as an uneducated person, of the lower middle class,
and not in herself interesting: though I do not know why I say that,
when I was deeply interested about her, and I do not know that any
creature endowed with a heart and soul can fail to be an object of
interest in some way or other; and human existence, with all its
marvelous developments, going on round one, must always furnish matter
for admiration, pity, or sympathy. Moreover, this woman was carrying out
with her the wives of several of her husband's workmen, who had
accompanied him out on his experimental voyage; and, being settled in
his employment, had got their master's wife to bring their partners out
to them. Think what a meeting for all these poor people, dear Harriet,
in this little hive of English industry and energy in the far west, the
fertile wildernesses of Indiana! How often I thought of the fears and
misgivings of these poor women in the steerage, when our progress was
delayed by tempestuous, contrary winds, when the heavy seas leaped over
our laboring vessel's sides, and when, during a violent thunderstorm,
our masts were tipped with lambent fire, which played round them like a
halo of destruction.

All this while I have forgotten to tell you why I have not written
sooner; and I suppose my accusation is yet bitter in your heart while
you are reading this. I told you on my first page I was obliged to stay
in New York to recruit my strength; the first time I went out, after
walking about a quarter of a mile, I was obliged to sit down and rest,
for half an hour, in a public garden, before I could crawl back again to
the hotel.

On Monday, when I was a little better, we came on here. I am every day
now expecting to be fetched to Harrisburg.... A woman should be her
husband's friend, his best and dearest friend, as he should be hers: but
friendship is a relation of equality, in which the same perfect respect
for each other's liberty is exercised on both sides; and that sort of
marriage, if it exists at all anywhere, is, I suspect, very uncommon
everywhere. Moreover, I am not sure that marriage ever is, can be, or
ought to be, such an equality; for even "When two men ride on one
horse," you know, etc. In the relation of friendship there is perfect
freedom, and an undoubted claim on each side to be neither dependent on,
nor controlled by, each other's will. In the relation of marriage this
is impossible; and therefore certainly marriage is not friendship.