"This morning I feel a little better, and can dwell more upon my darling's being perfected, upon the restoration of all her powers, upon her reunion to those she loved in former times of her life; and I have a perfect treasure-store in my journals for years of her sacred words of blessing, and advice, and thought for me, many of them, I know, intended to be my comfort now.
"I will send you many of the letters about her. I wonder why people should dread letters of sympathy. To me the letters are nothing, but what I long for is not to hear that people sympathise with me, but to know how they loved her.
"To-day it is thick snow. Oh! she would have been so ill; now she is not ill."
"Tuesday evening, Nov. 15.—To-day a change came over the dear face—a look of unspeakable repose and beauty such as I never saw on any face before. The servants told me of it, and so it was; it is the most wonderful expression—serene, solemn, holy beauty.
"All the letters are a great—not comfort—nothing can ever be that, but I like to see how she was loved, and I look forward to them. There were thirty to-day, and yet I thought no one could know. What comes home to one is simple sympathy. One cannot help envying the people who can be comforted in real sorrow by what one may call Evangelical topics. It seems so perfectly irrelative to hear that 'man is born to trouble,' that 'it is God that chasteneth,' &c.
"I recollect now that on Saturday morning I was obliged to send off some proof-sheets.[432] She asked what I was doing, and then said, 'I shall so enjoy reading it when it is all finished, but I must have my little desk out then, because I shall not be able to hold the book.' We have only just remembered this, which proves that there must have been a slight rally then. It was all so short, so bewildering at last, that things will only come back gradually.
"I shall be glad when the incessant noise of workmen[433] downstairs ceases. It is so incongruous in the house now, but could not be helped. My darling did not mind it; indeed it seems to me, on looking back, as if she never found fault with anything; often she did not hear it, and when she did, 'I like that pleasant sound,' she said."
"Nov. 16.—There were forty letters to-day, many wanting answers, so I can only write a little, but it is a comfort to me to send you any memories of those precious last days as they occur to me, and as the first mist of anguish clears up, so many things recur.
"You asked about Romo. Indeed it overwhelms me to think of it. The dear little beast is so touching in his attempts to comfort me. He comes and licks my hand and rubs himself against me, as he never was in the habit of doing. In the first sad moments after the dear eyes closed, Lea, by an old Northern custom, would send down to 'tell the dog and the bees' (the bees would have died, she thinks, if they had not been told), and Romo understood it all, and did not howl, but cried plaintively all morning.
"I forget whether I spoke of the music. For the last four days my darling had said at intervals that she heard beautiful music. Thursday and Friday I thought nothing of it; on Saturday it began to have a solemn meaning.