He is passing, it seems to me, into a very gracious and
soft twilight of life; he grows more patient, more tender, more
serene. His face, always beautiful, has taken on an added beauty of
faithful service and gracious sweetness.
We began one evening to discuss a book that has lately been
published, a book of very sad, beautiful, wise, intimate letters,
written by a woman of great perception, high intellectual gifts and
passionate affections. These letters were published, not long after
her death, by her children, to whom many of them were addressed.
He had read the book, I found, with deep emotion; but he said very
decidedly that it ought not to have been published, at all events
so soon after the writer's death. I am inclined to defer greatly to
his judgment, and still more to his taste, and I have therefore
read the book again to see if I am inclined to alter my mind. I
find that my feeling is the exact opposite of his in every way. I
feel humbly and deeply grateful to the children who have given the
letters to the world. Of course if there had been any idea in the
mind of the writer that they would be published, she would probably
have been far more reticent; but, as it was, she spoke with a
perfect openness and simplicity of all that was in her mind.
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