There is an effervescence of the spirit that carries away all
foul matter, and leaves you in a state of calm that seems kindred to the
land and to the life whither the sainted mother has gone.
This calm brings a smile in the middle of tears, and an inward looking
and leaning toward that Eternal Power which governs and guides us;--with
that smile and that leaning, sleep comes like an angelic minister, and
fondles your wearied frame and thought into that repose which is the
mirror of the Destroyer.
----Poor Clarence, he is like the rest of the world,--whose goodness
lies chiefly in the occasional throbs of a better nature, which soon
subside, and leave them upon the old level of _desire_.
As you lie between waking and sleeping, you have a fancy of a sound at
your door;--it seems to open softly, and the tall figure of your father,
wrapped in his dressing-gown, stands over you, and gazes--as he gazed at
you before;--his look is very mournful; and he murmurs your mother's
name--and sighs--and looks again--and passes out.
At morning you cannot tell if it was real or a dream. Those higher
resolves too, which grief and the night made, seem very vague and
shadowy.
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