We had no particular creed or faith. The Hallams had been Methodists; the Griffeths, my father's family over in Wales, had been members of the Church of England.
Henry and I, reading here and there indifferently, had become somewhat inclined to Swedenborg's theories. We read Dr. Bushnell and his colleagues with some faith and more interest. But we fashioned the great hereafter—the heaven we all talk of and dream so much of—after our own ideals. Those may have been in the right, thought we, from whom Shelley and many another poetical dreamer imbibed the idea that the Godhead was but the universal spirit pervading and animating nature; that man was immortal, and was to arise from the dead, clothed in purity and beauty, and was to wander endlessly in some limitless, enchanting paradise, where should be all things lovely to charm the eye, all sounds to entrance the ear, all spirits gentle, and wise, and good for communion of intellect and heart. In this heaven stood no stately throne upon which sat a God of justice, receiving one unto life, banishing another unto everlasting perdition. It was the same here as upon earth; the beauty, bloom, fragrance, and glory were permeated with an essence subtle, invisible, intangible, but present, the life and source of all—and this was God! The ancients had a heaven and a hell, which Christianity had adopted; but we lived in the XIXth century, and we need not pin our faith to such notions borrowed from the heathen. Were youth and health on earth immortal, we would prefer never to pass through the iron gate of death and the pearly gate of life; since, however, all must yield to the inexorable fiat, and all men must die, we would make a virtue of necessity, and be willing to go to that sensual heaven, which wore all the beauty of earth, with naught of its thorns and blight. Ah! we, Henry and I, were still in the glow of youth and hope; life seemed a beautiful vista, and the end far off! Of the great beyond we but carelessly dreamed—as carelessly as if our feet were never there to stand, nor our souls to tremble upon its awful brink.
With Henry gone, I was like a child bereft of its mother. I wept and would not be comforted. I counted the hours of every day; they seemed so inconsiderable, deducted from the almost nine thousand which the three hundred and sixty-five days yielded. I see now how foolish, weak, and wicked I was!
I was seized with a slow fever, which lasted me through the summer. In my weakness and wakefulness I saw visions and dreamed dreams which haunted me constantly. I began to fancy that I was to die. I would have been satisfied to have fallen in a sleep that should have known no waking until the dread year was over.
Early in September I heard from my room an unusual bustle in the house—the feet of men, and the unwonted sound of boxes or trunks laid heavily upon the floor. But why need I go into details?
Henry Hallam had died of yellow fever, and his trunks had been sent home!
In my despair, one thought overpowered me. I had made myself wretched counting over the hours until Henry should return. Now he would never, never come back, no matter how many hours; I might count for an eternity, and he would not come at the end. Oh! could he but some time come, even in the distant years, when his step was feeble and his hair was gray, how patient I would be, how hopeful, cheerful, in the waiting for that certain time!
Why had I not been happy when I knew that he still lived; when the fond hope was mine that, after a few months, I should again behold him?
We never know—alas! we never know! With my beloved gone, I fancied myself sunk in the lowest depth of desolation.