‘Feb. 1867.
‘I wish my sweet Leila to receive a few lines on her birthday.... Tempus fugit, indeed. When you open this you will be thirteen years old. It seems to me as if each year now were growing more and more important; the stream is widening; the mind is opening; and ... may the heart be opening too to that Love which is beyond all earthly love.
‘I had a pleasant childhood. My mind was very active, as well as my bodily frame; and at your age I dare say that life lay before me, a bright, hope-inspiring thing. It is well that it should be so; it is a kind arrangement of Providence that the young should be usually full of energy and hope. I like to recall how I felt, that I may enter into the feelings of others.
‘Now of course I have not exactly the same kind of landscape before me as I had at thirteen. I am in my forty-sixth year, have known care and sorrow, and have at present but feeble health. And yet, dear, I don’t want to exchange my landscape; I have no wish to go back. I have found that middle age has its deep joys, as well as early youth its sparkling ones. Sometimes I ask myself,—“Now, in my present position, if I had no pleasure in religion, if everything connected with that were cut off, what would be left me?—what would life be to me?” O Leila, what a tasteless, what a bitter thing! We want delights that will not grow old, that will never pall, that will be just as fresh and lovely at eighty as at eighteen. Religion is not merely, as some seem to fancy, to prepare us for death, but to be the happiness of life. It calls indeed for the sacrifice of self-will in a hundred little ways; but it repays those little sacrifices a hundred times over. Just think what it is to realise such thoughts as these,—“The Lord Jesus loves me! I am His own! I shall see Him one day, and be with Him!” How can such thoughts ever lose their sweetness?’
TO THE SAME.
‘April 28, 1867.
‘How different your still, noiseless dwelling must be to ours at present! Not that we have much noise, but sometimes so much seems going on. Yesterday M—— A—— D—— and a young cousin came in the morning; then before they had left Cousin M—— E—— and four fine children, then Uncle St. George and his wife. All this before luncheon; others came after it; and I went to the Poorhouse, and then lodging-hunting with Uncle St. George. He is so sweet and loving and good.... He delights Grandmamma.’
TO THE SAME.
‘July 1, 1867.
‘It is mournfully interesting to read my darling’s papers, of which L—— has brought home many. Her prose is usually lively; her poetry full of tenderness, often very sad.... The two latest dated poems were, I think, written August 14. They were called “An Early Grave” and “All is Vanity.” Every stanza of the first expresses desire for an early departure. The second thus beautifully closes—