[2163]
to death, by the relentless cholera; and my letter, announcing that calamity, drew from her a burst of passionate sorrow, such as hardly any bereavement but the loss of a very near relative could have impelled.
Another year had just ended, when a calamity, equally sudden, bereft a wide circle of her likewise, with her husband and infant son. Little did I fear, when I bade her a confident Good-by, on the deck of her outward-bound ship, that the sea would close over her earthly remains, ere we should meet again; far less that the light of my eyes and the cynosure of my hopes, who then bade her a tenderer and sadder farewell, would precede her on the dim pathway to that “Father's house,” whence is no returning!
Ah, well!
God is above all, and gracious alike in what he conceals and what he discloses;--benignant and bounteous, as well when he reclaims as when he bestows.
In a few years, at farthest, our loved and lost ones will welcome us to their home.
Favorably as
Mr. Greeley speaks of Margaret's articles in the Tribune, it is yet true that she never brought her full power to bear upon them; partly because she was too much exhausted by previous over-work, partly because it hindered her free action to aim at popular effect.
Her own estimate of them is thus expressed:—
I go on very moderately, for my strength is not great, and I am connected with one who is anxious that I should not overtask it. Body and mind, I have long required rest and mere amusement, and now obey Nature as much as I can. If she pleases to restore me to an energetic state, she will by-and-by; if not, I can only hope this world will not turn me out of doors too abruptly
