Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/17

 there with the thriving luxuriance of judicious cultivation;—from the forest and the field before us, into the track of human life, implicated as it is with pleasures which blossom but for a season, and pains which are indigenous, and grow rank and wanton in the soil. On these occasions, it was impossible for me not to dwell on an event, which had drawn a deep furrow over the level of my happiness. It would have been unnatural, to have concealed the mark of an afflicting dispensation, in society so capable of consoling the survivor, and appreciating the merit of the departed. In the interchange of our thoughts on this subject, the task of furnishing the public with the following facts was urged upon me, at once as a tribute to the latter, and a relief to the feelings of the former.

This had been repeatedly mentioned by others; but I as often declined it, at least in detail. Yet, that I might not altogether oppose the wishes of my friends, I transmitted a short sketch of this little life, to be