Mother and I were talking about my marrying,—the chances pro and con. I said I did not fancy I should ever marry, for I thought I should require too many qualities to meet in the man I could think of as my husband, for it to be likely that I should ever meet such a paragon who could be willing to marry me.
Let me see; the indispensables are I think:—A perfect gentleman, a sincere Christian, a liberal-minded broad-churchman; a lofty intellect to which it would be a pride to bow, a firm will which it would be a pleasure to submit to and concur in; a nice-looking fellow,—for I could not be happy with one whose face I could not love and admire in beauty of expression if not of form, and one whose means combined with mine would lift us above genteel poverty at least....
Had another squabble with Carry because she told me my own Hertford House, which I was looking over, was not fit for Sunday. She does meddle awfully. Still, she’s a precious sight better than I am.... Bother her slow blood! She’ll drive me mad, she and Daddy between them. Never mind, I have got my jewel of a Mother, bless her!
24th. Sunday. Talking in the evening about an old woman in Carry’s district who came from the Barrack Ground, Hastings. And that put it strong into my head how I wanted to go there. I had on Saturday evening written a letter to Amelia about the treat, and then I thought how nice it would be to go and give the treat myself.
30th. Saturday. Seven years today since I last saw old Hastings. Isn’t it strange to return that day seven years! Pouring wet day. Rather afraid of being disappointed in Hastings, I do love it so. But I seemed so to have gone over and over every part in my dreams that I could not be disappointed. I know it all so well.... After dinner went to call on the Andrews. I thought I would go incog. and see if they remembered me. Amelia opened the door. ‘I think the Miss Andrews live here?’ ‘Yes, ma’am.[ma’am.]’ ‘Are you not connected with the Infant School?’ ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I asked if I might come and see the children. She assented quite soberly. I couldn’t stand it, jumped at her, and pinned her to the wall for a kiss. She knew me in a moment, seized my hands and dragged me in in wild delight....
Then I went to No. 3 [Croft Place] and when Mrs. L. said she did not know me, I said, ‘I wonder if the house does, for I was born in it.’ Then she knew me instantly.”
All this gives a vivid picture of the warm heart and riotous spirits that endeared her to her friends, but there are not wanting indications of the mysterious depression and forebodings—the dread of something worse than death—that are part of the heritage of gifted youth.
“26th. Friday. I am afraid I don’t care near so much for—as I did,—am I changeable or is she changed? or is my standard altered?... I read once of a person whose physical condition was such that he could not love one person intensely for long,—not many years if thrown much together.... I sometimes fear I am similarly constituted. For even those nearest and dearest I have experienced those fluctuations.... It is like a frightful trance to know that I cannot keep a warm deep love equal; and yet in a manner the real undercurrent of love flows on even in these estrangements,—I cannot in myself cease to love one who has ever been the object of that wild adoring love, though in my outer mind and heart this tormenting, fiendlike malady makes me hate and shrink from them while its fearful influence reigns. God grant there is no touch of insanity in it; no words can tell how I dread and deprecate it. There is a loathsome horrible fear in my mind of its coming ever and anon. My ..., my beautiful, whom I used to think mysteriously close to my soul, it has come on her. Oh, God pity me! I fear I shall go wild. Every action, every word of her’s seems to anger me unreasonably,—I feel the fiend on me and yet the wild resistless love will not quite be swept away, and comes back in floods of passing tenderness for a moment. And I can’t tell her, make her understand, and she will lose her love for me and—oh, dear I am very miserable. God grant in pity it may never fall on my Mother! I have a horrible dread of it. I could not live without her love,—my love for her. And I feel such wild maddening love now, as if I knew it would soon be out of my power to love her.”