Just at the time of these new offices and brighter hopes on the one hand, and increased labor and danger on the other, a heavy affliction fell upon them both, in the sudden death of a sister; the first death in thirty years of an adult member of that family, from which six have since gone to the spirit-land. Ought any considerations to prevent our giving to others the Christian thoughts and high affections called forth from Mrs. Ware by that event? They were many and comforting. Some she thus expressed to Mrs. Allen, a surviving sister. "The more I dwell upon what she was, of what she was capable, and how deeply she suffered from the mere load of humanity, the more I am thankful that the season of discipline is over, the more I rejoice at the thought of what she is now enjoying. Can we conceive of a higher bliss than that which must be experienced by a soul of such capacities as hers, which has struggled, as we believe, most strenuously with temptation both within and without while here, freed at last for ever from the burden of the flesh, throwing off all obstacles to its progress in a purer state, bounding forward to perfection? O, who would recall her here, even for the best happiness which this world could give her? But we are yet too earthly to part with our treasures without suffering. It is meant that we should suffer. It is a part, a most important object, of the dispensation; the inevitable consequence, too, of that which we esteem the best blessing of our existence,—our capacity for the exercise of the affections. It seems as if so great an event as I feel this to be must have great objects; and who can doubt that the improvement of those who suffer by it is the principal one? I have never felt this so deeply with regard to any event that ever happened to me in life. I have never had so loud, so imperious a call. O my God, give me grace to profit by this call, to be made better by the mental exercises to which it has given rise!"
At the end of 1838 we find Mary very happy, in gratitude for the past and cheerful hopes of the future, with sober but not sad thoughts of the recent sorrow.
"Cambridge, December 31, 1838.
"My dear N——:
"... O that blessed thing, Faith,—faith in the truth of friendship! Among other changes, I have not yet grown old enough to lose my youthful faith in those I love; and between you and me, I begin to suspect that I never shall. I certainly do not find myself, at forty, one whit nearer misanthropy than I was at sixteen. Is this symptomatic of folly at the very core? Or is it only the effect of my superior good luck in life? Whatever it may be, I bless God for it, for I find in it too much happiness to be willing to regret it, even if it be a weakness.
"January 9. Just so far had I got, when I found my eyes so dim and my head so giddy that I was compelled to go to bed. And there have I been most of the time since, quite sick with one of my old attacks upon the lungs, which threatened to keep me there the rest of the winter, if it did not end in lung fever, so obstinate and violent was my cough.... I have been living in the past very much lately, from having many of Harriet's letters to read. Some of them, written in Exeter, have brought before my mind people of whom I had not thought for years; and circumstances having intimate connection with events in which I was immediately interested at the time, have unfolded a long and beautiful page of life before me, which I seldom have opportunity to recall. O that Past! what stores of wisdom and happiness are not laid up in it! Why should it be that the busy bustle of the Present hides it so much from our sight? Should we not, by an effort, give ourselves more to its retrospection, that we may profit more by its teaching?...
"But here we are, dear N., at the end of another year, certainly not growing younger, yet I think not at all losing our capacity for enjoying. So far from it, I am surprised to find, that, while with regard to some things my happiness becomes more and more every day a sober certainty, it does not in the least diminish my susceptibility of enjoyment from any new source that chances to present itself from day to day. In fact, it is a much more agreeable thing to grow old than I expected to find it. This is not strange, you may say, in my case, whose blessings increase with every year. Truly it is so, and I never felt it more than at this present. Never since I was married could I look back upon a year of such freedom from sickness in my own family; never was my husband so well for the same length of time in his preaching life; and if I had no more to be grateful for than my precious baby, who has been nothing but a comfort ever since she was born, that is enough for one year. One sad blight has passed over us, and it has indeed solemnized our hearts, and made us feel, as we never felt before, by how slight a tenure we hold all earthly blessings. But these afflictions serve to make us more grateful for those blessings which cannot be taken away.
"O, how I do wish you were within talking distance, that I might know whether you feel as I do about bringing up children. I have no comfort yet in my management of my little ones. I have not yet got upon the right track, and begin to think I never shall. Lucy comes and comforts me a little now and then, and if I had her power I should no doubt have her success; but that makes all the difference in the world.
"Yours ever, in true love.
"M. L. W."
