A sentence in the first of these letters deserves to be noted as affording a key to one side of her character, namely:  “the depressing sense of inferiority which was born with me.”  All her earlier years were shadowed by this morbid feeling; nor was she ever quite free from its influence.  It was, probably, at once a cause and an effect of the sensitive shyness that clung to her to the last.  Perhaps, too, it grew in part out of her irrepressible craving for love, coupled with utter incredulity about herself possessing the qualities which rendered her so lovable.  “It is one of the faults of my character,” she wrote, “to fancy that nobody cares for me.”

When, dear Anna, I had taken my last look at the last familiar face in Portland (I fancy you know whose face it was) I became quite as melancholy as I ever desire to be, even on the principle that “by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.”  I dare say you never had a chance to feel, and therefore will not be able to understand, the depressing sense of inferiority which was born with me, which grew with my growth and strengthened with my strength, and which, though somewhat repressed of late years, gets the mastery very frequently and makes me believe myself the most unlovable of beings.  It was with this feeling that I left home and journeyed hither, wondering why I was made, and if anybody on earth will ever be a bit the happier for it, and whether I shall ever learn where to put myself in the scale of being.  This is not humility, please take notice—­for humility is contented, I think, with such things as it hath.

To Miss Anna S. Prentiss.  Richmond, Nov. 26, 1842

When I reached Richmond last night, tired and dusty and stupefied, I felt a good deal like crawling away into some cranny and staying there the rest of my life; but this morning, when I had remembered mother’s existence and yours and that of some one or two others, I felt more disposed to write than anything else.  Your note was a great comfort to me during two and a half hours at Portsmouth, and while on my journey.  I thought pages to you in reply.  How I should love to have you here in Richmond, even if I could only see you once a month, or know only that you were here and never see you!  With many most kind friends about me, I still shall feel very keenly the separation from you.  There is nobody here to whom I can speak confidingly, and my hidden spirit will have to sit with folded wings for eight months to come.  To whom shall I talk about you, pray?  On the way hither I fell in love with a little girl who also fell in love with me, and as I sat with her over our lonely fire at Philadelphia and in Washington, I could not help speaking of you now and then, till at last she suddenly looked up and asked me if you hadn’t a brother, which question effectually shut my mouth.  In a religious point of view I am sadly off here.  There is a different atmosphere in the house from what there used to be, and I look forward with some anxiety to the future.