books to read, and plans to draw,
and subjects to discuss, and called me severely to task when
my eye was abstracted, and my manner listless. As long as he
spoke to me of his affection,--as long as he listened, with
fond delight, to the words of love which I addressed to him,--
I forgot every painful thought, every fear, and every regret,
in the happiness of the moment; but as soon as my attention
was forced away from ourselves, and directed to abstract
subjects, it wandered to the thousand objects of alarm and
disquietude which compassed me about.

When Edward spoke to me of establishing family prayers in our
house, I tremblingly objected. I went to church as often as he
did; but always let him draw near to the altar alone; for,
unforgiven, unabsolved, unreconciled, I dared not approach it.

On the Sunday which we spent at Hampstead, and on which this
occurred, I wandered about the churchyard in solitary
wretchedness, as if a spirit of evil had possession of me, and
kept me away

"From Mercy's inmost shrine."

When Edward joined me again, he was low and depressed; there
was a struggle in his countenance, and we walked home in
silence.

In the evening, as I was sitting writing in my own room, he
came in; there was a deep shade of gloom in his face; and when
I knelt by his side, and threw my arms round his neck he
disengaged himself from me, and, leaning his head on his hand,
said, with a voice of emotion, "I little thought when we
married, that on the most sacred of all subjects, we felt so
differently."

I drew from my bosom a paper, on which I had been writing the
following lines, and held it out to him:--

"Self-banished, self-condemned, I stand alone,
And the closed doors between us seem to rise
In judgment and in wrath: a dull hard stone
Is in my breast; a cloud before my eyes.
I kneel; but my clasped hands are raised in vain;
They sink, weighed down by mem'ry's spell again.
My soul is mute, no melodies arise;
No sacred accents, from her shattered chords;
And speechless prayers alone, in broken sighs,
Struggle for utterance, and find no words.
But is there not a strange mysterious cry,
A mute appeal in each unconscious sigh--
A silent prayer in every secret tear,
Which man discerns not, but which God will hear?"

Edward gave me back the paper, and said coldly, "Poetry is not
religion; and sentiment is not piety."

"But they may lead to them, Edwar