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Show 72 power to accomplish so much good." The experience further motivates her to make herself "truly worthy of his truest and purest love and esteem." On another Sunday morning, two weeks later, her "spirits are depressed." It seems that, intending no wrong, she offended Milford in some manner which he characterized as "careless and inconsiderate." "How strange," she says, "that a single unwise action of a friend will cause us to forget many kind, noble and generous deeds of former years. Oh I see the need of charity not alone for others 5 but for myself." Ellis seems to be yearning for Milford's understanding. Is she also, in her general statement about "a single unwise act" perhaps referring to her own forgetting, through her husband's lack of charity, of many of his kind and generous deeds of former years? In the area of meriting her husband's approval, Ellis gains some ground near the end of July when, in "literary exercises" preliminary to a grand Retrenchment Ball, she delivers an original essay on retrenchment. With satisfying responses from others and Brigham Young's instructive and encouraging comments about retrenchment, what meant the most to Ellis was that her performance pleased her husband. "He encourages me to cultivate my talents, to study, write, and improve every moment of time, and he says he thinks I will be enabled to do good in the world. 0 may I be faithful, diligent and energetic." On August 5th Ellis, having previously been baptized for Kate, |
