Willard. There she had all the advantages for which she had hungered and
thirsted; and, like one who had long hungered and thirsted, she devoured
them with fatal eagerness. Her application was incessant; and its
effects on her constitution, already somewhat debilitated by previous
disease, became apparent in increased nervous sensibility. Her letters
at this time exhibit the two extremes of feeling in a marked degree.
They abound in the most sprightly or most gloomy speculations, bright
hopes and lively fancies, or despairing fears and gloomy forebodings. In
one of her letters from this seminary, she writes thus to her mother: "I
hope you will feel no uneasiness as to my health or happiness; for, save
the thoughts of my dear mother and her lonely life, and the idea that my
dear father is slaving himself, and wearing out his very life, to earn a
subsistence for his family--save these thoughts (and I can assure you,
mother, they come not seldom), I am happy. Oh! how often I think, if
I could have but one-half the means I now expend, and be at liberty to
divide that with mamma, how happy I should be!--cheer up and keep good
courage." In another, she says: "Oh! I am so happy, so contented now,
that every unusual movement startles me. I am constantly afraid that
something will happen to mar it.
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