'Her means, though small, were large enough to allow her to do most of her work gratuitously, but she received sufficient pecuniary compensation during the year to enable her to provide well for herself and give much to others.
'In pursuing the duties of her vocation, she came in contact at one time or another with almost every kind of misery, and though, from familiarity, she ceased to be shocked at new forms of suffering, yet she never became hardened, but each year grew more tender and sympathizing.
'In due time the practical workings of the great sin of the nineteenth century came under her observation. She talked with fugitive slaves, and all the pent-up fire within her burst forth in intense indignation. She had not thought of the question before—it had not been in her way; but now every feeling, her love of God, her love of country, her great interest in human rights and destinies, conspired to make her throw her whole soul into it, and she saw slavery as it is, its intense wickedness and its fearful results. She looked with dismay at its effect upon the country, its 'trail' upon everything in it, on church, on politics, on society, on commerce, on manufactures, on education. There was nothing which had not been corrupted by it—it was fast eating into the vitals of religion and liberty. The more she studied the subject the more earnest grew her feeling. But what should she do? She had not lost self-love, that passion which never deserts us; but she had lost its glamour—eyes that have wept much see clear—and she knew that the least valuable offering which a woman without good looks, high position, or great talent, can make to an unpopular cause, is—herself. So far from her conspicuous support of a new thing being an encouragement and assistance to others, it would be a hindrance: fear of being identified with her would be another lion to be encountered in the path.
'She loved her cause better than she loved herself, and would not make it more odious by any marked advocacy of it. It was a new trial to her, but she did not murmur. One who in early youth has rebelled against the very laws by which he has his existence, and has become reconciled, does not go through life hitting his head against every projection which society thrusts in his way. She did what she could. She cleared herself, as far as possible, from all participation in the sin, gladly avowed her views when called upon, and never hesitated to show, by suitable words and acts, her sympathy with a despised people. Yet she could not accomplish much. But if she did little for the cause, it did a great deal for her. It broadened her life, enlarged her views, increased her comprehension of the world's progress as revealed in history, and brought her into closer sympathy with reformers of all ages. It gave her a perpetual object of interest. It was like a great drama, whose acts were years and whose scenes were continually passing before her. It gave a new zest to life, made this world more real, and diminished her longings for the next. In narrowing her friendships it made them more vital and satisfactory; and being in communion with hundreds of other minds in the country, reading their thoughts became almost like personal intercourse with them, and was a new happiness to her. Studying daily a subject of such vast complications, her mind perceptibly grew, and from year to year she was able to grasp new and higher truths. She gained the hatred of a few clear-sighted opponents, but most persons only ridiculed her, contemptuously wondering why she should pursue this course when her interest lay so clearly the other way. But she was now far beyond the reach of such weapons.
'I have given you, thus, a sketch of the history and character of Laetitia, but I cannot reproduce her as she appears to my own mind. You must fill up the outlines from your own personal knowledge. I fear I have rendered her too intense, and, perhaps, too sombre. Intense she certainly was, but it did not oppress one in ordinary intercourse; and she was not at all sombre. After she recovered fully from her youthful grief, her elasticity of temperament returned, and her love of fun. She looked on the bright side of all things, and was full of encouragement and hope for her friends. To me, besides being, during the last five years particularly, a valuable friend and adviser—no one but myself can know how valuable—she was always an interesting companion. And yet she was not generally liked. She was seldom understood. Her life was so deep, her tone of thought so peculiar; and her dependence upon the opinions of others so slight, that persons ordinarily could not 'make her out,' as they said. Still she had very warm friends, and derived great pleasure from their friendship. I have never seen any one derive more. But she distrusted strangers; I mean their interest in her. She did not expect new persons to care for her, and it took her a long while to be sure that they did. I must myself confess, for the first and last time, that until within two or three years I never met her after an absence without being newly impressed with her exceeding homeliness. It was a sin against friendship, I knew, and I was glad when I felt I was free from it.'
'It was not so with me,' I said. 'After I became accustomed to her face it never affected me unpleasantly. I did not see the features, but the spirit which animated them.'
'Yes, you were with her continually, and, besides, she must have been so completely identified in your mind with the relief of pain, that you could think of her only as an angel of mercy. It was a great advantage to her that she was always scrupulously neat in her dress and person; and her clothes, too, were well put on, if without a great deal of taste.
'Upon the whole, her life was a happy one, though not perhaps triumphant except in periods of exaltation, for there was a large part of her nature unsatisfied; but she was thoroughly contented, willingly living as long as was necessary, glad to go whenever the time came. She never expected to die young, but she did; she was only thirty-six.'
'She seemed older,' I said.
'Yes, she always looked older than she was, and then she had lived so much that she necessarily impressed one as being old.