Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 48, Vol. I, November 29, 1884

No. 48.—Vol. I.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1884.
‘In Memory of Theodore. Died November the 20th, 18—, aged three years,’ I am not going to tell you about the tragedy this little life represented, and how much suffering and how many tears lie buried with my darling. I put all that away—all useless regrets, all vain repining, when I laid him under two great pine-trees, looking straight to the south, where the morning sun peeps earliest in faint yellow streaks, and the broad arms of the firs are ever held lovingly over the little head, and shelter away alike the drifting snow and summer heat—where the thrushes and blackbirds sing their matins and vespers. They and the pink chaffinches, and bold-eyed sparrows, come half-timidly, half-hardily, with their little shy feet, close to mine, where I sit alone by my lamb—Rachel weeping for her dead.
As time, God’s true physician, softened my grief, and yet drew me to spend many hours where all was buried that could have pieced together a broken life and broken heart, I became gradually interested in the great company of the dead lying round, and anxious to learn some word of the lives and histories, even of those whose birth and death-date make up all the world shall ever write of them.
Right and left of my baby lie an old man and a young girl; he, a wealthy, honoured merchant, who had lived ninety years of prosperous and successful existence. His tomb is of gray marble; the letters are cut well and deeply; all its cold grandeur is perfectly kept up in unsurpassed cleanliness and order; but no one ever comes to put a flower on his grave. The other grave, young Bessie’s, is also neglected, though in a different way. The letters are fading fast from the crooked headstone; and the ivy that has crept round it is so tangled, that before long the little tomb will be quite covered. Bessie was sixteen years old, and went to her rest in the glowing July of 1851, when the fairy palace of Hyde Park, sparkling in its glory, promised, but did not fulfil, the commencement of a long reign of peace and good-will to all the nations of the earth. Where are now those, I wonder, who left Bessie here!