MY DEAR ELIZA,--By tomorrow's steamboat I shall send you two trunks,
containing the clothes which once belonged to your sister. What I
have suffered in getting them ready to send to you, I cannot
describe. It is not necessary, that I should. Cheerful as I may have
seemed to you at times, there are other times, when it seems to me
that my heart would break. The world considers grief unmanly, and is
suspicious of that sorrow, which is expressed by words and outward
signs. Hence we strive to be gay and put a cheerful courage on, when
our souls are very sad. But there are hours, when the world is shut
out, and we can no longer hear the voices, that cheer and encourage
us. To me such hours come daily. I was so happy with my dear Mary,
that it is very hard to be alone. The sympathies of friendship are
doubtless something--but after all how little, how unsatisfying they
are to one who has been so loved as I have been! This is a selfish
sorrow, I know: but neither reason nor reflection can still it.
Affliction makes us childish. A grieved and wounded heart is hard to
be persuaded. We do not wish to have our sorrow lessened. There are
wounds, which are never entirely healed. A thousand associations
call up the past, with all its gloom and shadow. Often a mere look
or sound--a voice--the odor of a flower--the merest trifle is enough
to awaken within me deep and unutterable emotions. Hardly a day
passes, that some face, or familiar object, or some passage in the
book I am reading does not call up the image of my beloved wife so
vividly, that I pause and burst into tears,--and sometimes cannot
rally again for hours.