What did I do? you ask. Well, with a horribly guilty feeling, I cut the last leaf containing those terribly piteous words out of the diary. I did it carefully so that he would never know that anything had been taken away. I felt like a thief all the time, somehow.
I did not destroy the leaf. I could not do so. I put it away carefully with my other treasures, and when George came home with his sweet, beautiful young wife,—and I thanked God he had her to help him bear his unfeigned sorrow at the loss of his mother,—I gave him the diary without the missing leaf; and her last message to him, as I delivered it, was one simply of love and blessing. And I almost felt as if his mother thanked me for it. I hope so.
I take out that missing leaf sometimes when I am alone in my study, and read it over and wonder whether, after all, I did right or not.
Extravaganzas
"'Tis a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us
Is a source of enjoyment, though slightly ridiculous."
Oliver Wendell Holmes
"A careless song with a little nonsense in it now and then does not misbecome a monarch."
Walpole