" I saw my sister Susan, now a
tall handsome woman, but become all rigid, sour, with coarse grim lips, and
that crushed, self-conscious, reserved, almost dishonest look about the
eyes, common to fanatics of every creed. I heard her cold farewell, as she
put into my hands certain notes and diaries of my mother's, which she had
bequeathed to me on her death-bed. I heard myself proclaimed inheritor of
some small matters of furniture, which had belonged to her; told Susan
carelessly to keep them for herself; and went forth, fancying that the
curse of Cain was on my brow.
I took home the diary; but several days elapsed before I had courage to
open it. Let the words I read there be as secret as the misery which
dictated them. I had broken my mother's heart!--no! I had not!--The
infernal superstition which taught her to fancy that Heaven's love was
narrower than her own--that God could hate his creature, not for its sins,
but for the very nature which he had given it--that, that had killed her.
And I remarked too, with a gleam of hope, that in several places where
sunshine seemed ready to break through the black cloud of fanatic
gloom--where she seemed inclined not merely to melt towards me (for there
was, in every page, an under-current of love deeper than death, and
stronger than the grave), but also to dare to trust God on my behalf--whole
lines carefully erased page after page torn out, evidently long after the
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