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Show 65 from my sickness. 0 may I realize and appreciate the many blessings that I possess and 0 what a treasure I possess in my darling little girl.22 Before leaving Ellis's first year of journal keeping, it may be appropriate to ponder a few points. Throughout her seven-year record, she makes no attempt to distinguish between ordinary illness and the health problems which may be associated with pregnancy. Is it because such a distinction has not yet been made in the medical world? Is there a fashionable reticence preventing her from using the term, "pregnancy?" In checking the birth dates of Ellis's children against her allusions to poor health, once is forced to conclude that in only three of her 23 references to her own poor health could she have been carrying any of her children. As she never mentioned pregnancy as a probable cause of her sickness, we cannot rule out the possibility of, at least in some instances, pregnancy which resulted in miscarriage. Ellis's preoccupation with being a good wife should not be attributed entirely to an insecurity attending the sharing of her husband with his other wives, nor to intimidation by Milford. The tenor of the times is partially responsible. Other influences: her personality, her own family's integrity, her role models among friends and acquaintances, all weight the scales toward her desire to be all that she can be to her husband, whose complete authority within his own household she never questions. In her own time, and even before, there had been such examples of "greatness, nobleness, intelligence, and worth," that |