for the
health of the latter.] Will you not come back from the ends of the earth
that I may not find the turret-chamber empty, and the Dell without its
dear mistress at Ardgillan?

Dear H----, I shall surely see you, if I live, in less than a year, when
we shall have so much to say to each other that we shall not know where
to begin, and had better not begin, perhaps; for we shall know still
less where to stop.

Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.

BRANCHTOWN, October 31st, 1835.
MY DEAREST H----,

I wonder where this will find you, and how long it will be before it
does so. I have been away from home nearly a month, and on my return
found a long letter from you waiting for me.... I cannot believe that
women were intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as helpless as
they are, in child-bearing. In spite of the third chapter of Genesis, I
cannot believe [the beneficent action of ether had not yet mitigated the
female portion of the primeval curse] that all the agony and debility
attendant upon the entrance of a new creature into life were ordained;
but rather that both are the consequences of our many and various abuses
of our constitutions, and infractions of God's natural laws.

The mere items of tight stays, tight garters, tight shoes, tight
waistbands, tight arm-holes, and tight bodices,--of which we are
accustomed to think little or nothing, and under the bad effects of
which, most young women's figures are suffered to attain their growth,
both here and in civilized Europe,--must have a tendency to injure
irreparably the compressed parts, to impede circulation and respiration,
and in many ways which we are not aware of, as well as by the more
obvious evils which they have been proved to produce, destroy the health
of the system, affect disastrously all its functions, and must aggravate
the pains and perils of child-bearing.... Many women here, when they
become mothers, seem to lose looks, health, and strength, and are mere
wrecks, libels upon the great Creator's most wonderful contrivance, the
human frame, which, in their instance, appears utterly unfit for the
most important purpose for which He designed it. Pitiable women!
comparatively without enjoyment or utility in existence. Of course, this
result is attributable to many various causes, and admits of plenty of
ind