“‘I cannot consent to have the woman, the real soul-and-spirit woman in me, obliterated. I cannot believe it is my destiny to have the woman expunged from my nature. I want to be a strong, pure woman. I want to be lovely to you. Yet, heretofore, the strongest manifestations of love to you have, usually, had little other effect than to arouse your animal nature, and thus have been so turned as to render me unlovely; for a wife must become unlovely and repulsive to her husband, the moment he ceases to reverence her soul, and feels that she is to him but the means of mere sensual gratification.
“‘You will acknowledge that there is terrible wrong somewhere. May God show us a Moses to lead us out of this wilderness, this Egypt! You have often chided me for feeling unworthy of your love; reminding me how strange it was, since other and worthy men regarded me highly, and that I did not feel myself unworthy their regard. Were there no abuse of our sexual nature, your tender and noble love would so elevate and consecrate the functions of my Womanhood, that I should no more be tormented with that want of self-respect, which, alone, ever causes me to doubt your love, and feel unworthy of it. I feel, at times, that love would not, could not, thus crush my Womanhood; that it would, by intuition, guide you in your passional relations with me, so as never to do a wrong or outrage to my nature, even unwittingly. The feeling which other men’s regard awakens in me is not brought down and thus prostituted to sensual gratification, but is awakened only to vitalize and bless soul and body. Help me and save me, by your manly strength, even from myself!
“‘I appeal to you, in behalf of myself, of my husband, and my children. Deep and enduring consciousness of guilt and shame must rest on my soul, in view of the outrages I have perpetrated on myself and my unborn children, whom I was reduced to the necessity (as it then seemed to me) of killing before they were born, or of cursing with an existence loathed and detested even by the mother that bore them.
“‘My husband! you will, for my sake, for your own sake, for our children’s sake, reflect on these things, and send me your reflections. You will respond to this appeal from
“‘Your Loving Wife.’
THE HUSBAND’S RESPONSE.
“‘My Suffering Wife:
“‘I have a word to say to you now, such as I never said before. Your letter has revealed you to me as I have never before seen you. It shows me to what utter misery I have brought you;—how, for my gratification, you have descended into the lowest hell.
“‘You intimate that I treat other women, personally, more tenderly and reverently than I do you. That is true: to my shame and regret I say it. And yet, why should I do so? Why should I crush and desecrate you, while I have too much respect for other women ever to think of doing the same to them? There is no reason for it. You are my dearest love. I should treat you more tenderly than any others; be more careful of your health, and beauty of body and soul. Of all women, the husband should most anxiously watch over the health of his wife, and most shrink from the abuse and desecration of her physical as well as spiritual womanhood.
“‘But I have not been wholly blind to your deep misery. I have seen it, and, at times, feared that I might be the cause. I did not dare ask the cause. Feeling not myself that degradation and misery of which you speak, I did not know how much you suffered; but I should have known, had I not been blinded by passion, and by the false idea that man had a right to the indulgence of his passional nature whenever he wished it, and that, too, without regard to the feelings of his wife, or the welfare of the child that might ensue.