what will befall Justin, before you meet him again, nor over what will befall you. Use wisely the time that God has taken pains to interpose between you. Thus my advice is: to prepare yourself for the art academy in Philadelphia, when the opportunity shall present itself for you to go there. Such action will preclude no further decision—and the reverse cannot be said.
And please forgive me if I sound coarse, or prudish, or as if I mistrust your virtue—but if this man should by any chance return before the War’s end, I beg of you, remember how easily a woman’s freedom can be lost! Much as I adore my Darling-Who-Is-To-Be-Born, I know that, whatever happens to Emory in this war, I must now take Her into account, in what I myself can choose to do, henceforth and forever.
I should not say this. I should say instead, “All my hunger for a life of learning vanished like the dew when first I guessed I would be a mother.” But it hasn’t. Sometimes I feel that I have been cheated, tricked, led into a trap—a trap whose barbs are forged out of love, so that escaping would bring more pain than remaining in its meshes.
Is this, then, what it is to be educated, to be trained like athletes for a race we will never be allowed to run? Beware of your heart, Susie!
There! I have said what I think! It is snowing still, and the wind and the cold and the darkness in this house render me prey to morbid reflection.
T HURSDAY , F EB . 27
It would help if I could believe spring would come soon. When I was at school, if there were no milk and no fresh vegetables—and we girls had been living on salt meat and salt fish and bread andcorn mush for close to a month with no end in sight—at least we didn’t have to go down to the cellar and see how low the supplies were getting. Such things could be readily bought. The Reach that separates Deer Isle from the mainland is frozen solid, the roads on the island impassable. There has been much sickness hereabouts, and many children have died. Few of Mother’s friends can visit. I feel more isolated than ever.
Yet before dawn this morning, crossing to the barn in a luminous world of silence and starlight, I saw a fox making his way over deep snow smooth and white as marble, homeward bound to his den in the woods. God’s creation, and innocent of human malice.
You will rejoice to hear that I have at last made the acquaintance of your friend Quasimodo the Hunchback, and Esmeralda the Gypsy, and all the others in that astonishing tale. They have helped me through many an endless night. Mother is right, when she says that in reading the Bible, one touches God’s hand, and so cannot ever be lonely or afraid. But sometimes one needs to touch the hands of one’s fellow humans. Since reading Mr. Dickens, and Miss Austen—and, I blush to report, Mrs. Radcliffe—now you know the depth of my depravity!—I have realized this about novels: they are like conversations, or acquaintanceships, that change us deeply by widening our experience. They are like
friends
. Naturally my father would warn me against unwholesome conversations, or against the sort of fascinating friends who would lead one into foolish acts by making them seem right and justified. Yet, to limit one’s friendships to the narrowest of like-minded circles is to become provincial, perhaps self-righteous … like too many people on this island!
I will send this to Mrs. Johnson in the hopes that she will know where to send it on to you. But, as I read that her husband was so vociferous in his demands for the invasion of Tennessee, I fear that some retaliation may force her from her home.
I pray that it finds you safe.
Your friend,
C
Susanna Ashford,
c/o Eliza Johnson, Greeneville, Tennessee
To
Cora Poole, Southeast Harbor
Deer Isle, Maine
W EDNESDAY , F EBRUARY 26, 1862
Dear Cora,
Charley Johnson brought news that the Federal Army entered Nashville yesterday. What this will mean I haven’t the least idea. Nor does anyone,
And please forgive me if I sound coarse, or prudish, or as if I mistrust your virtue—but if this man should by any chance return before the War’s end, I beg of you, remember how easily a woman’s freedom can be lost! Much as I adore my Darling-Who-Is-To-Be-Born, I know that, whatever happens to Emory in this war, I must now take Her into account, in what I myself can choose to do, henceforth and forever.
I should not say this. I should say instead, “All my hunger for a life of learning vanished like the dew when first I guessed I would be a mother.” But it hasn’t. Sometimes I feel that I have been cheated, tricked, led into a trap—a trap whose barbs are forged out of love, so that escaping would bring more pain than remaining in its meshes.
Is this, then, what it is to be educated, to be trained like athletes for a race we will never be allowed to run? Beware of your heart, Susie!
There! I have said what I think! It is snowing still, and the wind and the cold and the darkness in this house render me prey to morbid reflection.
T HURSDAY , F EB . 27
It would help if I could believe spring would come soon. When I was at school, if there were no milk and no fresh vegetables—and we girls had been living on salt meat and salt fish and bread andcorn mush for close to a month with no end in sight—at least we didn’t have to go down to the cellar and see how low the supplies were getting. Such things could be readily bought. The Reach that separates Deer Isle from the mainland is frozen solid, the roads on the island impassable. There has been much sickness hereabouts, and many children have died. Few of Mother’s friends can visit. I feel more isolated than ever.
Yet before dawn this morning, crossing to the barn in a luminous world of silence and starlight, I saw a fox making his way over deep snow smooth and white as marble, homeward bound to his den in the woods. God’s creation, and innocent of human malice.
You will rejoice to hear that I have at last made the acquaintance of your friend Quasimodo the Hunchback, and Esmeralda the Gypsy, and all the others in that astonishing tale. They have helped me through many an endless night. Mother is right, when she says that in reading the Bible, one touches God’s hand, and so cannot ever be lonely or afraid. But sometimes one needs to touch the hands of one’s fellow humans. Since reading Mr. Dickens, and Miss Austen—and, I blush to report, Mrs. Radcliffe—now you know the depth of my depravity!—I have realized this about novels: they are like conversations, or acquaintanceships, that change us deeply by widening our experience. They are like
friends
. Naturally my father would warn me against unwholesome conversations, or against the sort of fascinating friends who would lead one into foolish acts by making them seem right and justified. Yet, to limit one’s friendships to the narrowest of like-minded circles is to become provincial, perhaps self-righteous … like too many people on this island!
I will send this to Mrs. Johnson in the hopes that she will know where to send it on to you. But, as I read that her husband was so vociferous in his demands for the invasion of Tennessee, I fear that some retaliation may force her from her home.
I pray that it finds you safe.
Your friend,
C
Susanna Ashford,
c/o Eliza Johnson, Greeneville, Tennessee
To
Cora Poole, Southeast Harbor
Deer Isle, Maine
W EDNESDAY , F EBRUARY 26, 1862
Dear Cora,
Charley Johnson brought news that the Federal Army entered Nashville yesterday. What this will mean I haven’t the least idea. Nor does anyone,
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