True, it was an altered and saddened house to which they returned, yet saddened by no gloomy aspect, disturbed by no busy preparation. There was less than usual of care and hurry, instead of more. "It was a holy season," says one of the daughters, "those days after dear father left us; no bustle, no preparation of dress, no work done but what was absolutely necessary; it was like a continued Sabbath." Then, on Sabbath evening, after a simple religious service, the "precious remains" of the husband and father were taken in their own carriage, by the wife and eldest son, to Cambridge; where, the next day, the more public ceremony of interment took place.
But of this whole experience it is right to let Mrs. Ware speak in her own letters, several of which we add. The first was written the day after the funeral, to an absent child, and the others to different friends after her return to Framingham. We take them from among many written at that time, either in answer to offers of sympathy, or as a relief to a burdened heart. Of necessity, they contain some repetitions of the same thought, in similar language; but it is best to give them as they are, that we may see in them how great was the bereavement and how deep the anguish of one whose countenance was always cheerful.
"Cambridge, September 26, 1843.
"My dear Child:—
"I use my first moment of repose to write to you, for I know you will long to hear what we have been doing, and as far as possible to enter into all our thoughts and feelings. I want to have you know all that has taken place since you left us, and shall therefore send you a minute detail of every day, when I shall have time to write it; but now so much is pressing upon me which demands attention, so many duties which must not be neglected, and which belong to this time, and must be performed at once, that I confine myself to the last two days.
"After dear father's death, I told Uncle John that I wished all arrangements with regard to his funeral should be made in accordance with grandfather's feelings; and I gave it wholly into his hands to arrange. He came up again on Saturday, and it was decided that we should come to grandfather's on Monday morning, and have a service at his house. On Sunday we all went to meeting; we felt it was good to go to the house of God, and find peace to our troubled souls in the act of worship. About six in the evening Mr. and Mrs. Barry came to us, for I felt that I could not have father's body leave that house without
'the voice of prayer at the sable bier,
A voice to sustain, to soothe, and to cheer.'He read to us some passages of Scripture, and offered for us and with us a prayer to Him who alone could give us strength, that he would aid us in that trying hour. We had no one with us except Mr. and Mrs. W——, whose kindness was most valuable to us during the last days of father's life.
"Then John and I brought dear father's body to Cambridge in our own carriage; we could not feel willing to let strangers do any thing in connection with him which we could do ourselves. We reached here about half past ten, having had a season of precious intercourse upon our way. We found that, in accordance with the wishes of the College Faculty, it had been decided that we should go to the College Chapel, for the service, at half past three on Monday.
"On Monday morning the rest of the family came down, and all the aunts and uncles, so that grandfather had all his children with him. At three o'clock we went to the Chapel. The students attended in their places, and the pews in the gallery were devoted to us. The service commenced by a voluntary, and the anthem, 'The Lord is my shepherd.' Dr. Francis prayed; Dr. Noyes read some passages from Scripture; then was sung the 463d hymn. Dr. Parkman then prayed for us, in his most touching, heartfelt manner,—so elevating, so soothing, so full of faith, gratitude, and hope, that it subdued all earthly emotion and took away all earthly desire. Although very minute and personal, it seemed as if one might have listened for ever without a thought of self. He loved father most sincerely, and all he said came from the depths of his heart. I had shrunk from the thought of publicity at such a time, in such a connection, but I found that the circumstances about me were wholly lost sight of; it made no difference to me where I was, or who was near me. I felt raised above all minor considerations. The services closed with 'Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb!' We all went to Mount Auburn; that is, all the family, even grandfather and dear little Charlie. The weather was misty, but the light which it threw around was in keeping with the occasion, and I thought I never had seen the place look more beautiful. One only thing I wanted which I could not have,—the sound of the holy hymn at the consecrated spot.
"Father was laid in Mr. Farrar's tomb,—the first inhabitant; and I felt, as I looked once more upon him as he rested there, that it was indeed but his body from which we were to be separated; his spirit is still, and will ever be, with us. He seems to me nearer to-day than he has for many weeks, and the thought of his freedom from the burden of the weary flesh is sweet indeed."
"Framingham, September 29, 1843.
"My dear Emma:—
"I cannot write you more than a few words, I am so much pressed on all sides by matters which cannot be put off; but I must say these few, to assure you of the peace and repose which are with us, and have been, I may say, ever since you were here. O that you had been with us longer,—that you could have been with me at that still hour when the spirit was freed from its prison-house, the weary body left to its rest! And it was rest. Could you have seen the very 'rapture of repose' depicted upon that face, which had so long been disturbed by the pressure of disease that its very expression had been changed to a character foreign to the whole man! All continued of the same peaceful character which pervaded our atmosphere when you were here, with the exception of a few days of a little temporary uneasiness about the time C—— R—— was here. And the last fatal attack, coming as it did at a moment of rather unusual brightness, was so sudden and so soon over, that there was no time for change. Dear little Charlie, who had just returned, was at the moment bounding, in the height of his joyous spirits, from one side of the bed to the other, exclaiming, 'Sall I buss the flies off you, father?' He was taken at once to bed; and when he came down in the morning he found his dear father lying just as he had left him the night before, looking only more peaceful, more beautiful, and he took up the same thought,—'Sall I buss the flies off father, now he has gone to heaven?' I felt it a peculiar blessing, that all the circumstances of the event were such as to make any movement or change in any external respect unnecessary, so that the children might have their first associations with the fact of death without any horror, and their recollection of their father uninterrupted by any repulsive details. He lay in his bed just as he had when talking with them, until he was removed from the house, and that process the little ones did not witness. I doubt not it will give a tone to their view of the subject through life. But why should I dwell upon these externals? Simply that you may dismiss from your mind any thoughts of distress connected with us at that moment; and you know all that I can tell you of the spirit within.
