As my eyes fell on the superscription the blood leapt into my face--
it was Howard's. There was a strong disinclination in me to take up
the letter, to read it, to let my thoughts flow in his direction at
all. Resolutely I had tried to banish the memory of him from my
mind, to utterly throw out his image from my recollection. The
thought of him was disagreeable, and therefore never welcomed.
The idea of one person cherishing, as the phrase is, hatred, envy,
or anger against another, always seems to me incomprehensible. All
these are unpleasant sensations, and I sweep them out of my mind as
quickly as I possibly can, not from any exalted motives, but simply
as useless, cumbering lumber, for which I decline to use my brain at
a storehouse. Howard had injured me enough.
Was I to waste my time and my energies in hating him? And yet the
time had not come when I could think of him with calm indifference.
Therefore, to scout the idea of him whenever it presented itself, to
refuse to dwell upon him and what he had inflicted on me, was the
only way to escape additional pain and discomfort for myself. And
now, at sight of his handwriting, the beast, the monster of
declining hate rose in me again, and I remembered him.
It came back upon me that evening, his image, and I knew that I
hated him still. I took up the letter with a feeling of revolt and
disgust, as if it had been a filthy object, broke it open, and
read:--
"DEAR VICTOR,--I expect you will say to yourself it is the greatest
cheek my writing to you, and I know it is, but I am reduced to that
state of desperation when a man ceases to feel degradation.
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