Mary! Mary!
I idolized her while she lived; I idolize her memory.
For her sake all women are sacred to me, even the lowest and most
depraved and God-forsaken. They always found a helping friend in _her_.
How can I pay a fitting tribute to one so near to me--nearer than any
woman can ever have been to any man?
I know her mind as I know my own! No two human souls can ever have
interpenetrated each other as ours have done, or we should have heard of
it. Every thought she ever had from her childhood to her death has been
revealed--every thought of mine! Living as we did, it was inevitable.
The touch of a finger was enough to establish the strange circuit, and
wake a common consciousness of past and present, either hers or mine.
And oh, how thankful am I that some lucky chance has preserved me,
murderer and convict as I am, from anything she would have found it
impossible to condone!
I try not to think that shyness and poverty, ungainliness and social
imbecility combined, have had as much to do as self-restraint and
self-respect in keeping me out of so many pitfalls that have been fatal
to so many men better and more gifted than myself.
I try to think that her extraordinary affection, the chance result of a
persistent impression received in childhood, has followed me through
life without my knowing it, and in some occult, mysterious way has kept
me from thoughts and deeds that would have rendered me unworthy, even in
her too indulgent eyes.
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