.... I long to throw myself upon your breast, and there to say, "Mother!" and nothing more. The pen trembles in my hand, but I hear you say, "Be strong." I will. I dare not think how it will be when we are again with you. You are our home. We must wait, who knows how long? Who knows with what sacrifices? I dare, not think that Eric may be taken from me—from us.
It seemed like a dream to me, when we trod the soil of this continent—of my native land. I would gladly have floated on with the ship forever. I am living in the house of Dr. Fritz. Eric and Roland have to-day gone to Washington to see Lincoln. I do not realize that Eric is not with me, and yet I must soon let him go, how differently! We will not be afraid, will we, mother? A wonderful destiny has brought us together and preserved us together; it will remain true to us.
I should like to tell you much of the home where I dwell, and of all the good, intellectually wide-awake people, and often, when I hear the wife and children talking and see them acting, I want to say, "That you get from Eric's mother, from my mother." There exists, over the whole earth, a common fund of noble thought, as every one finds who bears a portion of it within himself. This is, to me, the meaning of the words, "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." You have given me the power of seeking, of knocking, and I find that it is opened unto me. Oh, mother! Why must it be by means of such tremendous events, poised so narrowly between life and death, that the greatness and goodness, the readiness for martyrdom of the human heart, must be developed? Why not in peace, in love, in quiet cares?
That will be the millennium, you have often said, when the best qualities will no longer unfold in struggle, but in beauty and peacefulness. You, my mother, are a messenger and a witness from the paradise-world beyond the strife. Rejoice, as we rejoice, that you are this messenger, this witness. I will become like you, I am and will be your daughter, and will grow ever more truly so.
It is well that I was interrupted in this. Lilian has a fresh voice, and our friend Knopf's betrothed sings beautifully. We have practised pieces in which I accompany Lilian's singing on the harp. Oh, if we could send some of those tones over the sea! In the midst of the uproar of life around us, here we sit and sing by the hour together. Now I understand anew that saying, that art is a redeemer;—that saying of father's.
Why is the word father so harrowing to my soul? How happy it was for my mother to be snatched away as she was! When I fall into this train of thought, I always feel as if entering a desert, far, far away; nowhere anything cheering to the eye or refreshing to the soul. We must bear it.
I see with sorrow that I am writing confusedly; but you know and believe me, when I say that I am really calm, and, above all, you are to know that I never burden our Eric with these heavy thoughts. It is less from intention than—no, as soon as he comes, all dread and grief vanish; everything is light, sunshine, day.
Three days later.
Eric has returned with Roland from Washington. They have much to tell, and Roland is in a state of enthusiasm which you can easily picture to yourself.
Have I already told you that our friend Knopf has found a charming little wife? She is full of intelligence, modesty, and energy. She, too, has had religious conflicts to undergo, as I have, not so severe; but then she has had a hard fight with herself. Lilian, too, young as she is, is far riper than her years, on account of her zeal for making converts.