TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
Orleans, June 12, 1806.
... You will not wonder that I cannot write more fully at present, when you hear that Heaven has been pleased to take from me, not many days ago, my lovely and doted on child. I will not attrister you with any account of the circumstances, all of which were calculated to deepen my anguish. I will only tell you the blow was the more unexpected, as till his last illness his health and strength were equal to his beauty; while his grace, sprightliness, and intelligence, made him appear as if expressly sent from Heaven to be the solace of our captivity. The loss of my infant daughter, which seemed heavy at the time, shrinks into nothing when compared with this. She was merely a little bud; he was a lovely blossom which had safely passed all the earliest dangers, and gave clearest promise of delicious fruit. God bless you; I hope you will be more fortunate than your poor mother, and never know from experience the pain she has now three times endured.
June 24, 1806.—My Frederick’s sufferings are over with respect to himself, but they still exist in my bosom. I still feel and lament them. I consider that my sins have been visited upon him, and that I was the author of them all. Oh, my child, my child! your fever, your cough, your difficulty of breathing, the nauseous draughts that were forced upon you, your restlessness, your blindness, your blisters, your torments—how has my hard heart survived them all? When those beautiful eyes from whence a stream of light and pleasure ever flowed into my bosom grew dim and closed—when those lovely hands felt for the little refreshments you could be prevailed on to take, and which you could no longer see—when that voice once so strong and sweet, grew too feeble to make its wants and wishes known—and when, finally, the last breath forsook those lips from whence had flowed music and perfume—when I saw you cold and motionless before me, how came it my heart did not break at once? You are now forgot, or nearly so, by all but me. Your beauty so vaunted, your intelligence so admired, your goodness of heart, your generosity, your strong affection, all are as if they had never existed. Yet, perhaps, you do not sleep; perhaps your spirit, though yet disunited from your body, awaits its union with consciousness and enjoyment, every stain of original sin effaced by the merits of our Redeemer; perhaps you are permitted to protect and watch over me, to detach me from this vain world, and guide me to that which you inhabit—‘Là-haut, là-haut, là-haut.’
June 26.—‘Il devroit y avoir dans le cœur des sources inépuisables de douleurs pour de certaines pertes. Ce n’est guère par vertu ou par force d’esprit qu’on sort d’une grande affliction. L’on pleure amèrement, et l’on est sensiblement touché; mais l’on est ensuite si foible ou si léger, qu’on se console.’—La Bruyère.
I believe this applies to every loss but that of a lovely and beloved child, who is not only the flower of one’s present path, but the object of one’s future hopes, and in whom one sees an ever-widening perspective of happiness. But Bruyère was not a mother. He who formed the human heart speaks on such an occasion, of ‘lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.’ No man, no father, however affectionate, can conceive a mother’s grief; this I always believed, and am now convinced of.
Aug. 12.—I now view the whole creation expanding into the full bloom and ripeness I had promised to show him, and had anticipated his seeing and enjoying. The fruits hang on those trees, whose blossoms I exultingly compared with his complexion, whose perfume I traced in his sweeter breath. All nature is bright, vivid, animated; he pale, cold, and silent, ‘in his narrow cell for ever laid,’ and with him, his mother’s highest joy and fairest hopes. The gay perspective of that happiness he was born to receive and to impart, has melted ‘into air, into thin air.’ A fine prospect now reminds me that he who took such early delight in the beauties of nature is no longer here to give me a reflected pleasure, stronger than what I have ever felt from immediate gratification. His quick sensibility gave me every hope that my inventive fondness would make the happy days of infancy still happier; and all the visions I had formed on that exhaustless subject, now recur to increase my regrets by the unceasing comparison of the future I had painted with the dark and sad reality.