Dear Truth,
I wish I could say it was always pleasant to hear from you. Of course I miss our days together in the tower, but you always knew I couldn't be happy there, sitting around. Now, out on the barricades—why, I could almost be happy, if it weren't for your carping in my ears. This is why I haven't written until now.
Why do you hurt me this way? You tell me that I'm powerless against time and against nature. You remind me that bad will keep on happening even if I root out evil. You tell me how many people like Beauty better than me. But isn't the youngest sister always spoiled? A lot of people don't like you either, and for good reason.
You ruin happy families. You try your hardest to show your sisters up or put us down; and you do it well, with words that cut our clothing into shreds. Naked, Beauty may get by all right. But no one wants to see Goodness in the nude. I'm hard, and I'm emaciated, and I'm so good people get scared that they can never live up to me. But if you would keep quiet and let me do my work in dignity, even in disguise, I could get a lot more done and be a lot happier.
I do need you, Sister; and I do miss you when I plunge this far into battle; it is even a comfort to know that you are there, keeping the tower in order and making the books of use—
But for now, since you won't come out to help me (and I know you probably can't) I wish you would please shut up and not write to me for a while.
I love you, really I do.
Goodness
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