I had deemed long since powerless. The cause of those
emotions it is now, I clearly see, my duty to reveal--that is, to
you. For years I have carefully avoided permitting my mind to go
back to the past, in vain musings over scenes that bring no pleasant
thoughts, no glad feelings. I have, rather, looked into the future
with a steady hope, a calm reliance. But, for your sake, I will draw
aside the veil. May the relation I am now about to give you have the
effect I desire! Then shall I not suffer in vain. How vividly, at
this moment, do I remember the joyful feelings that pervaded my
bosom, when, like you, a maiden, I looked forward to my wedding-day.
Mr. Cleaveland was a man, in many respects, like Henry Armour.
Proud, firm, yet gentle and amiable when not opposed;--a man with
whom I might have been supremely happy;--a man whose faults I might
have corrected--not by open opposition to them--not by seeming to
notice them--but by leading him to see them himself. But this course
I did not pursue. I was proud; I was self-willed; I was unyielding.
Elements like these can never come into opposition without a victory
on either side being as disastrous as the defeats. We were married.
Oh, how sweet was the promise of my wedding-day! Of my husband I was
very fond. Handsome, educated, and with talents of a high order,
there was every thing about him to make the heart of a young wife
proud. Tenderly we loved each other. Like days in Elysium passed the
first few months of our wedded life. Our thoughts and wishes were
one. After that, gradually a change appeared to come over my
husband. He deferred less readily to my wishes. His own will was
more frequently opposed to mine, and his contentions for victory
longer and longer continued. This surprised and pained me. But it
did not occur to me, that my tenaciousness of opinion might seem as
strange to him as did his to me. It did not occur to me, that there
would be a propriety in my deferring to him--at least so far as to
give up opposition. I never for a moment reflected that a proud,
firm-spirited man, might be driven off from an opposing wife, rather
than drawn closer and united in tenderer bonds. I only perceived my
rights as an equal assailed. And, from that point of view, saw his
conduct as dogmatical and overbearing, whenever he resolutely set
himself against me, as was far too frequently the case.

"One day,--we had then been married about six months,--he said to
me, a little s