Another year closed its record with similar expressions of thankfulness, though we see that it brought sickness and discipline. But these are not spoken of as trials; for Mrs. Ware appears in fact, as well as in word, to have caused sickness to change its name and its face. It had become to her a friend, whose absence she almost dreaded. "It is so long since I have had the slightest physical drawback, that I had almost forgotten that I could be other than strong. I am glad to be reminded that I am not free from the common lot in this respect; in truth, that I am to be subject to the salutary discipline which the prospect of certain suffering and weakness, with all their possible consequences, brings to the soul." She had great faith in the relation of events to each other. She looked upon nothing in the providence of God as either accidental or insulated; every thing had a design and a connection. "If any one thing more than any other strikes me powerfully as I advance in life, gaining confirmation from every day's experience, it is the beautiful adaptation of circumstances to accomplish the great object of existence, each succeeding event pointing to some end which the other events of life have not particularly aimed at. It seems as if we had only to keep our vision clear, to find around us all the teaching which we can possibly need to bring us to perfection." She had not much respect for the common view of "circumstances," as securing all the good and accounting for all the evil in men's conduct and character. To her mind, the responsibility was as great of turning adverse circumstances to good account, as of using well the most favoring and prosperous condition. Yet here she dealt more severely with herself than with any one else; too severely sometimes, as may be the case with all conscientious sufferers who are at the same time conscientious workers. They exact too much of their own frames. They make too little allowance for those natural limits and occasional weaknesses, for which many minds allow too much. Most of us suffer the body to be master, where it should be servant; while they of whom we speak are apt to forget that the body will sometimes rule, and affect the mind unfavorably yet helplessly. There are various intimations, some of which we have seen already, that Mrs. Ware was not free from all errors or dangers of this kind, though she soon detected them. After a short visit to Mrs. Paine, in 1839, she says of it: "I did enjoy my visit to you hugely; I do enjoy it now even more; for I was fighting all the time with an evil demon within in the shape of an uncommonly violent attack of 'Mary Pickardism,' making me feel that I might as well be out of the world as in it. But that is over; and I have learnt from it that our minds are more frequently under the control of our physique, than we, in our pride, are very willing to admit."
The season of exemption and favor continues; not without qualifications and exceptions, as others might think them, but without serious interruption to the labors or joys of Mr. and Mrs. Ware. And we see the effect of it in the pleasant and playful mood of the next letter.
"Cambridge, January 1, 1841, 1.20 o'clock, A.M.
"My dear N——:
"There is some difference truly between a solitary spinster sitting in her quiet parlor with her desk before her, pen in hand, without a shadow of a hope or fear of interruption from any demand of domestic duty or pleasure, and the mother of seven children, one of them a most agreeable youth of six months, with a husband and nurse to boot, to be looked after and taken care of. For instance, after a vain attempt to get all the new year's presents finished and arrayed in due order before the clock should strike twelve upon the 31st of December, 1840, I was obliged at the first date to content myself with just recording the hour with one hand, while the other held in durance the two hands of the above-named youth, who had been for the previous hour exercising his utmost power of fascinating blandishment to attract and monopolize my attention. And now I must re-date, One o'clock, P. M., January 3d, being my very first moment, since the aforesaid date, that I could in conscience give to the luxurious employment of writing to you. I think the said little (or, rather, large) gentleman had a strong desire to write to you himself, or he would not have been so remarkably wakeful upon that occasion; but I chose to enact the part of the dog in the manger,—if I could not do it myself, I would not let him. He is a most bewitching creature, by the way, and there is no telling what you may have lost by my selfishness. Nothing can be sweeter than a healthy, bright child of his age; there is certainly something far beyond the mere animal in the enjoyment we derive from such a creature. I am sometimes tempted, when I watch the animated expression of his little visage, to go all lengths with the modern spiritualists, and believe that there is a higher sense and fuller knowledge of the deep things of heaven inclosed in that little casket now, than can be found in it after the wisdom of the world has entered there....
"O, how the business of life thickens as one goes onward! I sometimes wish I knew whether there is ever to be such a thing as rest in this life for me, wherein to breathe a little more freely, and feel it right to forget, for a moment at least, the care of the earthly. Or I should like still better to know how far it is practicable to keep one's mind at ease, and yet do all that ought to be done. It does not seem as if it could have been intended that we should be the careworn drudges that most of us are, hardly giving ourselves time to enjoy the sight of the beautiful world around us, or know any thing of that within us. I have often great misgivings upon the subject, much doubting whether it is not, after all, more my bad management than the necessity of the case, which makes me so pressed from want of time to do what I wish. But I have looked around and within in vain for a remedy for the evil.
"I am just where I was a year ago, only a little more involved from having one child more, and that one that cannot be tended by any one who is not tolerably sizable herself. This is not as it should be, (not my baby, but my incessant occupation,) and I feel the evil effect upon my intellectual and physical too,—the one becomes utterly empty, the other too crowded. Thought is free, happily, but one uses up the material for thought if not refreshed by outward subjects occasionally; or rather one's thoughts take too uniform a track, and become morbid. I should like to peep into some other person's mind and see how the land lies; one is apt to think that no one is as wicked as himself, but perhaps the same causes lead to the same results. It would be a comfort to know, upon the old principle, that 'misery loves company.' Yours,
"Mary."
