To W.M. Thackeray, Esq. This work is respectfully inscribed, by The Author
First words
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
Quotations
Reader, I married him.
I could not answer the ceaseless inward question - why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of - I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.
Do you think because I am poor, obscure plain and little that I am souless and heartless? You think wrong. I have a much soul as you and full as much heart, and if God had granted me some beauty and much wealth I should have made it as hard for you to leave me as it is now for me to leave you.
But I tell you -- and you may mark my words -- you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current -- as I am now.
Last words
'My Master,' he says, 'has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly,—"Surely I come quickly!" and hourly I more eagerly respond,—"Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!"'
Please keep the Norton Critical Edition books un-combined with the rest of them - it is significantly different with thorough explanatory annotations and with essays by other authors.
