I saw in your description, fertile, flowery
Essex--a contrast indeed to the rough and rude, the mute and sombre
yet well-beloved moors over-spreading this corner of Yorkshire. I
saw the white schoolhouse, the venerable school-master--I even
thought I saw you and your daughters; and in your second letter I see
you all distinctly, for, in describing your children, you
unconsciously describe yourself.
'I may well say that your letters are of value to me, for I seldom
receive one but I find something in it which makes me reflect, and
reflect on new themes. Your town life is somewhat different from any
I have known, and your allusions to its advantages, troubles,
pleasures, and struggles are often full of significance to me.
'I have always been accustomed to think that the necessity of earning
one's subsistence is not in itself an evil, but I feel it may become
a heavy evil if health fails, if employment lacks, if the demand upon
our efforts made by the weakness of others dependent upon us becomes
greater than our strength suffices to answer. In such a case I can
imagine that the married man may wish himself single again, and that
the married woman, when she sees her husband over-exerting himself to
maintain her and her children, may almost wish--out of the very force
of her affection for him--that it had never been her lot to add to
the weight of his responsibilities.
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