Whose brighter, more inquiring eye,
Is that which beams their ranks among?
'Twas his!—no more—the vision's past!
Hark! is that sound the funeral bell?
Raptures too vivid cannot last—
That dream is but a broken spell!
There are days so sad, and feelings so overwhelming, that to make war against their flow is as fruitless as to oppose a barrier to the sea. Forgive me. You are not one of the unskilful comforters who attempt to impart consolation by checking the tide of sorrow. You understand better the nature of the human heart, and are aware that a little kind sympathy is the truest balm which friendship can bestow.
I will now impart to you some circumstances which have weighed upon spirits, at best so tremblingly poised, that the slightest addition to their usual burthen destroys the balance. As I mentioned to you, my excursion to Killarney was, in itself, a great effort. Such scenery, and sweet music, are the most powerful exciters, in my mind, to a train of association which I dread in company. Memory is so acutely painful, from the minuteness with which its traces are engraved, and the fidelity of its pictures, that I fly from whatever is likely to unlock the stores, and present to my view much that I dare not contemplate, unless I am alone. The delight, however, of gratifying my dear children overcame every other consideration: and I accompanied a party composed of admirable materials, but too numerous and too gay for me. I had not been long from home before I felt myself, for the first time, involved in those cares which, as my children grow up, I must expect to encounter.
My dear friend Mrs. Fitzroy, whose enlivening society charmed the whole group, was the first to awaken my attention to the expressions, both by looks and manner, of feelings in Mr. Russell's mind, which her quick eye discovered that Charlotte had excited. I have such perfect confidence in the delicacy of my dear girls, that I was spared all solicitude on the score of conduct; but I watched with uneasiness the progress of a sentiment which, as it met no return, will I fear be the cause of pain to an amiable and an accomplished young man. I find that he is acquainted with you, and, as he talks of going into Derbyshire on his return from France, you will probably see him, and perchance hear his story from his own lips.
The conversation, in which he made known his attachment to Charlotte, took place on the evening preceding his departure, and was so unlike the common place dialogues upon such occasions, that I could not, when it was repeated to me, repress a smile in the midst of more serious impressions. It was a lovely evening, and the young people had, as usual, strayed away from the elders, whose more sober views of happiness, and less active powers of locomotion, happily prepare us, as time advances, for the final rest.