"MY DEAR MARY,--
"I cannot leave you so. I have about two hundred things to say to you,
and it's a shame I could not have had longer to see you; but blessed be
ink and paper! I am writing and seeing to fifty things besides; so you
mustn't wonder if my letter has rather a confused appearance.
"I have been thinking that perhaps I gave you a wrong impression of
myself, this afternoon. I am going to speak to you from my heart, as if
I were confessing on my death-bed. Well, then, I do not confess to
being what is commonly called a bad young man. I should be willing that
men of the world generally, even strict ones, should look my life
through and know all about it. It is only in your presence, Mary, that
I feel that I am bad and low and shallow and mean, because you
represent to me a sphere higher and holier than any in which I have
ever moved, and stir up a sort of sighing and longing in my heart to
come towards it. In all countries, in all temptations, Mary, your image
has stood between me and low, gross vice. When I have been with fellows
roaring drunken, beastly songs,--suddenly I have seemed to see you as
you used to sit beside me in the singing-school, and your voice has
been like an angel's in my ear, and I have got up and gone out sick and
disgusted.
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