I felt that I might escape the ordeal of
public scorn and pity; that I might bid the world and its falsehood
defiance, and end, by one manly effort, the agony of an existence whose
every breath was torment.
"My resolution was fixed. 'I will never see another morrow!' I said,
sternly, but with a calmness which almost astonished me. Indeed, I
seemed gifted with a supernatural firmness, as I made my arrangements
for the last day of suffering which I was to endure. A few friends had
been invited to dine with me, and I prepared to meet them. They came at
the hour appointed with smiling faces and warm and friendly greetings;
and I received them as if nothing had happened, with even a more
enthusiastic welcome than was my wont.
"Oh! it is terrible to smile when the heart is breaking! to talk
lightly and freely and mirthfully, when every feeling of the mind is
wrung with unutterable agony; to mingle in the laugh and in the gay
volleys of convivial fellowship,
'With the difficult utterance of one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down.'
"Yet all this I endured, hour after hour, until my friends departed and I
had pressed their hands as at a common parting, while my heart whispered
an everlasting farewell!
"It was late when they left me. I walked out to look for the last time
upon Nature in her exceeding beauty.
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