When you married for inclination, you knew
that emigration must be the result of such an act of imprudence in
over-populated England. Up and be doing, while you still possess
the means of transporting yourself to a land where the industrious
can never lack bread, and where there is a chance that wealth and
independence may reward virtuous toil."
Alas! that truth should ever whisper such unpleasant realities to
the lover of ease - to the poet, the author, the musician, the man
of books, of refined taste and gentlemanly habits. Yet he took the
hint, and began to bestir himself with the spirit and energy so
characteristic of the glorious North, from whence he sprung.
"The sacrifice," he said, "must be made, and the sooner the better.
My dear wife, I feel confident that you will respond to the call of
duty, and, hand-in-hand and heart-in-heart we will go forth to meet
difficulties, and, by the help of God, to subdue them."
Dear husband! I take shame to myself that my purpose was less firm,
that my heart lingered so far behind yours in preparing for this
great epoch in our lives; that, like Lot's wife, I still turned and
looked back, and clung with all my strength to the land I was
leaving.
