Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/35

 cost, and I 'm afraid I 'm one of them. I admire the large reserve, the elemental silence that one reads about, in what I call the deaf-mute heroes and heroines; but I can't imitate it, and whether I 'm above or beneath it, I perceive that I have n't the perception to know.

There are four ways in which a woman can relieve her mind, if she does n't lavish her heart: a mother, a girl friend, a lover, or a book, will serve her. None of these four outlets is open to me. Ina! Poor Ina! You sweet, dead, only girl I ever truly cared for! Sometimes I wonder if my mother's lovely ghost is a little jealous of you, because I can't remember her to love her as I loved you. Pray tell her, Dear, if you get a chance in that wide world of yours and hers, that I have never thought about her in all my life as much as I have this spring. She seems to float before me and about me, in the air, wherever I go or stir.

A good many people have told me that I ought to be a writer, which only shows the massive ignorance of the average human mind. It sometimes seems to me as if I must carry "Rejected, with thanks" written all over me, I have explored that subject so thoroughly. I am told that there are persons who have got manuscripts back seventeen times, and have become famous