"You know how I have suffered in anticipation of this separation, but all the worst agony connected with it is yet to come. It is comparatively easy now to be calm and firm and thankful; the first thought cannot but be of him and his present happiness; and the sense of relief that the sufferings of that blessed being are over, that he has gone to his Father's home, 'to the house of his rest,' is so great, that no other thought dare intrude. I long to see you, and hope to do so soon. I go to Cambridge to-morrow, to be in Boston on Sunday. I could not deny myself the luxury of going once more to that house of his religious affections, in connection with him. That spot has most sacred, most tender associations to me, so full that it would be enough to sit there in silent meditation; and if I feared any thing, I should fear that it would be too overwhelming to be borne, to go there in public. But I have found by my experience on Monday, that the surroundings of such a moment are of no consequence. I have a quiet faith that the strength will come. O, may improvement, elevation, come also!... John leaves us soon. He and I had a holy season, as we went, in the stillness of the night, to carry those precious remains to Cambridge.
"I find it is as I anticipated,—I feel a greater nearness to my husband than I did when he lay on his couch in the next room. I am separated from that form; I look back to it only as the associate of the spirit in health; I do not cling to it now. Yours in all love.
"M. L. W."
"Framingham, October 6, 1843.
"My dear Mary:—
"The first moment I can call my own since my return from Cambridge, I turn to you. I know no one to whom I can so freely pour out all that is in my heart, as for the first time I pause a little from the pressure of necessary action, and realize the change that has taken place in every thing about me.... I wanted you at my side, when I stood once more at that sacred spot where we had laid our dear sister's image. You and I can never forget that moment. And, though not near, you were in close communion with the spirit in that holy hour.
"As I glance back at the period which has elapsed since you were here, one single thought takes precedence of all the rest. It is astonishment at the power of the soul to sustain the pressure of circumstances, the tension and excitement of feeling, the necessity of positive, energetic action, when the very heart-strings seem riven asunder,—and the capacity of sustaining a tranquil, and even cheerful aspect, when 'the dull, heart-sinking weight' of a vital grief is bearing us down, down, down,—one can scarcely believe there are any soundings to that deep gulf. Yet so it is; and does it not open our vision to the glorious truth of the alliance of the soul with its divine origin? What but that inexhaustible, fountain of strength could sustain us, when the waves of trouble thus threaten to overwhelm us? Rich, blessed, indeed, is the experience which brings this conviction to our minds; holy is that season in which we can live as it were in the light of such a faith! And holy indeed has it been to me.
"I feel that my danger now is, that I reluctantly do any thing that shall remove me from the influence of the atmosphere which it seems as if death had created around me. Death? transition I would rather call it. And yet let us strive to disabuse that word of some of the horrors in which education has wrapt it. O, could you have seen how mercifully it was stripped of all its terrors to us, how calmly that spirit left its earthly tabernacle, how sweet was the impress of peace and rest it left upon that face which had so long almost lost its own expression in the veil that sickness had thrown over it! Its last expression would have rebuked the slightest wish to recall the spirit, had we been so selfish as to have indulged one. We could scarcely be willing to be separated from that image of him we loved, so powerfully even in death did it express his character. Even the little children preferred being there, rather than anywhere beside; and will, I think, all, including even little Charlie, remember this first knowledge of a death-bed as a beautiful experience.
"The first part of Henry's sickness he seemed quite unconscious of what was around him; torpid, and at times wandering in his expressions. But the last three weeks, although still unable to exert himself to talk,—for it tired him, he said, 'even to think,'—his mind was perfectly clear; indeed, I had reason to suppose his mind was never as much clouded to himself, as it appeared to be to us. The pressure upon his brain was so great, as to produce great difficulty of action of any kind; his ideas were often clear, but the power of finding words to convey them was paralyzed. He said little at any time, and yet I find, in surveying the whole period, that I have many satisfactory views of the whole state of his mind in relation to the change that he was making. He never had but one view of his own situation; he felt decidedly that the time for going home was come,—'the fitting time,' 'the best time'; and he was grateful that the toil of sickness and inability was at an end. And so convinced was I, that, if he should revive from that attack, it could only be to continue to suffer still more than he had done, from inability to do what he had hoped to, this autumn, for the good of his fellow-men, that I too felt that it was indeed the fitting time. And so intense was my suffering from the apprehension of his continuing, for years perhaps, in the half-paralyzed, half-torpid state in which he lay for so many weeks, that it was not only with resignation, it was with a sense of relief, that I saw the doubt was at an end, the prisoner was released. So strange is it, that that event to which I had ever looked forward as the one thing that could not be borne in life, came at last under circumstances which made it welcome! Do I live to say it, to feel it? But O the chasm left in my lot, in my heart! Who can estimate it! No one. No, 'the heart knoweth its own bitterness'; no human being can enter into it.... But I must stop. I hope to see you, or at least hear from you.
"Yours with much love.
"M. L. W."