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CHAPTER "IfYou Could Love Me So" nny Adams and Lawrence Chamberlain met for the first time as toddlers ! on their mothers' knees, when Sarah Ann Folsom Adams was visiting Rev. Adams' relatives in Bangor. Mother Chamberlain recalled that, although Fanny was several years older than her son, Lawrence was the same size as the Adams' petite adopted daughter. But it was in the choir of Rev. Adams' Brunswick church that Lawrence first felt the "mystery" of Fanny Adams' presence . That fall of 1850, he witnessed the slim figure of the minister's daughter seated at the church organ, and beneath her skilled hands, "soft strains breathe forth, or swell into loud, triumphant chords." She possessed a voice that made the songs she sang peculiarly hers. And the discovery that a pair of "soulful" brown eyes grew bright with a quick and active intellect, convinced Lawrence Chamberlain that he must make Fanny Adams his own.1 Casual observers no doubt wondered at the audacity of the Bowdoin junior who paid court to the talented Miss Adams. With all her accomplishments, and her ambitions and goals in art and music, Fanny Adams did not appear anxious to marry. In fact, Fanny, at 25, was somewhatflusteredby the attentions of a 22 year old student who was hardly in a position to consider a serious relationship. Though he was subject to agonies of uncertainty about his chances of success, court her he did.2 In early 1851, Brunswick friends were unaware that he had declared himself to Fanny. After one evening with friends passed without them speaking to one another , Lawrence wrote to her in a state of despair: I could not bear to come awayfrom you tonight and not have you speak to me...not to the silly clown that I seem, but to the heart dark and dead within me. It cannot be deadfor it would be still and there is no restfor it now. What am I livingfor and what am I doing. Will I not be driven mad. I turned away before you should see my tears, for I am sick of weak tears and I could not stayfor it would trouble you. It is enough that I amfull of such furious agonies, that I can only smile like a driveling idiot, to save myself from being a maniac. I am tempted and tormented by the old adversary, clutching at my heart and torturing it, murdering it and glorying over it with a devilish grimace. Why do I have a super natural impulse to read the minutest action and word, and contend with most powerful imaginings of my own fancy. I see with grief how you have to sacrifice to my unreasonable demands and I see how you try not to be too cheerful in company when I am looking at you. Try not to satisfy me, for I am all unreasonable, but I require of you all that I would give and can give you myself, and thank heavens, you do not know how much that is. I do not want you to try, for I do not have to try, for Ifeel always and everywhere the same to you. I am ready to show you how tenderly I care for you, but I know you would not like that, and you are right. Believing you do not understand me is the most charitable belief I can have, and I cling to the hope that at some time you will see but one single glimpse of me and know me. If I had not seen you that night, I would have spoken tenderly, and would not have suffered the demon to speak. If you could only have... but then it was I who let you go away as ifyou were nobody to me. I cling to you with the eager grasp of a sinking man, so earnestly hoping that you might only kiss me. Am I mad. What am I saying ? Must I bear it long ? It may be soon that the last dagger may be driven. How strange it will be to be at peace.3 No coy or cautious suitor, Fanny could have little doubt as to her admirer's tormented preoccupations. His apologetic acknowledgement of an unreasonable jealousy, his "demon," as he candidly admitted in this letter, is a theme that runs through a number of Lawrence's early letters. To Fanny, such thinly-veiled expressions of insecurity in one she found gifted and admirable were...

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