Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/146

 this analysis of my emotions is not perfectly sincere and real, and that I have not felt all of them more than I can put into words. They are my tears—my life-blood!

But in my life, in my personality, there is an essence of falseness and insincerity. A thin, fine vapor of fraud hangs always over me and dampens and injures some things in me that I value.

I have not succeeded thoroughly in analyzing this—it is so thin, so elusive, so faint—and yet not little. It is a natural thing enough viewed in the light of my other traits.

I have lived my nineteen years buried in an environment at utter variance with my natural instincts, where my inner life is never touched, and my sympathies very rarely, if ever, appealed to. I never disclose my real desires or the texture of my soul. Never, that is to say, to any one except my one friend, the anemone lady.—And so