Soon was my dream of bliss o’ercast,
And all the dear illusion o’er;
A few dark days of terror past,
And Joy and Frederick bloom no more.
CHAPTER IV.
1807-1812.
In the spring of 1807 the long-sought-for permission to return to England was at last obtained. As I have no intention of writing a Memoir, but record only the events of my Mother’s life so far as is necessary for making these Remains intelligible, I shall at once proceed with my selection of these. They will for the most part, if I mistake not, with only here and there a brief elucidation, sufficiently explain themselves.
June 7, 1807.—There seems to be a physical as well as a moral effect in the return of the season, the month, the day, the hour on which a beloved object has been torn away from us. We know that many disorders of the body are periodical. Why may not the violent pains of the mind bear some analogy to them—those tempests of sorrow which tear up every pleasure by the root, and sweep away the very soil whence new ones might have sprung, leaving nothing but the bare old rock behind?