"Since my sister's death," said he to me to-day, "I've had nothing but bad luck with my bees. They won't have anything more to do with me."
I have written nothing for months. For whom are these pages? Why do I torment my mind by recording every trifling incident or passing emotion? These questions unsettled and perplexed me, but now I am calm again. For months I have done nothing but work.
It seems to me that I must soon die, and yet I feel that I am in the fulness of my strength. I am often rendered uneasy by the thought that people trifle with my supposed madness.
At last I feel that my rest here was never complete, and that it might have been disturbed at any moment. But now, let what will come, I shall remain.
A storm! To us who note the sun, the moon, and every change of weather, a storm is quite a different affair from what it is to those who only look to see what weather it is when they are idle, or have a pleasure party in prospect.
One feels as if transported back to the time of creation, as if all were chaos once more; for the voice of the Infinite is heard in the thunder, and His glory blazes forth in the lightning.
At a public gaming-table, while the thunder was pealing and the lightning flashing, and the frivolous throng had withdrawn from the game, I once saw a lady of noble birth who insisted upon going on with the game after all the others had been frightened away. The croupiers were obliged to keep at their work. This lady gives elegant entertainments, and a servant who stole a silver spoon from her, was sent to gaol. How low, to steal a spoon--! But what of her mistress?