You will recommend me, I dare say, to go from home; but that does
no good, even could I again leave papa with an easy mind. . . . I
cannot describe what a time of it I had after my return from London
and Scotland. There was a reaction that sank me to the earth, the
deadly silence, solitude, depression, desolation were awful; the
craving for companionship, the hopelessness of relief were what I
should dread to feel again."
Or again, in a somewhat calmer mood, she writes:
"I feel to my deep sorrow, to my humiliation, that it is not in my
power to bear the canker of constant solitude. I had calculated
that when shut out from every enjoyment, from every stimulus but
what could be desired from intellectual exertion, my mind would
rouse itself perforce. It is not so. Even intellect, even
imagination will not dispense with the ray of domestic
cheerfulness, with the gentle spur of family discussions. Late in
the evening and all through the nights, I fall into a condition of
mind which turns entirely to the past--to memory, and memory is
both sad and relentless.
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