I try not to think that shyness and poverty, ungainliness and social
imbecility combined, have had as much to do as self-restraint and
self-respect in keeping me out of so many pitfalls that have been fatal
to so many men better and more gifted than myself.

I try to think that her extraordinary affection, the chance result of a
persistent impression received in childhood, has followed me through
life without my knowing it, and in some occult, mysterious way has kept
me from thoughts and deeds that would have rendered me unworthy, even in
her too indulgent eyes.

Who knows but that her sweet mother's farewell kiss and blessing, and
the tender tears she shed over me when I bade her good-bye at the avenue
gate so many years ago, may have had an antiseptic charm? Mary! I have
followed her from her sickly, suffering childhood to her girlhood--from
her half-ripe, gracefully lanky girlhood to the day of her retirement
from the world of which she was so great an ornament. From girl to woman
it seems like a triumphal procession through all the courts of
Europe--scenes the like of which I have never even dreamed--flattery and
strife to have turned the head of any princess! And she was the simple
daughter of a working scientist and physician--the granddaughter of
a fiddler.

Yet even Austrian court etiquette was waived in favor of the child of
plain Dr. Seraskier.

What men have I seen at her feet--how splendid, handsome, gallant,
brilliant, chivalrous, lordly, and gay! And to all, from her, the same
happy geniality--the same kindly, laughing, frolicsome, innocent gayety,
with never a thought of self.