Then it was that the real
nature of its contents was brought home to her, and she determined
to act. It has been said that she only "half understood" what she
read. Alas! she understood but too well, for here was the nameless
horror which she had tried to track to earth leaping up again and
staring her in the face. She knew well enough what interpretations
her husband's enemies--those enemies whom even the grave does not
silence--would place upon this book; how they would turn and twist
it about, and put the worst construction upon his motives, and so
blur the fair mirror of his memory. Burton wrote as a scholar and
an ethnologist writing to scholars and ethnologists. But take what
precautions he would, sooner or later, and sooner rather than later
the character of his book would ooze out to the world, and the ignorant
world judges harshly. So she burnt the manuscript leaf by leaf; and
by the act she consummated her life sacrifice of love.
I repeat that her regard for her husband's memory was her supreme reason
for this act. That there were minor reasons is not denied: she herself
has stated them. There was the thought of the harm a book of this kind
might do; there was the thought of her responsibility to God and man;
there was the thought of the eternal welfare of her husband's soul.
She has stated, "It is my belief that by this act, if my husband's soul
were weighed down, the cords were cut, and it was left free to soar to
its native heaven.
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