higher and more holy purpose. I was not born to pass a few moments on
the stage of life and then disappear forever.... With a shudder I turn
away and would gladly forget to think. O thought, thought! thou wilt
distract me,--thou hast almost hurled reason from her throne. Thou
bitter tormentor! depart, if but for a moment, and let me once more
find peace. But no; the more I seek to elude still nearer the demon
pursues. O thought, thought! it rushes forth from my soul like the
wild outpourings of the volcanic mountains and overwhelms me with its
burning tide till body, mind and soul--all, all are exhausted and lie
like a straw upon the roaring bosom of the deep. Oh, that I could
arise, mingle with the gay, and forget my own deep and overpowering
thoughts. But no; such thoughts, like the soul which gave them birth,
can never die. O thought, what art thou? A blessing to angels, a curse
to me. Distracted soul, sink into repose: others are happy, and wast
thou born to be more wretched than they? Truly thou wast, and why?
Because thou livest only in the regions of thought--_thought_ which is
burning my brain and piercing my lacerated heart. And yet a thought
freighted with light beams through the dark clouds which its darker
sisters have thrown around me, and the only inscription which it bears
is, _'Live for others.'_ And another thought follows in rapid
succession,--like a far-off echo it repeats the words of its
predecessor, 'Live for others,' and then adds (while a vivid flash of
the lightning of truth lights up the darkness of error), 'Live for God
and for heaven.' A loud crash follows. Peals of thunder shake the
atmosphere of my soul! _Self_ has fallen: _I will live for others, for
God and for heaven._"

This was a grand resolve; but not yet was the soul to be out of
prison, the pilgrim to be freed from the Slough of Despond. Once more
she has to write:--