"I have never asked you whether you remember your mother. Had you at
any time broached the subject, I should have spoken quite freely to
you on it; but as some wise instinct led you to avoid it, I was
content to let it rest until circumstances such as the present
should render further reserve unnecessary. If any regret at having
known so little of the woman who gave you birth troubles you, shake
it off without remorse. She was the most disagreeable person I ever
knew. I speak dispassionately. All my bitter personal feeling
against her is as dead while I write as it will be when you read. I
have even come to cherish tenderly certain of her characteristics
which you have inherited, so that I confidently say that I never,
since the perishing of the infatuation in which I married, felt more
kindly toward her than I do now. I made the best, and she the worst,
of our union for six years; and then we parted. I permitted her to
give what account of the separation she pleased, and allowed her
about five times as much money as she had any right to expect. By
these means I induced her to leave me in undisturbed possession of
you, whom I had already, as a measure of precaution, carried off to
Belgium.
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