[Footnote 162: Signorina Ferrucci was, with her parents, returning from Leghorn to Pisa, when they were surprised by a violent storm, which is the subject of this letter.]
To Signorina Louisa B——.
I received your sad and tender letter yesterday, my dear Louisa, and I answer it without delay, to prove to you that your sorrows are mine. Poor Antonietta! Yet, why weep for her? Her soul has winged its flight to the celestial regions, where, as she said in her delirium, all was ready to receive her. It is not to her, then—it is to you, to your family, to ourselves, that our tears belong. As soon as I heard the sad tidings, I raised my heart to God, and offered him a fervent prayer for your mother and yourself. As to Antonietta, I could not pray for her, because I saw her truly in the midst of the angelic choirs.
Dear friend, would that I could console you; but I feel with sadness my utter inability. It is God alone who has the secret of true consolation. Is not he our good Father? Does not he await us in that blessed abode where there are neither sorrows nor tears, but where reign eternal peace and happiness? And then, my poor Louisa, if life seemed to promise your dear sister happiness and joy, has not death put her in possession of joys more pure, happiness more profound, than she could ever have desired? Oh! how enviable is her lot. She will never know the troubles, the disappointments, the disenchantments of this life. She will be spared all the suffering which is inseparable from a long existence. Death has been to her a beautiful angel, come from heaven to crown her with flowers. Dry your tears, Louisa: your sister is happier than we.
To Gaetano,
Each day is bringing you nearer the mournful anniversary you spoke of in your last letter. I beg, I conjure you, Gaetano, to allow to your heart no sentiment but that of resignation. Remember that we shall see in heaven those who are taken from us on earth; and that the sufferings of this life are the means by which we are to attain endless beatitude. I speak thus, not to preach patience to you, which it would ill become me to do, but to give you a word of consolation; for I know all that you have suffered, all that you still suffer in secret. The cares of business and the multiplicity of exterior duties will not prevent sorrowful memories from taking possession of your soul. You can, then, but offer your sufferings as a sacrifice, believing that they will render us more worthy of the divine love. If I already shared your life, I would do everything in my power to console and encourage you on these sad days. Meanwhile let us both strive each day to lessen our imperfections, and to let the love of God have fuller scope in our hearts. Thus shall we, if not without fear, at least without remorse, reach that solemn moment of our life, the one that will end it. May God, who, we hope, will one day unite us on earth by holy ties, deign to unite us also in heaven!
January 21.
(Three days before the commencement of her illness.)
Truly we must be always ready to die when and as God wills, and to love him infinitely more than all the things of this world which are passing away with our frail lives. Our immortal soul is not made for this world, where all is fleeting, dissolving, changing. By the very nature of its being, it yearns for heaven. For me, living or dead, in this world or the next, I will be ever thine, my Gaetano, in the love that God knows and blesses.
This letter is the last that Rosa Ferrucci wrote.
Concluded In Next Number.