, than it could have been with the pencil,
but this cannot be. I have never cared for literary fame; have avoided,
rather than sought it; have enjoyed the abuse of the press more than its
praise; have held my pen with a feeling of contempt for its feebleness,
and never could be so occupied with it as to forget a domestic duty,
while I have never visited a picture gallery, but I have bowed in deep
repentance for the betrayal of a trust.

Where are the pictures I should have given to the world? Where my record
of the wrongs and outrages of my age; of the sorrows and joys; the
trials and triumphs, that should have been written amid autumn and
sunset glories in the eloquent faces and speaking forms which have
everywhere presented themselves, begging to be interpreted? Why have I
never put on canvas one pair of those pleading eyes, in which are
garnered the woes of centuries?

Is that Christianity which has so long said to one-half of the race,
"Thou shalt not use any gift of the Creator, if it be not approved by
thy brother; and unto man, not God, thou shalt ever turn and ask, 'What
wilt thou have me to do?'"

It was not only my art-love which must be sacrificed to my duty as a
wife, but my literary tastes must go with it. "The husband is the head
of the wife." To be head, he must be superior. An uncultivated husband
could not be the superior of a cultivated wife. I knew from the first
that his education had been limited, but thought the defect would be
easily remedied as he had good abilities, but I discovered he had no
love for books. His spiritual guides derided human learning and depended
on inspiration. My knowledge stood in the way of my salvation, and I
must be that odious thing--a superior wife--or stop my progress, for to
be and appear were the same thing. I must be the mate of the man I had
chosen; and if he would not come to my level, I must go to his. So I
gave up study, and for years did not read one page in any book save the
Bible. My religions convictions I could not change, but all other
differences should disappear.

Mother moved to the city in the spring of 1838, and my health was
rapidly failing. I had rebelled against my mother-in-law, returned her
supplies, and refused to receive anything from her. This brought on a
fearful crisis, in which my husband threatened suicide; but I was firm,
and he concluded to rent the mills and take me away. This he did. His
father lived but a few months, and died on t