Walpurga took down her mother's prayer-book and read the prayer for the soul of the departed.
After that, she handed me the book, and what I read there filled me with gratitude and devotion. When our feelings are most violently agitated, we cannot give definite shape to our ideas. We, too, sing melodies that have been arranged by others. Our lips repeat the words of poets who have sung and suffered for us; for the poet's heart, in truth, contains the New Jerusalem of civilization. The great gulf that separates man from the beast, the plant, or the stone, is the possession of sympathy, by means of which men are enabled to anticipate, or to follow, each other's emotions. From the beginning until now, humanity has been chanting an undying melody in which my voice, too, forms a part. An everlasting sun, of whose rays I am one, has been lighting the path from generation to generation. The silent mountains outlast the races of men and no new one is added to their number; but, from generation to generation, new watch-towers of thought arise from the soul of humanity.
A happy death is the greatest good. Wondrous power of religion! Over the couch of the sick, there are bell-pulls, reaching into heaven, by which the patient is enabled to draw himself up and support himself. He imagines them there, even in their absence, and, supported by faith, thinks that he is holding fast to them.
After the grandmother's death, a strange feeling of quiet rested on the house. It was a great comfort to Walpurga to know that there were so many people at the funeral.
"Yes, they all honored her; but they really didn't know her. You and I knew her. Do you remember, Hansei, when the potatoes were stolen from the field, and she said; 'If one only knew who stole them,' and I said: 'Mother, would you inform against them?' 'You foolish thing,' she answered, reproachfully, 'how could you think I'd mean that? What I mean is: if we only knew who the people are that stole our potatoes during the night. They must know that we have but little, ourselves; and they must be very unfortunate people, whom we ought to help as much as we can afford to.' Yes, she said that; was there ever another creature who'd think of such a thing? That's the way the saints must have been who thought so kindly of all. She had no fear of the sick, nor hatred of the wicked. Her only thought was, how much they must have suffered before they got so sick or so wicked. If I could only grow to be like her. Remind me of it all, Irmgard, when I get cross and scold. You'll help me, won't you? to become like my mother, so that, some day, my children will think of me as I do of her. Ah! if one were only always as good as one can be. Yes, she was right when she used to say: 'Wishing in the one hand and blowing into the other, amount to about the same thing.'"
I shall now return to my work. At such times, there is hardship and yet comfort in labor. Hansei and Walpurga are obliged to work. They cannot afford to give themselves up to grief, for too much depends on them. Be it with king or beggar, poet or peasant, the key-note of the highest emotions is always the same.
Walpurga's lament was pitched in the same key as that of Lear for Cordelia, and yet how different. To a father who loses his child, the future is dead. To a child losing a parent, the past is dead. Ah! how weak is language.