I suffered
so much, that I feared we should never get home without some
fatal catastrophe. Never was I more relieved than when, as we
came up the hill, the moon suddenly shone forth. It was ten
o'clock, and here every human sound is hushed, and lamp put
out at that hour. How tenderly the grapes and tall corn-ears
glistened and nodded! and the trees stretched out their
friendly arms, and the scent of every humblest herb was like a
word of love. The waves, also, at that moment put on a silvery
gleam, and looked most soft and regretful. That was a real
voice from nature.'
* * * * *
'_February_, 1842.--I am deeply sad at the loss of little
Waldo, from whom I hoped more than from almost any living
being. I cannot yet reconcile myself to the thought that the
sun shines upon the grave of the beautiful blue-eyed boy, and
I shall see him no more.
'Five years he was an angel to us, and I know not that any
person was ever more the theme of thought to me. As I walk the
streets they swarm with apparently worthless lives, and the
question will rise, why he, why just he, who "bore within
himself the golden future," must be torn away? His father
will meet him again; but to me he seems lost, and yet that is
weakness.
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