very form of relief, but, entrenched in its citadel, the pain
defied his puny efforts. He covered my head with ice, he gave me
opium--which only drove me mad--he did all that skill and kindness
could do, but all in vain. Finally the pain wore itself out, and the
moment he dared to do so, he tried mental diversion; he brought me
books on anatomy, on science, and persuaded me to study them; and out
of his busy life would steal an hour to explain to me knotty points on
physiology. He saw that if I were to be brought back to reasonable
life, it could only be by diverting thought from the channels in which
the current had been running to a dangerous extent. I have often felt
that I owed life and sanity to that good man, who felt for the
helpless, bewildered child-woman, beaten down by the cyclone of doubt
and misery.

So it will easily be understood that my religious wretchedness only
increased the unhappiness of homelife, for how absurd it was that any
reasonable human being should be so tossed with anguish over
intellectual and moral difficulties on religious matters, and should
make herself ill over these unsubstantial troubles. Surely it was a
woman's business to attend to her husband's comforts and to see after
her children, and not to break her heart over misery here and hell
hereafter, and distract her brain with questions that had puzzled the
greatest thinkers and still remained unsolved! And, truly, women or men
who get themselves concerned about the universe at large, would do well
not to plunge hastily into marriage, for they do not run smoothly in
the double-harness of that honourable estate. _Sturm und Drang_ should
be faced alone, and the soul should go out alone into the wilderness to
be tempted of the devil, and not bring his majesty and all his imps
into the placid circle of the home. Unhappy they who go into marriage
with the glamour of youth upon them and the destiny of conflict
imprinted on their nature, for they make misery for their partner in
marriage as well as for themselves. And if that partner, strong in
traditional authority and conventional habits, seeks to "break in" the
turbulent and storm-tossed creature--well, it comes to a mere trial of
strength and endurance, whether that driven creature will fall panting
and crushed, or whether it will turn in its despair, assert its Divine
right to intellectual liberty, rend its fetters in pieces, and,
discovering its own strength in its extremity, speak