Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 68.djvu/465
the Massachusetts legislature. The session was unusually prolonged, and he was making a speech upon some railway question at noon, one very hot day (July 16, 1874), when he became suddenly faint and sat down. The house adjourned, and a friend walked with him to his lodgings at the Tremont House; where he began to pack his bag for home, after sending for a physician, but died within three hours. Soon afterwards, I received the following letter:—
The last afternoon that my father lived, though with no premonition, I preferred to be with him, and invented an absence for mother, Vinnie [her sister] being asleep. He seemed peculiarly pleased, as I oftenest stayed with myself; and remarked, as the afternoon withdrew, he "would like it to not end."
His pleasure almost embarrassed me, and my brother coming, I suggested they walk. Next morning I woke him for the train, and saw him no more.
His heart was pure and terrible, and I think no other like it exists.
I am glad there is immortality, but would have tested it myself, before entrusting him. Mr. Bowles was with us. With that exception, I saw none. I have wished for you, since my father died, and had you an hour unengrossed, it would be almost priceless. Thank you for each kindness. . . .
Later she wrote:—
When I think of my father's lonely life and lonelier death, there is this redress—
Take all away;
The only thing worth larceny
Is left—the immortality.
My earliest friend wrote me the week before he died, "If I live, I will go to Amherst; if I die, I certainly will."
Is your house deeper off?
Your Scholar.
A year afterwards came this:—
Dear Friend,—Mother was paralyzed Tuesday, a year from the evening father died. I thought perhaps you would care.
Your Scholar.
With this came the following verse, having a curious seventeenth-century flavor:—
A death-blow is a life-blow to some,
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.
And later came this kindred memorial of one of the oldest and most faithful friends of the family, Mr. Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican:—
Dear Friend,—I felt it shelter to speak to you.
My brother and sister are with Mr. Bowles, who is buried this afternoon.
The last song that I heard―that was, since the birds—was "He leadeth me, he leadeth me; yea, though I walk"—then the voices stooped, the arch was so low.
After this added bereavement the inward life of the diminished household became only more concentrated, and the world was held farther and farther away. Yet to this period belongs the following letter, written about 1880, which has more of what is commonly called the objective or external quality than any she ever wrote me; and shows how close might have been her observation and her sympathy, had her rare qualities taken a somewhat different channel:—
Dear Friend,—I was touchingly reminded of [a child who had died] this morning by an Indian woman with gay baskets and a dazzling baby, at the kitchen door. Her little boy "once died," she said, death to her dispelling