A change was approaching. The favored interval had been unusually long, and an amount of work had been accomplished of which we attempt not to give an idea. It had been to Mrs. Ware, as to her husband, a "golden age," in vigor, labor, and enjoyment. In the family, the school, and the community, both were busy, both happy. There was no diminution of care, rather an increase with an increasing family, unnumbered visitors, and interruptions, engagements, and claims, of every possible kind. But all this went on easily and naturally. A casual observer would not be likely to see that there was much done, or to be done. There was no hurry, no apparent exertion. Each caller or claimant was received so quietly, and listened to so patiently, that he might have thought he was the only one, or the favored. To be sure, Mrs. Ware felt, as we have seen, that there was no such thing as rest, nor time to do the half that she would. But very few saw the feeling, and it prevented neither her own serenity nor others' enjoyment. Very grateful did she feel for her husband's continued health and active usefulness. At the same time, we can see that her experienced eye and watchful heart discovered symptoms of coming change,—as in passages of her letters of different dates.
"December 31, 1841. I look at my husband with a sort of wonder, to find that another whole year has passed without any serious consequences to his health. I dare not look forward for him, for it seems presumption to expect that he can be long exempt. His duties are very perplexing from their variety, and I think the effect upon his system, by harassing his mind, is really worse than a greater amount of labor would be upon a more concentrated and satisfactory object. He is the greater part of the time in that dragging, half-sick state, which leaves neither freedom of mind nor comfort of body. I often think he could be happier, and do in fact more good, in a parish, than here; and were it not that men at his time of life get to be too old-fashioned and 'conservative,' as the phrase is, to suit the rising generation, I should hope he might yet end his days in the vocation which he best loves. I would not have you suspect me of a discontented spirit; but my heart leaps at the idea of parish-meetings in my own parlor, and other pastoreen enjoyments. But I have no care about the future, other than that which one must have,—a desire to fulfil the duties which it may bring.
"January 16, 1842. I have been prevented by all sorts of things from finishing this; it is not worth while to enumerate them. I will only say, that for the last fortnight I have had little thought or time for any thing but preparing my husband for a six weeks' absence. Not that I had so very much to do for him (although it is a different thing to poor folks, to live where their clothes can be mended every day, or must go without mending for six weeks); but he has been very unwell lately, and I am so little accustomed to the idea of his going away sick without going with him, that I found it very hard to bring my mind to submit to it. I did not feel quite clear whether it would be right to let him go, in the hope that change of scene and occupation would do him good, or to prevent it from fear that the necessity of the case would tempt him to exert himself, whether he was able or not. However, he has gone; and went too upon the anniversary of dear Dr. Follen's loss. But I have heard of his safe arrival in pretty good case, and I hope for the best. Yet I am a very baby at the prospect of so long a separation. Truly one's affections do not become blunted by age,—do they?"
What her affections were appears in the letter which she had already written to her husband,—written in fact the very night of the day he left her; for her heart was full. Its quick, keen sensibilities told her that this was more than a common parting. Seldom had Mr. Ware gone from home since they were married, without being sick, or without her going to him. And though she had not the least superstition, nor even indulged gloomy apprehensions, she held herself ready for the worst, and saw reason at this time to expect some decided result from such a journey in mid-winter, with all that had preceded it. Before she slept, therefore, she gave utterance to the emotions—prayers and blessings we might call them—which were yearning within her.
"Cambridge, January 12, 1842, 1/2 past 11.
"Dear Henry:—
"And you are really gone! And notwithstanding I have looked forward to this moment for so long a time, and, as I thought, realized over and over again all that I should feel when it should arrive, I am ashamed to find how little all my anticipations have prepared me for it. I do not mean to overwhelm you with an outpouring of all my woman's weakness, but I could not go to bed without saying, 'Good night to you, dearest.' I have a quiet faith that all is well with you, and I have much hope that this expedition will result in good to your mind and body both. I can say from my heart, 'God speed you!' And the thought that His care is over you reconciles me to having you withdrawn from mine, as nothing else could do. I feel that, in your absence, great responsibilities rest upon me, and I cannot therefore go to my solitary chamber for the first time without many solemn and affecting thoughts. But my hopes are bright, and my confidence unshaken; and I can send my mind forward with a cheerful trust, although the tear will come to my eye. So good night, again. I know your thoughts are with me, as mine with you, and that this union in the spirit can never cease, whatever may betide our outward being.
"Friday Evening, 14th. Thanks for your letter,—and many most grateful thanks to the Giver of all good for your safety! It could not be but that the recollection of the past should be present to our minds; it was good that it should be so, and I trust it has not been without great blessing to our souls. For myself, I almost feared that I was a little superstitious, or rather inclined to forebode evil; for I feel so much that we have been peculiarly blessed in having so many times had threatened evils averted, that, upon every new exposure, I find I am inclined to think it is presumption to expect exemption this time; and I never felt this more strongly than now. I hope I have behaved well outwardly. I have tried to do so, but the struggle has been very great. This experience is a new lesson of trust and comfort for us. May it have its due influence!
"Farewell. Blessings be with you!
"M. L. Ware."