As I am now setting down, without much order or connection, the
lessons which I had to learn, I may perhaps be excused if I add one
or two others. I can say of them all, that they are not book
lessons. They have been taught me by my own experience, and as a
rule I have always found that in my own most special perplexities I
got but little help from books or other persons. I had to find out
for myself what was for me the proper way of dealing with them.
My love for Ellen was great, but I discovered that even such love as
this could not be left to itself. It wanted perpetual cherishing.
The lamp, if it was to burn brightly, required daily trimming, for
people became estranged and indifferent, not so much by open quarrel
or serious difference, as by the intervention of trifles which need
but the smallest, although continuous effort for their removal. The
true wisdom is to waste no time over them, but to eject them at once.
Love, too, requires that the two persons who love one another shall
constantly present to one another what is best in them, and to
accomplish this, deliberate purpose, and even struggle, are
necessary. If through relapse into idleness we do not attempt to
bring soul and heart into active communion day by day, what wonder if
this once exalted relationship become vulgar and mean?
I was much overworked.
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