as we often find combined with physical pain, that gentlemen of your profession have power, by kindness and suavity of manner, so liberally to administer. Give my love to dear Anne, and the baby; tell her to consider this as equally addressed to herself. Tell her she must look on all the disappointments she meets with in life, as so many ministers of good to her soul. She must not allow them to make her impatient, but apply them so as to produce "the peaceable fruits of righteousness." If she does not, her religion is of no avail. Yours most affectionately, ANNE JEAN LYMAN. Mr. R. W. Emerson to Mrs. Lyman, Concord, Feb. 3, 1837. MY DEAR MADAM,- I have not attempted to write to you since I heard of the death of Anne Jean, for death makes us all dumb. They who have had many losses, gain thereby no wisdom that can be imparted, and each loss makes us more and not less sufferers by all that follow. Yet I must write, if only to tell you that the news was very painful to me, to me, quite out of the pleasant circle in which she was living, and, on account of my distance, quite uncertain of ever seeing her. How gladly I have remembered the glimpses I had of her sunny childhood, her winning manners, her persuading speech that then made her father, I believe, call her his "lawyer." In the pleasant weeks I spent at your house, I rejoiced in the promise of her beauty, and have pleased myself with the hope that EMERSON'S LETTER OF CONDOLENCE 319 she was surmounting her early trials, and was destined to be one of those rare women who exalt society, and who make credible to us a better society than is seen in the earth. I still keep by me one of her drawings which she gave me. I have scarcely seen her face since. But we feel a property in all the accomplishments and graces that we know, which neither distance nor absence destroys. For my part, I grudge the decays of the young and beautiful whom I may never see again. Even in their death, is the reflection that we are forever enriched. by having beheld them,― that we never can be quite poor and low, for they have furnished our heart and mind with new elements of beauty and wisdom. And, now she is gone out of your sight, I have only to offer to you and to Judge Lyman my respectful and affectionate condolence. I am sure I need not suggest the deep consolations of the spiritual life, for love is the first believer, and all the remembrances of her life will plead with you in behalf of the hope of all souls. How do we go, all of us, to the world of spirits, marshalled and beckoned unto by noble and lovely friends! That event cannot be fearful which made a part of the constitution and career of beings so finely framed and touched, and whose influence on us has been so benign. These sad departures open to us, as other events do not, that ineradicable faith which the secret history of every year strips of its obscurities,- that we can. and must exist forevermore. You will grieve, I know, at the absence of Joseph, at this time. I lament his great loss. When you write him, please send him my affectionate remembrance. He has kindly forwarded to me lately a bundle of Charles's letters to him, which have given great pleasure to my mother, Elizabeth Hoar, and myself. My mother feels drawn to you by likeness of sorrows, and desires me to express to you her sympathy. Your friend, R. WALDO EMERSON. A CHAPTER XVI. In thy far-away dwelling, wherever it be, I believe thou hast visions of mine; And thy love, that made all things as music to me, In the hush of the night, on the waste of the sea, Or alone with the breeze on the hill, I have ever a presence that whispers of thee, And though, like a mourner that sits by a tomb, I am wrapped in a mantle of care, Yet the grief of my bosom,-oh! call it not gloom,— By sorrow revealed, as the stars are by night, And Hope, like the rainbow, a creature of light, T. K. HERVEY. LTHOUGH my dear mother had experienced griefs and disappointments, such as come to all the children of earth, no sorrow had ever been to her like the loss of our Anne. Anne resembled her father more in temperament and character than she did her mother. Her temperament was always balm to the large and generous, but too impulsive, spirit, whom she loved and understood as few others did. My mother's grief was life-long; and we, who knew her best, felt that from this time on she lived always in the invisible presence of the beloved child who had gone. There was not a trace of selfishness in her grief, or of rebellion; it was the pure and intense sorrow of longing for the beautiful presence and companionship that had rounded her life. The forms of grief were nothing to her; she never shut herself up for a day; the house was open to friends and neighbors, as it always had been; and to the casual observer there might seem little change. But what added tenderness and sympathy for all sorrow we saw in her, and renewed activity in serving all who came within her reach! And as years wore on, her cheerfulness returned, and that fulness of life that gave joy to many,- although, while reason lasted, she was subject to occasional days of violent and bitter weeping for Anne Jean, which nothing could assuage,- even as late as twenty years, and more, after her departure. To her Son, Feb. 8, 1837. I thought as soon as you had gone I should busy myself in setting my house in order, getting rid of Lucy, and attending to all sorts of creature-comforts; but no such things did I do. I found I had come to a golden opportunity for reflection, and I would avail myself of it, and let Mrs. Bird and others take care of my affairs. How I wish I could set my mind in order with the same ease that I can my house; that that large branch of the mental household we call the affections could be revolutionized, changed in its various appropriations, with the same facility we do our furniture! But it is not So. She who has occupied my first thoughts, my |