Try to understand me.
"But despair terrifies me--I who never have known it--and I do not understand how to meet it, how to cope with it in others, what to say or do.

Yet I would help if help is possible.

Is it?
"I think you have always thought me immature, young in experience, negligible as to wisdom, of an intellectual capacity inconsequential.
"These are the facts: I was married when I was very young, and I have known little of such happiness; but I have met sorrow and have conquered it, and I have seen bitter hours, and have overcome them, and I have been tempted, and have prevailed.

Have you done these things?
"As for wisdom, if it comes only with years, then I have everything yet to learn.

Yet it seems to me that in the charity wards of hospitals, in the city prisons, in the infirmary, the asylum--even the too brief time spent there has taught me something of human frailty and human sorrow.