rs--her inseparable companions.
She may have been out of the reach of these S. W. N. W. gales, before
they began to blow, or they may have spent their fury on land, and not
ruffled the sea much. If it has been otherwise, she has been sorely
tossed, while we have been sleeping in our beds, or lying awake thinking
about her. Yet these real, material dangers, when once past, leave in
the mind the satisfaction of having struggled with difficulty, and
overcome it. Strength, courage, and experience are their invariable
results; whereas, I doubt whether suffering purely mental has any good
result, unless it be to make us by comparison less sensitive to physical
suffering . . . Ten years ago, I should have laughed at your account of
the blunder you made in mistaking the bachelor doctor for a married man.
I should have certainly thought you scrupulous over-much, and wondered
how you could possibly regret being civil to a decent individual, merely
because he happened to be single, instead of double. Now, however, I can
perceive that your scruples are founded on common sense. I know that if
women wish to escape the stigma of husband-seeking, they must act and
look like marble or clay--cold, expressionless, bloodless; for every
appearance of feeling, of joy, sorrow, friendliness, antipathy,
admiration, disgust, are alike construed by the world into the attempt to
hook a husband. Never mind! well-meaning women have their own
consciences to comfort them after all. Do not, therefore, be too much
afraid of showing yourself as you are, affectionate and good-hearted; do
not too harshly repress sentiments and feelings excellent in themselves,
because you fear that some puppy may fancy that you are letting them come
out to fascinate him; do not condemn yourself to live only by halves,
because if you showed too much animation some pragmatical thing in
breeches might take it into his pate to imagine that you designed to
dedicate your life to his inanity. Still, a composed, decent, equable
deportment is a capital treasure to a woman, and that you possess. Write
again soon, for I feel rather fierce, and want stroking down."

"June 13th, 1845.

"As to the Mrs. ---, who, you say, is like me, I somehow feel no
leaning to her at all. I never do to people who are said to be like
me, because I have always a notion that they are only like me in the
disagreeable, outside, first-acquaintance part of my character; in
those p