from the very first, and without the
possibility of any such gradual training, to the necessity of relying
almost singly upon her own courage and discretion. For the other
question, whether I did not depend too blindly and presumptuously upon
my good luck in not at least affording her my protection so long as
nothing occurred to make it impossible? I may reply, most truly, that
all my feelings ran naturally in the very opposite channel. So far from
confiding too much in my luck, in the present instance I was engaged in
a task of writing upon some points of business which could not admit of
further delay; but now, and at all times, I had a secret aversion to
seeing so gentle a creature thrown even for an hour upon her own
resources, though in situations which scarcely seemed to admit of any
occasion for taxing those resources; and often I have felt anger
towards myself for what appeared to be an irrational or effeminate
timidity, and have struggled with my own mind upon occasions like the
present, when I knew that I could not have acknowledged my tremors to a
friend without something like shame, and a fear to excite his ridicule.
No; if in anything I ran into excess, it was in this very point of