it. At the same time, being absolutely
convinced from my own experience and perceptions, and the unhesitating
advice of two able medical men (Dr. Chambers, one of them), that to
escape the English winter will be _everything for me_, and that it
involves the comfort and usefulness of the rest of my life, I have
resolved to do it, let the circumstances of the doing be as painful
as they may. If you were to see me you would be astonished to see the
work of the past summer; but all these improvements will ebb away with
the sun--while I am assured of permanent good if I leave England. The
struggle with me has been a very painful one; I cannot enter on the
how and wherefore at this moment. I had expected more help than I have
found, and am left to myself, and thrown so on my own sense of duty as
to feel it right, for the sake of future years, to make an effort to
stand by myself as I best can. At the same time, I will not tell you
that at the last hour something may not happen to keep me at home.
_That_ is neither impossible nor improbable. If, for instance, I find
that I cannot have one of my brothers with me, why, the going in that
case would be out of the question. Under ordinary circumstances I
shall go, and if the experiment of going fails, why, then I shall have
had the satisfaction of having tried it, and of knowing that it is
God's will which keeps me a prisoner, and makes me a burden. As it is,
I have been told that if I had gone years ago I _should be well
now_; that one lung is very slightly affected, but the nervous system
_absolutely shattered_, as the state of the pulse proves. I am in the
habit of taking forty drops of laudanum a day, and _cannot do with
less_, that is, the medical man _told me_ that I could not do with
less, saying so with his hand on the pulse. The cold weather, they
say, acts on the lungs, and produces the weakness indirectly, whereas
the necessary shutting up acts on the _nerves_ and prevents them from
having a chance of recovering their tone. And thus, without any mortal
disease, or any disease of equivalent seriousness, I am thrown out of
life, out of the ordinary sphere of its enjoyment and activity, and
made a burden to myself and to others. Whereas there is a means of
escape from these evils, and God has opened the door of escape, as
wide as I see it!

In all ways, for my own _happiness's sake_ I do need _a proof_ that
the evil is irremediable. And this proof (or the counter-proof) I a