“Your kindest of notes was very dear to me at this, the saddest day of my life. My poor boy was taken away almost in a moment. Some internal rupture, followed by great haemorrhage, overcame him, and he sank at once and never rallied even to consciousness.
“The great struggle of my life was his advancement,—to place him in a high and honourable position; and to maintain him there was an effort for which I toiled and laboured till I had parted with the little my years of industry had gathered, sold my copyrights, and left myself penniless, even to the poverty that I could scarcely collect enough to pay the expenses of the churchyard where I laid him. So much for human foresight! All my love and all my tact to be under the small mound of the churchyard!
“They who speak of religious consolation in great calamity often forget that these consolations only appeal to those whose lives have been invariably directed by a religious standard, and that worldly-minded men like myself can no more obtain the benefit of these remedies than they could of any internal medicament which required a course of long persistence. I say this to show that while not insensible to the truthfulness of these counsels, yet that personally they do not apply.
“It is now left me to labour on with broken spirits and a faded heart. To try and cheat the weariness of others I must strain head and nerves, and stifle true feeling to portray its mockery.
“I suppose I only re-echo what thousands have said, that I wish from my heart the race was run, and that I could lie down beside my poor Charley.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Casa Capponi, Florence, Oct. 20, 1863.
“It was very neglectful of me not to acknowledge your cheque. It was the more so, since I had not any other money in my possession.
“My wife is a little better. She thanks you deeply and gratefully for your words of kindness and sympathy to us both.
“I have not been able to work yet, but in a day or two I’ll try. The poor fisherman in ‘The Antiquary’ cobbled at the boat of his drowned son the day after,—but it’s harder to task the head when the heart is so heavy.