I am concerned, ... no one cares less for a ‘will’ than I do (and this though I never had one, ... in clear opposition to your theory which holds generally nevertheless) for a will in the common things of life.  Every now and then there must of course be a crossing and vexation—­but in one’s mere pleasures and fantasies, one would rather be crossed and vexed a little than vex a person one loves ... and it is possible to get used to the harness and run easily in it at last; and there is a side-world to hide one’s thoughts in, and ‘carpet-work’ to be immoral on in spite of Mrs. Jameson, ... and the word ‘literature’ has, with me, covered a good deal of liberty as you must see ... real liberty which is never enquired into—­and it has happened throughout my life by an accident (as far as anything is accident) that my own sense of right and happiness on any important point of overt action, has never run contrariwise to the way of obedience required of me ... while in things not exactly overt, I and all of us are apt to act sometimes up to the limit of our means of acting, with shut doors and windows, and no waiting for cognisance or permission.  Ah—­and that last is the worst of it all perhaps! to be forced into concealments from the heart naturally nearest to us; and forced away from the natural source of counsel and strength!—­and then, the disingenuousness—­the cowardice—­the ’vices of slaves’!—­and everyone you see ... all my brothers, ... constrained bodily into submission ... apparent submission at least ... by that worst and most dishonouring of necessities, the necessity of living, everyone of them all, except myself, being dependent in money-matters on the inflexible will ... do you see?  But what you do not see, what you cannot see, is the deep tender affection behind and below all those patriarchal ideas of governing grown up children ’in the way they must go!’ and there never was (under the strata) a truer affection in a father’s heart ... no, nor a worthier heart in itself ... a heart loyaller and purer, and more compelling to gratitude and reverence, than his, as I see it!  The evil is in the system—­and he simply takes it to be his duty to rule, and to make happy according to his own views of the propriety of happiness—­he takes it to be his duty to rule like the Kings of Christendom, by divine right.  But he loves us through and through it—­and I, for one, love him! and when, five years ago, I lost what I loved best in the world beyond comparison and rivalship ... far better than himself as he knew ... for everyone who knew me could not choose but know what was my first and chiefest affection ... when I lost that, ...  I felt that he stood the nearest to me on the closed grave ... or by the unclosing sea ...  I do not know which nor could ask.  And I will tell you that not only he has been kind and patient and forbearing to me through the tedious trial of this illness (far