Every sorrow I have, every lesson on
the sacredness of family love, makes me the more determined to resist
to the last this dreadful evil that makes so many mothers so much
deeper mourners than I ever can be. . . .
Affectionately yours,
H. B. STOWE.
[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND]
About this same time she writes to her daughters in Paris: "Can
anybody tell what sorrows are locked up with our best affections, or
what pain may be associated with every pleasure? As I walk the house,
the pictures he used to love, the presents I brought him, and the
photographs I meant to show him, ail pierce my heart, I have had a
dreadful faintness of sorrow come over me at times. I have felt so
crushed, so bleeding, so helpless, that I could only call on my
Saviour with groanings that could not be uttered. Your papa justly
said, 'Every child that dies is for the time being an only one; yes--
his individuality no time, no change, can ever replace.'
"Two days after the funeral your father and I went to Hanover. We saw
Henry's friends, and his room, which was just as it was the day he
left it.
"'There is not another such room in the college as his,' said one of
his classmates with tears. I could not help loving the dear boys as
they would come and look sadly in, and tell us one thing and another
that they remembered of him. 'He was always talking of his home and
his sisters,' said one.
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