I thought, by giving you the father and the birth I
did, I was giving you the best any mother on earth had ever yet
given her dearest daughter. I believe it still; but I see I should
never succeed in making YOU feel it. Accept this reparation. For
all the wrong I may have done, all the mistakes I may have made, I
sincerely and earnestly implore your forgiveness. I could not have
had it while I lived; I beseech and pray you to grant me dead what
you would never have been able to grant me living.
"My darling, I thought you would grow up to feel as I did; I
thought you would thank me for leading you to see such things as
the blind world is incapable of seeing. There I made a mistake;
and sorely am I punished for it. Don't visit it upon my head in
your recollections when I can no longer defend myself.
"I set out in life with the earnest determination to be a martyr to
the cause of truth and righteousness, as I myself understood them.
But I didn't foresee this last pang of martyrdom. No soul can
tell beforehand to what particular cross the blind chances of the
universe will finally nail it.
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