This expectation will now
be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply
my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from
you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you
all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to
resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting
you in another world."
She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death.
I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent
by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the
soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so
long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day
and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed
forever--that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been
extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear
can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of
the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the
evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has
not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I
describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at
length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and
the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a
sacrilege, is not banished.
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